One of the
most widely-held views on the NBA is that you have to bottom out to win. This view
holds that teams in the bottom of the playoffs and upper reaches of the lottery
are just wasting their time and that they won’t be able to compete without
ditching expensive veterans and loading up on top draft picks. I decided to
take a look at this view.
Losers and Winners
Before I
get to the actual analysis (what a tease!) let’s a take a post to look at
recent winners and losers in the lottery era (1984-85 to present) just to get a
feel for the stories of those teams.
Winners
are relatively easy for this period. You have the Mavericks, Lakers, Celtics,
Spurs, Heat, Pistons, Bulls, Rockets and that is it. Every NBA championship in
the draft lottery era, 28 years, has gone to one of these eight teams.
The losers
are bit harder to define. On one level they are all of the other teams, but
that’s a little hard to distill for analysis. On a more manageable level we
will take a look at the teams that made the playoffs less than 40% of the time
(16 teams out of the current 30 make the playoffs every year, but in 1985 16
out of the then-current 23 teams made the playoffs). These hapless franchises
include 4 expansion teams (Bobcats, Grizzlies, Raptors and Timberwolves) as
well as the Clippers, Kings, Warriors and Wizards. The Heat, Magic and Hornets
were the expansion franchises within the period to avoid this distinction with
the Heat winning two NBA titles and the Magic winning an Eastern Conference
title.
Losers
The losers
have long and tortured histories of finding ways to lose including curses
(Clippers), Bill Simmons articles detailing tortured histories (Clippers
and Warriors),
Michael Jordan simultaneously drafting and then psychologically destroying
players (Wizards),
Michael Jordan playing but not as well as he used to (Wizards),
Michael Jordan drafting terrible players and saving money to pay off golf bets
(Bobcats), being
based in Canada (Raptors and Grizzlies), drafting KG and then finding new and
ever more creative ways to demoralize him (Timberwolves) and Chris Webber
(Warriors, Wizards and Kings).
To the
point of this post, the 28 seasons since the draft lottery began have seen one
of these losers have the worst record 14 times. The 30 teams in the league have
played, collectively, 780 seasons of basketball in this period with the 8
losers playing 177 (not proportional due to expansion). The losers represent
just 23% of seasons played but an astonishing 39% of the worst seasons.
Confined to just the top picks, where the tanking teams are trying to go, the
losers have represented 46% of the top 5 slots in the lottery since its
inception.
These
eight teams are significantly overrepresented in the table of worst records/best
lottery odds. Depressing as this is, it should have given them the best shot to
win going forward but things did not work out that way.
Winners
Magic Johnson-era Lakers (85, 87, 88): This team relied primarily on the
draft, building around Magic who came in as the first overall pick via a trade
with Utah and a coin flip victory over Chicago. James Worthy also arrived in
the draft via trades and another coin flip victory, this time over the
Clippers. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still productive after arriving via lopsided
trade with Milwaukee after Kareem demanded to be traded to New York or LA.
Verdict: No Tanking
Bird-era Celtics (86): Larry Legend arrived as a 6th
overall pick, with the Celtics laying the blueprint for some Spurs moves to be
reviewed later and taking him despite having to wait a year to get him to the
team. Robert Parish came in a trade of the 1st and 13th
picks from Boston to Golden State for Parish and the 3rd pick, which
turned into Kevin McHale.
Verdict: No Tanking
Bad Boy Pistons (89, 90): Isiah Thomas came in as the number
two pick in 1981, but the rest of this team came as trades (Bill Laimbeer, Rick
Mahorn, Vinnie Johnson), and later picks (Joe Dumars – 18th, John
Salley – 11th, Dennis Rodman – 27th).
Verdict: No Tanking
Jordan Bulls (91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98): Michael Jordan came in the 1984
draft with the third pick, following Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie. While his
selection could be an endorsement of tanking, the team did not take off until
Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant came in later. Any team tanking in the 1984
draft (cough Houston cough) would likely have been doing so primarily for
Olajuwon anyway.
Verdict: No Tanking
Olajuwon Rockets (94, 95): Hakeem the Dream was a classic
tanking pick and one of the instigators for the draft lottery. After the
Rockets successfully
tanked by losing 14 of 17 at the end of the year and with Patrick Ewing on
the horizon for the following season, the league set up the lottery system to
dissuade teams from losing by removing the guarantee of the top pick to the
worst team.
Verdict: Tanking, but would they be on this
list without a baseball hiatus for Jordan?
Tim Duncan Spurs (99, 03, 05, 07): Duncan fit the Olajuwon stereotype
as an absurdly skilled big man and teams responded in kind with quite a bit of
tanking to get him. The Spurs, with injured (or semi-injured, or possibly
healthy by the end of the season but let’s keep resting him) David Robinson,
went from 59 wins in 95-96 down to 20 in 96-97 to win the right to draft Duncan
with the third-best chance and popped right back up to 56 wins the following
season.
Verdict: Tanking,
even if not admitted
Shaq-Kobe Lakers (00, 01, 02): Kobe was a late pick by Charlotte
(Hornets, not Bobcats) brought in when the Lakers opened up the vault and
parted with Vlade Divacs to swing a draft day trade while Shaq and Phil Jackson
were free agents.
Verdict: No Tanking
Pistons (04): I don’t think any other team wanted
these guys. Rasheed was flipped by the Hawks only a couple weeks after landing
there from Portland, Chauncey played for about a dozen teams before settling in
Detroit, Tayshaun Prince still looks too light to play sports and Ben Wallace
was a throw-in for trading Grant Hill to Orlando.
Verdict: No Tanking
Shaq-Dwyane Wade Heat (06): Wade wasn’t even a consolation prize
in the loaded 2003 draft. Carmelo Anthony went to the Nuggets with the third
pick and UPDATE WITH DRAFT HISTORY.
Shaq came in a trade and Pat Riley arrived after running over Stan Van Gundy,
throwing it in reverse and then doing it a couple more times.
Verdict: No Tanking
Big Three Celtics (08): Lots of trades and some lucky draft
picks (Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins) put this team in place. They tried to
tank in the 06-07 season to get a shot at Greg Oden, but after failing to win
the top pick they traded for Allen and landed Garnett.
Verdict: Tanking, this team wouldn’t be
together if they kept grinding out 35-45 wins with Paul Pierce (see 02-03
through 05-06) and didn’t tank to pick up a tradable asset
Kobe Lakers (09, 10): They issued a ring to Chris Wallace,
right?
Verdict: No Tanking
Dirk-Jason Kidd Mavs (11): This is the anti-tanking team. They
rebuilt on the fly after the 2006 Finals loss to the Heat. Trades and signings
brought in key players like Tyson Chandler, Jason Kidd and Shawn Marion to go
with the Dirk/Jason Terry core that remained.
Verdict: No Tanking
Chris Bosh Heat (12): I don’t want to talk about it.
Verdict: No Tanking; possibly some tampering,
but no tanking
Putting it
all together, seven of the 28 titles from 1984-85 through 2010-2011 went to
teams that tanked to put themselves in place to win. Teams like the Lakers,
Mavs and later-stage Spurs are almost perfectly opposed to the tanking
strategy. They averaged a lot of wins between titles – 44.5 (Lakers 04-05 to
07-08), 56 (Mavs 06-07 to 09-10) and 55 (Spurs since their last title in 06-07)
while rebuilding their teams on the fly.
All this
is hardly a ringing endorsement of tanking as a strategy but not necessarily
enough to put it down for good, my next post will take a look at this from a
more-quantitative perspective.
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