RealGM

Posted: **Tue Apr 23, 2013 2:57 pm**

Why is OKC so successful in Draft Building that other teams cant seem to do?

What did they do so different that lead to their success?

http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/teams/ ... ft_History
is the URL to their draft history. My favorite team also seem to be building through the draft, yet not even close to pulling off back to back to back superstar top 5 picks.... How did they pull that off with that kind of talent?

Posted: **Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:18 pm**

luck. they picked 2, 4, 3 in consecutive years one with generational talent obviously available. only team I can think that tanked enough to get picks that high that many years in a row is Minny and people even say they have a bright future now. tanking works if you do it long enough. and if you do it in the right years you become a contender

Posted: **Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:00 pm**

KembaWalker wrote:luck. they picked 2, 4, 3 in consecutive years one with generational talent obviously available. only team I can think that tanked enough to get picks that high that many years in a row is Minny and people even say they have a bright future now. tanking works if you do it long enough. and if you do it in the right years you become a contender

I think the big thing about tanking is you need to pick players that aren't going to be impact players right away, yet one of the players you pick has to have the potential to be a top 5-10 player in the league someday.
OKC got lucky enough to get 3 of those players and Ibaka who is looking like a top 5 player at his position.

You better hope you can land wiggins or parker next season because if you don't you will be tanking another 3-5 years.

Posted: **Tue Apr 23, 2013 6:19 pm**

and even if u get a top pick its not guarantee he turns out to be 2nd best player in nba

Posted: **Tue Apr 23, 2013 7:10 pm**

A lot has to do with how the ping pong balls fell. In order for a small market team to be successful you have to have a superstar that buys into the system and who wants to be part of the community. Once you have that you can build around it. That is the only way you can build a sustainable contender built to last for the long haul. Tim Duncan is a creature of habit, was low maintenance.... as was David Robinson. Same in Utah with the Jon Stockton/ Malone era.

Cleveland with Lebron could have been if he had stayed, but he'd rather take his talents to South Beach.

If you look at which teams have reached the finals over the past twenty years it is dominated by high payroll teams in large media markets. Sure you may have a small market team that has a good year from time to time, but over the long haul you're just not going to find too many guys that want to play in places like Milwaukee.

Posted: **Tue Apr 23, 2013 10:47 pm**

Mlockhart wrote:A lot has to do with how the ping pong balls fell. In order for a small market team to be successful you have to have a superstar that buys into the system and who wants to be part of the community. Once you have that you can build around it. That is the only way you can build a sustainable contender built to last for the long haul. Tim Duncan is a creature of habit, was low maintenance.... as was David Robinson. Same in Utah with the Jon Stockton/ Malone era.

Cleveland with Lebron could have been if he had stayed, but he'd rather take his talents to South Beach.

If you look at which teams have reached the finals over the past twenty years it is dominated by high payroll teams in large media markets. Sure you may have a small market team that has a good year from time to time, but over the long haul you're just not going to find too many guys that want to play in places like Milwaukee.

Yes and No. I agree with you about Durant, but put him aside for a minute. The other 3 top 5 picks by Presti were all great. He took guys that were by no means the consensus at there respective draft slots. I thought he should have drafted Rubio over Harden, I was wrong. I thought passing on Noah for Green was a huge mistake, that one is a toss up. I thought Lopez was the guy at 4 instead of Westbrook, again I was wrong. He had a huge advantage to start with Durant, but every pick he made after that was pretty much on point, aside from the horrible Cole Aldrich pick. He had a clear vision and has executed quite well. Now his only mistake was not trading in his top pick guys (Harden, Westbrook or Green) for more top 5 picks. Probably should held onto Bledsoe as well.

Posted: **Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:18 am**

Also have to mention that they have had ridiculous luck with injuries despite drafting some very athletic players.

How many teams out there have been crippled by injuries to their rookies? I'm not even talking about Portland here, there are many other teams.

Posted: **Wed Apr 24, 2013 11:30 am**

jimmy keys wrote:
Mlockhart wrote:A lot has to do with how the ping pong balls fell. In order for a small market team to be successful you have to have a superstar that buys into the system and who wants to be part of the community. Once you have that you can build around it. That is the only way you can build a sustainable contender built to last for the long haul. Tim Duncan is a creature of habit, was low maintenance.... as was David Robinson. Same in Utah with the Jon Stockton/ Malone era.

Cleveland with Lebron could have been if he had stayed, but he'd rather take his talents to South Beach.

If you look at which teams have reached the finals over the past twenty years it is dominated by high payroll teams in large media markets. Sure you may have a small market team that has a good year from time to time, but over the long haul you're just not going to find too many guys that want to play in places like Milwaukee.

Yes and No. I agree with you about Durant, but put him aside for a minute. The other 3 top 5 picks by Presti were all great. He took guys that were by no means the consensus at there respective draft slots. I thought he should have drafted Rubio over Harden, I was wrong. I thought passing on Noah for Green was a huge mistake, that one is a toss up. I thought Lopez was the guy at 4 instead of Westbrook, again I was wrong. He had a huge advantage to start with Durant, but every pick he made after that was pretty much on point, aside from the horrible Cole Aldrich pick. He had a clear vision and has executed quite well. Now his only mistake was not trading in his top pick guys (Harden, Westbrook or Green) for more top 5 picks. Probably should held onto Bledsoe as well.

Player development played huge role and the Franchise was patient. Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka did not have stunning numbers in their first two seasons but OKC front office and coaching staff were patient with their potentials. Those young bloods worked together during offseason like brothers.

Posted: **Thu Apr 25, 2013 5:19 am**

Knighthonor wrote:Why is OKC so successful in Draft Building that other teams cant seem to do?

I'll put it this way: Durant, Westbrook, and Harden are all Top 10 players while still being in their early 20s, and there are entire drafts where no one in it will ever be as good as any of those guys.

This means that if a team were to win the #1 pick in the lottery 3 years in a row, it would be extremely unlikely they'd end up with 3 players at least as good as that, and quite likely that you'd end up with a trio of lesser talent than what OKC got even if you picked correctly.

Everyone knows OKC got lucky, but the scale of the luck is just mindblowing. They basically got 3 #1 overall worthy guys in a row, at least one of which is clearly significantly better than even that (and he was the one who took no scouting talent at all to pick). No one can expect to have that kind of luck. We might go another quarter century before we see something like that again.

Posted: **Thu Apr 25, 2013 5:36 am**

KembaWalker wrote:luck. they picked 2, 4, 3 in consecutive years one with generational talent obviously available. only team I can think that tanked enough to get picks that high that many years in a row is Minny and people even say they have a bright future now. tanking works if you do it long enough. and if you do it in the right years you become a contender

Durant was luck. But knowing to take Westbrook over Lopez and Bayless, or Harden over Tyreke and Rubio, was good work. Not to mention the Ibaka pick. No doubt OKC had a lot of luck but when comparing them to a team like Minnesota or Cleveland, OKC hitting a home run with those picks has to be credited. Cleveland was/is probably the closest to being the next OKC. Cleveland with Drummond instead of Waiters right now, would have put the rest of the league and fans into crap your pants mode. With Thompson as the Jeff Green-ian like pick in Irving's draft, the analogy would be very close to Durant, Green, Westbrook in back to back drafts, then we'd see what CLE does in this one a la the Harden pick. OKC still would've been fine if they screwed up the Westbrook draft and then still teamed up Harden-Durant-Ibaka, so it'll be interesting to see if CLE can reroute their destiny (Though mind you, very few people after Westbrook's rookie season envisioned this, so calling out the Waiters pick as a single/double instead of a home run, is probably premature)

Posted: **Thu Apr 25, 2013 11:02 pm**

Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.
The more we practice the luckier we get.
It's better to be lucky than just good.

Posted: **Fri Apr 26, 2013 1:19 am**

I'd say Westbrook and Ibaka were 2 fantastic unforseen picks. Though I'm not sure they succeed as much as they have in other situations.

Durant and Harden pretty much fell to him. Harden was locked into the top 3 for months leading up to his draft. Props for making the picks I guess but they weren't unforseen or anything.

So he had 2 gimmes in Durant and Harden. 2 really good picks in Westbrook and Ibaka. A meh in Jeff Green. A dud in Aldrich.

Overall he's obviously done a good job but there was a whole lot of luck involved too. A different bounce of a ping pong ball and who knows, could be in the same situation as the Wolves or something

Posted: **Fri Apr 26, 2013 1:28 am**

Dr Positivity wrote:Durant was luck. But knowing to take Westbrook over Lopez and Bayless, or Harden over Tyreke and Rubio, was good work.

They certainly deserve some major credit there, but it's not at all normal to have a guys of that quality available at those spots. In particular with Harden it seems pretty clear that they had no idea at the time he'd become anything like the player he is now given that they seemed to have no idea even a year ago what to do with him to make use of his true potential.

Posted: **Fri Apr 26, 2013 1:28 am**

djthesonicsfan wrote:Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.
The more we practice the luckier we get.
It's better to be lucky than just good.

Use a cliche whenever possible, it's probably better than what you could think up on your own.

Posted: **Fri Apr 26, 2013 4:23 am**

KembaWalker wrote:Durant and Harden pretty much fell to him. Harden was locked into the top 3 for months leading up to his draft. Props for making the picks I guess but they weren't unforseen or anything.

If I remember correctly, when Griffin and Rubio were considered the shoo-in 1 and 2 Harden had established himself as the 3rd guy. But when Memphis taking Thabeet became evident, Rubio was as much a favorite at #3 as Harden. Rubio falling out of the top 3 was really hard to believe until the end. Washington traded their 5th pick the day before the draft which they very likely didn't do foreseeing Rubio would be there

There's also this

Sam Presti is deserving of a lifetime contract as general manager of the Thunder, according to one NBA scout.

The scout credited Presti for having the foresight to select James Harden third in the 2009 draft.

“Sam Presti [VP/GM] had a lot of faith in his conviction to draft him that high [No. 3]. We all had him going No. 7, definitely not one slot ahead of Tyreke Evans.

“You and I could’ve picked Durant after the Blazers took Greg Oden No. 1,” Scout said. “Westbrook [No. 4 coming off sophomore UCLA averages of 12.7 points and 3.9 assists] and Harden were pure genius.

“Presti has earned a lifetime deal from Oklahoma City.”

Harden was voted sixth man of the year after leading all bench players in scoring this season.

“The kid is three years in the NBA and he plays like an 8-year-pro. His demeanor reminds me of Tim Duncan. He makes tough shots, takes a tough head shot, makes a great pass and commits a lousy turnover, and his expression never changes. I can’t give him higher praise.

“I’ll take Harden and Serge [Ibaka] and take my chances with six D-Leaguers.”

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/22 ... om_Thunder

Posted: **Fri Apr 26, 2013 11:11 am**

two weeks before the draft draftexpress has the rankings 1 griffin 2 harden 3. thabeet 4. rubio. as seen http://web.archive.org/web/200906120840 ... press.com/
heres stuff off their popular fan blogs http://www.welcometoloudcity.com/2009/6 ... building-a

Everyone gave them an A grade for their draft in the days after. You can give them credit for not screwing it up but like I said, it wasnt some brilliant foresight. especially since they picked a PG the year before. Harden was kind of the obvious choice.

Posted: **Fri Apr 26, 2013 4:57 pm**

Here is an ESPN one (much better sources than DX) from June 16 with Rubio 3rd http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2009 ... aft-090616

Posted: **Fri Apr 26, 2013 11:49 pm**

Having #2, #4 and #3 in consecutive drafts (also got #5 for Ray Allen in 2007) helped.

As others have said, Durant was a no-brainer at 2 but Westbrook and Harden felt like reaches that paid off. For that you have to give them credit. Ibaka a stash at #24 was nice too.

Posted: **Sat Apr 27, 2013 11:39 am**

Westbrook , Ibaka and Harden were damn good picks

Presti deserves the credit

And they were developed properly

Posted: **Sat Apr 27, 2013 2:17 pm**

Dr Positivity wrote:Here is an ESPN one (much better sources than DX) from June 16 with Rubio 3rd http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2009 ... aft-090616

that just shows that Chad Ford is really bad at his job compared to draftexpress and even nbadraft.net (also had Harden 3rd). especially back then.

RealGM

Y OKC so successful n Draft Building tat other teams cant do

Y OKC so successful n Draft Building tat other teams cant do

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Re: Y OKC so successful n Draft Building tat other teams can

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