Barely Out or Barely In? Why Making the NBA Playoffs Isn't Always a Good Thing

My Dallas Mavericks had to beat the New Orleans Hornets for the right to play them again in the playoffs.  The Portland Trailblazers had to hang on past the first two months of the season to end up as the 8th seed playing the Lakers, but instead they spent the last two months getting their young team the experience they need.  So, the question I've been asking myself lately is, which is better, barely in or barely out?

I looked back to the 2002-2003 season and decided to look at a couple of factors that would determine which is better.  I decided to study 7 and 8 seeds for the Barely In group and 9 and 10 seeds for the Barely Out Group.  So, how do you choose which factors mean the difference between success and failure?  Let me say first, someone like John Hollinger at ESPN.com could come up with some factors that might prove this even further, and if you do reading this, please comment.  I'd love to be able to expand this in the future.

I chose these factors that I feel show whether or not your In/Out status is a success:

1. Playoff Series Success
2. Notable Draftees
3. Percentage of Draft Picks/Rights Traded
4. Seeding Improvement/Drop the Following Year

Playoff Series Success

This factor pertains only to 7s and 8s, but I think 9s and 10s would definitely care about how many playoff wins they could expect.  In the 5 years studied, 7 seeds were 0-10 in first round series.  (Uh oh Mavs and Sixers!)  The Lakers in 2006 pushed Phoenix to 7 games, but otherwise, 7 seeds have struggled to make significant noise in the playoffs.  The 8 seeds obviously (Golden State crushing the Mavs) fared better with a 1-9 mark in the last 5 years.  However, Golden State's run ended in Utah, which means the bottom dwellers went 1 for 20 in playoff series against the top two seeds since 2003.  That's only one series victory better than all those lottery teams during the same years, so not exactly a success.

Notable Draftees

As you can imagine, with only half of the teams (9s and 10s) we're studying making the lottery, the odds are against the mediocre teams getting a high pick.  From the 2003 draft to the 2007 draft, not one of these seven through ten had a top three pick.  That means no LeBron, Chris Paul, or even Darko Milicic.  However, the teams in the lottery at least stand the chance of landing in the top three, which can mean the opportunity to turn that pick into a useful player or other picks, due to the lottery potential of the pick.  So who are the best of these mid-first round picks?

• Seventh Seed:  Rajon Rondo-The starting point guard on the best team in the league.
• Eighth Seed:  Al Jefferson-One of the best young low-post players in the league, potential All-Star (but not on this Minnesota team).  Jameer Nelson-The starting point guard on a playoff team.
• Ninth Seed:  Steve Blake-Has been a starter for a couple of playoff teams.  Daniel Gibson-Starter on a playoff team, excellent shooter, potential All-Star.  Paul Millsap-One of the best rebounders in the game, potential All-Star.
• Tenth Seed:  Chris Duhon-Good guard who will be a good starter when he gets the chance.  Thaddeus Young-One of the best rookies in the game this year, could win Rookie of the Year on a surprise playoff team, potential All-Star.

I only listed the most notable from this window of draft picks, but when I looked at all of the picks, the teams the finished out of the playoffs had many more notable and potentially talented choices, due to their high draft status.  So, though you may not see all the evidence, the depth in the draft for the 9th and 10th seeds was exponentially greater.  When you add in the depth to the All-Star potential of some of these players, landing in the lottery gives you a definite edge.

Percentage of Draft Picks/Rights Traded

This was the hardest category to research and justify because nba.com and other nba sites don't always give you every detail of what teams did with their picks.  However, I like this category the most because you get an idea for how much talent was available at the draft or the perceived value of these picks before the draft.  Once again, the better a team's record, the worse the available talent.  Seventh seeds traded away their picks or the rights to their picks 70% of the time from 2003-2007.  In 5 years, only 3 picks were seen as valuable enough to even make it out of draft night with the team that chose them.  So landing the picks you get as a seventh seed don't really stir up the fan base.  The trend continues downward:  8th seeds traded away 50%, ninth seeds traded 45%, and tenth seeds only traded 30% of picks/rights in the five years studied.  Barely In teams together deal away the rights to their draft picks 60% of the time, while Barely Out teams together only trade away 37.5%.  So if you're Barely Out, you're much more likely to see value and hang on to the picks you end up with.

Seeding Improvement/Drop the Following Year

At the culmination of this one year odyssey in mediocrity, where does a team end up?  Do the Barely Out teams get in, and do the Barely In teams fall out?  Yes.  (I love answering two questions with one answer)  From '02-'03 to '07-'08, Barely In teams increased their seeding from an average of 7.5 combined to 7.3, with seventh seeds increasing to a 6.2 (.8 improvement) and eighth seeds dropping to an 8.4 (.4 drop).  That's not much of an extreme makeover for a year's worth of work, experience, and draft picks.  During the same period, Barely Out teams moved from an overall 9.5 to a 9.2, or virtually the same improvement as the Barely In teams.  This is the stat that just befuddles me.  Ninth seeds, who in my estimation, had more momentum and better draft picks than the other three groups of teams, dropped on average to a 10.6, or a 1.6 seeding drop.  That's huge, to go from a contender all the way down to the 11th seed on average every year. The 11 seeds this year don't look anything like contenders at all.  The heartbreak of just missing the playoffs must take more out of you than we can ever justify with statistics.  Conversely, 10 seeds increased by 1.3 to an average 8.7 seed the next year.  If you think about it, Portland and New Jersey sure look like young teams on the rise this year, and it would be no surprise that both make the playoffs in '08-'09.

Arguments

The arguments I have with this idea of Barely In/Out are that this study:

1. Doesn't cover the impact of having home playoff games:  Look at how the crowds/cities are transformed in New Orleans this year and Oakland last year.  You never know if that good momentum and the revenue generated can draw some key free agents or keep your own around.
2. Doesn't address poor management:  Looking at the drafts, I could see lots of moves that didn't work out for these mediocre seeds.  So many "throw-away" picks were made by the teams in these positions, but I tried to only look at what was available if they had drafted the player that was picked with their original pick.
3. Doesn't look at free agency:  This idea was so subjective, and I was afraid to bring in a variable as subjective as who may or may not have signed with a team depending on being In or Out.

Conclusion

A team doesn't want to be 8th or 9th, but being 7th or 10th isn't so bad.  Eights and Nines drop at least one seeding spot each year and tend to only draft starter-potential players.  Sevens and Tens tend to increase by a spot or two each year, and 10th place teams have a chance to draft more potential All-Stars.  So maybe the Mavs and Sixers won't win their series, and maybe the Blazers and Nets won't even play in the playoffs, but their future sure looks more promising than those who are truly Barely Out or Barely In.