NBA: Gold Medal Super Star Theory

[Semtex]

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btw, let me be clear that I am not saying the article is 100% accurate. I just wanted to discuss the situation of having a few good but not great players and whats the best course of action for a team in that position. The Jazz might have been a poor example due to Boozer/Deron's ability to turn out to be top level players.

102,507 and counting

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It really depends on the state of the league. To beat a team like the Spurs you are going to need a guy like KG to shut down Duncan, but say if Phoenix was the team to beat you might need a different player/set of players. You might be able to get away with not having a superstar for the ages. The thing is even if a player is OK, they can become a superstar for the ages if they win enough. Lets say Detroit had won two or three in a row. Who's the superstar on that team? The article guy thought it was Ben Wallace which I thought was pretty laughable.

[tarheeljks]

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btw, let me be clear that I am not saying the article is 100% accurate. I just wanted to discuss the situation of having a few good but not great players and whats the best course of action for a team in that position. The Jazz might have been a poor example due to Boozer/Deron's ability to turn out to be top level players.

102,507 and counting

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It really depends on the state of the league. To beat a team like the Spurs you are going to need a guy like KG to shut down Duncan, but say if Phoenix was the team to beat you might need a different player/set of players. You might be able to get away with not having a superstar for the ages. The thing is even if a player is OK, they can become a superstar for the ages if they win enough. Lets say Detroit had won two or three in a row. Who's the superstar on that team? The article guy thought it was Ben Wallace which I thought was pretty laughable.

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the argument against this is that detroit had very little chance of winning multiple championships and was very fortunate to win the first one.

[Semtex]

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btw, let me be clear that I am not saying the article is 100% accurate. I just wanted to discuss the situation of having a few good but not great players and whats the best course of action for a team in that position. The Jazz might have been a poor example due to Boozer/Deron's ability to turn out to be top level players.

102,507 and counting

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It really depends on the state of the league. To beat a team like the Spurs you are going to need a guy like KG to shut down Duncan, but say if Phoenix was the team to beat you might need a different player/set of players. You might be able to get away with not having a superstar for the ages. The thing is even if a player is OK, they can become a superstar for the ages if they win enough. Lets say Detroit had won two or three in a row. Who's the superstar on that team? The article guy thought it was Ben Wallace which I thought was pretty laughable.

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the argument against this is that detroit had very little chance of winning multiple championships and was very fortunate to win the first one.

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But again this was due to the state of the league. What if the West was as pathetic as the East? Simmons had an article, and I don't quite remember the details, but I think the gist was Jordan got incredibly lucky in his reign that teams weren't built around a dominant big man like the Lakers of a few years back or Celtics of the 80s.

[Billy Bibbit]

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the argument against this is that detroit had very little chance of winning multiple championships and was very fortunate to win the first one.

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A team that took the Spurs to Game 7 in the Finals had "very little chance" of winning another championship? Nah. Between the time they traded for Rasheed in 2004 until Ben really started to decline in 2006, that team was incredible. They're underrated by basically everyone, for the most part because they don't fit with people's preconceived notions of what it takes to win an NBA title, so people downgrade those Pistons with revisionist history. I'm tired of the tall tales about how Kobe sabotaged the Lakers when the reality is that those Lakers were a very good team (who would've been considered an all-time great team, had they won those Finals) and the Pistons just came in there and flat-out kicked their asses.

[Fonkey123]

Here's the 2nd half of the article as well http://www.nbadraft.net/mcchesney002.asp

Semtex, I think KG is on pace to be a Gold Medal superstar; however, between the who wold you rather have KG or Duncan?

I think the article is more food for thought then an extensive analysis of the situation; however, for the most part it holds true.

That article was posted at the beginning of last year, and gasp look who won the title again.

And Billy, I don't understand why you say people on bad teams don't get MVP votes. Tracy McGrady is 43rd on the list, and he hasn't been out of the first round yet, and the magic were terrible for years.

I would also venture to guess if Boozer averages (30 and 10 lol) and the Jazz continue to have good regular seasons he'll get a lot of MVP consideration. Also he factors in first team nba votes. Even if you're on an absolutely terrible team you'll get first/2nd team all team nba votes.

Of teh current players LeBron, KG, Kobe, AI, Kidd, Nash, Nowitzki are the only ones who even have a shot at GMS with Shaq and Duncan already being GMS's. This article was posted at the beginning of last year, so not sure if any of the 04 class got serious mvp consideration or all team nba votes without looking.

With that list you then look at supporting casts. LeBron has 0 chance, kobe has 0 chance, Shaq as well because he's so old.

So there's your short list of possible NBA Championship Winners.

Mavs, Celts, Nets, Spurs, Suns, Nuggets.

[Fonkey123]

Conclusion: Case Closed

Put another way, in the past 50 years there have been 200 final four teams that have made it to the conference finals in the NBA:

-- 26 of those 200 teams -- a measly 13 percent -- have been led by a player not on the list of top 84 players, and only one of those 26 advanced, where it then lost in the finals.

-- 25 of those 200 teams --12 percent --have been led by Bronze Medal Superstars; i.e. players ranked between 53 and 83 on the best players list. They produced only two of the past 50 NBA champions: Seattle 79 and Detroit 04.

-- 41 of those 200 teams -- 20 percent -- have been led by Silver Medal Superstars; i.e. players ranked 21-52 on the best players list. They produced eight of the past 50 NBA championships.

-- 108 of those 200 final four NBA teams -- 54 -- percent have been led by one of the 20 best players in NBA history based upon regular season performance. These players led 40 of the 50 past NBA championship teams. Nine of the top 20 players were multiple champions and these 9 players accounted for 36 of the past 50 NBA titles, or nearly three-quarters of all NBA championships.

-- 44 of 50 NBA champions had at least two players from the top 84 list in their starting line-up or serious rotation.

-- 19 of 50 NBA champions had at least three players from this list in their starting line-ups or serious rotation.

-- 12 of 50 NBA champions had at least four players from this list in their starting line-ups or serious rotation.

-- 5 of 50 NBA champions had fully five players from this list in their starting line-ups or serious rotation. (Who are these dynamos? Celtics in 86, 63, 61, 60, 59.)

The evidence is now overwhelming: teams need Gold Medal Superstars to win titles, or, with a great deal of luck, two Silver Medal Superstars. If a team does not have a Gold Medal Superstar, or someone on the way to becoming a Gold Medal Superstar, and at least two top 84 caliber players, or two players en route to joining the top 84 club on its roster, it has little chance of winning an NBA title.

This radically alters the perception of who the legitimate contenders are for an NBA titles, and what a smart GM should do if he is serious about winning a title. That will be the subject of my next article, which will appear in the next two weeks.

[Fonkey123]

And, the art of building a championship team.

http://www.nbadraft.net/mcchesney003.asp

http://www.nbadraft.net/mcchesney004.asp

I haven't read these articles yet but I will do after exam.

This pretty much addresses Asani's question.

[Fonkey123]

Actually, I couldn't wait and read the second article in my last post. Just read that one Assani [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Okay, my last post. Seriously this guy is like [censored] nostradamus. I can count the number of predictions he's missed on one hand. Keep in mind this was written at the beginning of LAST year.

Ainge accumulated talent, realized he wouldn't win a championship with Pierce in his prime NOW, and pulled the trigger on silver medal superstar KG (who can become GMS) by trading away the pieces he accumulated.

Few teams think like this, as far as I can tell. Or at least few fans and fewer pundits. Consider the Boston Celtics, the team I follow. The fans there are desperate, as is star player Paul Pierce, to have a winner, to see basketball in May, not to mention June. Danny Ainge has done a nice job of assembling many talented young players, though it is unlikely there are any Gold Medal Superstars in the mix. By all rights the team needs at least two seasons before it can be a 50 win team, and even that would be soon in view of the team’s youth. Pundits and Boston sportswriters almost universally implore Danny Ainge to trade away talented young players and draft choices so the team can fill needs with reliable veterans and win more in the near term. (See, for example: http://www.milforddailynews.com/spor...p;format=text) “You have to get good before you can get great, so the sooner you get good, the sooner you can get great,” the logic goes.

Danny’s dilemma is similar to that of many teams. He has drafted brilliantly and has a nice core, and if he trades one or two kids and no. 1 picks for vets and signs MLE free agents every year for 5 year $30 million deals, he can probably get a 50 win team. He’ll have the Boston sportswriters like Peter May hooting and hollering in excitement like a 12 year old boy watching his first porno film. But unless Al Jefferson or Gerald Green or Sebastian Telfair becomes a Gold Medal Superstar – highly unlikely, in my view – there is no chance of racking up a title in that approach.

Fortunately Danny has ignored them so far, because this approach would simply give short term improvement at the expense of stripping the team of valuable long-term assets and adding more salary to the payroll. This is what the pre-Ainge Celtics did when they traded, in effect, rookie Chauncey Billups, soon-to-be no. 1 pick Shawn Marion and rookie Joe Johnson in three idiotic trades for grizzled and mediocre veterans Kenny Anderson, Vitaly Potapenko and Rodney Rogers. The deals filled needs in the near term, made the team slightly better, and left the franchise a mess for years.

I believe Ainge actually gets it – he has accumulated draft choices, he has stockpiled talented young players with real market value for trades, and he looks to be clearing cap space for two of three years down the road if need be -- but he is under considerable pressure to produce right now. The truly gutsy thing for Ainge to do goes entirely against the grain of the conventional wisdom: it would be to trade away one or two of his more marketable young players, those he thinks have inflated value, for future no. 1 picks. The idea is not to tank, but to try to win with Pierce and the remaining kids and hope to use someone else’s lottery picks to locate a superstar. (As General Patton told the troops just before D-Day: You don’t become a hero by dying for your country. You become a hero by making the enemy die for his country.) And if it takes another year for the Celtics to escape the lottery, that is not the worst thing on earth if the young players are playing and developing. Especially in 2007.

To do this would take guts. It would require smart and brave owners. It would involve tremendous risk and possibly leave the team weaker in the near term and even in the long term. Peter May would go on a hunger strike until Ainge was fired. But is would also open the possibility for the Celtics to get the sort of player who can lead this team to the finals, and to victory. Unless Ainge is willing to take risks like these, I don’t see how the fine young team he is assembling plays basketball in June. Not with Mr. James and Mr. Wade and Mr. Howard and the Bulls holding forth in the eastern conference for the next decade.

[ClarkNasty]

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we spoke about this a little bit, and the primary criticism (on my end) was that it is very matter of fact AFTER the fact. Ie, people become gold after they win, they dont become gold and THEN win. so it just so happens great players win championships-no kiddin

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Yes. It's like dosage in horseracing. People apply a number which relates to chances of winning the Kentucky Derby. It's based on your blood lines. But, if you win the Derby, they retroactively change the numbers for your parents/grandparents in light of this "new informatin", so it ends up being self-fulfilling.

KG isn't gold medal, but will be if he wins. Then the next article will be like "duh, he was a GMSS, of course they could win".

I mean, great players win championships in a sport with only 5 players on the floor at once and they all play both offense and defense. Duh. Nothing to see here.

[Pudge714]

Since the basketball playoffs are so low variance there are very few teams who can contend for the title. This will create a lot of good teams, like Utah who have no real shot of winning a championship without a large improvement. It's not an issue of GMSS it's that in most given years there are like 3-5 teams that combined have like a 90% chance of winning the title.