I'm way to lazy to do it myself but I'd love to see somebody take on the fact that the media types who seem most in love with Hinkie's strategy appear to be the analytics crowd. But I've never seen anyone actually crunch the numbers on whether what Hinkie is doing will lead to any statistically meaningful advantages. Like how much of a correlation can you draw in NBA history between having one of the bottom two records in a season and getting a franchise-level star in the draft because of it.
Mike
Duncan's the easy one (obviously). Hakeem.
If you give me a barometer of 'franchise level' I can whip something up. It's a slow day for me.
Nope, Duncan does not count. San Antonio only had the third worst record in the league, they won 5 and 6 more games than the bottom two teams and had only one more loss than the 4th worst record.
And since the pro-tanking argument is all about championships, the standard should probably be best player on a team that makes it to the Finals with the team that drafted him.
Mike
Well I know the Cavs did that. They tied for the worst record in the league, landed the #1 pick, took Lebron, and reached the finals in Lebron's 4th season (same draft the Heat had the 4th worst record and drafted Wade).
Magic were the 2nd worst team in the league, landed the #1 pick, took Shaq, and reached the finals in Shaq's 3rd season (it did help that they won the lottery the next year after barely missing the playoffs).
Houston was the worst team in the league took Ralph Sampson at #1 and then was the 2nd worst team in the league the next year and took Hakeem at #1. That seemed to work out fairly well for them.
It is much more about being bad in the right draft then being bad.
very true about getting the top pick in the right draft.
The Magic, Spurs and Houston examples are what I would consider tainted examples of this process. Each team had multiple lottery wins and other top picks in very good drafts to get to success.
Houston had Sampson AND Rodney Mccray before getting Olajuwon.
Spurs had Robinson before getting really lucky for Duncan
Orlando landed the top pick after having Shaq to flip it for Penny and assets.
to look at Philly, their top 4 "prizes" so far have been
1. MCW who's been shipped out after winning ROY in a weak draft class (and personally, I think it should have gone to Oladipo)
2. Noel who slipped to 6 after a knee injury. if healthy, he's taken probably #1 well ahead of Bennett who'd possibly have been the player taken at 6 --> how'd the Sixers look now if THAT had been the player they'd taken?
3. Embiid who would have gone number 1 if healthy. they still would have gotten either Wiggins or Parker but if it'd been Parker, they'd have lost him to injury for the year. would have had a good player but not a center that other teams want.
4. Saric who's yet to play a game for them and not a sure thing to leave Europe to join their dumpster fire of a team.
So, if things played out as though no players were injured, Philly would have MCW, Bennett, Parker and Saric. With that roster, would anyone truly be advocating that Philly has a great game plan for improvement?
The Sixers didn't tank to get MCW. He was an 11th pick after they finished 34-48 which is around where the Celtics will finish this year. Personally I think they should have taken the Greek Freak over MCW but we should have taken him over KO as well. They tried MCW out for a 1.5 years and decided he wasn't going to be a core player for them so they recycled him for the Lakers 1st. If Ainge had recycled KO for the Lakers 1st, I would have been very happy.
The Sixers traded Jrue Holiday for Noel and a 2014 1st. They then swapped 2014 1sts with Orlando and got their own 2017 1st back. So they turned Holliday into Noel, Saric and their 2017 1st. I think that is a very good return.
Embiid was acquired from their 1st tanking season. I think he has the highest potential of anyone in the 2013, 2014 and 2015 drafts. However if they had end up with Parker that would still have been a good pick. With Embiid, they can go after Mudiay or Russell in this draft. If they had Parker, they could get Okafor or Towns.
People complain about the Sixers like they've been tanking for many years without results but this is only their 2nd tanking season. The Sixers are making moves to maximize their potential for acquiring stars whether it is via the draft, trade or free agency. I think an objective comparison of existing talent, draft picks and cap space favors the Sixers position over the Celtics.