OPENING TIP
Once upon a time, the Brooklyn Nets were impatient. The East was theirs for the taking; Joe Johnson and Deron Williams just needed some help. And so, like an overeager Mike McD from Rounders, they pushed their chips into the center of the table to get Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett on board.
The Nets didn’t have any young stars to trade, so Celtics GM Danny Ainge asked for the next best thing: draft picks. All the draft picks. And some pick swaps too, to get around the Stepien Rule (a rule, lest we forget, designed to save fans of a team from the whims of its mercurial owner).
We all know how that turned out. The geriatric Nets imploded. The Celtics ended up netting both Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown in the exchange, and were unlucky not to come away with more young talent. The lesson that all teams took away: draft picks are like gold. Especially unprotected first rounders that could become the next franchise-saving superstar.
Fast forward to 2021. Our phones are larger and our attention spans are shorter than ever. Jrue Holiday, once acquired as a young All-Star for a mere two first round picks, was traded (despite being much older, less athletic and on a worse contract) for three picks and two pick swaps. James Harden and Paul George fetched even bigger hauls. And late firsts are viewed as practically worthless: Milwaukee sold a late first in 2019 for cash, and on draft night we saw multiple teams willingly trade out of late first rounders for marginal value at best.
So the obvious question is: what changed? Did Danny Ainge brainwash everyone? Did the NBA secretly institute a version of the Hunger Games for GMs who don’t win right now?
We think there are four things going on.
Stars’ patience is getting shorter. As we’ve noted before, the owner’s long-sought goal of shorter contracts has resulted in an explosion of interest in NBA Roster Drama. The first day of free agency has become ever more thrilling, albeit exhausting. Frenetic player movement has crept even into rookie scale contracts, with Porzingis essentially forcing his way out of the Knicks while on a rookie-scale deal, and the Pelicans feverishly (also poorly) trying to placate Zion lest he do the same. Like a poker player late in a tournament seeing his stack eroded by ever-increasing blinds, GMs face immense pressure to capitalize on any window with a star, however short.
GMs value self preservation. Sam Hinkie stuck to his guns through thick and thin, took a bunch of shit from everyone, and ultimately got fired on the precipice of seeing the damn thing through. If the inventor of “the process” couldn’t survive “the process”, what chances do other front offices have? Trading away future picks (especially picks way down the line) is the quintessence of a “heads I win, tails you lose” proposition. After all, if you go all in and your team stumbles before you have to convey those picks, you won’t be around to be blamed for trading them!
The memorable narratives are outliers. Part of the narrative of the value of first-round picks is based on the legend of the Brooklyn/Celtics trade (and a few others like it, such as the Cavs/Lakers trade that allowed the Lakers to pick James Worthy). Sure, the Celtics fleeced the Nets in hindsight, but this took a confluence of things going right. First, the Nets’ Russian billionaire owner dramatically reversed course, ordering his team to duck the tax when the roster was constructed in such a way as to make that nigh impossible. Second, the Celtics got lucky on the Nets’ lottery outcomes in ways that other teams (sorry, Orlando) have not. Had the Nets kept spending to stay competitive, the value of both the Nets’ picks and pick swaps would have been much worse.
Draft picks aren’t that great! We enjoyed this recent Seth Partnow piece which could (should?) have been titled “The Player Hater’s Guide to the Draft.”
While it’s easy to dream of trading for a first and having it turn into James Worthy or Jason Tatum, the reality is that most first round picks don’t pan out. If you pick in the 20s, you only have a 25% chance at getting someone who gets minutes, much less all-star votes. This extends to the hilarious practice of player comps. Last year, we offered cross racial comps to reduce implicit bias, but even that produces overly optimistic expectations. To quote Partnow:
As a rule, it’s probably best to discount the supposed average outcome of a player by a level (maybe even a tier) or two. A big wing who is highly skilled but not overwhelming athletically [Ed. Note: he’s talking about Cade here] might be comped to Luka Doncic as an average outcome. Try Khis Middleton instead. If Middleton is the comp, think Joe Ingles or Bojan Bogdanovic. If one of those guys is the comp, maybe Georges Niang is their realistic 50th percentile outcome.
Funny, we didn’t see many Georges Niang comps handed out pre-draft!
In the frenetic first few days of NBA free agency, we’ve seen a similar narrative play out: only a few teams (chiefly the Thunder, Grizzlies, and Magics) appear to be playing a longer game, accumulating assets for a run down the line. For the rest of the NBA, it’s damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead. And it sure is a lot more interesting that way.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
Before you start celebrating your favorite team’s newly signed free agents, take a look at this list:
STL INVESTIGATES: PREDICTING THE FUTURE
What a week in the NBA. The big story was Save The Lottery correctly predicting that the lure of the On Ball Wing would cause them to go off the board (possibly too) early and often, while players like Jaden Springer or Jalen Johnson who didn’t neatly fit an archetype would slide. But then free agency also begun, and so there was coverage of a few other stories.
Out favorite kind of coverage this time of year is the post-draft grade article. The idea that we can accurately grade a team’s draft, based on picks who have yet to play a single minute, in a process so unpredictable that absolutely no one gets it right even half of the time, is absurd. And thus it has become trendy in recent years for people to point out this is a silly exercise, but those people are idiots. The problem isn’t with the idea; the problem is that the wrong metrics are being used to arrive at draft grades.
But never fear: we have you covered. Here are STL’s guaranteed-to-be-accurate NBA Draft Grades:
Houston Rockets: D-
Your franchise needs a savior.
What are the odds that savior is the person who decided to attend the biggest night of his life doing a Liberace cosplay? They’re not great, Houston, not great.
Detroit Pistons: B+
Many suggested that Detroit should opt for Evan Mobley, who had arguably the highest upside in the draft. But those people were proven wrong when Detroit stuck to their guns and drafted Cade Cunningham. It all became clear why when they unveiled the new nickname for the latest denizen of the Motor City: MotorCade. Well played Detroit.
New York Knicks: F
The Knicks had picks 19 and 21, and their fans in the building were pumped, cheering like crazy when New York grabbed Kai Jones and Keon Johnson. Unfortunately, the Knicks had already traded both those picks to move back and select other, less promising players. Thus the fans in the stadium found themselves celebrating two guys who would never put on the uniform, a fact that literally everyone watching on TV already knew. Bad, bad look for the Knickerbockers. Is it fair to penalize them for something their fans couldn’t have known? Yes.
Washington Wizards: A
The Wiz grabbed Gonzaga’s Corey Kispert at 16, and it became clear as soon as we saw him that Kispert had been at a yachting regatta just prior to the NBA draft and didn’t have time to change. STL loves that kind of competitiveness, and lack of concern for appearances. Washington has a winner here.
We will admit that we don’t have draft grades for every team in the NBA. We never claimed to be omniscient, but when the crystal ball is so clear that there is no longer any doubt, you can count on STL to bring you the news.
AT THE BUZZER
The inside story of how Westbrook made his way to LA (ESPN+, $)
Matt Levine’s incredible summary of soccer transfer price accounting fraud between Barca and Juve (Bloomberg)
NBA Draft Fashion (The Athletic, $)
“Young socialite” Ben Simmons is totally delusional (Reddit)
Did someone find another of KD’s burners? (JordanThrilla)
The Athletic’s boring, conventional NBA draft grades (The Athletic, $)