I think getting All-Pro and ASGA seasons is absolutely the goal when drafting 1-15. That's the vacuum, because top picks not resulting in championships opens to lots of other variables. I just don't think drafting 1-3 or 1-5 was a necessary part of doing it the last 20+ years. And often having the top few picks has the world deciding for you much more than it should, and the world sucks more often than not.

My point isn't that it shouldn't be a goal, only that the past 25 champions have VERY rarely needed to draft in the top 3 in order to build a championship roster. As you pointed out, many all stars have been found in the mid to late lottery, and that is actually the common denominator that emerges when you look carefully at championship teams. Kobe, Steph, Wade, Giannis, Murray, Jokic, Lowry, etc. All these teams had a homegrown star picked outside the top 3.

If we consider Duncan being drafted in 1998 and omit that data point. Then we can say that only FOUR guys picked in the top 3 over the last 27 years have won a championship WITH the team that drafted them.

Chet, Kyrie, Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

That's the entire list. So 4 players out of 81 guys drafted in the top 3 during the period.

I've been accused of being anecdotal, but I can't understand how someone could look at that data and conclude that championships are built by drafting in the top 3.

After the Mavs play Minnesota on Friday, they go @Indiana, @Brooklyn, Sacramento, and Memphis. Would be ideal if they can go 1-3 over that stretch, but 2-2 would be fine as well considering their remaining schedule. After that, I don't think I see them winning another five games the rest of the year. There's a real chance they only win maybe 25/26 games total this year.

ETA: honestly giving them another five or six wins this year might be generous. They've been one of the worst teams in the league the past month.

To give even more data, looking at the losing team in the finals we add

2024 Luka
2022 Tatum and Brown
2021 Suns with Ayton
2015, 2017, 2018 Kyrie
2013 Duncan
2012 Durant
2009 Dwight Howard
2007 Lebron
2001 Iverson

Kyrie, Duncan, Tatum and Brown are repeats here, but we do get a few additional names.

If we again say drafted since 2000 (this eliminates Duncan and Iverson)

We can say of the 81 players drafted in the top 3 since 2000, only 9 of them have played in the finals with the team that drafted them.

Absolutely. And tbh he looks absolutely spent recently. Losing like this weighs on you, but also the shear amount of energy and GAF dragging this team to half decent results takes it out of you.

Yeah, he's never had to carry an offensive load like this before and certainly not every other night for 3 months against grown men. He's exhausted physically and mentally.

We really should be losing to Indiana and Memphis. Indiana has been semi ok recently and they may feel like they have to play Zubac after getting fined. Ty Jerome has been good for Memphis since returning and they have played competitive games. I am expecting 2-2 in that stretch, but maybe Sabonis plays for Sacramento and beats us.

ETA: just saw Sac plays at Houston the night before. They'll probably play Sabonis that night expecting to lose then sit him and anybody else they want to ensure they lose to us.

For tanking I would just do 2 lotteries. 1 lottery to set the odds which would be incentived on wins instead of losses. Then the normal NBA draft lottery.

The first lottery would have 82 ping-pong balls, each representing a game number. Pull 5-10 ping-pong balls and use the win-loss record only in those games. Maybe fewer is better, since that would increase the variability significantly. That sets the odds for the actual NBA draft lottery (i.e. the more wins you had in those 10 random games, the better your lottery odds).

The argument would be that you can't tank any random game as losing (potentially) hurts your odds. It would also be risky for a team to tank out of a play-in / playoff spot in case those end of season games are the ones that count for the 1st lottery. It is convoluted, but I think would work.

That's just saying give the best non-playoff teams the top picks.

There is an idea of lottery ball carry over from year to year.

They want a completely flat lottery odds, which I dislike.

But if you don't get top X pick, your balls carry over.

If you make playoffs, you lose 10%, win 1st round, lose 25%, win 2nd round lose 50%, make finals lose 75%, win championship lose 100%.

Helps teams that are consistently bad win the lottery.

Less incentive to tank because the ****ing Kings have like 85% of the lottery balls after sucking for 10 straight years.

8 championships out of 26 opportunities is a lot given the narrowed criteria. Removing Duncan is an arbitrary action to attempt to make the data more fit the claim. That 8 had it happen proves my point, not yours. You just don't understand what overrepresented given narrowing criteria means. This is why I say WE aren't talking past each other. I understand your argument. You're taking data converting it to "data" (aka anecdote/aka manipulation) and saying it supports you. Because you don't understand when it's appropriate to narrow/how/and what the outcome actually says. When I provide you the statistics you reach for these anecdotes and/or data manipulations to try to refute it, but you're not just raw collecting and presenting data you're saying "If we change it the way I want it results in the outcome I desire."

Stunning that a Spurs fan denies the importance of drafting high as a smaller market team when the entirety of their franchise's championship success is dependent upon drafting 3 guys #1 overall. Weird.


What does a championship leading player look like? Since '76 there have been only 8 teams, '77 Blazers, '79 Sonics, '89 Pistons, '90 Pistons, '04 Pistons, '19 Raptors, '21 Nuggets, '25 OKC, that won a championship without a player with at least 8 All-NBA selections in their career. The Blazers had Bill Walton who is considered one of the highest peak players of all time derailed by injury, Jokic is going to fall off this list, Kawhi would have but for injuries, and Shai is on his way. Will set it at 87% of the time (i.e. not narrowing champions significantly to make my point).

Where do 8 time All-NBA team players come from in the draft? Since the '76 merger there have been 8 players (If you include Jokic) selected outside the top 5 that meet that criteria. There have been 6 picked between the 6th pick and the 15th pick (Jokic 41, Stockton 16 the only 16+ examples). That's 340 possible players between '76 and '19 draft (the latest you could draft a guy to meet that criteria), or 1.7% of players selected in that range became the focal point of a championship team. A single team drafting in the 6-15 range of picks would have to draft a player 39 consecutive years to reach a 50-50 chance of having drafted "That Dude" that could win them a championship.


What about the top 5? 18 were selected. 9 (HALF) of those came from the #1 pick. More than the collective picks past the #6 pick.


Championship is not the standard of success for the draft. The purpose of the draft for a bad team is to convert a bad team into a playoff contending team/a team with interest. Getting there requires talent. Most bad teams are non-marquee teams most years. They have to draft their own talent and utilize it to either trade (usually only when forced) for other talent, or (more commonly) develop it themselves and HOPE their guy doesn't get frustrated and decide they want to leave (Kawhi, Damion Lillard, increasingly Giannis). They do not go out and routinely acquire All-NBA talent through trades and almost never through free agency.

Ja Morant is a successful draft even though it hasn't lasted. Anthony Edwards is a successful draft. Luka Doncic is a successful draft. Cooper Flagg, Victor Wembanyama, VJ Edgecombe, Kon Knuepple, Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren, Cade Cunningham, LaMelo Ball. Zion Williamson, Jaylen Brown, KAT. You're going to say "But most of those guys aren't going to win a championship." Probably not, but they gave their fanbases a reason to give a **** about their teams.


Saying flatten the odds is saying "Give the marquee teams more of an advantage." You increase the frequency they get access to the highest probability of drafting an All-NBA player while they have increased opportunity to trade for one, and increased opportunities to sign them in free agency. The draft is the only part of the NBA that evens odds between the marquee teams and the Charlotte Hornets and you're saying "We should take it away so people can look at a boxscore of a game that wasn't on their TV and think 'Man they still lost, but it was more competitive than I expected!'"

Again. The data for the people that don't care about the discussion and probably find it annoying:
Top Row: Number of All-NBA Selections
First column: Draft position
Cell number: Number of players selected that meet the criteria
Green: 1 guy
Yellow: Multiple Guys
Top 30 picks



Next 30 picks



Total number of All-NBA selections by draft position (i.e. Lebron accounts for 21 of the 151 for #1):

Best idea I've read. I hate any "fix" that continuously punishes a legit bad team for having "bad luck". This would fix that.

I kinda like this. Would really prevent tanking. The downside is that a bad team would be bad for a very very long time if they win the top pick in a bad year or blow the pick.

Would end up being like 10-15 years between a bad team getting a top 3 pick. It's only slightly better than flat odds every year. The growth in odds differential between very bad team and teams that lose in the first round or second round of the playoffs takes a very long time and the bad teams are working against the collective of the good team's odds to actually get a pick. The very bad team that picks at the top of the draft gets treated like a very good team winning championships, so if they don't draft one of those very quality players with their opportunity they end up not getting back to the top of the draft for even longer.

mavsfan4ever said:

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I kinda like this. Would really prevent tanking. The downside is that a bad team would be bad for a very very long time if they win the top pick in a bad year or blow the pick.

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I think that balls need to disappear quicker. But I think it is at least a better foundation than a lot of the plans, especially the completely braindead one of all rookies being free agents.

Guitarsoup said:

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mavsfan4ever said:

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I kinda like this. Would really prevent tanking. The downside is that a bad team would be bad for a very very long time if they win the top pick in a bad year or blow the pick.

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I think that balls need to disappear quicker. But I think it is at least a better foundation than a lot of the plans, especially the completely braindead one of all rookies being free agents.

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Yeah the more I think about it the more I think we've overthought it lol.

Basically, there's one team that did something so egregious that got this whole conversation started. Nobody would have a problem with them losing ping pong balls for what they've done. It's really easy to tell when a team throws a game in the middle of it.

Where they'll need to figure out more details is around injured players. But healthy players need to be playing and they need to be playing normal minutes unless the game isn't within 20 points.

Vessel said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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mavsfan4ever said:

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I kinda like this. Would really prevent tanking. The downside is that a bad team would be bad for a very very long time if they win the top pick in a bad year or blow the pick.

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I think that balls need to disappear quicker. But I think it is at least a better foundation than a lot of the plans, especially the completely braindead one of all rookies being free agents.

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Yeah the more I think about it the more I think we've overthought it lol.

Basically, there's one team that did something so egregious that got this whole conversation started. Nobody would have a problem with them losing ping pong balls for what they've done. It's really easy to tell when a team throws a game in the middle of it.

Where they'll need to figure out more details is around injured players. But healthy players need to be playing and they need to be playing normal minutes unless the game isn't within 20 points.

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Yeah. Some combination of lottery balls carrying over (the Sacramento Kings Rule) as well as the ability of the commissioner to remove lottery balls for anti-competitive gamesmanship (The Utah Jazz Rule) and we are there.

Do the Bucks deserve a higher probability of getting a top pick, just because Giannis was drafted at 15 instead of top 3-4? Do the Nuggets? That's what happens when you carry points forward based upon draft position. They went years without winning a title, and for every year they don't get a top pick/don't compete in the conference finals they're improving their odds relative to the collection of teams that did get a top pick/did make a conference finals/did win a title.

If they are making playoffs, winning in playoffs, their odds are decreasing while other teams have their odds increasing due to missing playoffs.

Eventually a team like Dallas that was in the lottery in 2023 but didn't move up then makes the Finals the following year will win the lottery and everyone will be mad again. To figure out the right balance of losing lottery balls, probably need to do a pretty deep dive into teams history. If you are getting to the conference finals, you should lose most if not all of them.

I think you should have reasons to gain and lose. NBA Cup win gets you balls? 60+ wins loses? #1 pick ices you out from #1 pick in following season.

I genuinely appreciate the work that went into gathering and presenting that data.

I still like my anecdotal data though

A major part of why my 'data' says what it does is because good players (drafted in the top three) often demand out of crappy situations and move to better ones which is when they start winning their championships. Which is why I keep saying we're talking across one another. YES drafting higher gets you a chance at better players... BUT unfortunately those teams drafting high do not always get to enjoy the fruits of drafting a super star. Shaq won his titles in LA and Miami. Lebron has won in Miami, LA and the redux title in Cleveland. Durant won his in GS. AD won his with LA. Billups won his with Detroit. You are arguing that crappy teams will stay crappy if the odds were flat... well crappy teams have remained crappy despite the elevated odds.

You can give Sacramento, Charlotte, New Orleans all the top 3 picks in the world, but those guys they draft are just going to end up forcing their way out to go play winning basketball eventually. (or in the case of those franchises, they'll just keep missing over and over again on their draft picks anyway) I've already got my eyes on Anthony Edwards, that team is not set up for long term contention around him, and he's got to know that. I like his chances at eventually winning a championship, but I bet it won't be with Minnesota.

Also, yes I'm aware of the irony of my argument since I'm a Spurs fan.

If this version of the Spurs wins any championships with two top 3 picks (Wemby and Harper) that will add more data contradicting my position. But I'll happily take that if it happens.

But as any real Spurs fan will remember, there was a REAL chance that Duncan might bail on SA to go to Orlando early in his career. Good players want to play on good teams and win championships, and in 2000 the Spurs weren't yet the Spurs dynasty.

https://deadspin.com/remember-when-tim-duncan-almost-signed-with-the-magic-1783459449/

This may be your best argument yet. But just bc bad small market teams may lose great players, your idea is to just not give them great players as often so they have no chance whatsoever? If they are going to lose them, they will lose them whether they are drafted first or 10th. Might as well give them more chances to keep them. And okc has shown what you can do if you are smart and have great players that leave.

That's not a fair representation of my argument.

I'm saying that any good team has to be built in a variety of ways.

The early 2000s Kings were probably the best Kings teams ever assembled and they did that with

Peja 14th pick
Trading for Bibby (former #2 pick)
Trading for Chris Webber (former #1 pick)

OKC is a great example of how to build a team regardless of market. Some of it is the draft (JWill and Chet) but a big part of it was the trade for SGA, the trade for Caruso, the FA signing of Hartenstein.

The Dirk championship team was patched together with a variety of talented players that came to Dallas in a bunch of different ways.

My argument is simply that saying "flat odds will screw bad teams" doesn't track historically. Good teams are good because they acquire players through trade, free agency and the draft.

You're confusing "it's the only way to get a top tier player" with "it improves your odds to get a top tier player." Drafting the guy is the most straightforward way. The most common way for smaller market/non-marquee teams to get the guy.

When you're drafting in the top 5 you're hoping for, but not expecting, a Pau Gasol type player that gets drafted by Memphis at 3. Turns them into a perennial playoff participant, and get to pay attention to the league while you hope your GM is competent enough to make the moves to get the guys to turn first round exit, into a conference title participant, into a champion. More often than not that it ends the way Pau ended, shipped off to LAL or MIA or CHI or BOS so they can go win a championship elsewhere, because it didn't come together fast enough. Didn't hit the variance on drafting the second All-NBA guy or hit on trading for two All-Stars in quick succession. Window is short, have to be simultaneously lucky and competent or exploiting of extreme incompetence (OKC and Clippers).

You think the Mavericks fans were disappointed by the progress the Mavericks made with Luka while he was here? Edge of their seats waiting for it all to come together and get a championship. Losing in the conference finals, the finals. Had OKC's number. Boston was on the brink of blowing it up. Window opening. Bam, your guy gets shipped off to a marquee team. That kind of run of success is about all most small market teams can hope for, and most have never gotten. Getting to the conference finals and/or finals and losing is a big deal to 70% of the league. Anthony Edwards is already a success in Minnesota.

Those guys get to those teams, almost always, by drafting them. The odds of drafting them are higher the higher you draft. You can get lucky and get one lower in the draft, but it's about 4x less frequent. 4x as long waiting.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/47956200/nba-embrace-tanking-improve-fan-experience

Lol, Cuban thinks tanking is great. He has many odd takes, but this one might be the most odd especially when combined with the myriad of typos in his statement as he rambles from tanking to affordability and gameday experience and then to an economics lesson on supermax deals.

I'm guessing part of his improved gameday experience going forward for Mavs fans will include rarely seeing Cooper Flagg play.