TIER 5: WE DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON
Magic, Knicks, Hawks
There are a lot of reasons why the ’19 Magic, Knicks, and Hawks won’t be very good basketball teams. Most of those reasons have to do with who makes the personnel decisions. As I mentioned in the Nets segment, I am surprised all 30 teams don’t go all in on investing in an A+ front office.
Over the last decade, the growth of basketball analytics has made it a lot easier for front offices to identify talent and get the most out of it. They have also made contract negotiations, scouting, and injury prevention a hell of a lot easier. There is enough advanced data out there from enough different vendors for every team to use as some sort of baseline for success. In 2018, there is no such thing as a basketball theory.
Everything can be explained by analytics and everything can at least somewhat be represented by an absolute value. There has never been this many useful tools to assist in running a successful NBA team, all the more imperative why a great front office should be at the forefront of every franchise.
With the exception of the Cavs (who had LeBron), three of the final four teams from last year have exceptional front offices. The Warriors are famous for coining the light-years ahead phrase. And while Houston has let Mike D’Antoni revolutionize Moreyball, Danny Ainge has set his team up for the next decade through a plethora of savvy trades. Front offices matter a lot. You need the right people in place to properly utilize analytics and modern technology to the advantage of the franchise. If not, it could get caught in basketball’s version of a Stone Age.
In some way shape or form, that’s what has happened to these three teams. You can describe each of them as train wrecks. I don’t believe any of them are anywhere close to 100% confident in the direction of their franchise. In the Knicks case, another five years of bottom feeding might send Stephen A. Smith into cardiac arrest.