Market Watch: All-NBA Selections

Image by Katrina.Tuliao via Flickr

After last week’s overview of the various sizes of markets both in population and income, now is the time to see just how successful basketball wise these various markets have been where it matters most for fans: on the court.

I’ve reviewed the last 13 years of All-NBA, All-Defensive and All-Star selections since the last lockout. The All-NBA with three different teams gives 15 slots a year, the All-Defensive with two teams gives 10 slots and the All-Star squads give normally 24 spots, but with injury replacements the amount varies from year to year.

After finding out how many selected players each team has, I will then borrow a method used by my HP cohort, Noam Schiller, to determine how they got there: drafted, traded or free agent.  For our purposes, draft day trades will count as “drafted” and sign-and-trades will count as “free agent”.

This week’s analysis will focus upon the All-NBA Team selections.

Team Tiers

I will be using the four-tier system I devised last week to break teams into the various market levels based on population. Here’s the layout:

• 1st Tier – NYK, NJN, LAL, LAC, CHI, DAL
• 2nd Tier – HOU, PHI, WAS, MIA, ATL, TOR
• 3rd Tier – BOS, GSW, PHX, DET, MIN, DEN
• 4th Tier – POR, UT, SAC, SAN, OKC, MEM, NO, ORL, CHA, IND, MIL, CLE

Tier 1 has the mega-markets, tiers 2 and 3 have the large and medium-sized markets while the fourth has the small markets. Tiers 1, 2 and 3 all have six teams a piece while the 4th tier has 14 teams. Also, for this survey Seattle SuperSonics and Charlotte Hornets selections were included with Oklahoma City Thunder and New Orleans Hornets, respectively.

All-NBA Team Selections

Total Selections

Average Selections per Franchise

Percentage of Total Selections

Breaking it Down

Tier 1 – Outside of the Lakers and Mavericks, the mega-markets actually fared quite terribly in All-NBA selections, especially when it came to the draft. Between the Bulls, Nets, Knicks and Clippers only one managed an All-NBA selection via the draft (Derrick Rose in 2011). The Lakers and Mavericks meanwhile managed 24 such selections purely on the strength of Dirk Nowitzki (11) and Kobe Bryant (13). The Lakers added to their overall total with Shaq’s free agency (6) and Pau Gasol’s trade (3). The trade for Steve Nash brought Dallas 2 more selections.

In contrast to the deft managing of the Mavericks and Lakers, the incompetence from the Knicks, Bulls and Clippers is staggering. They managed just one All-NBA selection a piece: the aforementioned Rose, Elton Brand for LAC, and Amare Stoudemire for the Knicks. The Nets meanwhile secured their only 4 selections with the trade for Jason Kidd early last decade.

Tier 2 – Houston actually saw three different draftees (Hakeem Olajuwon, Yao Ming and Steve Francis) make the All-NBA team, one of the few franchises to accomplish the feat of multiple draftees going All-NBA. Philadelphia meanwhile saw one draftee (Allen Iverson) account for 7 of its 9 selections. The Miami Heat have been a busy a little bee. They were only Tier 2 team to have a draftee (Dwyane Wade), a free agent (LeBron James) and trade acquisitions (Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway) make the All-NBA team.

*moment to remember Zo and Hardaway’s awesomeness*

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCk2WwToxKs w=500 h=300]

Tier 3 – These teams get the award for most ingenuity. They had the lowest percentage of selections based on draftees and the highest for both free agency and trades. Phoenix and Detroit are the primary reasons for that. The Suns had the 3rd-most selections league-wide with 16 and were quite even with their method. 6 came via the draft (Amare, Shawn Marion), 5 by trade (Stephon Marbury, Jason Kidd, Shaq) and 5 by free agency (Nash). The Pistons after Grant Hill’s selections in 1999 and 2000, relied solely upon free agency (5) and trade (2).

The Minnesota Timberwolves were utterly dependent on Kevin Garnett’s drafting (8 of their 9 selections), the Nuggets on Carmelo’s drafting (5 of their 7) and the Golden State Warriors were an embarrassment. Not a single All-NBA selection. Finally, for all the Big 3 hoopla, Boston actually had 5 selections via draft (Antoine Walker, Paul Pierce) and just one other thanks to the trade for Kevin Garnett.

Tier 4 – Obviously, free agents don’t like the small markets. A mere 7% of this tier’s selections came that way compared to the average of 16% for the other three tiers. The rousing success for the small markets has been the San Antonio Spurs who were 2nd league-wide with 17 selections, all of which came through the draft. Thanks Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.

The Utah Jazz were also highly successful with 7 selections (six draftees). Cleveland was at LeBron James’s mercy as he accounted for all 6 of their selections. Some small markets were able to work the phones though to get their hands on All-NBA talent, notably Sacramento trading for Chris Webber and Indiana trading for Jermaine O’Neal.

League-Wide – As Tom Haberstroh found out, the draft is indeed the surest path to success. My analysis is just another brick in that wall. 14 franchises were able to get 5 or more All-NBA selections from draft picks. Only four were able to do so via trade and just two via free agency. Based purely on All-NBA teams, the only free agents over the last 13 years to bring home the bacon have been Shaquille O’Neal (signed in 1996), Steve Nash, Tracy McGrady, Chauncey Billups and Gilbert Arenas. Furthermore, only Detroit, the Lakers and Phoenix have been able to coax multiple selections from the three different avenues, while Miami is surely on that path with LeBron James and Chris Bosh in tow.

It’s easy to see why teams were falling head over heels for LeBron during the Summer of 2010. Such impact via free agency is rare. However, the rush for the quick fix obscures the fact that the draft is still the most surefire way to building a contender.