The Value of a Draft Pick
Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 1:11 am
So Shawn Kemp's MVP points and such are finally starting to run out, and I need some points for luxury tax and future trainings. Over skype the past week or so, there's been a lot of debate about tanking and how it's ruining the league. Some believe tanking is the only way to acquire good young talent. RFA prevents any decent talent from leaving its draft spot for 8 seasons. No elite player is going to sign with your crappy or mediocre team over some contender throwing out max money. They believe you need to suck for a season or a few and get a young core then let them grow together and boom! Instant contender! Others believe tanking is just ruining your team, setting yourself back years. They believe there are some teams who have their speed set on "constant rebuild" in that they suck, get some pieces, then trade them away for future assets.
I stand in the middle of this debate, but I lean more against tanking. Now I do believe to get that #1 or #2, you probably need to draft one of them. But I think the tanking in this league goes a bit to far. Teams are bad for 3-4+ seasons straight then are playoff contenders for a couple years then back to the sewer again. Teams are perpetually rebuilding and it forces other teams who only want to spend one or 2 years being bad to completely sell everything, otherwise they can't "compete" with these younger teams.
So this article started off as an anti-tanking one. I started listing out points: no #1 pick has ever won it all with his drafted team, the big contenders recently were built through trades not the draft, etc. Then I got to one of my favorite things about this game: busts. The sim engine will kill young players who are full of potential just willy nilly. I, for one, love this. We know exactly who and how many good players there will be in each draft class. The fact that there are busts prevents teams from stockpiling all young talent because if they do, some are bound to bust.
At this point, I decided to do a value of the draft pick piece so everyone can benefit. I went through every single player drafted from 1991-1998 (the last RFA class we had) and graded them on a scale of A-F.
A+: Superstar. #1 on any team, once in a generation
A: Star. Might be able to be a #1 if you have other A's around him. More likely though a #2 or strong 3.
B: Starter. Can be your 4-6 on a championship team.
C: Role Player. Can maybe start on some teams, but more likely a 15-20 minute a game guy off the bench.
D: Traveler. He's good enough somehow to stay on different teams throughout his career, but he's almost never getting anything but garbage time minutes.
F: Garbage. He plays about half the games per season because he's usually 11-15 on a team or not on a team at all.
In this list, there are 8 drafts. You'll see some ".5's." This is the "Anthony Peeler Rule." When I was in the beginning of my research, I was having a tough time deciding on Peeler. He wasn't a star, but he wasn't just a starter. He was in the middle. So I gave him an A/B and he gets .5 A and .5 B.
I stand in the middle of this debate, but I lean more against tanking. Now I do believe to get that #1 or #2, you probably need to draft one of them. But I think the tanking in this league goes a bit to far. Teams are bad for 3-4+ seasons straight then are playoff contenders for a couple years then back to the sewer again. Teams are perpetually rebuilding and it forces other teams who only want to spend one or 2 years being bad to completely sell everything, otherwise they can't "compete" with these younger teams.
So this article started off as an anti-tanking one. I started listing out points: no #1 pick has ever won it all with his drafted team, the big contenders recently were built through trades not the draft, etc. Then I got to one of my favorite things about this game: busts. The sim engine will kill young players who are full of potential just willy nilly. I, for one, love this. We know exactly who and how many good players there will be in each draft class. The fact that there are busts prevents teams from stockpiling all young talent because if they do, some are bound to bust.
At this point, I decided to do a value of the draft pick piece so everyone can benefit. I went through every single player drafted from 1991-1998 (the last RFA class we had) and graded them on a scale of A-F.
A+: Superstar. #1 on any team, once in a generation
A: Star. Might be able to be a #1 if you have other A's around him. More likely though a #2 or strong 3.
B: Starter. Can be your 4-6 on a championship team.
C: Role Player. Can maybe start on some teams, but more likely a 15-20 minute a game guy off the bench.
D: Traveler. He's good enough somehow to stay on different teams throughout his career, but he's almost never getting anything but garbage time minutes.
F: Garbage. He plays about half the games per season because he's usually 11-15 on a team or not on a team at all.
In this list, there are 8 drafts. You'll see some ".5's." This is the "Anthony Peeler Rule." When I was in the beginning of my research, I was having a tough time deciding on Peeler. He wasn't a star, but he wasn't just a starter. He was in the middle. So I gave him an A/B and he gets .5 A and .5 B.
