Revisiting The (Kinda Rubbish) 2013 NBA Draft And Learning A Few Lessons In The Process
In the pantheon of great NBA Draft classes... nobody is ever going to talk about 2013. More likely they’ll be waxing lyrical about the jewels of 2003. They’ll be singing the praises of what 1984 had to offer. They’ll be glowing with love for 1996 crew. But 2013 is probably way down at the other end of the spectrum, one of the weakest hauls of talent in recent memory. And that’s a weird one to think about down this end of the world because it’s the draft that launched Steven Adams into the National Basketball Association.
At the time there was definitely a feeling that he was leaving college a year too early and that he’d benefit from another twelve months of tutelage at Pittsburgh State to refine his game before tackling the big time. Knowing what we now know about his miserable time at Pitt he clearly made the right decision to get out and find a home where he’s more valued... and what he’s achieved since from the rate at which he’s grown and developed his game and the lucidity with which he speaks about the technical aspects of basketball to his growth as a person as well, that all pretty much validates the decision too. But at the time there were some question marks for sure. Who’s to say he couldn’t have nudged his way into the top ten in 2014? Maybe he would have – 2014 was arguably even worse than 2013. As it was we all got a pleasant shock when his name was read out twelfth overall by virtue of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
That 2013 NBA Draft was the final one handled by the late David Stern before he handed the commissioner reins over to Adam Silver. Stern’s final pick announcement saw some lovely symmetry as Hakeem Olajuwon come out to surprise him – the first player he ever announced helping out with the last player he’d ever announce (back in the 1984 draft, Hakeem went first overall in a draft that saw Michael Jordan go third... all goods in hindsight for Houston to take Hakeem, he was still a Hall of Famer, but poor old Sam Bowie, at two to the Blazers, is forever known as the dude who got picked before Jordan).
And old mate Stern sure served up a memorable one earlier on as he stumbled over the pronunciation of ‘Rotorua’ as Steven Adams got the call. Twelfth overall, mate. Prior to Stevie only Sean Marks (44th overall, second round) had ever been drafted out of Aotearoa. Twelve seemed crazy at the time, even though it’s since been reported that if he didn’t go at 12 to the Thunder then the Boston Celtics were lurking at 13 with his name in mind... they ended up with Kelly Olynyk instead (a pick by the Mavericks but they’d already agreed to trade it to Boston).
Nowadays 12 seems like a steal for OKC. There’s absolutely no doubt whatsoever if they redrafted the 2013 class then Steve-o would be at least in the top ten. That 2013 group really hasn’t blossomed into much at all apart from a handful of exemptions and those lads mostly have a very particular thing in common, Steven Adams included. But before digging into that, I figured I’d have a peek in Adams’ 2018 autobiography for some draft recollections and wouldn’t ya know it he basically summed up the entire idea of this article...
“The draft of 2013 has been ranked as one of the weakest in NBA history, or at least in recent history. The 2012 draft had Anthony Davis, Bradley Beal, Damian Lillard, Andre Drummond and Draymond Green, who have all played in at least one NBA All-Star game. The 2011 draft had Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler and Isaiah Thomas. The only All-Stars from the 2013 draft so far are Victor Oladipo and Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was drafted at 15 by the Milwaukee Bucks. It’s funny to think of that guy being drafted at 15 because he’s an absolute beast now and I’m sure he will be an MVP at some point.”
Yeah, just a reinforcer that he said all that in a book published in 2018. There’s been another All Star added to the crew since which we’ll get to in a second but how about that MVP shout? This was before the 2018-19 season and for sure the writing was already on the wall for Giannis as a superstar at that point but that still doesn’t mean every athlete was out there putting it down in permanent ink that he was a future Most Valuable Player... although Adams would know a thing or two about that, he’s played with two MVP winners in his seven seasons in the league and Giannis literally won the next available MVP trophy. So... good shout, bro. As was this from the following paragraph in that book...
“You can never tell with something as subjective as a draft, but Kenny [McFadden] had done his research and studied the classes for each year and he had determined that my best shot at being drafted was in 2013.”
Fair call from King Kenny there too. Analysing an entire draft class is an odd endeavour coz you never know at the time who’ll boom and who’ll bust and once they’re picked they’re all off to different teams which affects each player’s development in different ways. All they have in common is the year they were drafted in, which is a tenuous link. As Stevie says it’s subjective, but even accounting for that you still can’t predict things like injuries and off-court issues. But it’s fun to look for patterns so let’s do it anyway.
The top overall pick in 2013 was Anthony Bennett. A sad story if every there was one, the Cleveland Cavaliers took him in a shock selection that very quickly looked stupid. The first ever Canadian to be picked number one, he just clearly wasn’t up to it and the expectations that came with that gamble by the Cavaliers, way out of his control, weighed heavy on him. It took Bennett 33 games to finally score in double figures by which point the jury was already out on him as one of the all time biggest draft busts... and once you’ve got that tag on you it’s hard to lose. Bennett was moved to the Timberwolves as part of the Kevin Love/Andrew Wiggins trade and was waived a year later.
Since then he’s had attempts to get back in the league with the Raptors, his hometown team, and the Brooklyn Nets... but Bennett had understandably lost his love for the game by then and has spent the last couple years bouncing around the G-League with a stint in Turkey at one point. It’s pretty tragic, really. He shouldn’t have been picked that high. He could have been a steady role player coming in mid first round or something and he might have been able to make that stick. But instead he was thrust into a spotlight that he couldn’t live up to and it’s ruined his career.
That was a massive overreach of a pick from the Cavs but looking around the rest of the lottery picks there wasn’t much else to choose from, which does add a little context to their decision to swing for the fences with a crazy choice. Second overall pick Victor Oladipo has emerged as one of the brightest lights of this group but remember that only really happened once he got to Indiana. Prior to that he was a solid but unspectacular starter at the Orlando Magic and Oklahoma City Thunder, with all star potential perhaps but it wasn’t until he landed on his third team that he launched himself into the company of some of the best shooting guards in the current NBA. Yeah, he’s living up to the pre-Draft hype now, no doubt about it, but it ain’t the Orlando Magic that are getting those benefits from him.
Apart from Victor Oladipo, the best player taken in the top ten was, without a doubt, CJ McCollum at 10 for the Portland Trail Blazers. But remember that he took a couple of seasons to find his feet in the league too – he was in his third season when he was thrust into a starter’s role and that was when his scoring average went from 6.8 ppg in 2014-15 to 20.8 ppg in 2015-16. He’s been a 20+ scorer ever since. A serious talent but the teams at the top of the draft are looking for immediate help, not project players (granted CJM mighta been that anyway, his breakout happened because Wes Matthews and LaMarcus Aldridge both left in the offseason between... which is the major issue with the Most Improved Player award that CJM won that season – was he really most improved or did he just get more opportunity? We’ll never truly know).
Other than that you’ve got the scintillating abilities of Otto Porter (Washington), Cody Zeller (Charlotte), Alex Len (Phoenix), Nerlens Noel (Philadelphia), Ben McLemore (Sacramento), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Detroit), and Trey Burke (Minnesota). Every one of them has played at least 350 NBA games, so nothing to scoff at there as we lie in bed scrolling down our phones or whatever, but Cody Zeller and CJ McCollum are the only top ten picks in this crew still employed by the team that drafted them. Porter and KCP are onto their second teams. Oladipo, Noel, McLemore, and Len have each suited up for three different teams. And poor old Trey Burke is onto his fifth team already.
And none of those dudes were Rookie Of The Year either. The Rookie Of The Year from the 2013 crew was Michael Carter-Williams, the 11th overall selection to the Philadelphia 76ers who immediately started putting up huge numbers in the box scores for the mid-Process Sixers. In a game in early December 2013 he and Victor Oladipo both got triple-doubles, the first occurrence in NBA history of rookies on opposing teams both TD’ing. MCW would average 16.7 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 6.3 assists per game. The only other rookies to average 16/6/6 to this very day are Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson.
Carter-Williams was actually the first ROY from outside the top ten picks since Mark Jackson more than a quarter of a century earlier... but even at the time there were whispers of discontent. He was playing for a 76ers team that won just 19 games, padding stats for a terrible squad. Midway through his second year he’d be traded to Milwaukee and is currently with the Orlando Magic having played for six teams in his seven seasons in the league. His minutes, points, and rebounds from that rookie season are all still career bests.
Then completing the lottery picks were Steven Adams, obviously, at 12 followed by Kelly Olynyk (Boston) and Shabazz Muhammad (Minnesota). Outside the lottery picks you don’t necessarily expect too much. But here the rest of the first round was actually where the salvation of the 2013 class emerges. The NBA has always had a bit of a blind spot towards talent from overseas - how else can you explain Luka Doncic slipping to third? - as all those hours of scouting fall back upon cliches of risk versus reward. Teams have invested too much responsibility in these high draft picks to gamble on dudes who may or may not settle into their best selves. The more variables to their development, the more red flags. It’s lower down in the selections where teams outside the lottery who have just made the playoffs feel more comfortable in taking a big old swing at the best case scenario.
So shout out to the Milwaukee Bucks for doing exactly that in 2013. We’ve just been through the dourness of the lottery and who should they stumble upon with the pick #15? Some Greek bloke called Giannis Antetokounmpo. You know, the guy who was last season’s MVP? Yeah, that guy. Just as Steven Adams predicted. Fourteen teams had already passed on him by that stage, granted he was a raw talent but you only have to look at what he’s become compared to what the players picked ahead of him have become to realise how all the draft science that teams spend so much resource on is bunk. Teams are willing to tank entire seasons to prioritise the draft yet Giannis Antetokounmpo fell all the way to 15th. Either the science is wrong or the science is, ultimately, little more than pointless.
I’m tempted to say that it’s wrong rather than pointless because the Utah Jazz had a similar experience with a tall French fella picked at 27 overall named Rudy Gobert. Legend has it that The French Rejection can recall each and every team that passed on him and every player that was picked ahead of him... which is rather intense of the fella. But he’s also a Defensive Player of the Year and as of this current/interrupted season an NBA All Star too so the joke’s on all those other teams after all. The best defensive player in the sport and he went late first round? It’s pretty clear to see what Antetokounmpo and Gobert have in common and it’s something that they share with Steven Adams too: they’re all foreign players. Hmmm.
There were some other interesting dudes picked up outside the lottery that year. Dennis Schröder (from Germany) is one, going at 17 to the Atlanta Hawks and these days playing probably his best ever ball at the OKC Thunder alongside Steven Adams. It’s a funny twist in this tale is that Steven Adams has gotten to play with a disproportionately large number of 2013 draftees. OKC had three picks in this draft, also taking Andre Roberson at 26 and Alex Abrines at 32. Well, sort of, there were trades involved but those are the three players they walked away with that day. They also traded for Victor Oladipo three years later when they flipped Serge Ibaka. Nerlens Noel has spent the last few years with the Thunder too while second round picks Mike Muscala and Joffrey Lauvergne have spent time in Oklahoma City too - Muscala’s a current backup big for OKC. That’s eight fellas from that class that have all featured for this team, mostly in the last couple seasons (after they’ve worn out their rookie deals and been cast into the ether). Four of them picked in the top seventeen.
By the way, Victor Oladipo came with a rookie Domantas Sabonis and a year later Oladipo and Sabonis were traded from OKC to Indiana for Paul George. Both Dipo and Sabonia have gone on to become all stars with the Pacers while PG13 had a couple good years in OKC before being sent to the Clippers for an almighty stash of future draft picks and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Meanwhile Serge Ibaka went on to win a championship with the Toronto Raptors... a rare trade sequence where everybody benefited... except for the Orlando Magic, those poor bastards.
Anyway, back to the 2013 Draft, Mason Plumlee’s a half decent player, he went at 22. Tim Hardaway Jr was having his best year yet with the Dallas Mavs when the league went into hiatus, he went at 24. Ooh and Kiwi/Aussie NBL fans will note old mate James Ennis sneaking in at 50 while at number 35 overall we have the wholesome figure of Glenn Rice Jr who had that infamous little stint with the NZ Breakers, still can’t fathom how that was allowed to happen. Whatever, moving on now.
So to be fair we do have three players from the 2013 crew who can be classed as superstar talents now: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert, and Victor Oladipo. They’re also the only three guys from this class to have made All Star teams. Granted that’s better than the 2014 haul which has so far offered up only two All Stars (Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic). 2015 meanwhile has four (Towns, Russell, Porzingis & Booker), same as 2016 (Simmons, Ingram, Sabonis & Siakam), and 2017 can already match three All Stars thanks to Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell & Bam Adebayo.
Even 2018 already has Luka Doncic and Trae Young and with those dudes only two seasons deep in their careers there’ll be a few more where they came from over the coming years. No rookies made the 2020 All Star Game but Zion Williamson and Ja Morant are absolute locks to get there possibly even as soon as next season and it’s too soon to say which players can someday match that Victor Oladipo boost. The more recent the draft the less time they’ve had to get to that level, making 2013 look even uglier. The only thing saving it from complete ugliness is the reigning MVP crossed with the continuing ugliness of the Andrew Wiggins draft one year later in 2014.
Moving backwards in time, 2012 was an absolute banger. Four players in that crew have made All-NBA selections while two more have been All Stars. Anthony Davis, Bradley Beal, Damian Lillard, Andre Drummond, Draymond Green & Khris Middleton. 2011 was loaded too: Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Vucevic, Jimmy Butler & Isaiah Thomas, all All Stars at least once in their careers. 2010 was a little weaker with only four All Stars, each picked in the top ten (Wall, Cousins, Hayward & George)... so you still had a 40% chance of getting an All Star with a top-10 pick which are good odds, to be fair. Bugger it, here’s a chart going back to 1995, which is as far as I can be bothered chasing it up. The All Star & MVP numbers are for individuals, not counting multiple winners...
That’s really interesting actually, looking at it from this perspective. Obviously there are other measures to consider beyond the top tier players but I’m not about to go through all the minutes played per player or whatever... that’s not really the point. You can get league average starters from all over the place, the draft is where teams turn to find those blokes who are going to change the entire trajectory of the franchise. Otherwise you’re just not gonna find those dudes. Getting them in free agency is rare and it’s skewed against bad or small market teams. Teams draft to acquire the best of the best, to go from zero to a hundred with the reading out of a single name – making that term ‘draft lottery’ even more apt. It’s so very American.
From that line of thinking, old mate Giannis really does enlighten things in a couple ways. There are only a dozen men who have won the MVP award from that catchment of 18 years in the table up there. 12 unique winners from 18 years, with LeBron James winning four and Steph Curry, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan each winning two. This will change in due course as the younger players evolve into their ultimate forms but as things currently stand Giannis Antetokounmpo is the only man drafted in the last decade to win the MVP (and it’s between him and LeBron for this season’s one too). He’s also an ever rarer case for having been drafted outside the lottery – he’s tied with Steve Nash as the lowest draft pick to win MVP in the lottery era. Both those dudes went fifteenth overall, most MVPs are picked in the first three picks. Of those last dozen MVPs, four went first overall (Iverson, Duncan x2, James x4, Rose). Kevin Durant snuck in at 2, James Harden at 3, Russell Westbrook at 4, and Kevin Garnett at 5. Steph Curry got two at 7. Dirk Nowitzki was 9. Kobe Bryant went at 13. Then there’s Nash (x2) and Antetokounmpo at 15.
The other thing there is what to three of those lowest four have in common? They’re international players. Yeah, that old chestnut again. Steve Nash was only from Canada to be fair but he didn’t come to the States until college. Plus he was born in South Africa. Dirk from Germany, Giannis from Greece. Even Kobe Bryant, he went to high school in Philly but he was born in Italy (though his low draft was more to do with coming straight out of high school, prep to pro... same deal as KG and LeBron – Dirk didn’t go to college either but he’d already played pro in Germany). The NBA undervalues top level international talent in the draft, it’s pretty obvious.
A lot of the numbers are interconnected here. It’s the same reason why a player like Carmelo Anthony hasn’t won a title whereas the other top five picks in 2003 all did (LeBron, Milicic, Bosh & Wade). It’s because there’s only one championship to go around each season so when LeBron is making eight straight finals, that’s keeping a lot of other players down. The lack of All Stars from that 2013-14 era has a lot to do with how good some of the drafts before them were... those fellas are still out there making All Star games, not sharing the selections around. Same deal with the MVP awards. And now that the 2013 and 2014 lads are coming into their primes... there’s five more years of draft prospects coming through and competing with them.
Swinging it all back around to the start again, if they redrafted that 2013 lot again now with hindsight, where would Steven Adams end up? In terms of win shares he’s third in that draft pool behind Antetokounmpo and Gobert. No doubt that Giannis goes first. Rudy Gobert is probably second and Victor Oladipo would need to be third at this point, though there’s a case for swapping those two. Then CJ McCollum sneaking in at four. I’m pretty confident about that much.
Is Steven Adams the next best player after that lot? He’s fourth in minutes played from the 2013 crew. He’s eighth in total points, third in rebounds, fifteenth in assists (as a centre). Getting a bit more technical he’s seventh in value over a replacement player (VORP). Dunno if he’d get in fifth but he’d surely go higher than 12. Chalk him up as another international player who looks like a bargain in the rearview mirror. Plenty of those international dudes go absolutely nowhere too... it’s risk and reward to the extreme... but that’s what the draft is for, right? Trying to get the best possible player. Not only did the 2013 NBA Draft struggle for great players but most of the best ones were ignored until outside the lottery. A bit of a mess.
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