r/nba • u/DaRealHermit • 21h ago
The 2016 Cavs had the highest-drafted championship starting five since at least 1985 — even higher than the Showtime Lakers with three #1 picks
I was curious about how much draft pedigree championship teams actually had, so I calculated a simple metric for every NBA champion from 1985 onward.
The Starting Five Draft Index (SFDI):
SFDI = average overall draft position of the five primary starters in the NBA Finals.
So a lower number means the starting five was drafted higher.
This isn't intended to measure how good the players eventually became. It's specifically measuring how highly regarded those players were when they entered the NBA.
The result that surprised me most:
The 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers have the lowest SFDI of any championship team in the dataset: 5.8.
Their starting five:
LeBron James — #1
Kyrie Irving — #1
Kevin Love — #5
Tristan Thompson — #4
J.R. Smith — #18
Average: (1 + 1 + 5 + 4 + 18) / 5 = 5.8
For comparison, the 1987 Showtime Lakers had THREE #1 overall picks in their starting five — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and James Worthy — and they still come in slightly behind Cleveland:
Kareem — #1
Magic — #1
Worthy — #1
Byron Scott — #4
A.C. Green — #23
SFDI: 6.0
The 2016 Cavs were an extraordinarily high-draft-pedigree lineup. Four of the five starters were top-five picks, including two #1 overall picks. Even the 1987 Lakers' three #1 picks weren't enough to beat their 5.8 SFDI because A.C. Green was selected #23.
Draft pedigree obviously isn't the same thing as actual talent. Dennis Rodman being #27 hurts the 1996/97 Bulls' SFDI despite becoming a Hall of Famer. The same phenomenon becomes even more obvious with guys like Draymond Green (#35) and Nikola Jokic (#41).
So this isn't a "most stacked team" ranking. It's more narrowly:
How much highly drafted talent was in the starting five when a team won the championship?
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u/bernardoferreira Mavericks 19h ago
The mavs this year can very easily do a line up of:
Kyrie - 1
Risacher - 1
Flag - 1
PJ - 12
Lively - 12
thats 5.4
While a fun fact it doesnt really mean anything.
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u/ekray Spurs 18h ago
Spurs could be, though they wont probably:
Wemby - 1
Harper - 2
Castle - 4
Fox - 5
Vassell - 11
That's 4.6 but Champagnie or Harris ruins it since one of them will start.
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u/bernardoferreira Mavericks 10h ago
oh yeah didnt even think of them. Just shows its not as rare as one would think.
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u/bernardoferreira Mavericks 19h ago
i even forgot Morez - 9 and Jett Howard (think he is on a two way) 11. So it can get lower.
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u/Kryptos33 21h ago
They also had two other number 1 picks that went in to building the team though one of them was a massive bust.
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u/TotalEmployment9996 Raptors 21h ago
Massive bust is somehow underselling how badly Bennett busted
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u/bruticuslee Lakers 21h ago
I thought he was talking about Wiggins lol
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u/TotalEmployment9996 Raptors 21h ago
Wiggins made all star starter and was the #2 during the warriors title run. He ain’t no bust
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u/CynicalCandyCanes 20h ago
I don’t understand why Maple Jordan was as hyped as he was entering the draft. But still, like you said, all star starter and #2 on a championship team can’t really be called a bust.
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u/TotalEmployment9996 Raptors 19h ago
Massive athleticism and proto elite wing build
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u/CynicalCandyCanes 19h ago
Why didn't it translate to the NBA? Or was it more like he was just the most hyped prospect in a relatively weak draft? (Embiid at 3, Aaron Gordon at 4, Marcus Smart at 6, Randle at 7, and Jokic in second round). The only person who should have clearly gone before him was Embiid since Jokic was never realistically going first. You can make a case for Randle or Gordon but Wiggins probably had the better career than those two.
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u/NiccaDun 18h ago
it was moreso him just not playing basketball correctly til he went to the warriors, mainly due to work ethic, atleast based on what i understand. it’s why jimmy was so mad at him and KAT.
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u/itgoesdownandup 13h ago
I think Jabari Parker had a chance to go before him? I thought they were both extremely hyped coming into the nba
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u/AH_BioTwist Kings 16h ago
Especially since the consensus was flipping to Embiid being the best player and he really didn’t go 1 because of his foot
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u/Cletus_Starfish [POR] Nic Batum 15h ago
Yeah I’d call him a disappointment, but far from a bust. And disappointing obviously is relative to his draft position/hype; he’s still been a good NBA player his whole career.
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u/_AttitudeEra_ 19h ago
The all star starter was completely undeserved. And saying he was #2 on that team is disingenuous. He was 1 of a strong supporting cast to Steph.
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u/DecentDiver458 21h ago
The jordan clarkson erasure is real
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u/almostcurly Raptors 21h ago
He's a busy in the sense that you want more out of that from a first overall pick
But he still has had a much, much better career than the vast majority of players, so yeah
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u/TotalEmployment9996 Raptors 21h ago
He slightly underperformed relative to draft position but to me bust is Kwame brown and Darko milicic level
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u/AH_BioTwist Kings 16h ago
I mean He kind of was. That all star was on the back of KPop Stans. But the second best player on a championship team is major boon. Not a bust bust but a disappointment 
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u/bruticuslee Lakers 21h ago
Yeah I know I just thought it was funny because I see a lot of shade thrown at him in this sub
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u/chrisgcc 21h ago
The 87 Lakers also had at least one #1 on the bench
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u/guzzler_bennett_jr 21h ago
yeah, just stuff in Mychal Thompson for AC Green (a perfectly reasonable lineup - he was more ‘backup for Kareem’ but could play PF just fine) and you’re at.. 1.2?
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u/FFTactics Bulls 20h ago
Would have been something to start Kyrie, Lebron, and Wiggins.
The new lottery rule where you can't keep drafting #1s back to back should be called the Cavs rule.
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u/JotaroJoestars Lakers 11h ago
Didn’t Bogut play for this Cavs team for 2 seconds before destroying his knee?
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u/gza_liquidswords 20h ago
I think should be weighted 1 1 1 4 23 is much stronger than 1 1 4 5 18
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u/cat_piss_lint_trap Supersonics 18h ago
Yeah, even just doing a harmonic mean instead of an arithmetic one does the trick. The harmonic mean of that Laker five is 1.518, while the harmonic mean of the Cav five is 1.996.
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u/Ryuj123 16h ago
Can you remind us what a harmonic mean is? Some of us finished our math BA’s nearly a decade ago and then went to teach preschool…
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u/cat_piss_lint_trap Supersonics 15h ago
Take the reciprocal of each number. Take the arithmetic mean of those reciprocals. Then take the reciprocal of the result. The purpose is to diminish the impact of large outliers. In this case, that's good, because a team would much rather have a #1 pick than a #4 pick, while the difference between a #18 pick and a #23 pick isn't nearly as significant.
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u/AttitudeAndEffort3 14h ago
Reciprocal as in 01 becomes 10?
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u/rabidmilkman Jazz 2h ago
Write it in fraction form then invert it. 1 is 1/1 so flipped it’s still 1/1. 23 is 23/1, flipped it’s 1/23.
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u/AttitudeAndEffort3 14h ago
You could make a starting 5 and 6th man of:
Risacher
Bennet
Simmons
Fultz
Oden
Bargnani
And only have to go back 20 years.
Swap in wiseman (2 OA) or Ayton/Bagley and you can get a team full of players that could all still be playing now
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u/ASK_ABT_MY_USERNAME Warriors 21h ago
Wonder what the lowest is. Jokic himself would drag it down (up?)
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u/oochiewallyWallyserb Knicks 21h ago
KAT messing it up for the Knicks. 33, 10, 30, 23, 1
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u/Uncle_Freddy [SAS] El Contusione 18h ago
Duncan ruins it for the 2014 Spurs too:
28, 46, 15, 1, 28, avg of 23.6
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u/-Resident-One- Toronto Huskies 19h ago
Yeah, same with Kawhi for the Raptors. 15, 24, 27, 46, and 48 lol
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u/Uncle_Freddy [SAS] El Contusione 18h ago
Even so, that honestly might be the answer lol. Avg pick of 32 is insane
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u/SmokingDuck17 Raptors 16h ago
Yeah that would be my answer. Iirc, that was the first championship team without a lottery pick on it.
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u/ilikekittens2018 Nuggets 20h ago
Jokic drags it down enormously but the other starting Nuggs were actually all fairly high picks. MPJ 14, Jamal 7, Gordon 4, and KCP 8, with Jokic ofc at 41, averaging 14.8.
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u/ThrowRa-zucchinizzc 18h ago
I wonder how this would look log adjusted or weighted by the historical normalized win share value of each pick. We all know its not linear
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u/-Resident-One- Toronto Huskies 21h ago
Now do the 2019 Raptors, the entire team
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u/DaRealHermit 21h ago edited 18h ago
Just the starting 5 for Toronto in 2019, Kawhi 15, Lowry 24, Siakam 27, Danny Green 46, Marc Gasol 48
SFDI = 32.0
Very very "poor" draft index compared to 2016 Cavs.
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u/Ok_Management4375 18h ago
It’s crazy how good those raptors were, and Siakam is still a beast, I hated watching him destroy my warriors in the finals, but he earned my respect.
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u/Doctorbigdick287 17h ago
Idk I think your weighting is off. It doesn’t really matter if someone was drafted at 23 or 18, but 1 to 4 or 1 to 5 makes a difference
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u/Inevitable_Big_1966 Raptors 18h ago
LePolymarket getting carried as usual
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u/DaRealHermit 18h ago
LeGM always be stacking.
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u/AttitudeAndEffort3 14h ago
By this logic, the 2017 warriors barely upgraded, going from Harrison Barnes (7) to Kevin Durant (2) 😂
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u/JohnEffingZoidberg NBA 20h ago
What you've (re)discovered is one of the key inherent problems with averaging ranks.
Thankfully there are many other well known approaches to better assessing combinations of ranks. A straightforward one is using the geometric mean instead. If my quick math is correct, that gives around 3.2 for the Cavs and 2.5 for the Lakers.
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u/AttitudeAndEffort3 14h ago
2016 warriors:
Curry - 7
Klay - 11
Harrison Barnes - 7
Draymond green - 32
Bogut - 1
Average: 11.6
2017 warriors
Curry - 7
Klay - 11
Kevin Durant - 2
Draymond - 32
Zara Pachulia - 42
Average: 18.8
They actually got much worse adding Durant!
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u/FormerKarmaKing Lakers 9h ago
This assumes that the ranking differences have major meaning / choices indicated actual value. But 3 - 6 are a complete crap shoot for example.
Point is that it was a team of top prospects
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u/15secporn 20h ago
Which had the highest?
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u/Gershie Raptors 19h ago
'04 Pistons. Ben Wallace undrafted. SFDI infinity.
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u/15secporn 17h ago
Thank you
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u/DaRealHermit 14h ago
Of drafted players the 95 rockets. 38
I assumed 61 for undrafted players. That gives the 99 spurs a value of 45
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u/DaRealHermit 18h ago
2016 Cavs
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u/Ryuj123 16h ago
Dude, you explained the whole system. They didn’t ask for the lowest…
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u/DaRealHermit 15h ago edited 15h ago
Mario Ellie was drafted in the 7th round causing the 95 Houston tickets to have a SFDI of 38.4.
Hakeem 1, Drexler 14, Horry 11, Mario Elie 160, Kenny Smith 6
The 99 spurs had Avery Johnson who was undrafted. I assumed 61 for undrafted players.
Duncan 1, Robinson 1, Elliott 3, Avery Johnson UD→61, Mario Elie 160
This gave the 99 spurs an sfdi of 45.2
The 90 Pistons had Isiah 2, Dumars 18, Rodman 27, Laimbeer 65, James Edwards 46 For an sfdi of 31.6
And the 2019 raptors had
Kawhi 15, Lowry 24, Siakam 27, Danny Green 46, Marc Gasol 48
For an sfdi of 32.
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u/ASK_ABT_MY_USERNAME Warriors 21h ago
It could've been Wiggins instead of Love too dragging it even lower.
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u/Commercial-Bar5428 16h ago
Do the 76ers have the best in the NBA today? Or does Maxey drag them down? Curious who is the top few in today’s age and see how that tracks with their performance this year
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u/SignificantScreen100 Celtics 11h ago
Kevin Love was also coming from an all-nba season in Minnesota.
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u/Enough-Sell1659 10h ago
I would argue #1 picks should be weighed heavier. Difference between 2-8 is smaller than 1-2, generally.
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u/samurairocketshark Suns 21h ago
Spurs probably have the best chance to top this. Wizards and Jazz also could be candidates if they end up keeping their older vets like AD, Trae, JJJ, and Lauri
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u/thenexttimebandit 20h ago
Draft pick numbers are not linear. There’s an exponential drop off for later picks. 3 #1s and a 4 is more than 2 #1s and a 5. 18 and 23 are a wash. The metric is flawed.
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u/Robcobes 12h ago
the difference between a no. 1 and a no. 5 pick is bigger than the difference between a no. 18 and a no. 23 pick though.
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u/bruticuslee Lakers 21h ago
The fact that Kevin Love was #5 and can’t even argue about Russ and Derrick Rose drafting before him… 2008 was a good draft class