What if no one ever got it wrong in the NBA Draft?

Every fan of a bad NBA team has one of these scenarios.

“What if we’d just drafted Steph Curry instead of Jonny Flynn? What if we had drafted DeMarcus Cousins instead of Wesley Johnson?”

In the history of one of the most entertaining leagues in the world, one thing is nearly constant: Teams miss on prospects all the time. Whether it’s expecting Greg Oden to be transcendent and passing on Kevin Durant, or taking a solid player like Randy Foye when you could have had the more volatile (but arguably better) Rajon Rondo, it happens. And one thing’s for sure — in each case, the fortunes of the team in question could have changed dramatically.

It’s only been three years, but we can already figure out who in this photo was worth drafting, and who’s a waste of our time.

So, the question presents itself: What if no one ever got it wrong? What if, regardless of circumstances for their careers, Andrea Bargnani was picked where he deserved to be? What if Greg Oden, Draymond Green, Isaiah Thomas and the like were, too?

That’s what I’ve set out to figure out. Dating back to 1999, I’ve re-drafted every season. But since every team would be better (or worse) depending on the new results, I’ve also re-projected every year, using Basketball Reference’s Win Shares (WS) statistic as the closest approximation to how many wins a player generated each season.

OOH! And I’ve added one wrinkle for fun. The team with the first pick in the draft, should they be so inclined, also has the option of choosing one player from the defending NBA Champions’ roster. Just for fairness, that team also has the opportunity to protect one of its players, so most likely its second-best player is most at risk. 

Now, a few things are going to be immediately and indisputably wrong with this simulation. For one, there’s no accounting for intangibles. Fit matters. Coaching matters. Environment, training staff, ownership, and a million other things can determine whether a player actually works out for one team or crashes and burns for the next. It’s the reason the Spurs seem to coax amazingness out of at least one complete unknown each season.

Another thing: I have not accounted for positions. We’re playing positionless basketball here. So if a team already has Russell Westbrook on its (new) roster, and Damian Lillard is the best available player, they will draft Lillard and not look back. And I will not pretend as if the two could not play together, or would make each other worse.

And maybe the thing that’s going to bug you the most: I am treating players as numbers, nothing else. There’s no effect on player movement, trades, etc. That means that yes, the Timberwolves will still trade Kevin Garnett, even if they just won the Finals, and the return will be different. Draft picks will change hands the same. And when Dwight Howard signs in Houston, whoever was drafted in his place will sign there instead.

It’s an imperfect system, I know, but I’m doing my best here. And it got really complicated really fast.

So, before we start our simulation with the 1999 NBA Draft, let’s just talk about technique.

1. Each season “begins” with the NBA Draft. As I said, the team who picks first can pick anyone in the draft class, or could opt instead for an unprotected player from the defending champion.
2. The rest of the picks are sorted by total career Win Shares. The guy with the most Win Shares goes first, and so on. This will make for some subjectively odd choices, but we will deal with it.
3. Apply transactions to each team, including free agency and trades. For the most part, mid-season trades don’t really affect the teams until the following season. So unless a player is traded within a month of two of the season opener, his stats will apply more to the team he started the season with.
4. I then determined the new roster for each team, and the change in Win Shares. I applied that change to each team’s record, and recorded the standings.
5. The champion each year will be the team with the most regular season wins. Anything else would be too subjective.
6. We then set the new draft order, re-draft, apply free agency, offseason trades and early-season trades, and go again!

The next post will be the re-do of the 1999 NBA Draft, and will kick off what is sure to be a long series of posts. Any questions?