Diving into the NBA Rebuild: How Long Must We Wait?
Rebuilding in the NBA is tough. How long does it take and who will turn it around soon?
Watching your team suck isn’t fun.
Sometimes your team sucks because of injuries, or maybe they’re young and haven’t quite figured out how to win yet. Maybe you have hope for the next season, or the one after that. But sometimes your team just plain sucks and there’s no hope in sight.
In the NBA, rebuilds can be brutal. To compete for a championship you have to have at least one star, and to get a star you usually either need to make a blockbuster trade or win a literal lottery. The process of losing, accumulating draft picks, and hoping for a star to fall into your lap is tedious, and eventually it gets pretty hard to #TrustTheProcess. So how long does it take to rebuild an organization from garbage into something respectable?
Well, that depends on how you define respectable. If your team can win 60% of its games in a season, it’s fair to say you’re a force to be reckoned with. And it’s been well established that winning a playoff series isn’t something just anyone can do. (Except for those weird best-of-three series in the 50’s and 60’s. A Bill-Murray-Daffy-Duck-led team could have taken one of those on a fluke.) So if a team can do either of those things in a given season they’re safely out of the rebuilding stage. But rebuilding to that level can still take a lifetime.
The Data
Below is a table of each franchises longest streak of being “bad” (as defined by those terms) in the shot-clock era:
As you can see some teams have had better luck than others. Defying all logic, the Lakers have somehow gone six decades without a drought of more than four years. Four years ago Disney’s Frozen was released. Doesn’t that feel like yesterday? Isn’t Idina Menzel’s Let it Go still stuck in your head on a weekly basis? Yeah, that’s how quickly the Lakers go from trash to contenders.
Meanwhile, the other team in Los Angeles didn’t have a good season for their first 35 years of existence. 35 years ago Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Stephen Spielberg's E.T: The Extraterrestrial were just making their premieres. I’ll wager that doesn’t feel like yesterday to you. The Clippers were bad for longer than Dwayne Wade has been alive, and the Lakers longest streak is younger than Django Unchained. Absurd.
Current Rebuilds
Luckily, every other team’s longest rebuild falls somewhere in-between. The average for each franchise is 12 years. That may seem like a long time, but compared to the Wizards’ 25 or the Kings’ 19, it suddenly doesn’t sound too bad.
If 12 years is the standard for a rebuild, then which teams are due to have their first good season in awhile? There are currently 11 teams that are in the middle of a bad streak of four years or more. The Pistons, Magic, 76ers, Suns, Kings, Jazz, Lakers, Hornets, Pelicans, Timberwolves, and Bucks are all looking to turn it around as soon as possible.
Out of those 11, the only team that seems ready to make the leap this season is the Utah Jazz. Utah is currently on a 51 win pace, and is vying for a top seed in the West. If all goes according to plan, their streak stops here.
That leaves ten teams wondering when their time will come. The Bucks, T-Wolves, and Hornets are all past their twelve-year time frame, but it shows as all three seem to be right on the fringe of good-ness. Milwaukee has a solid core based around one of the most exciting players in the league, Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Timberwloves have a foundation set with their young trio of Wiggins, LaVine, and Towns. And the Hornets have found their star in Kemba Walker. They started the season showing what they’re capable of before tapering off, and are just a few pieces away from completion.
Others are just steps away from respectability as well. Hinkie stepped down just a bit too soon as Joel Embiid finally made his debut and has quickly made the Sixers the most fun team in the league. The Pelicans have a top 10 player in Anthony Davis to build around, and lots of young guys to develop. And surprise surprise the Lakers have found a solid core of young players that are bound to blow up soon. They’ll undoubtedly break their record of 4 years after this season, but their future is bright yet again. That leaves four teams who still have a ways to go.
Detroit Pistons: 2009-Present
The Pistons looked to be on an upswing after a solid campaign last year, but things have gone awry this season. Detroit seems to think they found their star in Andre Drummond, but outside sources question whether he can really be the player they expect him to be.
The roster is full of useful players, but the team has struggled to find the chemistry to turn that talent into wins. The Pistons moved on from Brandon Jennings in a trade for Tobias Harris, and trusted Reggie Jackson to run the point. Jackson initially responded well and had a career season, but this year his numbers have dipped significantly. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Marcus Morris have played well, but it’s clear they’re nothing more than role players. The team has gotten themselves back into playoff contention this year, however it seems unlikely that they’ll make any noise in a top-heavy playoffs. Detroit’s lack of defense and outside shooting has hurt them big time.
The Pistons seem to be stuck in the no-man’s-land of being too good to get a high lottery pick, but not nearly good enough to be in title contention. They’re in need of a roster shake-up to climb out of the hole they’ve been in for the past eight years. Detroit has plenty of solid role-players who can contribute on any NBA roster, but they’re lacking “the guy” who can take over a game or change a franchise.
It’s hard to move on from guys that can come in and produce on a nightly basis, but the Pistons need to look to the trade market to find a true star to build around. Drummond may be the star Detroit desperately wants him to be, but regardless, he surely needs more help than he has. In the age of super-teams, Detroit should look to take less “good” players and do what they can to acquire someone a little more “super.” Sometimes there aren’t any stars on the trade market for years at a time, but if the opportunity presents itself, Detroit ought to jump on it.
Orlando Magic: 2012-Present
The Magic were pretty good in 2010–2011 when led by Dwight Howard, but since he demanded to be traded away the franchise has struggled to recover.
They’ve aimed to build through the draft, but haven’t used their draft picks very well in recent years. Orlando used their top draft picks to acquire a young core comprised of Tobias Harris, Victor Oladipo, Aaron Gordon, and Mario Hezonja, but none of these have worked out for the team the way they hoped.
Harris was traded to Detroit for two veterans who are no longer on the team. Oladipo and another top pick was traded to Oklahoma City for Serge Ibaka, but Serge’s presence took away the playing time and development of Gordon. The front office apparently realized their mistake and traded away Ibaka, but all they received in return was Terrance Ross and a first round pick. Essentially, they traded away Oladipo for a worse player of the same position, and a worse and delayed draft pick. Meanwhile, Hezonja remains with the team, but has under-performed expectations in every way.
Their streak hasn’t been going on long, but it might be awhile before they really recover from the mess Dwight left in his wake. Orlando has been searching for a franchise player in his wake, but hasn’t been satisfied yet. Maybe someday they’ll stop trading away anyone who could possibly take up the mantle.
Phoenix Suns 2011-Present
Similarly to Orlando, the Suns haven’t found success since trading away their star to the Lakers either. Granted, the Suns weren’t very good in his last year in Pheonix, but since trading Steve Nash to Los Angeles, Phoenix has struggled big time.
Eric Bledsoe is a star, and Devin Booker has proven himself as a bonfide scorer, but aside from that the Suns are bleak. They have one of the youngest rosters in the league, but very few of their other players have performed up to expectations. Alex Len still hasn’t quite found his role in the NBA, and rookies Marquese Chriss and Dragan Bender haven’t played liked Pheonix hoped.
The roster is desperate for development and growth, but instead they seem content to play aging veterans heavy minutes. It makes sense for a team desiring a playoff push to play veterans over their rookies, but the Suns sit at the bottom of the Western Conference. With no chance of seeing the playoffs, it seems that Pheonix should do what they can to rid themselves of their veterans, and let the youngsters develop as much as possible.
Phoenix is a rare instance of a team that’s young but really not all that interesting. Until their youngsters show more potential to be something special, the Suns are stuck in this rut. Keep drafting, Pheonix.
Sacramento Kings: 2006-Present
The Kings are perhaps the most interesting rebuild in the NBA. DeMarcus Cousins has proven to Sacramento that you have to take the good with the bad. His performance on the court has been absolutely phenomenal throughout his career, but his attitude problems have cost them coaches, players, and most likely quite a few wins.
The organization seems committed to retaining their star, and hoping to build around him for the future, but they’ve been largely unsuccessful at that so far. Rudy Gay, Ben McLemore, Tyreke Evans, and Rajon Rondo have all failed at being the sidekick Cosuins needs to succeed. The Kings know that they have a star, and don’t want to move on from a perennial All-Star, but Cousins has proven to be more difficult to build around than most.
The Kings haven’t drafted too well over the past few years, and when they have found hits, they’ve consistently moved on too soon. Isaiah Thomas and Hasaan Whiteside were both drafted by the Kings in the second round, but were both on their way out within three years. Sacramento has also had a top-10 pick every year since 2009, and every one has either been a clear miss or traded away since Cousins was drafted in 2010.
If Sacramento is intent on keeping Cosuins around for the long haul, they need to do something different to build around him. Maybe it’s being more active in the trade market, maybe it’s signing more strong veterans to play around him, or maybe it’s just having better luck in the draft, but whatever they’re doing now isn’t working. They’ve been stuck for years and if they don’t try to think outside the box, they’re going to find themselves on the wrong side of that 12 year average.
Keeping Boogie happy is the name of the game, and we’ll see if the Kings can accomplish that and win at the same time. Hopefully one will take care of the other.
Rebuilding in the NBA ultimately just takes a lot of luck. The Warriors found a star in Steph Curry who happened to have injury problems at just the right times for the organization to sign him at a bargain. Add in some incredible drafting, veterans signed with the extra money you saved on Steph, a new coach and viola: you get the best regular-season team in NBA history.
Cleveland was lucky too. After Lebron left they were the worst team in the NBA. It just so happened that that draft was the year that Kyrie Irving went first overall. They immediately improved, but despite their rising record win the lottery two more times. Then the best player in the world decided he wanted to come home. The Cavs organization certainly had nothing to do with that. The only thing left to do was to use those two number-one picks to nab Kevin Love, and their core is set for years and years.
You can win big in the draft without landing a top pick too. Just ask Isaiah Thomas. Sometimes you can have free agents interested in your team for any number of non-basketball reasons. Anything can happen to make your team go from bottom to top faster than a Warriors fast break. Every team rolls the dice. Some make out like bandits on a regular basis, while some have to wait decades just to win a lousy playoff series. But eventually everyone gets a chance to be good. It’s only a matter of time.
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