The Cleveland Cavaliers won their fifth game of the season the other night, and as is the case with most wins for the wine and gold (or whatever color they are wearing), a certain part of the fan base gets disenchanted.
They are interested in getting better odds for the NBA Draft Lottery, so they are the tanking crowd. Their idea is the only way to get better is to get the best player available in the draft, meaning get the first pick.
This flies in the face of reality though. It assumes that teams which are in the lottery eventually become playoff contenders, and it also assumes the best player in the draft each year is the first overall pick.
You have to learn to play winning basketball. And you learn it by winning. You can accumulate a bunch of talent and throw it together and until the group starts winning, they won’t know how to win.
And that means getting some veterans who do know and having that information passed along to the younger players. It’s why the Cavs still have players like Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, and Matthew Dellavedova. Part of their job is teaching the young guys.
Look at the Atlanta Hawks, a very young team that won 29 games a year ago. To be fair, they lost John Collins to suspension, but they still have Trae Young and a good rookie in De’Andre Hunter and they sit at 4-12.
You also have annual lottery participants in Sacramento, a franchise that hasn’t been over the .500 mark since 2005-06. They did get to 39 wins last season, and currently sit at 7-8 this year.
As for the best player being the first overall pick? That’s becoming a myth too. While it is too early to evaluate the players picked this summer, the best player picked a year ago was not Deandre Ayton, the first pick, but rather the third choice in Luka Doncic, who is probably one of the top five players in the league right now.
If you measure by VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), here are the results from the past three drafts.
In the 2017 draft, you can make a strong case that the three best players are Donovan Mitchell (13th), Bam Adebayo (14th), and Jayson Tatum (3rd). Markelle Fultz and Lonzo Ball went first and second that season.
Ben Simmons might be the best player from the 2016 draft, belying his first overall selection, but the next best players from that year are Pascal Siakam, picked 27th overall by Toronto. Malcolm Brogdan is next, and he was a second round pick (36th) and won Rookie of the Year honors.
Karl-Anthony Towns was the prize of the ’15 selection process, and is the best player, but the next three best are Myles Turner (11th), Montrezl Harrell (32nd) and Larry Nance Jr. (27th).
Look, we don’t want the Cavs to lose their first round pick in 2020, which they will if they aren’t in the top 10 of next year’s draft. However, it’s a good sign for the franchise if this already pretty young team can put together some victories.
By the trading deadline, one of the veterans will likely be moved so the team won’t be as good as the season winds down, so they can keep the draft pick organically.
But you don’t want Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr. and eventually Dylan Windler to have the only lesson they learn with this team is losing. They need to experience some victories and how you earn them.
John Beilein talks a lot about culture. Gaining victories is part of reaffirming a good culture within a team.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 