One of the
most widely-held views on the NBA is that you have to bottom out to win. This view
holds that teams in the bottom of the playoffs and upper reaches of the lottery
are just wasting their time and that they won’t be able to compete without
ditching expensive veterans and loading up on top draft picks. I decided to
take a look at this view.
Losers and Winners
Before I
get to the actual analysis (what a tease!) let’s a take a post to look at
recent winners and losers in the lottery era (1984-85 to present) just to get a
feel for the stories of those teams.
Winners
are relatively easy for this period. You have the Mavericks, Lakers, Celtics,
Spurs, Heat, Pistons, Bulls, Rockets and that is it. Every NBA championship in
the draft lottery era, 28 years, has gone to one of these eight teams.
The losers
are bit harder to define. On one level they are all of the other teams, but
that’s a little hard to distill for analysis. On a more manageable level we
will take a look at the teams that made the playoffs less than 40% of the time
(16 teams out of the current 30 make the playoffs every year, but in 1985 16
out of the then-current 23 teams made the playoffs). These hapless franchises
include 4 expansion teams (Bobcats, Grizzlies, Raptors and Timberwolves) as
well as the Clippers, Kings, Warriors and Wizards. The Heat, Magic and Hornets
were the expansion franchises within the period to avoid this distinction with
the Heat winning two NBA titles and the Magic winning an Eastern Conference
title.
