Three cheers for the NBA draft

I know that this blog is supposed to be about economics, so let me start off by pretending to discuss economics, before getting to the interesting stuff, tonight’s NBA draft.

No, the draft is not unfair.  No, it doesn’t violate antitrust rules.  Although NBA teams compete in an athetic sense, they don’t compete in an economic sense—they cooperate.  The economic competitors to the Chicago Bulls are not the San Antonio Spurs, the competitors are the Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago area movie theaters and nightclubs, and Chicago area TV programming.  It helps to think of the NBA as a single firm, with lots of franchises, which collaborate to produce the most entertaining product possible–in a vastly larger entertainment “industry”.  I’ve never heard anyone complain that Cirque du Soleil is violating antitrust laws if they assign acrobats to one of their 19 stylish circuses.

For NBA fans, the draft is very interesting precisely because a single player can make a much bigger difference in basketball than in the other major team sports.  No quarterback or pitcher, no matter how good, could take a bunch of misfits to the championship series the way Lebron did this year.  And now that the best players come out early, there’s a lot of uncertainty as to how good they’ll end up being once they get to the NBA.

Today I’d like to point to a possible inefficiency or bias in the drafting process.  Teams picking at the top (say the first or second pick) seem to overrate the importance of big men.  Non-basketball fans might be wondering what I mean, aren’t all basketball players “big men?”  It’s relative, I’m talking mostly about centers, or very big power forwards.  I looked back over the drafts since 1965, and didn’t find a single example where a team picked a small guy at one or two over a big guy, and strongly regretted it.  In contrast, there are 9 cases of where a team picked a big guy over a small guy, and clearly regretted it.  (And there probably would have been 10 if Len Bias hadn’t died.)  I looked at picks one and two over picks two or three—obviously if you look at the entire draft you can find hidden gems, I’m looking at a choice between the top few prospects.

Even worse, the NBA is rapidly evolving in the direction of centers being unimportant.  In the recent playoffs, teams would often go without any center at the end of games, when it mattered most.  The team that won the championship was able to do this for long periods, without the big men on the other team being able to take advantage.  So this is an even stronger argument to draft small.  And yet once again, the top pick and probably the top two picks are expected to be big men.

Here are some botched draft picks, big over small:

1966:  Bill Buntin (2) over Gail Goodrich (3)

1984:  Sam Bowie (2) over Jordan (3)

1990:  Derrick Coleman (1) over Gary Payton (2)

1998:  Michael Olowokandi (1) over Mike Bibby (2)

2001:  Kwame Brown  (1) over anybody

2003:  Darko Milicic (2) over Carmelo (3) Bosh (4) and Wade (5)

2005:  Andrew Bogut (1) over Deron Williams (3) and Chris Paul (4)

2007:  Greg Oden (1) over Kevin Durant (2)

2009:   Hasheem Thabeet (2) over James Harden (3)

If you define “bigs” more generously, you have one possible error in 2011, when Evan Turner (2) went ahead of Derrick Favors (3).  Favors has finally emerged as arguably the better player.  But then what about 2013, where the semi-big Anthony Bennett (1) went ahead of Oladipo (2)?

If the Lakers take Russell over Okafor and it doesn’t pan out, it would be the first time in at least 50 years that this happened.

BTW, I vote for OKC having the best string of drafts ever, getting Durant (2) Westbrook (4) and Harden (3) in three consecutive drafts, arguably three of the top 6 players in the league right now.  (The others are obviously Lebron, Curry and AD.) Too bad OKC traded Harden.

Because I’m a Wisconsin fan you might be wondering what I think of our two prospects.  The most notable aspect of Kaminsky is how bad he was in his first couple years, and how rapidly he improved in his final two.  He started out as a guard in high school, and can do a lot of things pretty well.  Fits well in the new NBA, which emphasizes the 3 over traditional centers.  Dekker has a higher ceiling than Kaminsky but a lower floor.  It all depends whether he can consistently hit the three.  Don’t pay attention to lazy pundits who always compare people to other players of the same race; Dekker’s closest comp may be Richard Jefferson.  He’s surprisingly effective in the open floor, especially when driving to the basket.

PS.  Think drafting is easy?  Take a look at picks 11 through 16 in 2008, and then picks 21 through 26 from the same draft:

11-16:  Jerryd Bayless, Jason Thompson, Brandon Rush, Anthony Randolph, Robin Lopez, Marreese Speights

21-26:  Ryan Anderson, Courtney Lee, Kosta Koufos, Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, George Hill

Which 6 would you rather have?

PPS.  I’m opposed to the current draft lottery for obvious tanking reasons.  I favor all of the non-playoff teams having an equal chance for any of the first 14 slots.  Philadelphia is a disgrace to professional sports.

PPPS.  I don’t like the 3 point shot—makes games too one dimensional.  Reminds me of the way tennis was ruined when changes in technology made it impossible to employ the wide variety of shots that McEnroe used to use.


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59 Responses to “Three cheers for the NBA draft”

  1. Gravatar of ChacoKevy ChacoKevy
    25. June 2015 at 08:56

    re PPPS: I’m a fan. The basketball I hate watching is when a player recklessly attacks the rim praying for a foul. Even worse is when the player does get the whistle and bailed out, as two free throws will stop the game for 45-60 seconds. Most of the time, hit or miss, play continues after a three point shot.
    Good luck to your Badgers tonight. I think Marquette is still one year away from being competitive with UW again. What was once an in-state rivalry has kind of devolved into MU’s inferiority complex.

  2. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    25. June 2015 at 08:59

    Nobelist Alvin Roth gives an informative and refreshingly politics-free interview about markets, from those for law clerks (federal judges *cheat*, relentlessly!) to kidneys, with some comments on sports drafts in the middle.

    https://minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/interview-with-alvin-roth

    FYI, FWIW, all.

  3. Gravatar of David R. Henderson David R. Henderson
    25. June 2015 at 09:10

    Who is AD?

  4. Gravatar of Student Student
    25. June 2015 at 09:10

    Interesting post… One comment though, since Jordan retired (i got lazy), 15 out of the 18 NBA champions had a legit center. So, its pretty clear that quality big men are associated with championships.

    The only exceptions were the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 Lebron lead Heat and the 2014-2015 Warriors (who took 6 games to beat a Cavaliers team missing 2 of its 3 best players). I highly doubt the Warriors would have beaten the Cavs if Love and Irving were playing because the Cavs literally owned them on the inside.

    Bottom line, you want to win a championship without Lebron James or Micheal Jordan, get an elite big man.

  5. Gravatar of Ben Ben
    25. June 2015 at 09:22

    aggregate demand?

  6. Gravatar of Vinay Vinay
    25. June 2015 at 09:32

    “BTW, I vote for OKC having the best string of drafts ever, getting Durant (2) Westbrook (4) and Harden (3) in three consecutive drafts, arguably three of the top 6 players in the league right now. (The others are obviously Lebron, Curry and AD.) Too bad OKC traded Harden.”

    Might I humbly submit the San Antonio Spurs from 1997-2001. Yes it covers five drafts versus the three in a row, but to counter, it yielded one of the 5-10 best players of all time, plus two Hall of Famers who at their peaks were 90-95% of what Westbrook/Harden are today (both Manu and Tony Parker have been MVP candidates and top 5-6 players in the NBA at points in their career). But (and this might be valuing different things), given where they were picked (57 and 28), arguably Ginobili and Parker are more impressive. Though that’s par for the course for the Spurs. This is their draft record from 1997-2008

    1997 – Tim Duncan (1)
    1998 – N/A
    1999 – Manu Ginobili (57)
    2000 – N/A
    2001 – Tony Parker (28)
    2002 – John Salmons (26), Luis Scola (56)
    2003 – Leandro Barbosa (28)
    2004 – Beno Udrih (28)
    2005 – Ian Mahinimi (28)
    2006 – N/A
    2007 – Tiago Splitter (28)
    2008 – George Hill (28), Goran Dragic (45)

    To summarize, that’s the aforementioned all-timer plus two hall of famers. And then there’s an all-star (Dragic), a borderline all star at his peak (Luis Scola), an above average all-defense caliber big man (Tiago Splitter), a quality starting point guard (George Hill), a sixth man of the year candidate (Leandro Barbosa), and three quality reserves (Mahinimi, Udrih, Salmons). Even if many of these players succeeded away from the Spurs (as Harden has from the Thunder), that’s still an incredible run.

  7. Gravatar of dlr dlr
    25. June 2015 at 09:34

    Dude. Anthony Bennett is not a “Center or very Big PF.” If anything that year will be another contra-example because Noel will be more valuable than Oladipo. Paul Romer should whine all over this post for mathiness. I think the apparent inefficiency here is probably just an artifact of the small thimble you squeezed your ample into (only the first few picks). Your method excludes guys who were in the conversation for top 5 picks (like Andre Drummond or Brook Lopez) and ended up even more undervalued — pretty much the opposite of what it wants to do. Most of the work that has been done using draft position and imperfect but objective estimates of value like Win Shares shows that, if anything, “bigs” as you’ve defined them have been slightly undervalued on average.

  8. Gravatar of dlr dlr
    25. June 2015 at 09:34

    AD is Anthony Davis.

  9. Gravatar of BJ Terry BJ Terry
    25. June 2015 at 09:47

    Presumably Anthony Davis, player for New Orleans.

  10. Gravatar of Njnnja Njnnja
    25. June 2015 at 09:59

    Philadelphia is a disgrace to professional sports.

    No, the 76ers are just a bad team. The *Knicks* are a disgrace to professional sports.

  11. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    25. June 2015 at 10:43

    I fail to see why a draft is even needed. Just allow all the teams to compete for any player they want. Especially now that there’s a salary cap.

  12. Gravatar of Ryan Murphy Ryan Murphy
    25. June 2015 at 10:53

    The NBA is much more plausibly a monopsony than say, McDonald’s, even if there is the league in Europe.

  13. Gravatar of Carl Carl
    25. June 2015 at 11:15

    Great post. I didn’t know the historical bias for big men had been so strong. That said, I expect a surprise in the draft this year after the Warriors were so successful playing small ball.

    The solution to tanking is to do what they do in soccer and drop the bottom teams down to a lower league.

    With tennis, the strings and racquets did help take away the serve and volley game by making it easier to return and pass, but they also slowed the courts at the same time. If they speed the courts back up, I think you’ll start to see the rise of the most interesting style of tennis, all court tennis ala the style of tennis that Federer has been playing since he started getting coached by Edberg.

  14. Gravatar of collin collin
    25. June 2015 at 11:24

    I have always had a historical fascination of the alternative Major Leagues (USFL, ABA, AFL, Federal League, etc.) and they don’t appear to be stable. I mostly believe this is because a Major Sports League needs the worst teams to be economically viable as teams dropping out in the middle of the season is doom to a league. Is there any economic papers to support this?

    Any how do you feel about your Governor paying $250M in building a new arena? (Being from LA we know what is like not blowing money on Professional Sports Teams that we don’t see positive externalities for.)

  15. Gravatar of Zack Zack
    25. June 2015 at 11:39

    Very interesting. I completely forgot about Hasheem Thabeet. Oden over Durant looks terrible now, but I still think he could have been a very good player if he had stayed healthy. I can’t blame Portland too much for that one.

    And yes, the Sixers are a joke, but I almost have to respect them a little for not even pretending to try to put out a competitive team.

  16. Gravatar of Michael Byrnes Michael Byrnes
    25. June 2015 at 11:57

    The Portland Trailblazers have a long storied history with big man. Before Oden and Bowie, they blew a high pick on the forgettable Larue Martin. Then there was Bill Walton – right player, wrong feet. And they dumped Moses Malone. They even used a high pick on Mychal Thompson, a good player, only to have him immediately break his leg.

    Halberstam’s “The Breaks of the Game”, about those late 70s Portland teams, is hands down the best book about sports I have ever read.

    BTW, have you head of “The Wheel”, a new draft proposal by the Celtics’ assistant GM Mike Zarren?

    http://grantland.com/features/wheel-of-misfortune/

    “The wheel may not end up looking much like a wheel at all; Zarren has reorganized it so that groups of randomly selected teams might hop through buckets of six picks “” say, picks 1-6 in one season, and 25-30 the next season “” over a five-year span, instead of the original 30-year system in which teams cycle through each specific pick one by one. Within each bucket, a mini lottery would determine which team gets which pick. The goal is to give bad teams hope of snagging a higher pick more quickly.”

  17. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    25. June 2015 at 12:07

    Everyone, If anything interesting happens tonight add some comments here.

    Chacokevy, Good point.

    Thanks Jim.

    David, I thought you were an NBA fan? 🙂

    Anthony Davis.

    Student, Good observation. But I’m seeing a decline in the importance of big men, in recent years. BTW 3 months ago not many people would have ranked Mosgov above Bogut. (Now they would.)

    Vinay, Yes, given where they were picked I have to agree. BTW I forgot to mention my single best draft. In 1968 the Bucks picked up Alcindor (Kareem) and Dandridge in the same draft. Three years later that was 40% of the starting lineup on a championship team.

    dlr, Picky, picky. Didn’t I list him later, for a reason? And for a guy who is so picky about rules, you missed two huge ones:

    1. Noel was not picked in the top 3 (he was 6, so he doesn’t count) Even Zeller was picked ahead of Noel.

    2. He’s not far better than Oladipo, indeed I’m not sure he’s ahead at all. I only considered cases with a big gap.

    I’m not a big fan of Drummond or Lopez, although both may have been somewhat undervalued. My 9 items include massive drafting errors, not the borderline cases you are talking about. And if you go well down in the draft it becomes too complicated. Each year there are multiple bigs and smalls that should have gone higher. Curry went 7.

    I don’t buy the objective ratings of big men. They are overrated because of lots of reasons, such as turnovers trying to feed the post. I haven’t looked recently, but a few years back when I did look lots of bigs were absurdly overrated.

    Njnnja, Yes, well that goes without saying. 🙂

    Patrick, The draft allows both players and owners to make much more money, and the fans to enjoy more competitive games.

    Ryan, Both the players union and the owners have huge market power, and they end up splitting the pot roughly 50-50. No other outcome is clearly better.

    Carl, Interesting, I honestly don’t know much about tennis.

    Collin, Actually former Governor, I’m in Massachusetts now. I’m against state involvement but without a national agreement it’s hard to stop. Just the income tax paid by the 12 Bucks is enough to eventually cover a big chunk of the state’s bill, and there are some other indirect benefits. But I’d love all 50 states to agree on a constitutional amendment outlawing that, and also outlaw special tax breaks that encourage firms to move.

  18. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    25. June 2015 at 12:09

    I’m not qualified to comment on this post but I’ll do so anyway. The NBA probably is violating anti-trust, but like baseball, which has a congressional de jure exception, I doubt the DOJ will block the NBA, as de facto they are untouchable. The three-point shot is changing the game favorably since it takes away the gorilla dunk, which has very little talent to it. But Sumner seems to like guys palming balls like grapefruits and stuffing them down a hole. To each their own I guess. Finally, I prefer exercising myself rather than watching grown men exercise and get paid obscene amounts of money to do so. If I must watch a spectator sport, it would be the sport of chess (I also play chess competitively).

  19. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    25. June 2015 at 12:18

    Zack, Yes, and same with Bowie. But realistically in today’s NBA Durant is far more valuable than even a healthy Oden. (Even assuming Oden was as good defensively as DeAndre Jordan.)

    I also wonder if big men have more foot problems, due to the weight put on their feet.

    Michael, I feel for Portland. I recall one time they were about 15 ahead of LA near the end of the third quarter of game 7, and some Laker player banked in a 3 pointer, triggering a run that just edged them. Otherwise Portland would have won the title that year, and Pippen would have 7. Those are the breaks.

    My team (the Bucks) also had some bad breaks, and could have had several more titles with just a few tiny breaks. (1972 and 1981 especially)

  20. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    25. June 2015 at 12:20

    Ray, You said:

    “I’m not qualified to comment on this post but I’ll do so anyway.”

    Truer words were never spoken.

  21. Gravatar of Ryan Murphy Ryan Murphy
    25. June 2015 at 12:21

    The NBPA represents CURRENT players, not new players, right? If the NBPA has the interests of reforming rules to benefit new players over current ones, that is out of the goodness of their hearts, not incentives.

    The draft pushes down the value of new players relative to where it “should” be in an expected sense, with that surplus transferred to either owners or veterans, and it’s reasonable to say that breakdown is 50/50.

  22. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    25. June 2015 at 12:27

    I mostly believe this is because a Major Sports League needs the worst teams to be economically viable as teams dropping out in the middle of the season is doom to a league. Is there any economic papers to support this?

    US pro sports leagues are cartels designed to redistribute income and foster equality (“parity”) to protect the weak and the profit margins of all.

    The huge counter-example is soccer, especially European soccer, which is cut-throat free-market competitive with no mercy for the weak, bottom-finishing teams being relegated out of leagues entirely (like a MLB team being kicked out and down to AAA) or terminated entirely and being replaced with more competitive organizations on an annual basis. All very ironic in light of the supposedly reverse political cultures on the two continents, as many observers have noted.

    Also, European soccer is the #1 revenue sport in the world, and soccer is the most popular sport in the world, so the extremely competitive model works, although it produces razor thin margins for club owners, even owners of the most successful top-revenue teams. (So we see why US owners prefer cartels.)

    Of course there are reams of analysis on it all. A good intro to it for the unfamiliar is this review of a notable recent book on the subject:
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-28/book-review-money-and-soccer-by-stefan-szymanski

  23. Gravatar of Larry Larry
    25. June 2015 at 12:32

    The three point shot is precisely what made hoops interesting again. Before that it was dunk, dunk, dunk. Pops figured it out and Curry is now changing how outside shooting is done. Their innovations look to have an impact similar to Wilt’s.

    Every kid with a ball is now trying to figure out how to move, shoot and make it fun like Curry. Practice won’t let you jump higher or push centers around, but it sure can quicken your release. Lebron and Michael had talent like nobody else, but they didn’t change the game.

  24. Gravatar of Adrian Meli Adrian Meli
    25. June 2015 at 14:07

    Forgot some of those botched picks-some pretty big misses there. The 3-point line moving closer a number of years back and the increasing use of the shot do seem to be changing things. It will be interesting to see how the game evolves from here as more teams copy the Warriors approach.

  25. Gravatar of Student Student
    25. June 2015 at 14:29

    The warriors win is being highly overrated. They got entirely lucky throughout the playoffs. They played the weakest of the west or teams plagued by injuries. Lebron james nearly beat them by himself. They are ready made for one hit wonder status. Let’s not overreact people.

  26. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    25. June 2015 at 14:40

    No, the draft is not unfair.

    Well, I’m not sure, what is “fair”? I wash my hands of that matter.

    No, it doesn’t violate antitrust rules.

    This is much clearer — on its face, it does. In practice it doesn’t only because of the collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union, which trumps anti-trust law.

    And what is *really* unfair and illegal under anti-trust law, the courts have ruled, is the NBA and NFL denying eligibility for the draft to underclassmen below specified years in college — but again with the collective bargaining agreements trumping anti-trust law to make the difference.

    This was made most clear in the case of Maurice Clarett, a freshman member of an Ohio State national championship team who left college as a sophomore (the type of guy who really should never have been in college in the first place), applied for the NFL draft, was rejected by the NFL because he hadn’t finished his junior year, sued the NFL on anti-trust grounds in federal court and won. However the ruling was overturned on appeal because NFL’s contract with the NFLPA banned players like him from the NFL and collective bargaining trumps anti-trust.

    Clarrett’s argument that he wasn’t represented by the union, and that the union actually worked against his interests to harm him, was rejected thusly
    ~~

    “That’s what unions do, they protect people in the union from people not in the union” said Judge (now Supreme Court Justice) Sonia Sotomayor … That, she said, was the essence of labor law. “It might not be nice,” she said. “But it’s not illegal.”
    ~~

    The NCAA then denied Clarett’s application to go back and play college ball because he had violated its rules by getting professional representation in his attempt to go pro. He was left out in the wilderness — a visible object lesson for all the other top-talented college football players who might want to be paid for their play before the NCAA wants them to be.

    What’s certainly not fair is the NCAA earning billions of dollars of revenue from the labor of college football players like Clarrett who are paid collective wages totaling $0, as the result of a deal between the NCAA and NFL/NFLPA under which the former provides extensive player-development/evaluation services to the NFL, saving it very large player development costs that all other pro sports leagues incur, so increasing its net revenue which is then shared with the NFLPA, in return for which the NFL & NFLPA ban college age players from employment and make possible the NCAA’s zero-wage policy. Win-Win, except for all the ‘amateur student athletes’ who create all those billions of revenue. ($455 million for the Southeast Conference alone in 2015. One conference.)

    The draft/collective bargaining agreement that create it are the legal linch-pin that make that entire arrangement possible — and to that extent, I do not consider the NFL draft “fair” at all, indeed pretty unfair.

    But I digress from basketball, where the NBA draft is a much milder and less effective attempt at the same arrangement, and correspondingly a good deal less unfair, IMHO.

  27. Gravatar of anon\portly anon\portly
    25. June 2015 at 15:21

    I think the point of the point of the post is correct, but if you look more closely, maybe the trend is reversing somewhat.

    Start with the 2013 draft. As someone above already pointed out, Bennett isn’t a big. Actual big men taken: Gobert (27), a Plumlee (22), Dieng (21), Lovebane* (13), Adams (12), Noel (6), Len (5), a Zeller (4). Collectively, I’d say this group was taken too low, not too high. (The steals of the draft appear to be the Freak and the Stifle Tower).

    Then in 2012 the first three bigs taken, Davis (1), Drummond (9) and a Zeller (17) don’t seem to have been taken too high. Plus a Plumlee went 26.

    Then in 2011 the best picks in the long string of mostly busts that surround Kyrie (1), Klay (11), Kawhi (15) and Kimmy, er, Jimmy (Butler) (30) are perhaps Valunciunas (5) and Vucevic (16).

    Then in 2010 the top 5 were Wall, Turner, Favors, (W.) Johnson, Cousins. You noticed Favors but you didn’t see Cousins there?

    *not to be confused with the “Kelly O” who writes the “Drunk of the Week” for the Seattle alternatively weekly The Stranger.

  28. Gravatar of Scott Wentland Scott Wentland
    25. June 2015 at 15:33

    I’ll agree with you that “big men” are often overrated in the draft, but I’m not so sure this is a systematic bias. I think it is more related to positional scarcity. There is a large drop off in talent level after you name maybe the top 5 big men in the NBA compared to the next 5, while there isn’t the same drop off when you’re talking about back court players. You can often get good guards later in the draft or from free agency, which is more rare for big men.

    I am a little skeptical about the “trend” of the NBA “going smaller.” I think offensive strategies for the 3 point shot have improved, but we may be getting the causation wrong. It may be going that way more out of necessity and the talent scarcity of big men, not that big men are less important in some absolute sense. I am not sure that will remain true after the emergence of better talent on the front court. You have to draft for relative value and positional scarcity, even if it makes you look silly. I am reminded of this every year when fantasy football drafts role around, and the 8th best RB is drafted in most drafts before Aaron Rodgers (or whoever happens to be the highest rated QB).

  29. Gravatar of dlr dlr
    25. June 2015 at 15:45

    Kupchak endorses NGDP level targeting by taking Russell over Okafor!

  30. Gravatar of Njnnja Njnnja
    25. June 2015 at 16:03

    Knicks went big. Prof Sumner proved correct.

  31. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    25. June 2015 at 16:16

    dlr, Okafor was the expected pick until this post showed up. Just sayin . . .

    anon. Read my post again, I’m just looking at the top three picks.

  32. Gravatar of anon\portly anon\portly
    25. June 2015 at 16:19

    “No quarterback or pitcher, no matter how good, could take a bunch of misfits to the championship series the way Lebron did this year.”

    I’d argue that Peyton Manning and the 2013 Broncos might actually be a better example of a one-man show. They were beat up by injuries, at best an average team, yet the passing game was so good they made it to the Super Bowl (and then got exposed, but still).

    Meanwhile is it true that LeBron took “a bunch of misfits” to the NBA finals? After the trades for Mozgov, Smith and Shumpert, they were obviously one of the better teams in the league, finishing up 45-9 or something like that. And they still had Irving against the one halfway decent team (Chicago) they faced before the finals.

    “… I feel for Portland. I recall one time they were about 15 ahead of LA near the end of the third quarter of game 7, and some Laker player banked in a 3 pointer, triggering a run that just edged them.”

    Didn’t Dunleavy leave the starters in for the entire second half, or something like that? Then they couldn’t make a shot in quarter IV. That’s what I recall….

  33. Gravatar of anon\portly anon\portly
    25. June 2015 at 16:41

    “anon. Read my post again, I’m just looking at the top three picks.”

    I did forget that, sorry. Still you went down to (4) and (5) in some of your listed alternatives, so I think your 2010 Turner/Favors “possible error” should be a Turner/Cousins “error.”

    Anyway, I still think it’s possibly a point that they’re not reaching so much for big men these days – the only big guys taken (1) to (3) since 2009 (Thabeet) are Davis, Kanter and Embiid, and the latter two don’t have obviously better alternatives taken right behind them.

    I mean, even in sports they do learn sometimes, don’t they? Hasn’t the baseball draft pro-high school bias finally disappeared, more or less?

    (Maybe I shouldn’t be asking this question on a blog where the persistence of money policy error over decades is a main theme).

  34. Gravatar of Carl Carl
    25. June 2015 at 17:50

    It’s definitely top heavy with bigs so far. 7 of the first 12 are 6’10” and above.

  35. Gravatar of benjamin cole benjamin cole
    25. June 2015 at 17:56

    Well, I am not much of a basketball fan but I’ll talk our-of-school. I like the idea of even a four-point shot. This would keep a game wide open until nearly the end. Is there anything more boring than 110 to 68 basketball game with lots of penalties and fouls and horns?

  36. Gravatar of Student Student
    25. June 2015 at 18:51

    Good point Benjamin

  37. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    25. June 2015 at 20:22

    anon, I don’t recall exactly what happened, but that makes sense. Often coaches don’t give players enough rest. I rarely see coaches substitute at the start of an overtime, for instance.

    Ben, You favor point inflation too? 🙂

    Carl, My hunch is that Winslow (10) and Booker (13) will be the steals of the draft. I’d take either over the #6 pick.

  38. Gravatar of rtd rtd
    25. June 2015 at 20:41

    Good post. However, if you want that hotshot freshman blogger Bernanke fellow to take notice of you, you’d better start posting about baseball……. that, or dead people on currency.

  39. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    25. June 2015 at 20:52

    @Jim Glass – “Also, European soccer is the #1 revenue sport in the world” – maybe true, since so many teams and popular with the Euro masses, but in terms of market value, most NFL teams, even mediocre ones like the Detroit Lions, are far ahead of every soccer team in market value except Real Madrid, Barcelona, etc last I checked.

  40. Gravatar of Doug M Doug M
    26. June 2015 at 00:55

    You can’t teach height.

  41. Gravatar of Salem Salem
    26. June 2015 at 01:13

    Although NBA teams compete in an athetic sense, they don’t compete in an economic sense””they cooperate. The economic competitors to the Chicago Bulls are not the San Antonio Spurs, the competitors are the Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago area movie theaters and nightclubs, and Chicago area TV programming. It helps to think of the NBA as a single firm, with lots of franchises.

    Oh come on. NBA teams do compete economically – for example, for free agents, in terms of merchandising and endorsements, outside investment, and yes, even directly for fan spend. Sure the Spurs and Bulls have limited direct competition for fan spend, but similarly there is limited direct competition between a dry cleaner in San Antonio and Chicago, it doesn’t mean all dry cleaners should be seen one big firm. Take a different example – the Nets and the Knicks. Are you going to deny they’re competing with each other as well as with the Yankees and the nightclubs? So should they both be thrown out of the draft?

  42. Gravatar of dlr dlr
    26. June 2015 at 03:54

    Carl, My hunch is that Winslow (10) and Booker (13) will be the steals of the draft. I’d take either over the #6 pick.

    Agree on Winslow. I don’t agree that big men are overvalued, but I think there is an efficiency that inappropriately favors excellent single skills (shooting, athleticism, handle, length, whatever) and undervalues (1) the difference between truly elite single skills and merely excellent and (2) certain combinations of sub-excellent skills that have proven to be effective as in Winslow’s case.

  43. Gravatar of Joe b Joe b
    26. June 2015 at 05:34

    “Reminds me of the way tennis was ruined when changes in technology made it impossible to employ the wide variety of shots that McEnroe used to use.”

    The hoops potion of this post is good stuff. The tennis part, not so sure.

  44. Gravatar of Warren Warren
    26. June 2015 at 05:55

    Here’s my thought on fixing the draft:

    Keep it as it is now, but if you have the worst record you can’t pick in the top three slots. If you have the second worst record, you can’t pick in the top two, and the team with the third worst record can’t pick first. This way if you want a chance to pick first, you have to be at least the fourth worst team.

    On a related topic, I think that players should be able to go to the NBA out of high school. But, they have to sign a 5 year contract (unlike the normal 4 for a rookie deal) and have a maximal salary of say $500,000. If they go to a year of college, then it’s a four year deal with a max salary of say $1.5 million; then after your sophomore year or later a four year deal with a max salary of the current cap. This way players can choose what they want to do, but with heavy incentives to not jump straight to the NBA.

  45. Gravatar of TallDave TallDave
    26. June 2015 at 06:40

    NBA draft “misses” are hard to evaluate because you never know how a player would have responded to a different situation, and a lot of what happens is just pure luck.

    LeBron’s performance was very good, but his dominance has been exaggerated, while he filled out the stat sheet incredibly well in other ways he only shot 39% in the Finals which is way below his standard (this is after all a guy who went 19 of 26 in the ECF a few years ago), and as they say, it’s a make or miss league — had he made his shots down the stretch the Cavs could have won the series. The other Cavs played good team defense and they had Kyrie and Love for much of the playoffs, and e.g. Tristan Thompson is hardly a “misfit” as he’s in line for a max deal.

    LBJ’s a great talent but Phil Jackson is right, he travels on every other play and the NBA lets him because they’re built too much around promoting him rather than basketball. And even with all that help, he’s in serious decline this year, shooting way below his career averages.

    Anyways, it’s Golden State’s league now, and that’s a good thing.

  46. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    26. June 2015 at 08:46

    @Jim Glass – “Also, European soccer is the #1 revenue sport in the world” – maybe true, since so many teams and popular with the Euro masses, but in terms of market value, most NFL teams, even mediocre ones like the Detroit Lions, are far ahead of every soccer team in market value except Real Madrid, Barcelona, etc last I checked.

    Note what I said about profit margins and why US team owners so prefer cartels.
    ~~

    Oh come on. NBA teams do compete economically – for example, for free agents, in terms of merchandising and endorsements…

    They would compete but for the cartel arrangements – exclusive geographic rights, salary cap, draft, revenue sharing (including that from merchandising, etc.), the commissioner vetoing trades by teams deemed against the interest of the league, certainly no open entry into the business … – which is the entire point of a cartel. The industry limits competition among its members to an optimum level and form, to protect group profits and the viability of the weakest & least competent members, and free the group to focus on competing against other industries.

    The US Supreme Court ruled on this situation explicitly, 9-0, as to the NFL in American Needle. Individual NFL teams are separate individual businesses competing against each other that are subject to anti-trust rules. Again, the key to why the NFL escapes anti-trust on the bulk of all this is the labor contract with the NFLPA, which signs off on it all and in return collects its share from total revenue, including from merchandising et al., as collective bargaining trumps anti-trust. Which is why every time there is a big fight between the union and the league the union decertifies itself as a very potent bargaining weapon. The same law-and-economics regime exists with the NBA.

    And again, there is a clear working example of the alternative of real competition among pro sports teams: European soccer.

    Its results: The fans love it, the quality of the product is very high, revenue is huge, the *best* players get far higher pay than in US sports (Lebron is grossly underpaid compared to his value), player pay inequality is far higher than in US pro sports, the highest-payroll teams fully dominate championship play year-after-year, owners do *not* make a lot of money, weak teams are constantly purged. Very different model.

    Hey, liberals offended by fat cat business owners riding profits into the top 0.1% might draw a lesson from this — promote cut-throat capitalist competition. Much better that the most productive workers exercise their skills into the top 0.1%.

  47. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    26. June 2015 at 08:54

    I think that players should be able to go to the NBA out of high school. But, they have to sign a 5 year contract (unlike the normal 4 for a rookie deal) and have a maximal salary of say $500,000. If they go to a year of college, then it’s a four year deal with a max … This way players can choose what they want to do, but with heavy incentives to not jump straight to the NBA.

    That would be a big setback for the kids as to the NBA, since they can get into it at full pay after only one year of college now.

    A more fundamental question is: in a world where only about 50% of all kids go to college (and are qualified to do so) why should *all* kids with the skill to earn money from playing a sport be *forced* to go to college at all, to develop that skill? A skill that requires *no* college education. In what other line of work would this be considered a good thing?

    Imagine a law was proposed to Congress: “All all of baseball’s professional minor leagues will abolished, and all the players in them will be required to instead attend college (and play for the college at zero pay).” Who would support that? For the good of the players?

    Yet because that same situation already exists in football and basketball, people actually *do* defend it … for the good of the players. Cultural path dependence in action.

    That said, the situation isn’t nearly as bad in basketball as football. Top-talent teenagers have many more options to play basketball for pay, which is why the NCAA has only been able to finagle one year for itself.

  48. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    26. June 2015 at 08:59

    Knicks went big. Prof Sumner proved correct.

    Not big, tall and exceptionally skinny. “A body of toothpicks”.

    Oh, the Knicks, they cruelly deceived me when I was a kid and big fan of their championship teams.

    Those were the smartest, highest IQ teams in any sport ever: Two Rhodes Scholars, one a future Senator the other a future Congressman (Bradley and McMillan), a player who had already been an NBA player coach in his 20s and was a future GM and pro league commissioner (DeBusschere), another who was a future NBA coach and GM (Reed), one finishing off his PhD (Barnett), another who entertained the press by memorizing pages out of the Manhattan phone book (Lucas). The relative dumbass was Walt Frazier. Oh, and Phil Jackson too. And that’s just how they played.

    Naive, stupid, young kid that I was, I concluded, “Basketball is the *thinking* player’s sport!” and became a basketball and Knicks fan for life. Many cruel years of torture followed, until Isiah finally killed that life dead.

    That was a heck of a team, though.

  49. Gravatar of collin collin
    26. June 2015 at 09:14

    From a historical prospective, the courts outside of the NCAA TV revenue case, have generally been kind the Cartel Sports League. Remember they even ruled in favor of MLB Reserve Clause with Curtis Flood case. And when the courts rule against the Major Leagues, such as the Federal League and USFL, the damages tend to be next to nothing. So I don’t think young players have much of a case of NFL and NBA with the college requirement. (In reality, NFL and NBA are happy not to have subsidize a minor league as only .0001% players are ready for the NBA after High School.)

    It really does seem weird for the United States, but it is only stable for a sport to single Cartel Major League.

  50. Gravatar of AlexR AlexR
    26. June 2015 at 09:26

    Is favoring size in the draft evidence for bias?

    Suppose basketball ability has two factors: (1) height and (2) other, less tangible qualities. Suppose further that height is directly observable while teams get only a noisy signal of a player’s less tangible qualities. In this setting, it seems optimal to put greater weight on height in draft decisions, and one would expect the ability revealed ex post to be higher for some lower picks than for top picks.

  51. Gravatar of ChargerCarl ChargerCarl
    26. June 2015 at 09:54

    Jim Glass, another great aspect of the European sports model is that it forces clubs to prioritize player development, which is why Klinsmann hates the MLS. A tiered system like the English FA for basketball would essentially guarantee that we never lose another Olympic match again.

  52. Gravatar of Floccina Floccina
    26. June 2015 at 12:52

    As guy who loved and played a lot of basketball I to hate the 3 point shot. I think it was brought in for the casual fan. I am impressed with how the serious fans of Soccer have kept the offside rule even though I think that causal fan would like it gone.

  53. Gravatar of Floccina Floccina
    26. June 2015 at 13:00

    BTW I say Anthony Davis is the 2 or thrid best player in the legue today. 1. LeBron 2. Kevin Durant 3. Anthony Davis or maybe 1. LeBron, 2. Anthony Davis 3.Kevin Durant.

  54. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    26. June 2015 at 13:42

    Salem, You said:

    “Sure the Spurs and Bulls have limited direct competition for fan spend, but similarly there is limited direct competition between a dry cleaner in San Antonio and Chicago, it doesn’t mean all dry cleaners should be seen one big firm.”

    I don’t think you’d find a single economist who would claim that collusion between dry cleaners in Chicago and San Antonio would raise antitrust concerns. They are in different industries.

    As far as colluding when competing for free agents, that has no bearing on my argument, as individual circuses within Cirque du Soleil can also collude on who goes where.

    dlr, And of course value is also contextual. A player than is valuable on the Spurs might be less valuable elsewhere, or perhaps more valuable.

    Joe, You are probably right.

    Warren, Not sure why everyone wants to make the draft so complicated. Just give every lottery team an equal chance, so there’s no more tanking.

    TallDave, The Cavs would have absolutely collapsed without Lebron, he completely carried them. Indeed he should have been named MVP of the finals, and it’s not even close. (Or even better, they should officially state that only players on the winning team are eligible for the award.) He does travel frequently, as do almost all NBA players, but Jackson should just retire, he’s completely lost it. His comments sounded petty.

    Jim, You said:

    “The industry limits competition”

    No, it’s not an industry. It’s more like a single firm, offering a product that competes with many other entertainment products. If it really were an industry then even having a schedule of games would be illegal, as it would involve collusion. Teams would have to just randomly show up, hoping for someone else to play.

    There is a reason that antitrust laws don’t apply to many aspects of sports, it would be completely insane. A perfectly competitive professional sports league would be so boring that no one would watch.

    Jim, I feel your pain regarding the Knicks. If you think it’s actually an industry, then why not become a Spurs fan?

    Alex, Maybe, but in equilibrium shouldn’t there be at least one small guy mistakenly taken at the top?

    Floccina, Hard to argue with those top three, although Harden and Curry are close.

  55. Gravatar of benjamin cole benjamin cole
    26. June 2015 at 23:16

    Scott, re point inflation: I think when it got to the point where the average NBA player could stuff the basketball into the hoop, the point system had already been inflated. Players were getting two points for a one-point shot.

    A four-poont shot from out a couple feet further than the three-point shot would open up the court, avoid all those logjams you see in the key.

    Might open up the game to the shooting skill-set as well.

    Plus keep each game alive deeper into Q4.

  56. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    27. June 2015 at 08:04

    1985’s draft got the first two picks more or less right; Patrick Ewing and Waymon Tisdale (later a famous jazz guitarist). But the #3 pick was Benoit Benjamin, #5 Jon Koncak, #6 Joe Kleine.

    Which left, at #13, Karl Malone to fall to Utah and, #18, Joe Dumars to Detroit.

  57. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    27. June 2015 at 08:22

    Ben, I don’t agree that dunks are easier shots, as the difficulty is in getting in position for a dunk.

    Patrick, Yes, there are lots more examples. I recall one draft where the #1 pick was Bargnani, I didn’t mention it because the next couple picks were also not that great.

  58. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    27. June 2015 at 13:28

    Jim … It’s more like a single firm, offering a product that competes with many other entertainment products.

    Well, sure, to the extent that cartels act like single firms, but no further. The teams in the big three US pro sports leagues in historical reality started as separate competing businesses that adopted their cartel arrangements to outcompete others in the same business. They continue as *separately* owned business with many conflicting interests and often contest and sue each other and test the cartel limits (see: “Al Davis”) just like OPEC members. “Separate economic actors pursuing separate economic interests,” American Needle Inc. v NFL

    OTOH, Major League Soccer is a single-owner firm, organized as such in good part to avoid anti-trust issues with teams coordinating their actions. The courts have upheld that. And it doesn’t have any “Al Davis” inter-team cartel-rule-testing conflicts either. One ownership, no separate interests. Big real-world differences matter.

    If it really were an industry then even having a schedule of games would be illegal, as it would involve collusion. Teams would have to just randomly show up, hoping for someone else to play.

    Not at all. “Contract” is not “collusion”. If independent businesses couldn’t coordinate their activities for mutual profit by contract we wouldn’t have an economy. No anti-trust problem there.

    When Mayweather and Pacquiao showed up in the ring at the same time to fight each other that was contract. If they’d rigged the fight result in advance, that would have been collusion.

    There is a reason that antitrust laws don’t apply to many aspects of sports, it would be completely insane

    Oh, now you are just being provocative. There is no “completely insane” exception to the Sherman Act. (As much as some of us might wish there were!)

    A perfectly competitive professional sports league would be so boring that no one would watch.

    The contrary is indicated by the English Premier League having TV revenue of over $4 billion per year with a home market of 64 million people, while the NFL has revenue of $3 billion with a home market of 320 million. That’s with the EPL’s teams’ cut-throat economic competition leading the same few teams to win everything year-after-year.

    OTOH, if you mean that the NFL cartel has rigged “parity” among its teams too much for its own good, you may be right.

    Jim, I feel your pain regarding the Knicks. If you think it’s actually an industry, then why not become a Spurs fan?

    Alas, as ducklings bond for life with the first thing they see after they hatch, even if it is an old boot, so I as a young kid bonded with the Mets, Jets, and Knicks that one year so long ago when they all won it all, and with great style too. Today I suffer on, there is no help. Except as to the Knicks, that part of me mercifully is dead.

    But I do certainly appreciate the Spurs, as the closest thing to that unique Knicks team of yore.

  59. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    28. June 2015 at 06:31

    Jim, We just fundamentally disagree. I think it’s nuts to assume someone sits around going “hmm, should I go a to Red Sox or While Sox game today?” They aren’t even in the same industry. One is in the Boston entertainment industry and the other is in the Chicago entertainment industry. It’s apples and oranges.

    You said:

    “Not at all. “Contract” is not “collusion”. If independent businesses couldn’t coordinate their activities for mutual profit by contract we wouldn’t have an economy. No anti-trust problem there.”

    An agreement between firms to restrict output is not collusion? That’s not what I was taught.

    The English soccer teams also collude, so that argument won’t work.

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