by Dan Salem and Todd Salem (6-24-13)
TODD:
Everyone loves the NFL draft; it is an EVENT. The same cannot be said for its professional basketball counterpart. The NBA draft has no zeal, no luster, no...excitement. This happens for many different reasons. Mainly, people don't care as much about the NBA as they do professional football. More fans equals more eyes. But there are other reasons the two drafts are not peers. And the whole thing is counter intuitive; the NBA draft should really be the bigger deal.
There are exponentially fewer players on a basketball roster; thus, one highly drafted player will/should have much more impact on his new team than one, lone footballer. This is simple math, as well as how the sports operate. Unless you're drafting a top flight quarterback, one football pick won't reap huge dividends. It is about roster building, team dynamics, coaching philosophy, etc, etc. However, one basketball player can make all the difference. In this year's NBA Finals, each team was led by a studly, number one overall draft pick: the Spurs in Tim Duncan and the Heat in LeBron James. A single pick can literally turn a franchise around! So then why, if a single player can turn around the hopes and future of an entire franchise, is the NBA draft such a bummer?
The answer lies in who gets drafted. NFL drafts feature seasoned, famous amateurs getting taken through round two and often later. Big name quarterbacks and skill position players still generate interest in the middle and later rounds. These are guys we've seen mature and develop on and off the field for at least three years in college. Compare that to basketball prospects. The top guys are, more often than not, freshmen one-and-dones. They are certainly the most talented players, but we don't know them; their games are raw and under-developed; we watched them for one semester essentially. If they played for a certain university, we might hate them (cough cough Duke). Otherwise, they mean nothing to us; a hired gun set to play a season and bail for greener pastures. These are the men (boys?) that make up the NBA draft. So why should we pay attention?
There is another reason the draft stinks, along those same lines. These guys are not ready. They've only played one season above high school competition. And even the sophomores and juniors that come out are usually not ready to compete at the NBA level. The NBDL is not a minor leagues for the NBA. It might be awesome if it were, but the league is not setup to support such a proposition. So instead of a 19 year old starting off in the d-league, they are thrown into the big time and do not have the bodies nor the experience to play up to their potential. Thus, those top talents put up middling statistics or, even worse, barely get to play. So why watch them get drafted?
With the NBA draft this week, on Thursday, who will go number one? But, more importantly, why should we care?
DAN:
The NBA draft should be the bigger deal, logically, as compared to its NFL counterpart, except it 100% isn't! And you missed the biggest reason entirely. I'm stunned really. First off, the NBA draft was once cooler and more fun than any other draft around. The top two guys were almost guaranteed to be stars in the NBA the following season, but as you noted, with the best players leaving college after one year, fewer and fewer are ready for the NBA on day one.
The SINGLE biggest reason the NBA draft stinks like dirty socks is the draft lottery. I understand the logic behind holding the lottery for the top three picks, it helps curb tanking down the stretch of the regular season. But it hasn't prevented tanking. It just smoothed it out over a larger swath of crappy teams. The NFL is amazing and sells hope for its crappy franchises because every single fan knows that if your team has an awful season, then you are getting a top ten pick. A top ten pick in the NFL is equivalent to a top three pick in the NBA, since rosters are smaller and depth is much less. But in the NBA, if you are the worst team in the league you might get the fourth pick or you might get the first pick. That could be the difference between LeBron James (1st pick in 2003) or a solid role player like Lamar Odom (4th pick in 1999). One is franchise altering, the other is a just a nice pick up. You are not guaranteed the top pick, and as a fan this sucks the life out of you. Hope is not nearly as strong and what has ultimately happened is that the NBA Draft Lottery is actually a bigger deal than the NBA Draft itself!
The other reason the draft stinks is because no one stays in college any more. You mentioned this, but weren't nearly angry enough. The NBA fan who is only a casual college fan, like myself, doesn't know anyone outside the top five of the NBA draft. In the NFL, where players are in college for two or three seasons at least, even casual fans get to know the top guys. Players can transcend this issue, but overall they haven't. They've actually perpetuated it and in recent years have completely killed the buzz surrounding the NBA draft! Super star college players like Adam Morrison from Gonzaga have stunk it up in the NBA. He was a rarity and played a few years in college, we all got to know him and his success, and then bam, he stinks. And the top players who are 'great' enough to leave after one year; they haven't been physically ready and got hurt, a la Greg Oden. Who can we trust to succeed?
A star will be a star. Kevin Durant was a star from day one in the NBA. But the majority of players are not Kevin Durant and need more time in college to mature their game and grow a national audience for themselves as a product. When nearly every superstar in the NBA was drafted in the top three to five, you'd think at least the first half hour of the draft would be fun to watch. You would be wrong.
TODD:
Yeah, I agree the lottery is hogwash. It does not prevent tanking in the least. We only escaped that fate this season because there was no college player worth tanking for. Watch out next year though. If Andrew Wiggins has himself the freshman season everyone is expecting, there will be tanking galore! He's the best high school player since LeBron and it's not even close. The race for last might be more exciting next May then the race for the final playoff spots.
Is the NBA draft fixable for its audience though?
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