NBA Teams with the Best Homegrown Talent
Winning starts with the draft. Sometimes.
We look at NBA teams who grow their own talent as somehow more pure. For an unknown reason, that's "winning the right way."
Teams like the Los Angeles Lakers buy victories. Ones like the San Antonio Spurs build from within and create dynasties without having to sign big-name free agents or trade for disgruntled stars whose contracts are about to expire.
So, the Spurs are the good guys, the Lakers (historically) or last year's Miami Heat are the bad ones, and the narrative progresses from there.
Even if you don't believe that, though, it's still quite impressive to farm your own talent, to draft unheralded amateurs and turn them into something special. Some teams do it better than others. Here are the ones who do it the best.
10. Memphis Grizzlies
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Can we count Marc Gasol as homegrown?
No, the Grizzlies didn't draft Gasol, but they did trade for him (when they dealt his brother, Pau, to the Lakers) before he ever played a game in the NBA. He even went to high school in Germantown, Tennessee, a suburb right outside of Memphis.
You know what? We're making an exception. Marc Gasol counts. He's homegrown.
When Memphis received Gasol, he was an afterthought, a throw-in to a trade that was considered at the time to be one of the most lopsided deals ever made. It turned out, the Grizzlies got the best current center in the NBA out of it.
The Griz didn't just develop Gasol, either. Mike Conley is one of the most improved-since-entering-the-league players.
Let's face it: When Conley first came into the NBA, he was a mightily flawed contributor. Now, he's one of the world's six or seven best point guards, someone about whom people reasonably cry "Injustice!" whenever he misses out on an opportunity to be an All-Star.
Lionel Hollins may have been the coach who was running things for most of Gasol's and Conley's careers, but the regime has actually stayed similar since his departure. Current coach Dave Joerger was an assistant for him and was actually credited with much of Memphis' defensive prowess during the Hollins years.
The Grizz have developed a couple stars with guys who, at different points, seemed like they wouldn't get to this level. That obviously falls most on the players, but the organization can claim some credit in their progression.
9. Portland Trail Blazers
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LaMarcus Aldridge just keeps getting better and better each season, doesn't he? He's even draining threes now.
But Aldridge was a second overall pick who was supposed to be an impact player and has been for years. Portland didn't stop with him, though.
The Blazers took a small-time kid out of Weber State and turned him into Damian Lillard, all-world shooter. It developed Nicolas Batum into a jack-of-all-trades wing who has positive traits on defense, who can shoot a little (even if he's in a down year) and who's one of the better-passing small forwards (5.0 assists per game over the past three seasons) in the league.
Portland didn't stop with those two, either.
Wes Matthews wasn't technically drafted by the Blazers (actually, he was drafted by no one), but after spending his rookie year in Utah, he's possibly become Portland's most important defender. If he's not, it's a wonder why else the Blazers D would fall off to such a degree after his season-ending Achilles injury.
Neil Olshey administrations have a history of massaging talent to its prominence dating all the way back to his days with the Los Angeles Clippers. It seems to be going no differently with Terry Stotts coaching his squad in the Pacific Northwest.
8. Milwaukee Bucks
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The Bucks aren't winning right now. Actually, they're losing. They're losing a lot.
Milwaukee has dropped 17 of 26 and has fallen to 40-40, though it has picked up two straight Ws. Yet, the future of this team appears bright, and you can see the talent it's growing.
The Bucks have fixated on long, youthful, athletic bodies who can defend. It's how they've boosted themselves to second in points allowed per possession after finishing 29th a season ago.
Picking Giannis Antetokounmpo 15th in 2013 was a risky pick that's paid dividends. If we were to go back and redraft knowing what we do now, the Greek Freak would be at least a top-two or -three pick in '13, possibly even first overall, ahead of potential stars like Victor Oladipo and Nerlens Noel.
John Henson has progressed into a stifling defender. The organization, though it wasn't the current Jason Kidd administration, turned Larry Sanders into a defensive stalwart, too, before Sanders left the team on his own accord.
The Bucks may have traded for the Khris Middletons, Brandon Knights and Michael Carter-Williamses of the world, but those guys progressed in Milwaukee (though the jury is still out on MCW and his shooting inability). Just imagine what could happen in Milwaukee after another season of progression and with the addition of Jabari Parker, No. 2 pick in the 2014 draft, who's missed most of this year with a torn ACL.
7. Utah Jazz
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People haven't caught onto the Jazz yet, but it's inevitable. Utah is bound to get off to a hot start next year, and at some point shortly after, we'll start hearing noise.
Can the Jazz actually make the 2015-16 playoffs? The Jazz? In the competitive-as-ever Western Conference? The Jazz????
Absolutely.
Utah is 18-9 since the All-Star break, a stretch over which it's produced the No. 1-ranked defense in points allowed per possession. It has young talent all over the floor, be it defensive and nickname sensation Rudy Gobert (how many players allow the option of choosing between monikers like the Stifle Tower, the French Rejection and Gogurt while adding catch phrases like "Gobert or Go Home"?) or the development of Derrick Favors—who was technically drafted by the Nets, but we'll count him—or the leap of Gordon Hayward.
You can already feel the Quin Snyder 2015-16 Coach of the Year train getting ready to leave the station. The Mike Budenholzer-esque storyline is there.
He's got the Popovich connections. He was head coach of the Austin Toros, the Spurs' D-League team. He was an assistant to Ettore Messina, now an assistant for Pop, in Russia. He was an assistant for Mike Budenholzer in Atlanta.
Snyder has already impressed with his X's and O's work. He's inspired improvements from Gobert, Hayward, Favors, Trevor Booker and quality rookie play from Rodney Hood and Joe Ingles. He's fiery as a burning building, but not nearly as destructive.
When the Jazz challenge 50 wins "out of nowhere," just remember there were loads of reasons to believe this was going to happen.
6. Atlanta Hawks
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If the Spurs are the model for developing talent, the team we refer to as "Spurs East" can't be that far behind, right?
Atlanta's barred general manager Danny Ferry worked in San Antonio's front office. Budenholzer wasn't just an assistant for Popovich, either. He actually played for him.
No, not with the Spurs. Bud never got as high as the NBA. But he did run with him when Pop was heading up the Broncos. Unfamiliar with them? Yes, the Pomona Pitzer Broncos.
Atlanta has developed in pretty much every way possible.
Create a star? They've got Al Horford.
Develop an intelligent, talented and unselfish leader to run your offense? They've done it twice: once in Jeff Teague and then again with Dennis Schröder, a kid bound to become a starting point guard at some moment in the relatively near future.
Draft with a plan? They've littered shooters around their perimeter, even with the big men, selecting guys like Mike Muscala, Mike Scott and Pero Antic.
Sure, the Hawks didn't draft DeMarre Carroll or Kyle Korver, but the team's brilliant usage of them and the improvement on their ends only shows how brilliant this organization has become.
5. Chicago Bulls
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Not all of the Bulls' talent is homegrown, but a pretty good portion of it fits that description.
Let's even remove Pau Gasol (free-agent signing) and Derrick Rose (first overall pick who was nearly guaranteed to be an impact player) from the conversation, and there are still plenty of guys left.
Jimmy Butler, Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson have obviously become longtime contributors. Two are All-Stars; one is a perennial Sixth Man of the Year candidate (even though Gibson and Noah are having down seasons).
None of those three was even a top-eight pick too. The Bulls developed them on their own time.
Rookie Nikola Mirotic has broken out over the past five weeks or so and seems destined to make First-Team All-Rookie after falling out of Tom Thibodeau's rotation on multiple occasions earlier in the season. Second-year wing Tony Snell is morphing into a contributor this year, too, knocking down 39 percent of his threes and manning admirable defense.
4. Indiana Pacers
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The Pacers are boring.
The Pacers don't score much.
The Pacers are below .500.
The Pacers possibly won't make the playoffs.
Yep. That's all true. Now, realize exactly what they're working with in Indiana.
The core of the Pacers team that went to last year's Eastern Conference Finals is gone.
Paul George has been hurt for almost the whole season, though it was inspiring to see him come back to the team for one final playoff push. Lance Stephenson left for Charlotte after hitting free agency, getting far less money than everyone expected and then immediately seeing his deal turn into an overpay when he decided to shoot 38 percent from the field and 17 percent from long range during his first year as a Hornet. Roy Hibbert, meanwhile, has played with a general malaise as the team around him has mostly lost this season.
But the Pacers hone talent as well as almost anyone.
Donnie Walsh and Larry Bird are wonderful basketball minds in the front office. Frank Vogel is the NBA's forgotten great coach. We know he's one of the league's 10 best. He just slips everyone's mind for some reason.
The Pacers still developed those three aforementioned players. They still turned selecting Solomon Hill 23rd, what was thought of as a massive reach at the time, into a legitimate value pick. Hill may not score well at all now, but he's already turned into a consequential wing stopper.
There's no need to worry about the Pacers. Once they get the PG-13 and the Hibbert we all recognize back next season, they won't be much different than they've been the past few years.
3. Oklahoma City Thunder
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The Thunder have fallen on some poor luck this season, but they still have one of the best talent-developing organizations.
Kevin Durant was going to be good no matter what, and he was the obvious pick when OKC selected him second in 2007. Russell Westbrook was going to go all Russ on us too, regardless of where he went in the draft. But there are so many more intelligent selections general manager Sam Presti has made and farmed.
Serge Ibaka was raw as sushi when he first came into the league. Now, he's found discipline as a defender, becoming one of the best rim protectors (2.6 blocks per game for his career) and helpers in the NBA and is one of the league's most accurate shooting bigs (37.6 percent from downtown on 205 attempts this season). Stevens Adams was lots-of-talent, not-much-skill during his sole year at Pittsburgh, but the Thunder, by age 21, developed him into a defensive-minded bruiser down low who's an above-average guarding center.
They turned Reggie Jackson into a player.
During his short time in Oklahoma, they've seen an instant uptick in offensive and rebounding from Enes Kanter, even if he spins on defense more than a dreidel on the first night of Hanukkah.
Oh, and developing James Harden still counts, even if the Thunder did make the regrettable decision of not extending their sixth man and trading him, instead.
2. Golden State Warriors
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Obviously, a team that's sitting on 65 wins is going to have some homegrown talent. And when you look at the Warriors, that's certainly the case.
The clear leader of the team, this year's MVP favorite, Stephen Curry, has never played for another organization. People forget that there were plenty out there who didn't believe much in Curry when Golden State selected him seventh back in 2009. Boy, were they all wrong...
Klay Thompson has taken a massive leap this year, improving as a ball-handler, defender and especially as a passer (career-high 2.9 assists per game). Draymond Green has jumped from impact defender/extremist energy guy to Defensive Player of the Year candidate favorite candidate—actually, I'm not sure. Harrison Barnes spent the first couple of his NBA years bathing in inconsistency but has evened out into a stretch 4 and quality defender.
Actually, that's the beauty of this Warriors team: Everyone plays defense.
Golden State allows fewer points per possession than any other team in the league. It plays stifling defense. And that's all part of the culture that has allowed guys like Thompson, Curry, Green and Barnes to improve.
1. San Antonio Spurs
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The Spurs are like Kodak: They develop everything. They're the model for building through the draft.
Need an all-time power forward? How's Tim Duncan?
Want another Hall of Famer? Manu Ginobili works.
You're asking for another? Well, you're getting kind of greedy, but we'll give you Tony Parker.
If you need any more proof about the brilliance of Popovich and R.C. Buford's talent development, just look over at Danny Green's corner. Sure, the Spurs didn't actually draft Green so he's not technically homegrown, but San Antonio found an undrafted kid who was waived by the Cleveland Cavaliers and...well, the Spurs waived him, too—only six days after signing him in 2010, actually.
But they brought him back and turned him into one of the NBA's premier three-and-D players.
They made Kawhi Leonard into one of the NBA's best players, into the NBA's arguable best defender, into the NBA's resident expressionless face and, most importantly, into the NBA's most recent Finals MVP.
The Spurs have implemented a culture that allows them to farm like this. The hierarchy is always apparently as unselfish.
David Robinson handed off to Duncan. Duncan to Parker. Now, Parker is giving the team to Kawhi. Actually, he already has. And none of the stars seem to mind. They just keep producing alongside the men who are supposed to infringe on their futures.
No one fields talent like San Antonio. And no one wins in the ways the Spurs do.
