TEAM DRAFT DAY RATERS

Below the jump, we'll analyze the teams that operate best at draft day--teams that know how to draft players, AND teams that know how to execute draft day trades that work to their advantage. This is based on a win-shares argument, the amount of win shares a player accumulates weighted by the number of games they play. So there's a longevity factor, a winning factor (accounted for by win shares), and the extrapolation is that the defense would come from this winning factor. And of course, win shares is built upon the PER, or primarily, offense argument. So this is a reasonable encapsulation of a player's built-in value over the course of their career. Many thanks to basketballreference for such data.




We get a very clear encapsulation of team effectiveness charting drafts from the turn of the century on-wards. From 2000 to the 2012 NBA drafts. This encapsulates a majority of NBA players, typically players up to age 35 by now, so it encompasses the majority of NBA players in the league right now.

Below is just the ranking for the pure drafting ability of teams from 2000 onwards. This shows whether a team is good at drafting only, but it doesn't account for the other variable (draft day trades) so it is unreliable. But, just for reference, here it is below:

	GOOD DRAFTING TEAMS
		Average Player Value	Average Draft Rank	DRAFT RATE
1	SAN ANTONIO	5.076344769	26.77777778	135.933232
2	MIAMI	5.281664359	16	84.5066297
3	INDIANA	4.631418479	17.9	82.9023908
4	NEW YORK	4.281368352	17.41666667	74.5671655
5	PHOENIX	4.047442985	18.35714286	74.2994891
6	DENVER	4.02160976	18.11111111	72.8358212
7	PHILADELPHIA	4.66659868	15.25	71.1656299
8	SEATTLE/OKC	4.18270744	16.95714286	70.9267676
9	HOUSTON	4.50935618	15.71428571	70.8613114
10	MEMPHIS	3.919444183	17.25	67.6104122
11	NEW ORLEANS	4.907576528	13.63636364	66.9214981
12	LAKERS	2.79968659	23.875	66.8425173
13	ORLANDO	4.046556713	16.15384615	65.3674546
14	SACRAMENTO	3.93776289	15.61538462	61.4896821
15	DETROIT	3.815004212	16.07692308	61.3335293
16	ATLANTA	5.174287363	11.66666667	60.3666859
17	CHICAGO	3.865359305	14.94736842	57.7769496
18	GOLDEN ST	4.633476688	12.33333333	57.1462125
19	DALLAS	2.395675592	22.66666667	54.3019801
20	NEW JERSEY	3.205973386	16.8	53.8603529
21	CLEVELAND	4.126627114	12.30769231	50.7892568
22	BOSTON	2.715737563	17.64705882	47.9247805
23	PORTLAND	2.667918095	17.05882353	45.511544
24	TORONTO	4.032079041	11.23076923	45.2833492
25	UTAH	2.743301129	16.33333333	44.8072518
26	MINNESOTA	3.372710722	12.71428571	42.8816078
27	CLIPPERS	4.08890836	9.615384615	39.3164265
28	CHARLOTTE	3.202048207	11.35714286	36.3661189
29	WASHINGTON	3.009770656	11.84615385	35.6542062
30	MILWAUKEE	2.99950233	10	29.9950233

Then, here's the ranking that encompasses both drafting ability and draft day trades, such that all the players involved have played for that particular team at some point: (BELOW IS THE MORE RELIABLE RANKING)

	GOOD ACTUAL DRAFTING TEAMS
		Average Player Value	Average Draft Rank	DRAFT RATE
1	SAN ANTONIO	5.779581802	25.25	145.9344405
2	DENVER	4.946784102	16.44444444	81.34711634
3	INDIANA	4.155383047	19.09090909	79.33003999
4	MIAMI	4.670808301	16.28571429	76.06744948
5	PHILADELPHIA	4.292785782	17.53846154	75.28885833
6	NEW YORK	3.720191504	19.61538462	72.97298719
7	NEW ORLEANS	5.25360498	13.8	72.49974873
8	BOSTON	3.344340495	19.6875	65.84170349
9	SEATTLE/OKC	4.371648188	14.88888889	65.08898414
10	ORLANDO	4.014028972	16.08333333	64.55896596
11	LAKERS	2.898654817	22.14285714	64.18449952
12	CHICAGO	4.660236625	13.55555556	63.17209647
13	PORTLAND	3.583011082	17.43478261	62.4690193
14	HOUSTON	4.053887801	15.4	62.42987214
15	SACRAMENTO	3.80142576	15.84615385	60.23797743
16	ATLANTA	4.638957202	12.81818182	59.46299686
17	MEMPHIS	4.133383795	14.25	58.90071908
18	NEW JERSEY	3.263322818	17.93333333	58.52225586
19	DETROIT	3.900078092	15	58.50117138
20	PHOENIX	3.149449873	18.5	58.26482265
21	GOLDEN STATE	4.519521709	12.29411765	55.5635316
22	CLEVELAND	4.368545914	12.46153846	54.43880293
23	UTAH	3.278227286	15.06666667	49.39195778
24	TORONTO	3.687361072	12.46153846	45.95019182
25	DALLAS	2.105614456	21.33333333	44.91977507
26	WASHINGTON	3.055533141	13.625	41.63163905
27	CLIPPERS	3.464277375	10.78571429	37.36470597
28	MILWAUKEE	3.502394215	10.3	36.07466041
29	MINNESOTA	2.728992923	12.18181818	33.2440956
30	CHARLOTTE	2.930584858	10.21428571	29.93383105

So as seen above, there's a lot of movement between the "actual drafting" and just "the drafting". Some of our hunches are confirmed--San Antonio is excellent at drafting, and it's not even close--but Denver, Indiana, Miami and Philadelphia is also up there. In terms of the bottom five, we see Washington, the LA Clippers, Milwaukee, Minnesota and Charlotte populating this. A frequently asked question is whether good drafting/bad drafting correlates with winning/losing, respectively. Not necessarily, but more or less, this correlation somewhat holds. But notice the good drafting teams have been able to cultivate their "homegrown" players--players they've drafted--into winning environments, so those players tend to last longer on the same team.

Look no further with San Antonio--Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili have played only with SAS throughout their careers, and Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, and possibly Gary Neal/Tiago Splitter are in position to do the same. Indiana reared up Paul George, Danny Granger, and Roy Hibbert. Philadelphia has Thaddeus Young, Jrue Holiday, and Evan Turner. On the flip end, Charlotte has a bunch of homegrowns--Gerald Henderson, Bismack Biyombo, etc, but they are all questionable players and don't contribute to a winning environment.

So without further ado, let's analyze this team by team:

1

SAN ANTONIO

5.779581802

25.25

145.9344405

Before:

28	SAS	Tony Parker		10.34404	Int'l 19	PG
26	SAS	George Hill	Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis	8.011204	22	PG
28	SAS	Tiago Splitter		7.55	Int'l 26	C
28	SAS	Leandro Barbosa		5.007949	Int'l 21	SG
26	SAS	John Salmons	University of Miami	4.032663	23	SG
28	SAS	Beno Udrih		4.028662	Int'l 22	PG
28	SAS	Ian Mahinmi		3.668122	Int'l 21	C
29	SAS	Cory Joseph	University of Texas at Austin	1.578947	20	PG
20	SAS	James Anderson	Oklahoma State University	1.465517	21	SF

After: 

28	SAS	Tony Parker		10.34404	Int'l 19	PG
15	SAS	Kawhi Leonard	San Diego State University	9.590164	20	SF
26	SAS	George Hill	Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis	8.011204	22	PG
28	SAS	Tiago Splitter		7.55	Int'l 26	C
28	SAS	Beno Udrih		4.028662	Int'l 22	PG
28	SAS	Ian Mahinmi		3.668122	Int'l 21	C
29	SAS	Cory Joseph	University of Texas at Austin	1.578947	20	PG
20	SAS	James Anderson	Oklahoma State University	1.465517	21	SF

San Antonio is an excellent drafting team--they're always drafting the lowest, on average, of any team since 2000, but they tend to extract very good role player even that far. They're the team that subscribes to the maxim that I revealed in my previous draft study--that even in the late 1st round, the talent level isn't all that different from what you'd see in the late lotto. And that's proven with excellent gems they've found such as Tony Parker, George Hill, Tiago Splitter, Beno Udrih and Ian Mahinmi. No one does it like the Spurs--in particular, Parker and Hill were great finds late in the first round. Even with their draft day trades, there was an indirect trade of Leandro Barbosa and John Salmons, two solid players, but they got back Kawhi Leonard in return, who provided even greater value than the both of them combined, so their score even rose because of that. And that's not even accounting for their 2nd round picks.