GT #39: Kings @ Bullets 3/17 - 7 PM

[doclinkin]

keep chasing the superstar and proceed from there.

Which is missing my theme: exploit all inefficiencies. One of which was defenders/rebounders, who can be had lower down and picked up in trade. Another is *future* draft picks. Guess you were in such a hurry to make your point that you missed that one.

Inefficiencies. You look for what players are en vogue, what play style, then see what the counter to the trend will be. For a few years teams undervalued quality Centers. Painting all with the same brush. Now it is starting to change. Teams are hunting their own Bam, or to counter the massive size of the Lakers.

It has been a theme of mine for a few years now. I was banging about defense and rebounding while teams were obsessing about pace and space and the three point line. I predicted it and it came true: Sneakily the teams that were winning, especially in the regular season, were the teams that were loading up on rebounding. With long shot gunning, it is a lower percentage shot, meaning there are more rebound chances available, if you can control those and still score on the interior you can control the pace and starve out the long ball teams, it is a streakier strategy. Then the Raptors won with the D and 2 strategy. Even GSW baited teams into playing small ball, knowing that Draymond looked short but played big. They won with defense. Team rebounding. If you can afford to play big though, you can stifle them.

Yes draft picks are key. But if every team gets 2 picks a year, your chance of landing that franchise player in any given year is minimal. Teams highly value *this year's* draft picks, the teams that don't are those who already have that established star and are trying to fill in around them. Here you can bet against them by exploiting their win-now mindset.

Where I disagree with a few posters on here is the concept of trading down for a passel of late picks within the same draft. You can only develop so many young players. If you trade back you can get useful players, rebounders and defenders and specialist snipers, but pick up future picks that may climb higher than anticipated. You don't want more bites at the entire orchard, you want the best apple in the sun.

[doclinkin]

But hah! The teams you cite are the ones that prove the point you think I'm making and not the one you are:

It's the same reason that the perennially successful organizations - Toronto, San Antonio - seem to find value in the draft year after year. Not only do they have a top-notch organization in place, they (by virtue of picking at the end of the first round) already have a successful core into which they can insert new players, with defined roles, and put them in the position to succeed.

What superstars do the Raptors and Spurs have? And since when are they winning championships? These are two teams that will spin their wheels for a while by being constantly decent, but neither is winning a championship unless they have a fluke Kawhi moment, in a year where LeBJ is surrounded by high draft picks that are still raw or not good.

The Spurs consistently lead the league in rebounding, they pick complete players so they get production out of them early. Rebounding and passing. They don't select raw players with star potential. They pick solid players who they can train and teach to run the game the right way. And this past draft when they did have a high draft pick they selected the notable defender.

[wall_glizzy]

keep chasing the superstar and proceed from there.

Which is missing my theme: exploit all inefficiencies. One of which was defenders/rebounders, who can be had lower down and picked up in trade. Another is *future* draft picks. Guess you were in such a hurry to make your point that you missed that one.

Inefficiencies. You look for what players are en vogue, what play style, then see what the counter to the trend will be. For a few years teams undervalued quality Centers. Painting all with the same brush. Now it is starting to change. Teams are hunting their own Bam, or to counter the massive size of the Lakers.

It has been a theme of mine for a few years now. I was banging about defense and rebounding while teams were obsessing about pace and space and the three point line. I predicted it and it came true: Sneakily the teams that were winning, especially in the regular season, were the teams that were loading up on rebounding. With long shot gunning, it is a lower percentage shot, meaning there are more rebound chances available, if you can control those and still score on the interior you can control the pace and starve out the long ball teams, it is a streakier strategy. Then the Raptors won with the D and 2 strategy. Even GSW baited teams into playing small ball, knowing that Draymond looked short but played big. They won with defense. Team rebounding. If you can afford to play big though, you can stifle them.

Yes draft picks are key. But if every team gets 2 picks a year, your chance of landing that franchise player in any given year is minimal. Teams highly value *this year's* draft picks, the teams that don't are those who already have that established star and are trying to fill in around them. Here you can bet against them by exploiting their win-now mindset.

Where I disagree with a few posters on here is the concept of trading down for a passel of late picks within the same draft. You can only develop so many young players. If you trade back you can get useful players, rebounders and defenders and specialist snipers, but pick up future picks that may climb higher than anticipated. You don't want more bites at the entire orchard, you want the best apple in the sun.

I think we're mostly in agreement? The future draft pick inefficiency thing has been dead for a while, imo - really since the Nets/Celtics trade. I feel like you barely see unprotected picks traded anymore - I guess when some teams that are very good now have traded for a superstar (pretty sure the Bucks 2026 or 2027 first went to New Orleans in the Jrue Holiday deal). But yeah, we and every team in the NBA seem to have a shared understanding of the value of lottery picks. I just don't think that there's much of an inefficiency to exploit as far as defensive role players or whatever goes - look at the market there is year-in, year-out for guys like Iguodala, Ariza, and PJ Tucker at the deadline.

Getting pretty off-topic, but I'm not sure that I buy or understand the center / rebounding thing either. Bam's a weird example - he's a pretty good rebounder, but that's not really a big part of why he's Bam Adebayo. Teams are looking for play-making centers for sure, but it's an entirely new archetype, not something that's gone out of fashion. Defensive rebounding is important for sure, but I'm not sure the trend you claim actually exists. The pace and space thing is nowhere near over. Milwaukee is way ahead of everybody and it shows, sure, but Philadelphia and Utah are near the very top of the league in rebounding, yes, but that's been the case for the last several years. Yet each team is playing much better this season, while their rebounding rate isn't too different. (Incidentally, the Jazz have made a huge leap forward in 3PA this year, currently leading the league). I'm also not sure where you got the idea that the Raptors were employing a "2 and D" strategy from. They were among the best three point shooting teams in the league the season they won the championship, although yes a lot was made of playoffs Kawhi getting buckets in the midrange, which is indeed a shot that becomes very important for any team facing playoffs-level game-planning.

[doclinkin]

I think we're mostly in agreement? The future draft pick inefficiency thing has been dead for a while, imo

Tell that to the Pelicans. Bucks haul, Lakers haul. Various pick swap options. If Giannis or LeBJ stumble for whatever reason, those picks become significantly more valuable.

Agreed on Bam as well, though he is not a new archetype. The 'pivot' position is how Bill Russell described and played the Center spot. He was the wheel at the center of the Celts offense, passing over the defense and dumping to back door cutters. That's what Pete Carrill's Princeton offense derived from, the high post offense. The Three point shot makes it even more effective. Witness Draymond, who borrowed it from the women's game if you ask him. It is used in Euroball all the time, reference Marc Gasol and Pau (and even Tim Duncan who played well in the high post). Here EFJ was trying to find one every year, but we ended up passing on Marc Gasol, who would have been ideal next to Gil.

In the case of Bam, here is a dominant 2 way player who defends intelligently who slipped some in the draft because teams missed what he did do well. It's just a rare player, a center who passes well and reads the floor well. (One reason I am high on Neemias Queta). With success of Jokic teams are looking to copycat these teams as well. Bam is useful because he can defend as I described to PIF, from the P&R3 to the paint.

Defensive rebounding relative to position, and assists from non ballhandling positions, are places where you find Spurs type players. Players who will out perform their draft slot based on smarts. Salt in shooters and add Jay Wright and hey, I think we've got a team. Though, yeah, it'd be a team good enough to not suck enough to get lucky. But hey, maybe we catch that top 3 pick this year. Then maybe we've got so=mething.