John Wall (I don't think he is going to be a super star)
Greg Oden
Bargnani
Bogut
Yao
Kwame Brown
Kenyon Martin
Olowkandi
Joe Smith
Glenn Robinson

That's 10 top picks in the last 20 years. Somewhere from disappointing, flashes of great with injuries but never were what they could have been, to absolute suck. Half the time.

Allen Iverson
Chris Webber
Tim Duncan
Elton Brand
LeBron James
Dwight Howard
Derrick Rose
Blake Griffin

Which of those guys would you want as your franchise centerpiece? Duncan, James and Rose? Maybe Howard if he stops being a nancy ****tard? Maybe Webber if his knee doesn't blow out and you have a motion offense coach. Maybe Iverson if you care more about selling jerseys than winning games.

Shaq
Chris Webber
Jason Kidd
Kevin Garnett
Ray Allen/Allen Iverson
Duncan
Dirk
Elton Brand
Kenyon Martin
Pau Gasol
Yao Ming
Lebron
Dwight Howard
D Williams/Chris Paul
Lamarcus Aldridge
Durant
Rose
Griffin
Wall
Irving

Once again, you are cherry picking the data. As usual, you have swung and missed.

The reason that the Clippers were always drafting was simple. They were idiots. Candyman had great nickname and was tall. But he couldn't play. That pick and many others were laughed at on draft day.

That's the twenty guys you should have picked with #1 overall in last twenty years. Nearly everyone is picked in top three. Dirk is exception. With tons of scouts in Europe now, this would never happen today.

Go ahead and pick from the middle of lottery. Even if you take the best guy available, it's a far cry from top 2 guys or so.

Try to find a middle lottery combination that you would trade for best player. It's nearly impossible. In 1999, you can do it.

With a good management team, I'd take any of those guys in the second list... interesting that you left Glenn Robinson in the scrubs list but included Elton Brand in the 'good' list. When you looks at how their career arcs as far as amount of years they were considered top guys and how they both played on bad teams, I'd say they are incredibly similar.

John Wall = Stevie Franchise Jr.

Oh and I think it's safe to say from Birdman's list, Washington would have taken Boogie Cousins, Greg Monroe, and possibly Paul George over John Wall in 2010 if they could do it over.

[This message has been edited by ATM9000 (edited 5/29/2012 11:23p).]

Two things I've learned from this thread:

You have to suck at some point to become great (gotta have a high lottery pick along with great management)

You can NOT get stuck in no man's land like Houston. Getting the 8th seed yearly or just barely making it into the lottery (or flipping back and forth) never seems to get you anywhere.

Very true.

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Once again, you are cherry picking the data. As usual, you have swung and missed.

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I went over the last 20 years of drafts. That is Webber-Kyrie.

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That's the twenty guys you should have picked with #1 overall in last twenty years. Nearly everyone is picked in top three. Dirk is exception. With tons of scouts in Europe now, this would never happen today.

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You are talking about cherry picking and then you post the best player from each draft class? Wow, dude. The conversation was about how even having the top pick is a crap shoot, and I was showing that over the last 20 years, there were only maybe 4-5 players you would even want to build around taken #1.

Keep up the great work, detective.

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With a good management team, I'd take any of those guys in the second list... interesting that you left Glenn Robinson in the scrubs list but included Elton Brand in the 'good' list. When you looks at how their career arcs as far as amount of years they were considered top guys and how they both played on bad teams, I'd say they are incredibly similar.

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Maybe so. I've always been a Brand fan and never really like Glenn, so that might have something to do with it. And Brand did lead the Clips to the playoffs with a pretty nasty 25p/10r/2.5b. He was looking pretty great, then destroyed his achilles tendon and blew out his shoulder.

No mans land like houston?

The lottery exists because of you guys and you had 1st overall with Yao. Youve had your shots.

Your argument was crap, so you changed it. Another swing and miss.

I'm not cherry picking. I'm listing the best guy on the draft. The entire point of that is simple, but clearly over your head.

The only guy on that list available at middle lottery slot? Dirk. That's it, 1 outta 20, 5%. Of the best guys in last twenty drafts, just one was available at #7.

If you selected the top two guys for every draft, the results would surprise you. Nearly all of the second best players are selected in first three picks. Very few make it to the middle of lottery.

As somebody mentioned, the no-man's-land is whirpool. Teams get stuck there and can't get out. You can barely keep your head above water if you stay in back half of lottery.

So your argument is that if you had perfect hindsight when drafting, you could have gotten the best player? ****ing brilliant. You should write a thesis on the subject.

The fact is that not many of the number one picks were that disputed. okefor vs Howard was. Durant vs oden was. Yao was, but there wasn't a great second option.

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You have to suck at some point to become great (gotta have a high lottery pick along with great management)

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This point is overblown by the media and fans as well as completely counterintuitive. Great management won't just tank to get a lottery pick. When you become a franchise that does that, all of a sudden free agents ranging from role players to superstars never want to come play for you and, no matter the franchise, free agency is a very important aspect of franchise building. The Spurs are able to attract the role players that fit so ridiculously well into their niche, not only because they win (which generally helps even role players pull more money in their next contract vs. what the would of if they played for somebody like the Bobcats), but also because they are 100% confident Buford and Gregg P. will utilize them in a value maximizing way. That doesn't happen on bad franchises. That's why teams like the Nets, Cavs, or Raptors might have a start player one year only to watch those guys walk eventually. Their management is weak and really has shown no ability to put the absolute best product on the floor that they can. If you're a player stuck in a situation like that, you get out because your own opportunities be it financial or legacy related, will never be optimized.

I'm sort of straddling the fence on this topic... lottery balls are great to have and definitely a huge asset. That said, if Pop and Buford spent 97-00 surrounding Duncan with the likes of players likes of Mo Taylor, Moochie Norris, Eddie Griffin, David Wesley, etc. vs. what they did... good chance Duncan also would have taken his talents to South Beach, the Lakers, or Knicks. In short 50% of it is the luck of getting a player like Duncan, but it really does take great management to keep a player like him happy enough to stick around for a career.

[This message has been edited by ATM9000 (edited 5/30/2012 8:44a).]

Even by Guitarsoups pathetic standards, this is really asinine.

The statement was simple, even you should understand. All lottery picks are not created equal. In fact, a #1 is worth at least two mid-lottery picks. When it's a clear-cut no brainer, it's worth even more.

I listed the best guy from each draft. Of those twenty players, Dirk was the only one available in mid-lottery.

If you listed the second best guy, he was probably selected top 3 picks. Very few are selected in middle of lottery.

It's not the random crap shoot that you make it out to be. It suits your sophomoric argument, so you continue to make it.

DP

[This message has been edited by guitarsoup (edited 5/30/2012 9:50a).]

That is some real cutting edge stuff, bird. It must have taken you weeks to come up with it.

Thanks for the contribution, please post again and enlighten us all.

You might not get a franchise player in the middle of the first round very often, but you can get some great players. Pierce was picked 10th. Joe Johnson was 10th. Kobe was 13th. Robert Horry was 11th. Dirk was 9th.

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The lottery, injuries, coach/system, etc. Pretty sure there is some luck involved in the draft. Try again.

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That's called residual error. Nobody said there was a 1:1 correlation between where you are drafted and your position on the all-time NBA scoring list. But that's a far cry from saying that, in general, players picked 1-15 are better ON AVERAGE than those picked 16-30. Otherwise the draft would be absolutely meaningless.

Are you honestly saying that players drafted in the lottery are generally no better than those drafted outside of it? Because that's pretty much what we are arguing about here.

It has been stated many times over now that players selected in the lottery are a "crap shoot". Yet the Spurs have consistently drafted well OUTSIDE of the lottery, where the talent pool is much more shallow. That's called good management. If there are some of you that are ACTUALLY ARGUING that your chances of success at #10 or 15 are no better than your chances at 30 or 40, then there's really nothing to talk about. You aren't very smart.

[This message has been edited by MassAggie97 (edited 5/30/2012 1:36p).]

Birdman... not sure what the hell your argument is exactly... that #1 picks are worth more than mid-lottery picks? No ****?

I think he is just saying that there is a bigger difference between a top 5 pick and a number 10 pick than between 10-15 and a number 20 pick. He might be right about that, though I don't really know.

It is a moot point. All things being equal, a #1 pick will be better than a 5, a #5 will be better than a 10, a #10 will be better than a 15, and so on and so forth. There would be no reason for a draft order otherwise. Period.

It's a 3 person draft nearly every year. That's it.

The phrase "lottery pick" is thrown around like they are equal. Everybody knows that #1 is better than #7, which is better than #14. But people are being obtuse if they don't understand the enormous gap.

You aren't going to win a title with guys drafted in middle of lottery, unless you get extremely lucky in draft. Mavs are only team I can think of and Dirk was just terribly undervalued coming out of Germany.

Yeah, no one disagrees with that, Birdman.

And as much of a gap as there is from 7 to 14, there is even more from 14 to 28. The past 20 years, other than the Duncan draft, the Spurs average 1st round draft position was 26.

And the point of this was that they have done a lot with poor draft position, free agent acquisitions (despite being a decidedly unsexy destination - often with other team's castoffs like Stephen Jackson, Boris Diaw, Danny Green, etc) and trades.

Imagine if D-Rob would've never got injured and they would've never tanked.

If they were tanking, they did a terrible job of it, because they didn't even have one of the two worst records in the NBA.

Spurs won 5 more games than Boston and 6 more games than Vancouver.

Does anyone else remember a few people saying the Spurs should draft Van Horn over Duncan way back in the day before the 97 draft, saying that Duncan and Robinson wouldn't fit that well together and that Van Horn would fit the team better?

I remember hearing that, but maybe it was a bunch of Philly and Boston fans and wishful thinking. Think about how awful of a move that would have been.

I don't ever remember that. I don't think anyone ever said that anyone should be drafted except Duncan.

In retrospect, that was probably one of the weakest drafts of the last 20 years (along with 2000.) Three all-stars [Duncan, Billups, McGrady] and one HOFer. Only one second rounder was any good (SJax.)

93: 7 all-stars, 4 All-NBA, 1 HOFer (Webber)
94: 5 all-stars, 4 All-NBA, 2 HOFers (Grant Hill [maybe], Jason Kidd)
95: 6 all-stars, 2 All-NBA, 1 HOFer (Garnett)
96: 10 all-stars, 7 All-NBA, 5+ HOFers (Nash, Kobe, Iverson, Ray Allen, Peja [maybe])
97: 3 all-stars, 3 All-NBA, 1 HOF (Duncan)
98: 5 All-Stars, 3 All-NBA, 2 HOF (Dirk, Pierce)
99: 9 All-Stars, 5 All-NBA, 1 HOF (GINOBILIIIIIII)
00: 3 All-Stars, 1 All-NBA, 0 HOF. Bust city draft. Stromile, Kenyon, Darius Miles, Marcus Fizer, Demarr Johnson, Chris Mihm, Jerome Moiso, Etan Thomas, Mateen Cleeves, and Courtney Alexander were all Lottery Picks.
01: 8 All-Stars, 6 All-NBA, 2 HOF (Parker, Gasol)
02: 4 All-Stars, 3 All-NBA, 1 HOF (Yao) [Whole lotta busts here, too. Yao cut short. Jay Williams cut really short. Mike Dunleavy, Drew Gooden, Tszkasiskaisikais, DeJuan Wagner, Chris Wilcox, Jared Jefferies, Melvin Ely, Marcus Haislip and Fred Jones were lottery picks. Plus Boston Natchbar was what the Rockets got for Hakeem.)
03: 8 All-Stars, 4 All-NBA. At least 2 HOFers [Bron, Wade]


But 97 and 00 stand out as the worst drafts. After Duncan, there really was nothing else there. Billups turned into a nice player - for his 5th NBA team.

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Does anyone else remember a few people saying the Spurs should draft Van Horn over Duncan way back in the day before the 97 draft, saying that Duncan and Robinson wouldn't fit that well together and that Van Horn would fit the team better?

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I remember this. This sentiment traveled around San Antonio a bit as well.

I have to be honest, I didn't think all that much of Duncan at Wake Forest. He didn't really impress me, probably because his game is so un-flashy. I remember a game where Wake played against UMass, and I thought that Camby outplayed Duncan by a wide margin. I just didn't think he would be that great.

Van Horn seemed like a no-brainer at the time. Hindsight is 20/20. Luckily coach Pop is a lot smarter than I am.

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Does anyone else remember a few people saying the Spurs should draft Van Horn over Duncan way back in the day before the 97 draft, saying that Duncan and Robinson wouldn't fit that well together and that Van Horn would fit the team better?

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I don't remember anyone saying they shouldn't draft Duncan. But I distinctly remember Jim Rome saying the Spurs will go from having one soft big man to having two. Pretty funny.

Van Horn favored by anyone over Duncan at draft time?

This sounds more like Spurs fans adding to the narrative vs. reality. Sort of like the supposed 'Spurs are getting no respect right now' thing some are waving around even though Vegas and pretty much every major sport outlet is perpetually annointing them as the overall favorite.

Bill Simmons:

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I think Parker and Ginobili just leapfrogged Isiah and Dumars on the "All-Time Greatest Backcourts" list

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I don't really think that there was any doubt that Duncan was the best player in the '97 draft. I think the only controversy was whether or not the Spurs should trade down and get a player that would have been a "good complement" to Robinson.

[This message has been edited by MGS (edited 5/31/2012 8:38a).]

I can tell you there was no debate in the spurs organization that they would take Duncan. Done deala soon a the won the lottery.

No way. Duncan was clear cut number 1. He would have been #1 overall if he left Wake Forest after sophomore year. Also would have been #1 after his junior year.

You might have heard that from Van Horn family. Or maybe you heard it from people that think Pacers should draft Steve Alford instead of Reggie Miller.

Normally the top teams posture and hide their cards. Nobody did that season. It was called the Tim Duncan Sweepstakes. Every NBA front official personnel guy was going to draft Tim Duncan.

Spurs have made some crafty picks. That wasn't one of them.

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This sounds more like Spurs fans adding to the narrative vs. reality.

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Wrong.

It was a topic of discussion in San Antonio at the time. The facts are this: (1) Everyone pretty much knew Tim Duncan was the best player available in the draft (including myself), (2) Everyone knew the Spurs would take Duncan, but (3) There were some that did not think the "twin tower" system could work, and that having a big like Van Horn that could score both inside and outside would be a better complement to the available roster (I saw the logic in this, I know I heard it from others as well).

This was a bone fide topic of discussion around SA at the time. I know because I was around for it. In hindsight it is comical, but with that being the case doesn't change that it was a topic of conversation.

[This message has been edited by MassAggie97 (edited 5/31/2012 3:33p).]

Ok... a couple of sports talk radio nuts throwing the idea out there doesn't overall sentiment create... there will probably be a few even this season New Orleans who make a case that #1 shouldn't be Anthony Davis since the Hornets already have Kaman and Okafor. Most of even those people don't believe that... but it does spark conversation.

Nationally, at the time, it was pretty much the overwhelming concensus that the pick would and should be Tim Duncan for the Spurs from the moment they hit the Lottery.

Do some of you not even read what others write? Nobody said it was anything resembling overall sentiment.

I understand that, but there's a difference between a couple of sport radio junkies talking out of their a$$ and anything close to any real underlying sentiment of any kind to the argument.

In '97, there was just absolutely nothing to that. And to the original point, absolutely, awful move.