Brian and I noticed something odd on last week’s Boxscore Geeks Show. When discussing the MVP and if Nikola Jokic had done enough to merit my first-place MVP vote over Luka Doncic — he had, we noticed something “shocking” about the list. Of the marquee players in the NBA, the top 10 or so, none of them was a top-four pick — what I’ll refer to as a “tank pick — for the team that drafted them. That felt odd. And so I dug into the numbers and discovered that I was right! That was something that never used to happen, and all of the sudden? It’s the new norm in the NBA! So join me for a long winding narrative on NBA history, stars, and the draft lottery, and we’ll see if we end up with the surreal idea that we may be at the end of the tanking era.
A Brief Recap of the NBA Draft Lottery
For those who don’t know, the NBA employs a draft lottery like many North American sports. Essentially, all incoming players enter the draft. A set of teams, often those that performed worst in the prior season, get the first pick of these players. The pitch for this is that it keeps the league competitive. If given a choice, the best players would want to play for the best teams — what a bizarre notion — and if that happens, then billionaires getting tax subsidies by fleecing smaller US cities wouldn’t have a chance to get a shiny trophy. Apologies for my glibness. Regardless, the current rules say the worst three teams in the NBA get a 14% shot at the #1 pick in the lottery. The fourth worst is close behind with 12.5%. And this process follows a set of assumptions:
To compete in the NBA, you need a star player.
The best players coming into the NBA are known, and everyone will want them. Bad teams need a chance to sign them, or they won’t be able to compete.
Once bad teams get good players, the good players will stay with them and keep the league competitive.
Except, as we’re about to see, that isn’t quite right. It wasn’t even true initially, but it’s almost flat wrong now.
NBA History Lesson Part 1: The Superstar Era
I like to consider the 1979-1980 NBA season the beginning of the modern era of basketball. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the NBA was a fledgling league, often with fewer than 10 teams. In the late 1960s and most of the 1970s, the ABA was a rival basketball organization that kept much of the superstar basketball talent dispersed. For example, Dr. J would become a top NBA player and MVP and was the face of the ABA. In his first year in the NBA, he took his team to the Finals. The Denver Nuggets, another top ABA team that joined the NBA, had the second-best record in the NBA in their first season in 1976-1977 when the two leagues merged. But in the 1979-1980 season, two important things entered the NBA and arguably changed everything. The first was the three-point line. This had been a staple of the ABA, but it took the NBA a few years to catch on. And it took the NBA teams almost four decades to realize its importance. But the other thing immediately apparent was the need for a dominant star to win. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were both rookies in 1979. Between the two, they’d win six MVPs and five Finals MVPs. One of them was present in every NBA Finals of the 1980s.
To win in the NBA required top talent. And it could quickly escalate. For instance, a team with an MVP in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar might need a second MVP-caliber player in Magic Johnson to compete with an MVP in Dr. J. Teams with stars would not want to part with them. Indeed, the Boston Celtics got the rules rewritten so they could afford to pay to keep Larry Bird. This left the NBA draft, but it had its own complications.
Let’s start with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Larry Bird was selected sixth overall. This was because in 1978, the year he was drafted, a player was allowed to go back to college if they wished and also re-enter the draft. Larry Bird decided he liked the Celtics and wanted to play with them. Other teams were not so sure he’d be as loyal, which caused him to drop a few spots. Rules came into place, ensuring that a team that drafted a player kept their rights. Tack on rising NBA salaries and the notion that a top player would ever return to school after entering the NBA became very rare.
Magic Johnson and James Worthy both earned Finals MVPs for the Lakers. Both were selected with number one picks. But the Lakers were not a bad team. The Lakers were experts at trading for future picks from bad teams and reaping the reward. You may notice how frequently draft picks are called protected in the modern NBA. A team can trade a future first-round pick, but the team it trades for is only allowed to cash it in once it drops below a certain place in the NBA draft.
Right after Larry and Magic, another escalation happened that the NBA stepped in on. The draft system I mentioned above was not always in place. It used to be the case that the worst team in each conference went head-to-head in a coin flip for the top pick. In 1984 Hakeem Olajuwon, Sam Bowie, Michael Jordan, and Charles Barkley were all in the draft. It’s possible the Houston Rockets and Chicago Bulls didn’t try as hard as they needed to during the season in the hope of scoring a top pick. The NBA decided to make the draft more random, initially with a full lottery, with equal odds to all teams missing the playoffs, and eventually a weighted lottery, very similar to the one above. This started in the 1990 NBA draft. So the 1990-1991 NBA season signaled another new era - the draft lottery era of the NBA.
Again, this stuck with the premise that the best way for a team without a star to get a star was the NBA draft, and the NBA needed to give as many teams as possible a shot to get a star. Let’s pause for a moment and reflect on that.
Top Draft Picks at the Top of the NBA
Here’s a quick breakdown of what percentage of the top of the NBA that came from a “Tank Pick” — a top-four draft pick — over the history of the NBA Draft Lottery. I looked for the top ten players each year in the NBA via Wins Produced, with a half-win window for close players. I’ll note that this has always been noisy. Sure, some years look like what we’d expect, with almost 80% of the top of the NBA coming from the top of the draft. But for many years, it’s hit 20%. But the past three seasons? Only 2-3 players at the top of the NBA are top-four picks. And, in fact, only Ben Simmons, whom I know many won’t agree with, counted as a number one pick, which was years ago.
Let’s tack on another line to the chart.
The blue line is the percentage of the top of the NBA that is a top-four pick. The orange line is those players that remained loyal to the team that drafted them. To clarify, LeBron James, who left and returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2015, doesn’t count. It turns out loyalty is not quite as certain as top-four picks, but even it has had a tenuous relationship over NBA history. If not for David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Russell Westbrook, more of these years would be at 0. That said, not only are the past three seasons (2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023) the lowest we’ve seen the top of the NBA be comprised of top draft picks. It is only the second time it has been completely absent of such a player on the team that drafted them!
And the last time this happened was in 2001. It has another rule explanation. Briefly, the NBA allowed players on their rookie contracts, the first four years of their career, to be unrestricted free agents when their contracts expired. This resulted in two such players, Shaquille O’Neal, and Dikembe Mutombo, leaving their respective squads for more money. Both were top players in 2001. Shortly after, the NBA changed the rule, so rookie contracts had a restricted free agent clause for the first extension. Even this brief lapse in the NBA rules only gave a one-year window without a “loyal tank pick.”
This brings us to the current NBA era. For the past three seasons, the top of the NBA has been dominated by stars that were either not picked in the top four or, in the rare case they were, the team didn’t know what they had. Let’s review the two players that qualify:
Luka Doncic was drafted third by the Atlanta Hawks. They immediately turned around and traded him for Trae Young and future picks. For a very short window, some considered this a win-win trade. Luka Doncic now looks like the next LeBron James, while Trae Young is unhappy in Atlanta. Oops.
James Harden was drafted third by the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2010. They played him off the bench before trading him to Houston before his contract was even up. He went on to win multiple scoring titles and the MVP with Houston. Oops!
For years the NBA has tried to make it harder to sneak into a top draft pick. And they’ve also tried to make it easier for the teams that get these picks to hold onto the players. Except, there’s a paradox in this logic. Sometimes teams are bad because they are tanking. Sam Hinkie with the Philadelphia 76ers took the strategy of the 1983 Houston Rockets and Chicago Bulls into overdrive. For three seasons, the 76ers had the worst record in the NBA. They got Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, two top players. Except, Joel Embiid’s health has been questionable, at best. Ben Simmons played well for the 76ers, but he also dealt with injuries and eventually got unhappy with the 76ers and demanded a trade. Sam Hinkie seemed to have some of the savviest draft analyses in the NBA. And he showed a truism that’s existed the entire draft lottery era - there’s no guarantee in the draft. Even star players are an injury away from being a bust.
But for many teams in the draft lottery, it’s because they’re bad at talent evaluation. They acquire poor free agents and give too many minutes to the wrong players. The draft lottery is much noisier and more difficult than picking veterans in the NBA. To guarantee the better teams didn’t pick first, it’s possible the NBA made the top picks worse! And as players like Ben Simmons show, if the rules force a player to stay with a bad team, they may still force themselves out and be more upset at their lack of agency.
International Ball?
The draft lottery coincided with another interesting time frame. For years the United States dominated international play using "amateur” players. But in 1988, the men’s basketball team earned the Bronze medal at the Olympics. The NBA realized intentional players were improving, and it was no longer enough to send college players to compete. In 1992, some of the picks I mentioned above formed the Dream Team. I should note something interesting about that squad. Below is each player and their draft position.
Magic Johnson - 1
David Robinson - 1
Patrick Ewing - 1
Michael Jordan - 3
Christian Laettner - 3
Charles Barkley - 5
Scottie Pippen - 5
Larry Bird - 6
Chris Mullin - 7
Karl Malone - 13
Clyde Drexler - 14
John Stockton - 16
In 1992 the NBA sent a collection of their best players, and Christian Laettner, who was, admittedly, an amazing college talent. Less than half were tank picks. For example, often regarded as the greatest tandem in the history of the NBA, John Stockton and Karl Malone were not even selected in the draft lottery.
1992 was the start of the draft lottery era, but it had already signaled two things. The best players in the NBA weren’t necessarily the top picks, and international players were catching up.
Wrapping Up
At one point, it might have been logical for a top player to spend longer in college. Indeed, many of the players on the 1992 Dream Team spent many years in college. Even “outliers” like MJ and Magic were no exceptions. Michael Jordan spent three years at UNC, and Magic Johnson left early after two. Nowadays, such players would only spend one year in college because that’s mandatory by NBA rules. And that may be going away soon. When all of the best players spent a good portion of time in US colleges, it’s possible it was easier to find the best ones. Again, the Dream Team shows this has always been difficult, though. And it’s only gotten harder. And the NBA has worked hard to make sure those worst at this task try and do it. And another major hurdle is the rise of international players. While only two players in the top of the NBA this season are top four picks, five of them - Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Canada), Lauri Markkanen, and Domantas Sabonis are international players. Giannis Antetokounmpo, who won the previous two MVPs before reigning MVP Nikola Jokic - drafted 41st! - is just outside of the top of the NBA this season.
Picking top college players is hard. Picking top international players for the teams already bad at picking top college players? It’s even harder. And the teams that do “pick right,” at least in recent history, don’t realize what they have, or the player eventually gets fed up and leaves.
This season marks the first sustained stretch that top draft picks aren’t the drivers of success in the NBA. You need a star to win. That hasn’t stopped being true. But where do you get a star from? That’s become more nebulous. It’s possible this is just a fluke stretch and that teams will get better at drafting, and tanking will still seem a viable strategy. It’s worth noting, for years, I’ve said it’s not, and the data is only getting worse in terms of supporting it. Regardless, I’m excited to see what happens.
-Dre