NBA Player Development? By Whom?

Astute blogger PhDribble considered the existence of NBA player development as a balance against the MLB farm system. Henry Abbott took up the issue, concluding there isn't a) much time and b) much motivation for serious player development given the frequency with which the coaching guillotine is used. PhDribble notes Detroit's success with Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson, and yes, this has worked. But neither Max nor Amir are complete players yet; with the still young base of most teams' roster tails -- the majority of first-rounders are still 19- or 20-year-olds -- you'd consider three to four years as the prime development time.

Four years ago, LeBron James was a month into his rookie campaign. Those years in between were prime development years, yes? Consider this: LeBron and draftmates Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade -- every single one has had more than one coach in their NBA careers, and three of the four have had multiple front-office regimes. Only Wade could be considered to have a stable development environment through his first four years in the league, and he's been dealing with Pat Riley's yo-yo act the entire time.

In last four years, there have been 73 NBA head coaches for the 30 teams. (This isn't counting temporary fill-ins like Brendan Malone; in-season replacements had to total 30 games at the helm to be counted.) Only four teams have gone the (short) span without a coaching change (Washington, San Antonio, Utah and... the Clippers). If there is a player development system for these non-S.A., non-Utah franchises, it's getting shaken up every other year on average. Add in the propensity to trade youngsters, and exactly one 2003 first-rounder has had one NBA coach his entire career (Chris Kaman).

Long-term development -- beyond getting Maxiell to drop some weight over a summer -- isn't possible on a team-by-team basis in the NBA. There's not enough consistency. (This, of course, speaks to the value of consistency in a franchise. Also, player development outside the umbrella of the team works; I know this for I am a Kevin Martin fan. And I know Eric Musselman didn't teach Kevin Martin squat.)