Jalen Hood-Schifino Discussion: Not The Cam Whitmore Thread ;-)

I didn’t claim our picks suck or couldn’t develop. I assume they won’t be contributors this season, just like Reaves wasn’t in year 1 and Christie wasn’t last year. I mean it’s kind of normal for a rookie outside the top 10 not to right?

I think both have a shot of developing well, they seem to have the building blocks, but that also isn’t guaranteed. No matter how good our scouts are, the draft is a lot closer to the luck than skill side of the outcome continuum.

 

This wasn’t directed at a specific poster- just the general consensus. LeBron is done after this season as being our 1A. If he leaves and AD wants out shortly after, I would much rather have some young guys who already have developed for a season and created chemistry with our young core than not. The rebuild is coming sooner than many choose to acknowledge.

 

I think AD re-signs and we try to get another star to join AD, Reaves and Rui core

 

slight disagree. the draft isn't a crapshoot, imo. the expected values are pretty well-understood. teams opt to go high risk/reward or not, and that creates extra volatility. there's not a consistent strategy across decision makers.

so, while we agree to keep expectations low, you can't ignore that some teams seem to be better at both evaluating talent and considering fit with their team/philosophy/program.

iow: i don't think "luck" is the right word. unless you're talking injuries.

 

Hoping these young guys become really good, Reaves has already proven it. I'm not trading the young nucleus unless it's an offer you can't refuse type deal. Lebron will be gone soon, keep the young core for a solid nucleus of players to lure in a big time FA for the future.

 

If you were to draw a continuum line and have luck on one side and skill on the other for the NBA draft, it would be closer to the luck side that skill. The reason for this is, you can’t with any reasonable foresight guarantee outcomes of your picks.

It’s why you can have an Anthony Bennett and a Nikola Jokic outcome at both extremes and everything in the middle.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of skill, of course there is and the lakers scouts kind of prove that. It’s just unreasonable for us to hold expectations.

 

I sure hope he does. There is a chance that he will want to play for his hometown Chicago Bulls.

 

My case resides on the fact that when he was younger, Jerry West was above the rest at talent evaluation. All it took for him is seeing one workout of Kobe and he knew “the kid was special.” Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it. He traded away a very good starting caliber Center in Vlade so he could bring in a kid who would go on to become the greatest of his era. Jesse Buss and company have proven over and over again that they are extremely good at talent evaluation. Do all of their picks work out? No, but they have picked several non lottery talents that have contributed to winning basketball by their second seasons. Nobody bats 100%, but it’s obvious that throughout the NBA, GMs exist on distinct talent levels- they can be graded according to how well they are able to foresee which young prospects will pan out.
Obviously, career altering injuries that have happened to guys like Lonzo and Zion are nearly impossible to predict and fall on the side of bad luck.

 

Sorry, with the Lakers scouts who basically have been killing it for 8-9 straight years, continuum lines notwithstanding, IMO we have very good reasons to keep “higher” expectations. Including “luck” as a major factor ALL this last decade is selling them short. They’ve simply been outstanding. Proof of that is the careers most all these past picks have gone off to have on other teams after we’ve gotten rid of so many … like way back to Nance and Clarkson and some earlier probably.

 

I’m not sure why it’s such a shocking statement that the draft is more luck based than skill.

There is no effective way to know how a career plays out, foresight isn’t a thing. We do our best by picking based on fundamental things like character, work ethic and self motivation, and we also take into consideration skill sets and potential development we believe we can in-still. But that only goes so far.

It’s why players like Isaac Bonga or Anthony Brown can be selected high in the second round but wash out of the league in a season or two. And then someone like Austin Reaves (undrafted) or Isiah Thomas (last pick) can become a legit starter and the latter a star prior to his injury.

 

When the Lakers routinely outperform other teams’ scouts year in and year out, I’d have to say there is skill involved.

 

not sure i view bonga failing as bad luck. it was a bad pick.

bad luck in the draft is detroit falling to 5 with the worst record, or having teams nab the player you want right before you pick, etc. good luck in the draft is the opposite (teams ahead of you making bad choices, winning the lotto when there's a generational talent, etc.).

i feel like there's a false equivalence being made between "unlikely to succeed" and "based on luck". most draft picks are unlikely to become stars or starters because there is a fixed number of these guys and they generally play 10 years in the league. thus, each new crop simply cannot contain a multitude of high impact players. and the level of talent in a given draft is a luck factor. but most of the time, when a pick fails, it's not bad luck (e.g., injury). rather, it's that you made a mistake in your evaluation. these happen. a lot. for reasons svtzr stated, chief among them that it's very hard to get a psychological read (how motivated are they? how resilient are they?) on a young player. but again, i don't think people are just blindly throwing darts at those things. the best teams have an informed strategy that yields a rate of success higher than others' on a consistent basis. as LT said, that mere fact means it can't be random chance.

 

It's not a shocking statement but you are talking in generalities and a few of us are talking about the Lakers draft history starting in 2014 with Clarkson, the same year Lakersball was spun off from Clublakers which was going under, which has been outstanding and most all of them became "good" rotational players in the league and some even semi stars and a couple all star appearances. We're saying it's not illogical to have somewhat still higher expectations than the "average" luck/skill equation you are talking about for the whole league. I'm not sure why that seems shocking to you?

 

I'm not talking generalities, I'm talking in shades of grey, whereas people seem to mistake my take for black or white.

This isn't an argument of skill versus luck. Rather it's an argument of what percentage of each is required to be successful. In drafting, you can get an edge with skill - which we have managed to do - but it isn't a sure thing ever.

Let me put it to you all this way: if our organisation had every single draft pick, would we be able to slot each player into the correct order based on the success of their career? No, of course we wouldn't. So much of a career is down to luck, staying injury free (Greg Oden), having your head screwed on straight (Len Bias), being motivated (Darko Milicic), actually wanting to improve (Michael Beasley), just bad luck (Andrew Bogut) and finding the right fit with your team and so on and so forth.

I think our scouting record speaks for itself obviously and I'm optimistic on the picks we make every year because the team has earned that trust. But I look at base rates: 75% of lottery picks stick in the NBA for longer than 5 years, around 45% of non lottery first round picks make it past 5 years and less than 20% of second rounders have a career longer than 5 years. If you want a deeper analysis, check this out, the likelihood of each pick yielding a star, a solid contributor, a role player, a deep bench guy, a bust or a DNP:

https://www.82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm

 

I think there's a happy medium somewhere on some of the argument. To predict a full career success up front is impossible, and that has only a small percentage to do with draft expertise. Did he end up in a good system that helped him grow? Did they develop him? Did they play him? Did he go to a contender? Did he have veteran mentors? Did his skill set fit the system of the team? I could list a dozen variables so easily would impact long term results far more than the draft itself.

But all that to say I'm super happy with our drafting team. What used to be a weakness and a throw away guessing game I'm now convinced is among the absolute best in the league and full of bright talented people. And luck never hurts!

 

Thank you. All I am saying and I think others .... that aren't afraid to keep our hopes higher than what most fans of most teams, rightfully so because of the rest of your information and point of view ...... should allow themselves to do so as not to be disappointed.

 

Hopefully nothing to this. We've heard all along there was no number too big. If that's changed, we riot.

 

I will repeat: low probability of success does not mean something is based more on luck.

 

I think what separates our scouting department is how well they get in a players mental make up. The skill part is not hard to see if you have been scouting players for very long. The hard part is work ethic and character. How bad do they want to be great. Then there is always the unknown health factor. Lot of skill in scouting but also some luck. Same with a championship team, alot of skill but they had some good luck along the way.