High Stakes: The Case for Skipping the Tanking Strategy

The NBA Draft is a high-stakes endeavor with millions riding on it. Teams have been purposely tanking for decades to get into the top 5 for a chance at acquiring “elite” talent. My question is: unless there is an obvious once-in-a-generation can’t-miss prospect like Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, or LeBron James with all the hype surrounding their draft years, should they really?

The Value of Top Picks

Roughly 50% of the top 100 players this year came from picks outside of the top 10. The last four league MVPs were awarded to two players drafted 15th and 41st. Eight of the last ten Defensive Player of the Year awards have gone to players drafted 15th or later, with Rudy Gobert accounting for only three of those. Let’s take a look back at some of the top 5 picks in the NBA draft from the 15 years between 2006 and 2020.

The story is not complete for a couple of recent draft classes, but I think we already have a pretty good idea of what the likely outcome is. It’s reasonable to say that many of these players have been underwhelming, if not complete busts.

This assessment doesn’t even include players like Andrew Wiggins or D’Angelo Russell, who have weakly made All-Star games and are solid enough starters to avoid this list. However, knowing their career trajectory, I doubt anyone would draft them in the top 2 again or be excited to overpay them as their draft pedigree has ultimately demanded.

The Risk of High Draft Picks

At least 50% of the top 6 draft picks are essentially misses. To spend an entire year losing just to have a 50% chance of picking a player that doesn’t underperform seems like pretty poor odds to me. Trusting that process requires years of effort to potentially come up with one meaningful player, if ever. Luck still plays a significant role even at that level especially with the new draft odds. Contrast this with some of the top players in the NBA this year and certainly the last five years, many of whom were drafted outside of the top 10.

The Sweet Spot in the Draft

A picture starts to emerge that the sweet spot is in the late lottery, starting around the 12th pick. You can actually try to win, and the stakes aren’t nearly as all-or-nothing as they are in the top 5 of the lottery, where you purposely have to try to lose to get there. If you miss at 11th or later, it’s not the end of the world like it is for the tankers who miss about 50% of the time and waste the entire year. Even at the 11th to 14th picks, you still have a chance to move up in the lottery. It’s the lottery for a reason.

Conclusion

For all the criticism teams chasing the 8th seed get, I see value in trying to win and then letting your draft scouting do the rest of the work. There are clearly players to be had after the lottery. As a fan, you don’t have to endure years of a full tank chasing players either. Teams like Milwaukee, Miami, San Antonio, and Indiana provide plenty of examples of teams that built top 4 teams without ever bottoming out, largely through good drafting with mostly non-lottery picks.