The Luck of the Draw

A couple of days ago, even before Cade Cunningham debuted and promptly proceeded to stink the place up, I began writing an article which in part touched on how rookies such as himself and Jalen Green are overrated.  And I don't mean that in a literal sense, like they will never become legitimate NBA stars.  But my argument is rather that the NBA has devolved into a league that for whatever reasons fans and even organizations seem to actually believe that a top-notch draftee is going to come in and instantly transform a garbage team into a competitive or even contending one.  Meanwhile, this belief has very little historical basis, even as far as number one picks go.  And as for the few rookies who did come in and instantly transform a plagued squad's fortunes, those tend to be some of the best basketball players in the history of the sport, not just the next hot thing coming out of college or high school or whatever.

In fact to my knowledge there is only one player who, as a rookie, led his team to the NBA Championship, as in being named MVP of the series.  But don't forget that Magic also had Kareem on his squad, who averaged a solid 33 points during the 1980 NBA Finals.  In other words the Lakers, who got to the Semifinals the year prior, wasn't a garbage team when they drafted Magic.  And the only reason they had the number-one pick was as the result of a deal they made with the Jazz a few years earlier.

Then there is Tim Duncan, who was named Finals MVP in 1999, i.e. his second season in the NBA. I remember watching one documentary where someone said something like 'Tim Duncan was the most unanimous number-one pick in NBA history'.  And in fact some people actually referred to the 1997 Draft as "the Tim Duncan Sweepstakes".  And even though the Spurs did in fact suck the season prior, they weren't a garbage team but rather had a roster that was decimated by injuries, most notably to the Admiral, who played in less than 10 games.  So it's sorta like they unintentionally tanked.

Another honorable mention is Shaq, who in the very least made the Magic a universal threat in his rookie season.  Also, buttressed by Penny, he led the squad to the NBA Finals in just his third year.  But of course they ended up getting their asses bust by the Rockets.

Another player I can think of who at least made his team must-watch during his rookie year was Allen Iverson.  Lebron took what had to be the most-mediocre team to ever make the NBA Finals to the big dance in just his fourth season.  And to note, AI also accomplished a comparable feat in his fifth season with the Sixers.  And again, all of the players mentioned above were number-one draft picks.

And I didn't forget Dwayne Wade who, as a fifth-overall pick, won Finals MVP in just his third season.  But as with Magic and the Lakers, that Heat team wasn't garbage either.  Oh yeah, Hakeem Olajuwon was another number-one pick who eventually won a couple of championships for the Rockets, but it took them a decade to do so.  Also the likes Jordan, who as a number-three pick did it in like six years, though not with the roster he met when he came to Chicago.  And please, in all due respect, don't even mention Kobe and the fact that the Lakers began their three-peat during his fourth season, as some may even argue that he wasn't the best player on the Lakers during his post-Shaq championships.

So basically, out of the last 40 years, only a handful number-one picks had managed to lead the team that drafted them (or usually any team for that matter) to the big dance.  Therefore, logic would dictate that perhaps we shouldn't expect too much out of them.  And if that's true for the top pick, then how much more for players like Jalen Green, who didn't even go number one?

 CONCLUSION

These days most of the top draft picks play only a year in college or wherever before coming to the NBA.  If not for that, many of them would be coming in straight out of high school, which would likely create an even bigger disaster in terms of questionable draft picks than we're currently facing.

I remember coming across an article a while back where some insider was saying that one of the drawbacks of the one-and-done system is that NBA scouts only have a very-limited time to familiarize themselves with prospects, which would at least partially explain why they seem to fuck up so often these days.  But that said, these aren't amateurs talking shit at a computer like myself.  These GMs and executive braintrusts are actually paid big money to make educated draft choices.  But instead, it seems like a lot of times they're just dickriding and going along with popular opinion.  You know, nobody wants to take the blame if a draft pick proves to be a bust.  So perhaps the safest thing to do is to just go along with the consensus, so that if the player doesn't work out then you can just be like 'well, I picked who anyone else would have under the circumstances' and put the onus of the blame on the player himself, which in a way is totally what these professionals are paid not to do.