I’ve always believed that NBA teams without superstars should do everything they can to acquire one. If that means a good team must take a step back for the chance to be great, so be it.
The correlation between teams with top-10 players and championship winners is so strong that getting one really is the only way to have a chance. That’s why at the last trade deadline I thought Hawks boss Mike Budenholzer should have broken up the core of his superstar-less, older team and started the difficult path toward acquiring a superstar.
Yet my view is unencumbered by the desire to root for a good team (like fans), keep my job (like general managers) or make money (like owners). For those with a vested interest in the Hawks, the superstar-or-bust nature of NBA championships creates a philosophical question with no “right” answer:
Is it better to be a good team that chases a title but realistically can’t win one, or a bad team that (theoretically) can more easily get a superstar at some point in the near future?
The Hawks long have occupied the former category. It’s easy to say they won’t be a real championship contender until they get a superstar. It’s much harder for them to actually acquire one because those players are, by definition, a rare commodity.
There are 30 NBA teams but no more than 10 superstars, which I define as players voted first- or second-team All-NBA. This year three teams have two such players — the Warriors, Thunder and Clippers — and four teams have one. That means 23 teams, even the very good ones such as the Hawks, had no chance to win the title.
That’s only a slight exaggeration. When the Warriors or Cavaliers win the ongoing finals, they will become the 64th NBA champion out of 67 with at least one player on one of the top two All-NBA teams during their title season. The finals loser will become the 55th runner-up with at least one top 10 player.
NBA champions don’t have very good players in a good system, like the Hawks; they have great players capable of elevating their teams when systems break down. That brings me back to the aforementioned philosophical question because the most common way for a team to acquire a top-10 player is to be bad enough to draft one.
It’s simple, but not easy. Awful teams enter the draft lottery with high odds of acquiring a top pick, but that’s just the beginning. Those ping-pong balls must bounce right to actually “win” a top pick.
After that, the team must pick the prospect with superstar potential, assuming there is such a prospect in the draft that year (sometimes, there’s not). Then the team must help the top prospect develop into a superstar.
That process takes a lot of luck at many points along the way. The Hawks got it right when they drafted Al Horford No. 3 in 2007. He’s the second-best player out of that draft, but not a superstar. The Sonics/drafted Kevin Durant at No. 2. He’s been voted first- or second-team All-NBA for six consecutive years.
(If the Sonics/Thunder had the No. 1 pick they would have selected Greg Oden, who turned out to be a medical calamity. There’s that luck again.)
Acquiring a top-10 player via trade is difficult because, for starters, they are rarely available. When they become free agents among the complicating factors for signing them are collective bargaining rules that favor their original team. It helps for a franchise to employ Pat Riley or Gregg Popovich or to be located near LeBron James’ hometown.
The Hawks are a credible organization that has fielded good teams for a long time now. It’s legitimate to prefer their current state and to reject the ugliness that most likely would be necessary for a chance to acquire a superstar.
That’s no way to win a championship, though. The Hawks are stuck in the NBA’s middle class.
