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Draft position largely determines how much first-round picks make with their first contracts, but it has little to do with the deal that comes after that. Player values can change drastically over the life of a rookie scale contract, as the 2007 draftees demonstrate. Since rookie contracts last no longer than four seasons, 2007 is the latest class in which most of the draftees have signed their second NBA contracts.
With the NBA postseason nearing its end and the draft and free agency fast approaching, there are a number of different ways you can follow Hoops Rumors to keep tabs on the latest NBA news and rumors this summer.
The NBA's current 1000-combination lottery system has been used for each draft since 1994. The format wasn't identical every year — the number of possible outcomes assigned to each team used to be slightly different, and from 1996 to 1998, the expansion Raptors and Grizzlies were ineligible to win the first overall pick, altering the lottery process. But essentially, the NBA draft lottery is in its 19th season in its current form.
With 2012's lottery scheduled for tonight in New York, let's take a look back to see how the first overall pick has been won in past seasons. Listed below are the winning teams, their place in the lottery standings, their odds at the first overall pick, and the players they selected….
With the summer approaching, new details of the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement figure to become relevant over the next few weeks, slightly modifiying the usual process for free agency. One such change will impact the qualifying offers teams extend to free agents this offseason, based on a newly-defined "starter criteria."
The new CBA describes a "starter" as either starting 41 games or playing 2,000 minutes in a season, and rewards players for meeting those criteria. If a player achieved one of those benchmarks in the season prior to his free agency, or averaged one of those benchmarks in the two seasons leading up to his free agency, his qualifying offer will be affected as follows:
- A top-14 pick who does not meet the starter critera will receive a same qualifying offer equal to 120% of the amount applicable to the 15th overall pick.
- A played picked between 10th and 30th who meets the starter criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to 120% of the amount applicable to the ninth overall pick.
- A second-round pick or undrafted player who meets the criteria will receive a qualifying offer equal to 100% of the amount applicable to the 21st overall pick.
Because the 2008 class of rookies will be hitting restricted free agency this season, the 2008/09 rookie scale will dictate the qualifying offers received. Using RealGM's rookie scale chart for 2008, we can calculate the qualifying offers as follows:
- 120% of the amount applicable to the ninth overall pick is $4,385,416.
- 120% of the amount applicable to the 15th overall pick is $4,001,917.
- 100% of the amount applicable to the 21st overall pick is $2,695,391.
So which players will be affected by this new rule this summer? Using our list of restricted free agents, the above calculations, and the starter criteria, this offseason's modified qualifying offers are listed below. Teams will have to offer these free agents a one-year contract worth the listed amount to make them restricted — otherwise they'll become unrestricted and can freely sign with any club.
Top-14 picks who failed to meet the starter criteria1 and will be eligible for a QO of $4,001,917:
Players picked between 10th and 30th who met the starter criteria1 and will be eligible for a QO of $4,385,416:
- Brook Lopez
- Jason Thompson
- Brandon Rush
- Marreese Speights
- Roy Hibbert
- JaVale McGee
- J.J. Hickson
- Ryan Anderson
- Courtney Lee
- Nicolas Batum
Other free agents with three years or less in the NBA who met the starter criteria1 and will be eligible for a QO of $2,695,391:
1 Starter criteria are assumed to be prorated for the lockout-shortened 2011/12 season. For instance, Courtney Lee played 1,757 minutes in the 66-game season. In a typical 82-game season, that number prorates to 2,183 minutes, exceeding the necessary 2,000 minutes.
Note: Thanks to Mark Deeks of Sham Sports for confirming information in this post.
May 30th is the first date of the NBA offseason we've circled on the calendar, with the 2012 draft lottery set to take place tomorrow night in New York. Many crucial dates will follow, however, so let's examine what the offseason schedule looks like for the Association, as teams prepare for the 2012/13 campaign:
May
- 30: NBA draft lottery.
June
- 18: Withdrawal deadline for draft early entrants (4:00pm CT).
- 28: NBA draft.
- 29: Last day to exercise team, player, and early termination options.
- 30: 2011/12 salary cap year ends. Last day to sign a player to an extension, and last day to extend a qualifying offer to a potential restricted free agent.
July
- 1: 2012/13 salary cap year and July moratorium begin. Free agents become free.
- 11: July moratorium ends and new salary cap figures take effect. Teams can sign free agents, make trades, and extend contracts. Seven-day amnesty period begins.
- 16: First-round draft picks become free agents if not offered a contract.
- 23: Last day to withdraw a qualifying offer to a restricted free agent without the player's approval.
- 27: 2012 Summer Olympics begin.
August
- 12: Olympics end.
- 15: Released players begin staying on waivers for only 48 hours rather than a full week.
September
- 6: Second-round draft picks become free agents if not offered a contract.
October
- 1: Last day for a restricted free agent to accept a qualifying offer.
- 29: Last day of offseason. Roster size reduced to 15-player maximum. Last day to make sign-and-trade transactions, and last day to waive non-guaranteed summer contracts.
- 31: Last day rookie scale contracts can be extended, and last day option years on rookie contracts for the 2013/14 season can be exercised.
Larry Coon's Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.
It's hard to know exactly what's at stake in Wednesday's NBA draft lottery, when the order for the June 28th draft will be finalized. Anthony Davis is the clear frontrunner for the No. 1 pick, but after that, it gets murky. Beyond speculation on who gets picked when and by whom, there's really no telling how any of the draft prospects will turn out once they become pros. The history of the draft is full of stories about "can't miss" phenoms who never fulfilled their ballyhooed potential. Still, history can tell us a little about the relative likelihood of draftees becoming productive NBA players.
Below is the average career PER for players taken with each of the top 14 picks since 2003, when the lottery expanded to 14 teams. PER, or player efficiency rating, is a catch-all metric developed by John Hollinger of ESPN.com to provide a concise per-minute assessment of a player's performance, as Basketball-Reference explains. Like any single statistic, it's not infallible, and overrates some players who don't see much time on the floor. That's one reason why, for instance, Mouhamed Sene and J.J. Redick have the same career per of 13.5. Still, it's interesting to see what it says about a group of draft picks over time.
Most striking is the difference between the average PER for a No. 1 pick and every other position in the lottery. The 20.1 PER for recent No. 1 picks is 32% higher than that of No. 2 picks, and 23% higher than the 16.3 PER for No. 4 picks, the next best average. So, that's one more reason teams will be rooting hard to move into the top position Wednesday. The rest of the top 10 is bunched up, with another drop from there. Here are the numbers:
1st: 20.1
2nd: 15.2
3rd: 15.7
4th: 16.3
5th: 15.3
6th: 13.6
7th: 15.0
8th: 13.0
9th: 14.8
10th: 14.2
11th: 11.6
12th: 11.9
13th: 12.7
14th: 12.6
Note: We've assigned zeroes for 2011 No. 5 pick Jonas Valanciunas and 2005 No. 11 pick Fran Vasquez, who've yet to play in the NBA. If Valanciunas is left out of calculations, the average PER for the No. 5 pick is 17.2, and without Vasquez, the PER for No. 11 picks jumps to 13.0.
The Magic will be replacing both GM Otis Smith and coach Stan Van Gundy this summer, and there's a fair chance the Blazers will have a new GM and coach when next season tips off as well. So, let's look at teams that recently changed coaches and player personnel executives in rapid succession and see how they fared. In each instance below, the executive is listed first and the coach second, unless the same man occupied both jobs.
Knicks, 2008: Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni replace Isiah Thomas: Walsh and D'Antoni may not have led the team back into the title hunt in their time together, but they deserve credit for cleaning up the mess made by Thomas, who went 56-108 coaching his handpicked roster for two seasons in New York.
Nets, 2010: Billy King and Avery Johnson replace Rod Thorn and Kiki Vandeweghe: King and Johnson inherited a scorched-earth situation, having gone 12-70 in 2009/10. King pulled off the Deron Williams trade in his first year, and if he can convince him to re-sign this summer, the franchise will keep its positive momentum going.
Sixers, 2010: Rod Thorn and Doug Collins replace Ed Stefanski and Eddie Jordan: The Sixers have been in the playoffs in both years under the new regime, and this year they're in the second round for the first time since 2003.
Bucks, 2008: John Hammond and Scott Skiles replace Larry Harris and Larry Krystkowiak: Aside from a seven-game challenge of the Hawks in the 2010 first round, the current Bucks leadership hasn't done much to improve over the former. Owner Herb Kohl said earlier this month he has no plans to extend either Hammond or Skiles as both enter the final year of their contracts.
Cavs, 2010: Chris Grant and Byron Scott replace Danny Ferry and Mike Brown: It was a rough initiation to the GM seat for Grant, who had been on the job for just a month when LeBron James skipped town. Still, Grant swung a deal in his first season for what turned out to be 2011 No. 1 pick Kyrie Irving, and under Scott's tutelage, Irving won Rookie of the Year.
Timberwolves, 2009: David Kahn and Kurt Rambis replace Jim Stack and Randy Wittman: The play of Ricky Rubio this year helped soften criticism of Kahn's point guard heavy draft in 2009, but that's little solace for Rambis, who won 28 games in two full seasons and was out of his job before Rubio ever played a game in the NBA.
Clippers, 2010: Neil Olshey and Vinny Del Negro replace Mike Dunleavy and Kim Hughes: Dunleavy lost his GM job a month after his coaching job was given to Kim Hughes on an interim basis. That cleared the way for the current regime that has overseen the emergence of Blake Griffin, the Chris Paul trade and the renaissance of the franchise.
Hornets, 2010: Dell Demps and Monty Williams replace Jeff Bower: The Hornets made the defending champion Lakers sweat in a 2010 first-round series, but the past year has not been as much fun for Demps and Williams. Still, there's optimism now that league ownership is out of the way and new owner Tom Benson, who has committed to keeping both coach and player, is in place.
The NBA officially released its 2011/12 All-NBA teams today in a press release. The selections are as follows:
First team:
- Chris Paul, Guard (Clippers)
- Kobe Bryant, Guard (Lakers)
- LeBron James, Forward (Heat)
- Kevin Durant, Forward (Thunder)
- Dwight Howard, Center (Magic)
Second team:
- Tony Parker, Guard (Spurs)
- Russell Westbrook, Guard (Thunder)
- Kevin Love, Forward (Timberwolves)
- Blake Griffin, Forward (Clippers)
- Andrew Bynum, Center (Lakers)
Third team:
- Rajon Rondo, Guard (Celtics)
- Dwyane Wade, Guard (Heat)
- Carmelo Anthony, Forward (Knicks)
- Dirk Nowitzki, Forward (Mavericks)
- Tyson Chandler, Center (Knicks)