šØThe Roster Construction Lessons of 2021
What this season has taught us about what it takes to win the NBA title. Plus, championship ring power rankings and more.
OPENING TIP
You may have heard: the Milwaukee Bucks are NBA champions.
Things could have turned out so much differently. When the Bucks went down 0-2 to the Nets, Coach Bud was interviewing realtors; now, heās a genius. Who could have expected such an outcome? Oh yeah, us! Last September, we said:
So before Jon Horst fires Coach Bud, he better look in the mirror. Did Bud give Bledsoe a contract extension, only to watch him immediately implode in the 2019 playoffs? Did he trade an All Star-level player in Malcolm Brogdon for no immediate help? Did he sell their 2019 first round pick? Letās be less equivocal. Donāt fire one of the best coaches in the NBA. Instead, give Bud the pieces he needs, and we suspect that next year Bucks will manage to be better on both offense AND defense.
Whatās interesting is that in some ways, both sides of the Fire Bud debate were right. Horst did get Bud some more weapons, exiling Eric Bledsoeās putrid shooting to the nether regions of the league (errrrā¦ sorry, Zion!) in exchange for Jrue Holiday and his lockdown defense, and adding another switchable defender in PJ Tucker. But Bud also adapted his scheme by playing Giannis more minutes (to the point of exhaustion), taking Brook Lopez off the floor more (which he could do, thanks to Tucker), and experimenting with more Middleton/Giannis pick-and-rolls on offense. The result? Giannisā ascension.
Much as weād love for 2021 to be remembered as the Year of Brilliant STL Takes, we suspect another topic will earn top billing: the spate of injuries that decimated top contenders. From Kawhi to AD to Harden to Kyrie, nearly every contender had significant injuries impact their playoff chances, leaving a bitter aftertaste after a grueling regular season. We suspect most teams canāt wait to put this season in the rearview mirror.
But while it would be tempting to write off this season as an anomaly, that would be lazy! We owe it to you, Dear Reader, to catalog our views on what weāve learned about what it takes to win a championship in the NBA today.
We identified six major trends that matter for winning a championship:
Shot creation is still paramount. Teams need at least two guys who can get their own shot against NBA playoff defenses. The premium on wings who can dribble, shoot, and pass has never been higher, which explains why Cade Cunningham is likely to go first in the draft this week.
Depth matters. While the injuries in 2021 were unusually high, this is far from the first time a playoffs have been impacted by injuries (the 2015 Finals being a recent example). The teams that went far were constructed to be able to withstand injuries along the way. The Hawks surprisingly made the Eastern Conference Finals despite losing emerging star DeāAndre Hunter during the Knicks series; the Bucks lost their starting two guard (Donte DiVincenzo) and still won the championship; and even the Nets pushed the Bucks to the brink despite losing Kyrie and with Harden on one leg.
Buyout guys matter. Every year, NBA Twitter loses its shit on well-known but washed up guys changing teams, (Stephon Marbury to the Celtics! Joe Johnson to the Rockets!) even though they almost always suck. But Blake Griffin (and PJ Tucker, who was traded but was very available to basically any team) made a huge difference for their teams this year. Not every buyout guy matters, but improving at the margins is critical for teams that want to win a title.
Centers still matter (?). Now fully six years past the debut of the Death Lineup, it turns out that having a 7-footer patrolling the paint is important when youāre playing Giannis, and this yearās five-out roster (the Clippers) couldnāt get by a traditionally aligned team. Would that have been the case if Harden and Kawhi didnāt get hurt? Hey, we just work here.
Young players donāt matter (?). We donāt actually believe this one, but it is worth noting that the Bucks won the title with zero rotation players on rookie-scale contracts. Do not try this at home.
You can hide guards on defense, but not centers. Remember when Trae Young and Devin Booker didnāt know how to win? Turns out, maybe it was the (awful) other guys around them, and not them? Both are examples of below-average guard defenders who were able to effectively hide in the playoffs. The Hawks as a team managed an above-average defensive rating for the playoffs. By contrast, noted defensive specialist Nikola Jokic āledā his team to a putrid 124 defensive rating.
You can see some of these trends influencing draft boards. Witness the rise of shot creators Bones Hyland, James Bouknight, and Cam Thomas this year, or recent draft picks (Ayton above Doncic and Wiseman above LaMelo) illustrating that teams still canāt quit big men.
Sure, if everyone is healthy we likely would have gotten to see KD vs. Kawhi for the title. But congratulations to Giannis, Khris, Jrue and Bud: you all earned this one. Now enjoy those nuggets.
BONUS CONTENT: HOW SHOULD YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE TEAM?
If youāve been reading us for a while, you know no one loves a 2x2 matrix as much as we do. And so, weāve developed proprietary rankings for two important emotions every fanbase has about its team: pressure and hope.
Pressure refers to the level of urgency a fanbase feels to win now, based on its roster composition, draft capital, and cap situation.
Hope refers to the level of optimism surrounding a team, informed by its recent performance, roster, and the likelihood that it can compete for a championship sometime in the next five years.
When you plot these two variables according to STLās proprietary rankings, you see four quadrants that teams fall into.
Itās tough to be a Bulls fan!
TWEET OF THE WEEK
Presented without comment.
STL INVESTIGATES: THE CLASSIEST, MOST TASTEFUL PART OF WINNING AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP
This is it! You have reached the literal apex of your profession. You are without a doubt the champions of the world. For all the talk of injuries and compressed seasons, the NBA playoffs is, by a mile, the truest test of ability in major professional sports. Not baseball, with its high variability, not football, with its single game sample sizes, not hockey, with its āhot goaliesā.
So here you are, and perhaps you are wondering: āSo, like, do I get any extra money for this?ā And the answer is: a little? The NBA has something called the Player Playoff Prize Pool, which is distributed amongst every team in the playoffs, pro-rated for how deep you went. This year that pool was $22 million. Divide by the 240 odd players that took part in the playoffs, and this is not a life changing amount of money for any of these guys. But it does enable the NBA to tell the union that the playoffs are not just free labor, so thatās good.
Of course, winning the O'Brien trophy comes with some benefits. Maybe Giannis will become one of the five most recognizable seven-foot black Greek guys in Southern Wisconsin:
But no, the true reward for winning the title is having Skip Bayless say things on TV like āSome people think Kobe doesnāt pass enough, but he canāt hear you because the reflection from his 5 rings is getting in his eyes!ā
And there it is, the Classiest, Most Tasteful part of winning and NBA Championship: The Rings. STL Investigates.
The first championship ring recorded is a wedding band style ring the Montreal Hockey Club got in 1893, and for a long time each league had kind of a standard look.
But then the 1980ās happened, and additional bling was obviously required. Since then, each team has comissioned their own, and there have been some hits and misses.
The are times when the design process goes terribly, terribly awry somehow:
But there have been some classics too:
One of these typically runs about $20,000 to manufacture, and the League foots the bill, or did, until 2019, when Kyle Lowry of Raptors fame looked at what was on offer and said to himself ādoesnāt this all feel a little too tame and restrained?ā. He had a vision: bigger, and it needed more diamonds. The result was this, for which the Raptors came out of pocket for an additional $100,000 per ring:
Of course, now no one is interested in a ring that is less iced up than one given to a team from Canada (Canada!), so the Lakers rings last year came in at $170,000 per, and have a secret compartment (perfect for storing small amounts of League Approved substances!).
Weāll see where the Bucks decide to take it next, but we have a suggestion. Bigger, with more diamonds.
AT THE BUZZER
Sam Vecenieās draft guide. At a mere 115,000 words, it comes in just between Wuthering Heights and The Silmarillion (The Athletic, $)
Trae Young hitting a buzzer beater in a high school gym. Think Team USA could use this guy? (Twitter)
Reddit sleuths discover Jrue Holidayās listed weight on Team USAās site is 25 pounds heavier than heās listed at the NBA. What a tank! (Reddit)
Kevin Pelton on what copycat teams can learn from the playoffs (ESPN+, $)
3-on-3 basketball is an Olympic Sport, and This Guy is itās MJ. (WSJ)