By the Time I Get to Arizona...

U2 burned the April 4th date into my head as the day a "shot rings out in the Memphis sky." My two favorite bands growing up were U2 and Public Enemy. PE courted controversy on a number of occasions including a political diatribe on Arizona and its reluctance to make Martin Luther King's Birthday a holiday in that state. Bono and U2 have always been active voices against oppression while promoting public policy that helps the developing world. The intersection of pop culture and politics tests the dogmatic and has historically done so on the issue of race. The anniversary of King's death, along with the Arizona drafting strategy discussed in our previous post, allows me to offer another self-indulgent blog on drafting strategy that tries in vain to be more esoteric than it really is. Thesis number two on drafting: Don't draft white players from America in the first round! I say this at the risk of being compared to the Oklahoma baseball coach or the Navy football coach or even Jimmy the friggin Greek. This may not align with the progressive discourse envisioned by King but it is relevant nonetheless. While the result of this experiment is less powerful than the Arizona test, it still yields very good results. For example, Denver could have passed on LaFrentz (3rd) for Jamison or Carter. Szcerbiak (6th) was selected before Hamilton, Andre Miller, Shawn Marion and Jason Terry. Van Horn (2nd) before Billups. Todd Fuller before Potapenko, Kobe, Peja and Steve Nash. Bryant Reeves (6th) was selected prior to Damon Stoudamire, Montross before Eddie Jones, Shawn Bradley before Anfernee Hardaway! The list goes on and on... even current Cavs GM and former Spur Danny Ferry before Sean Elliott (former Spur and current Spur broadcaster). The white players taken who were not followed by an obviously better pick, have done ok but have not exceeded relative expectations. Examples here are Troy Murphy, Mike Miller, Christian Laettner, Rex Chapman and Chris Kaman (Kaman is solid and improving). There is some need by general managers to select strong college players even though they lack the potential to dominate in the pros. Often the decision is supported by the misguided belief that the player is especially smart or mature, which traditionally has led to a bias towards white players. Scouts are now more fair in dolling out gold stars for intelligence and maturity but still overestimate the downside risk of not having these qualities. Additionally, many of these players have size which may be another attribute that is overated. The confluence of solid white players who are sizeable has led to many disastrous choices by NBA General Managers. More specifically, we look at white big men taken as top 10 picks: Jon Konkac, Joe Kleine, Rony Seikaly, Shawn Bradley, Eric Montross, Bryant Reeves, Raef LaFrentz, Chris Mihm, Joel Pryzbilla, Chris Kamen...This is rivaled by the small forward list of top picks including: Chris Mullin, Danny Ferry, Christian Laettner, Tom Gugliotta, Keith Van Horn, Wally Szcerbiak, Mike Miller and Mike Dunleavy. Most of these small forwards are real players, some were complete busts but most were still mistakes, save Chris Mullin. With Adam Morrisson on the horizon, GM's have to look at the significant amount of data that would support passing on Morrisson with such a high pick. Is he the next Larry Bird? No. With that in mind, would you really be satisfied with Christian Laettner? Now, the poor performance of American-born white lottery picks is not solely or even a majority biologically based. There are a number of other factors that could possibly determine this phenomenon and is something that should be studied, but won't be. Additionally, we could look at what are the signs, if any, of a burgeoning quality white player. 1985-2004 NBA Drafts