Why do the NFL and other sports leagues have drafts? Seems like a lot of pomp and circumstance for what most other industries seem to handle with little fuss: hiring recent college graduates. I’ve yet to hear Bill Gates explaining how he used Microsoft’s third pick in the draft to select an up-and-coming programmer because, “he’s got a lot of heart.”
Seriously, I’m interested in how the practice of sports “drafts” originated and why it continues. All insight appreciated.
Thanks!
Due to salary caps, teams cannot simply pay incoming players the market value of their skills. But even before salary caps existed, it was in the best overall interest of the team owners to not enter into bidding competitions. And in theory it makes for a better sport by encouraging parity between teams which presumedly leads to more entertaining competition. So the draft system was created to regulate the hiring of new players.
Basically, the theory is that to make professional sports more appealing every team’s fans, each team should have (roughly) the same amount of talent as every other team. Part of the way to accomplish this is to give the worst teams the chance to sign the best new players.
And, at least sometimes, this works. The NBA is probably the best example. In the 2002-2003 season, the Denver Nuggets and the Cleveland Cavilers were two of the worst teams in the league. They also had some of the lowest attendence (and gross revenue) figures in the league. The draft comes up around, they select Carmelo Anthony and Lebron James respectively (two best players in the draft last year). In the 03-04 season, both teams are dramatically improved.
Baseball’s somewhat different, since many players get drafted right out of high school and generally spend at least 2-3 years in the minors before making it to the professional level.
This should help. I’m just glad that my Giants got Eli Manning. 
Slight hijack: how do English football teams get players? Just who can pay the most?
I think the key reason it continues is a relative lack of pro-quality football players. To go with your Bill Gates analogy, there may be thousands of programmers coming out of school every year and a pool of unemployed programmers that numbers thousands more. On the other hand, you may have 10 Great football players, 25 Pretty Good football players, and the rest Ok on down. Whereas MS may get to pick from 30 magna cum laude 4.0 recruits, the Steelers may have to choose from 2 great running backs.
It helps to understand that in some ways a sports league is a business rather than a group of businesses. By working together the teams make money. Uncompetative teams don’t make as much money as competitive teams do and uncompetative leagues don’t make as much money as competitive ones. So it is everyone’s long term interest to give every team a chance to win. This is why the NBA and the NFL are in better financial shape than Major League Baseball. They have a salary cap which keeps a team with deep pockets like the infamous New York Yankees from hoarding all the talent.
Well, this is GQ, not IMHO, so this is sort of the wrong place to argue this, but most of that is simply not true. The Pistons felt Milicic was better, yeah, but even he was drafted to help right away. He was supposed to be a main scoring option on that team this season.
The fact that he spent the season on the bench is more indicative of his being less developed than the Pistons wanted than it is proof that James or Anthony would’ve done the same. As a championship-caliber team who thought they could add that extra piece, the Pistons screwed up- Darko might be the scoring big man they wanted him to be sometime down the road, but he didn’t deliver what he was expected to. Lebron and Carmelo did deliver, and to say they played for lousy teams is not really accurate. The Nuggets are in the playoffs, and the Cavs were in it until the last few weeks of the season. Plus, I’d argue that the Pistons don’t have anybody better than Lebron, and probably didn’t have anyone better than Anthony on draft day.
I probably shouldn’t do this, ut I felt compelled to argue…
This is absolutely not true. The Pistons drafted Milicic because they figured thats ince their team made the playoffs the previous season, they could afford to draft a “project player” who could sit on the bench for a year or two and learn the game while his body matures. Being that he was 18 at the time of the draft, they didn’t expect him to play the first year at all, and they didn’t need him to. They had Ben Wallace and Mehmet Okur and a playoff roster.
Again, not true. The Pistons got just about what they expect from Darko this season, which was nothing. The true test of Darko’s ability will be in two years from now, when he is expected to be playing heavy minutes (his minutes depending on Rasheed Wallace’s contract situation). Next year is technically Darko’s rookie year.
Arguing that the Cavs and Nuggets weren’t awful teams is simply wrong, they had the two worst records the season before. That’s proof enough. The Cavs rise this season was due almost entirely to LeBron James, whereas the Nuggets got help from the acquisitions of Andre Miller and Earl Boykins (and others) as well as Anthony. The Pistons could have used both James and Anthony at the SF position, but I think the Pistons were happy with Richard Hamilton and Teyshaun Prince (especially after Prince’s heroic performance in the previous playoffs).
Again, sorry to argue here, but I felt I had to.
Basically.
It makes it all the more satisfying when your small forever underachieving team finally pulls off a shock victory over one of the big boys.