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NBA Draft: Find First or Copy and Find Another

Last month, the NBA conducted its annual rookie draft. Each year, the available rookies include players from collegiate and international leagues. In the draft, teams typically look to meet their needs while also looking for 'the next big star'. Team officials and basketball analysts are quick to label players as 'the next Michael Jordan', 'the next Dirk Nowitzki', 'the next Yao Ming', or the next version of some other previously successful young player. While the incoming rookies can benefit from pushing themselves and setting high goals, they often find themselves looking up to their predecessors. Likewise, teams constantly find themselves with underachieving or failed NBA prospects. A few analysts take this a step further by making their own 'new' versions of previous drafts had those drafts taken place today, again emphasizing the success of specific players.

What the teams and analysts need to realize is that some of the new stars of the league do arise as previously unknown players. People talk about how teams passed on players such as Nowitzki and Manu Ginobili. Yet, people need to realize that Nowitzki and Ginobili were not well-known outside of their home countries until after they entered the NBA. That is, teams are not exactly passing up on players if they do not know who those players are. Once the unknown players prove themselves to be talented enough to compete at the NBA level, teams realize that they missed out and decide to search for the next version of these players. Thus, more teams knew about and pursued Darko Milicic (aka 'the next Dirk Nowitzki') than they did Nowitzki (who was picked by Milwaukee and traded to Dallas in a draft-day trade package for Robert "Tractor" Traylor).

Like the Dallas Mavericks, the San Antonio Spurs have excelled in scouting players throughout the world. While they landed Tim Duncan as the #1 pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, they also picked up Tony Parker at the end of the first round in 2001 and Manu Ginobili at the end of the second round in 1999. This means that 2/3 of the Spurs' core consists of formerly unknown prospects. While some teams pay large amounts of money for more well-known players and are thankful just to make the playoffs, the Spurs have won 3 NBA championships with Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili leading the charge.

What teams can learn from the success of the Mavericks and the Spurs is that it really does pay to scout. Instead of trying to copy other teams and chasing after 'the next Dirk Nowitzki' or 'the next Manu Ginobili', teams can find the unknown prospects first. In turn, evaluations of new incoming rookies can be more realistic and personalized as opposed to just comparisons to successful and seemingly similar players. The hype around known potential future stars may generate buzz and help teams to sell tickets, but landing genuinely talented players leads to winning games--and for the Spurs, winning championships.

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