Nylon Calculus: Grading front office competence by Draft, SRS, and CHAOS

A little over a week ago, Neil Paine introduced the Cumulative High-Activity Organizational Strife (CHAOS) score to detail the historical incompetence of the Cleveland Browns organization. Since I hadn’t found a complete or simplified front office analysis for NBA teams, I used CHAOS as a foundation to help determine some of the more competent and incompetent organizations of the past 20 or so years.

In addition, I analyze draft performance and scoring differential to complete the multi-pronged approach. All of us are already obsessed with player analysis, so why not extend analytics to the front-office level?

The Draft

I dug up Roland Beech’s analysis from 82games and had decided to replicate the method using draft data from 1999 to 2017. To reiterate, the calculation goes like:

Rating = points/game + rebounds/game + assists/game

After calculating each team’s pick performance, I calculated the expected performance. If the Atlanta Hawks had picks No. 3, 14, and 56, their pick performance indicates the per game averages of those players for the rest of their respective careers. Expected performance is the per game averages of all other teams picks at spot No. 3, 14, and 56. The difference between pick performance and expected performance gives us the values in the last column on the right, a snapshot at draft performance since 1999.

While teams like Charlotte or Orlando have relatively whiffed on their picks, I think the Dallas Mavericks should be lampooned for their lack of seeking talent in the draft for development. In comparison, the San Antonio Spurs have drafted well against lower standards for the performance of their picks. In other words, there are no excuses for having bad drafts even if you don’t have prime draft picks.

The reason why San Antonio’s pick performance is so low is that Kawhi Leonard’s career performance is awarded to the Indiana Pacers. That’s surely somewhat of a flaw in this analysis, but nonetheless, it’s a good snapshot at drafting ability and this flaw is quelled by each team’s Simple Rating.

Team performance

I analyzed each team’s simple rating (SRS) since 2000-01, figuring that a stat incorporating scoring differential bodes well for discerning team performance across an entire season. Now, while the San Antonio Spurs weren’t recognized for bringing in Kawhi Leonard on draft night as discussed above, the team benefits from his presence by SRS. All acquisitions are agreeably reflected on the court, not just by wins, but how comfortably those wins are.

Some more information on SRS can be found here.

LeBron’s SRS = Cleveland’s SRS during LeBron years + Miami’s SRS during LeBron years

I included LeBron James because I personally view him as an institution on his own, and it already goes without saying that he’s had his hand in some personnel decisions over the course of his career. Not only has he signed off on a trade or draft pick here and there, he’s also been personable enough to form a super team in Miami. Could you imagine if LeBron was annoying and difficult? He’d never be able to join forces with the likes of Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade.

That aside, there’s something good in the water down south. Texas teams have worked hard to sustain year-over-year scoring differential and have produced some of the phenomenal playoff teams over the past two decades. The Spurs are in a league of their own, and at this point have taken the crown as the most competent NBA organization.

Charlotte has been a pretty bad all around. They can’t really get an edge on the draft picks that they’ve made and haven’t been able to put a competent product on the floor. While the franchise has scored with Kemba Walker, they’ve never gotten close to getting the pieces he needs to flourish. Before Kemba, the team was historically bad.

CHAOS

You’d think there’d be way more parity in today’s game just due to basketball’s randomness, but I think the league is unequal because of the high overturn at some of these front offices. Borrowing from Paine, I give you the calculation behind NBA CHAOS:

"You get 2 points for changing owners, 3 for changing Execs, 7 for changing coaches and 10 for number of seasons going under 1 for SRS."

Now I interpreted CHAOS a tad differently, attempting to curtail it to NBA standards. Where Paine counted the number of front office changes, I counted by total number of people in the front office at any given time. Also, instead of counting by some quarterback equivalent like All-Stars, I used number of seasons where the team’s SRS was under 1. An SRS of 1 tends to indicate a team just outside of the top 12-16 range in any given year, and usually won’t go far into the playoffs anyways, unless that team’s in the Eastern Conference.

Also, hiring for these positions gets pretty muddied. Some guys float around from team to team for years before coming back again. Other teams will switch from traditionally monarchical approaches at GM to a democratic approach where multiple guys have a say in decisions, so getting an exact executive count was tough. That being said, I still think what the table shows above is that bad teams have tons of turnover, but what else is new in business these days.

If it hasn’t been clear enough, the San Antonio Spurs are by far the most competent and consistent organization in the NBA over the past two decades. As for the worst, I think it’s a little close, but the Charlotte Hornets have no idea how to sustain success. While they have a middling CHAOS score, it shows that the personnel they’re bringing in aren’t making sound decisions by the draft or free agency. Other unstable organizations include the Washington Wizards, Brooklyn Nets, and the New York Knicks.

To be clear, I’m not saying that any specific person is bad. Running an NBA team is really tough, and just like a team, it takes the right fit to make a season go right.

The Golden State Warriors

One team that I wanted to save till the end is a premier example of change going great, where new leadership rights the ship in a spectacular way. The success of the Warriors aren’t reflected well in the charts above, since the team suffered pretty bad turnover before 2009. Most may remember the video from Chris Mullin’s jersey ceremony way back when the Warriors still kinda stunk. Right after the team shipped Monta Ellis out the door for Andrew Bogut, most fans got fed up with the organization. New owner Joe Lacob was dealing with some serious heat then.

While Lacob came in a year after Steph Curry, he put the team in that got the assets to build around the franchise’s superstar. He put trust in Bob Myers and hasn’t ever forced dramatic changes to the team in recent years. The front office has fostered a healthy developmental environment for young players and has attracted veterans that help build on that foundation. It wouldn’t be surprising if the tandem sticks around for at least another decade, and if there’s anyone that stands to learn from the Warriors, it’d be Michael Jordan in Charlotte.

The team really took off in 2013, about three years after Lacob took over.