How To Build a Contender (Please Forward to McHale, Stack, Hobierg...)

“I know the pieces fit because I watched them fall away” – Maynard James Keenan

I’m a huge baseball, football and basketball fan. One of the nice things about being an NBA basketball fan is that if you watch a decent amount of NBA and college games and have a good understanding of how the game works, how different players fit together and access to a web-based trade machine, you can do a decent job at playing GM. This is especially nice if you’re an ENTJ personality like myself (control freak).

Baseball and its 5 league minor league system (upper and lower A for the casual fan), foreign camps, goofy arbitration rules, 40-man rosters, lengthy player development periods, etc. makes playing the GM a lot, lot harder. And, I’m not even going to get into the NFL and its huge rosters, practice squads, non-guaranteed contracts, player tags etc., etc. Playing GM can still be done with each sport, but to be done well and with a solid knowledge base would involve a borderline-psychotic obsession and/or a lack of a job.

As my last blog entry states, the top contenders in the NBA have at least two (2) top 5 players in the NBA at their respective positions, one (1) more top 10 player at his respective position, a strong mix of role players and an excellent coaching staff.

The current Wolves squad meets about as many of those requirements as Gerald Green does to get into Stanford. But, unlike Green, we’re moving in the right direction being that we have a solid base (Al Jefferson) and some decent young players with potential. Nonetheless, if you’re expecting this team to be a top 10-15 NBA team at the end of next year or sooner, you’re nuts.

Below, I’ve outlined what the makeup of our squad would likely need to be for us to become a contending team in reality. This lineup takes in the realistic value of each respective player over the next 1-3 years. There are few things to note—AANS stands for above-average NBA starter. See my chart in my last entry if you’re unsure of what type of quality player that calls for (i.e. not likely Foye, Telfair or McCants). Also, keep in mind to keep up with the current NBA title contenders, at least one of those AANSs would have to be a top 5 player at his respective position and another should be a top 10 player at his respective position. Here’s how our lineup would have to be to contend:

C: AANS/Richard
PF: Jefferson/
SF: Brewer/Gomes
SG: AANS/Foye-McCants
PG: AANS/Telfair

So, we essentially have 2-3 years to land a top 5 PG, SG/SF or C, a top 10 PG, SG/SF or C and a top 25 PG, SG/SF or C.

Well, how the hell do we do that? First of all, we’re not going to land one of these players via free agency, so we can cross that option (if you think so, get serious). Let me see, how else do we acquire key players? Let me grab Shooter’s guide…ok free agents, via trade or via draft.

While trades are always an interesting way to acquire talent, I’d rather focus on the draft. For one, it’s a better way to build teams that are strong for a number of years, and as the top teams prove, it’s just a better way to build teams in general. Of the top 6 NBA juggernauts that I mentioned and their fifteen (15) top 10 players at their respective positions, 8 were drafted and developed by their respective teams. All six teams had at least one (1) player they drafted among those top players.

A lot of people seem worried about getting a top 2 draft pick in this year’s draft. While this certainly would be appealing and Beasley and Rose do seemingly have the greatest star potential, let’s take a look at the draft position of the top 25 players in order: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 13, 15, 29, 35, 57.

As you can see, half of these players were drafted in the top 4, which is somewhat obvious, and the rest are scattered in the mid-lottery and a couple in the 2nd round. So, some of it is just drafting smarter/better than the other team (a lot of the late round seletions are taking risk on high schoolers i.e. Kobe, TMac and Euro players i.e. Parker, Ginobilil)…and a lot of it is landing a top 4 pick and increasing your chances of drafting a big time player.

So, if we draft incredibly smart, go big or go home (Beasley, Rose, Greene, Jordan, Mayo) and our risk happens to pan out, we’re still a top 5 or 10 tier player and another AANS away from contending. How do we get these pieces in 2009?

Well unfortunately, the best way is to not sign Sebastian Telfair, Ryan Gomes and Craig Smith. This will obviously upset a lot of people because these are likeable, solid young players. Unfortunately, none of them have AANS potential, so they won’t be intricate in helping us contend in the long run. Also unfortunately, they are good enough in the short term to win us enough games and prevent us from landing that top 4 pick thus greatly decreasing our chances at landing that top 5 or 10 tier player that we need. Though nice players, when the times comes to rise into contention, players of the Telfair/Gomes/Smith caliber can be had for a minimal price.

So, next year you start Foye/McCants/Brewer/Jefferson/Richard. Since all of our “go big or go home” draft choices are Freshman in college this year, you give the pick the normal 19 year-old treatment and slowly bring them off of the bench. This strategy does 2 main things:

- It allows Foye and McCants the opportunity to possibly be that 3rd AANS player…which is their ceiling. If they develop into it, great. If they don’t, you know what you have and move on. If they end up somewhere in between, they have enough trade value to move.
- It allows this team to lose enough games to have a great shot at another top 4 pick in the 2009 draft

Fantastic, so if everything goes well, in 2010 you have a lineup of AANS (top 5 in the making-2008 or 2009 draft), AANS (top 10 in the making-2008 or 2009 draft), Al Jefferson (should be top 5 by 2010), Brewer (the ultimate glue guy), Foye-McCants (average or slightly above average NBA starter).

If I had a magic wand and could do anything I wanted, in 2010 we could have a lineup of:

Rubio/Foye/Brewer/Jefferson/Jordan
Rubio/Foye/Brewer/Beasley/Jefferson
Rose/McCants/Brewer/Jefferson/BJ Mullens
Mayo/Foye/Brewer/Jefferson/BJ Mullens
Rubio/Mayo/Brewer/Jefferson/Darko (trade Foye or McCants to Memphis)

Etc., etc. etc.

How much better lineups are these than the likely:

Telfair/Foye/Gomes/Beasley/Jefferson
Rose/Foye/Gomes/Jefferson/Richard

…or…even scarier….

Telfair/Jaric/Gomes/Jefferson/Richard

…with McCants, Foye, Brewer and Beasley/Rose coming off of the bench…

Still, with the above "contending" teams, you're still another 1-3 years of coming together to win a title, and you have to make sure you the cap space to all lock them up for a good amount of team. But, nonetheless, it's still worth the risk (see losing in the first round 8 years in a row).

Folks, as you can see, you create a contender not by locking up below average NBA starters to long contracts (see Jaric, Hassell, Hudson, etc.).

You create an NBA contender by having patience and taking big-time risks on big-time players.