KP vs. Whitsitt ... attitude matters

by jamon51 on Jun 28, 2008 8:49 PM PDT Comment 9 comments

This is interesting. I ran across a quote by Trader Bob today. I was browsing through The Sports Bigamist's excellent Blazers-themed SI vault stories and read an article about Sabonis. In it was this quote:

"We didn't want to wind up in the draft lottery," says Portland president and general manager Bob Whitsitt. "That's like the Bermuda Triangle. Teams get in it and never get out."

What struck me about this is the thought...would you ever hear Kevin Pritchard make that statement? It seems to me that Kevin Pritchard looks at the draft as an opportunity, not as a roadblock.

It really explains a lot. Whitsitt always traded for help now, not with the future in mind. He was of the opinion that it was the only thing that kept Portland in the playoffs. True, to an extent, but anyone want to talk about the Burmuda triangle of early playoff series exits?

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Short Term Decisions

I don’t believe that most coaches and GM’s in the NBA have or feel like they have the ability to make long range decisions. They would like to go deep into the playoffs and win championships but many times that means drafting or trading for the future.

In the short term that can mean more losses and more pressure from fans and ownership to right the ship. I think they probably feel like they will be out of a job before the plans come to fruition.

KP definitely has the support of fans and ownership to make long range decisions and that makes a big difference. Combine that with his talent and drive and you have a very good mix.

by FeelTheLove on Jun 28, 2008 9:18 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I think it was more of a comment on competitive balance

That being competitive and in the playoffs was a better way to “get better” than to get good players through the draft lottery. Look at teams like Memphis, the Clippers, and Charlotte, who have been in the lottery a lot lately. They are staying there and not coming out, despite getting the top draft talent.

Teams like Detroit, San Antonio, etc. stay out of the draft lottery, just like Whitsit was saying. Yes, it’s a question of attitude, but you could reword the same statement to say “I want to make the playoffs every year”, which shows a different attitude with the same meaning.

Kevin Pritchard is a 4.0 Draft Day Student

by rmcdougall on Jun 28, 2008 10:00 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

One could argue

Getting into the lottery made these teams championship competitors:

Spurs of the 90s
Blazers of the 70s
Bulls of the 80s
Celtics of the 70s
Rockets of the 80s
Knicks of the 80s

The Celtics won only 29 games in 1979. Guess which player they selected in the lottery that propelled them to greatness?

The draft matters. Of course, a team never wants to be in the lottery, but to foolishly trade away your picks for short-term goals because you don’t feel secure in drafting a player that you have to wait on a couple of years to propel you forward is short-sighted in the truest sense.

Constantly being in the lottery is a bad thing. Lucking out every once in a while is not that bad. Players get old, players get injured, team’s don’t work out.

ROTUNDITYDOTNET

by damir on Jun 28, 2008 10:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

it can go either way

sometimes you go into the lottery and come out a big winner like the teams mentioned above. Other times you make the wrong choice. The lottery is a 2 step lottery. The first part is getting your pick, the second is taking the chance on that player. Number 2 is more important. What makes KP so great is that he looks at the players, not what the mock drafts and analysts have them going at. To him it doesn’t matter if its pick 1 or 59, if he feels the player he wants can be had at a certain pick he goes for it.

Anyways before I start rambling on about how great KP is…sometimes you need to fall to rise again. There are so many teams that always make it to the playoffs, but no further. They don’t get better the next year, they just sort of stay the same while the teams around them do get better or worse.

I see the lottery like this. It’s a trampoline. Sometimes that bounce will send you to the top of the tree. Sometimes you’ll fall to the trampoline and have it break, leaving you at the bottom. And sometimes your underwear gets hooked halfway up on a branch and you becomed wedgie’d somewhere in the middle. Once in the middle you either reach up to the next branch and pull yourself up, or it eventually snaps and you fall back down to the tramopline for another chance. Trader Bob seemed to keep us hanging by our undies for the most part despite some good chances to get to the top.

by Bskey on Jun 29, 2008 12:31 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

There are 14 teams in the lottery

The #1 and #2 overall picks probably make significant upgrades to propel them towards the playoffs. 2 of the next 12 picks probably have the same impact. That leaves a lot of teams who will be back in the lottery next year.

The problem with being bad, but not the worse, is that if you don’t win the lottery, and say get the #4 pick, you’ll probably be back again next year.

Kevin Pritchard is a 4.0 Draft Day Student

by rmcdougall on Jun 29, 2008 9:07 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Just a history point

The first draft lottery was held in 1985 with the Knicks taking Pat Ewing. Prior to that (‘66 to ‘84) draft picks were based on the worst record first and a coin flip on ties . NBA.com

by fat27 on Jun 29, 2008 3:33 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's a great point

I’ve always felt that being a constant 1st round exit type team is so much worse than a lottery team with a CHANCE at greatly improving their future fortunes… the Dominique Wilkins’ Hawks teams made me realize this as a lil’ boy, because they were never gonna get far in the playoffs but weren’t bad enough to be in a reliable position to draft someone who could really help them.

THAT is the Bermuda Triangle that is hard to get out of. If you got good scouts and management, the lottery is the quickest and bestest way to make your team good again—and it’s the kind of improvement that lasts for 5 to 10 years, not only 1 or 2.

These East coast teams that make the playoffs in the East with a worse record than us: couldn’t they have used Bayless more than we do? We already have a better team than them, and we get to be in the lottery instead of being swept in the playoffs by the Pistons. That is AWESOME, to me—those marginal .500 or under “playoff” teams in the East are the ones stuck in arrested development, not the lottery teams.

So, I think this is a great insight into Trader Bob’s mentality, and it showed in the way he ran the team. KP seemed to have saw that a team without great assets to trade and not much hope for the future, the draft is the ONLY way to improve in leaps and bounds. We probably didn’t have much of a choice anyways, but does anyone here think we’ve suffered from being in the lottery?

Bad teams with bad management get stuck in the lottery through bad drafting and bad decisions. They’ll make bad choices whether they’re in the playoffs or not, so I don’t see the lottery as trapping them in, just them trapping themselves. To a decent to good team with good scouts, the draft and lottery is mana from heaven.

Mortimer

by Mortimer on Jun 29, 2008 7:28 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

It depends on who's doing the drafting

In football, teams like Cincinnati and Arizona always seem to be drafting at the top. If you look at Nash’s drafts, I can’t see how the Blazers would have ever emerged from the Triangle. But in three years (with a little luck), KP has amassed as much talent as about any team in the league. Now it’s just a matter of maturing. However, I don’t see that this team stays clear of the lottery because, with KP’s ability to maneuver, he seems he can always find ways to draft higher than we should.

by Spencer on Jun 29, 2008 7:40 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs