Archive for the 'NBA Draft' Category

Here's a fun post from Ryan DeGama of CelticsHub:

Semih Erden: Greatest Of All Time? | CelticsHub.com

In it, Ryan examines whether or not Semih Erden can eventually overtake Sean Higgins, Don Reid, and Zeljko Rebraca as the top player ever to be selected last in an NBA draft.

(Hat tip to TrueHoop for the link.)

One of my fave features in SLAM Magazine (at least, when I was a teenager -- not sure if they still do it) was the annual "Rookies Most Likely To..." column, where members of the incoming draft class were judged based on what they were the most likely to do. For instance, we would have said last year that Blake Griffin was the RMLT Average 20 Points (sorry, Clips fans!), or that Stephen Curry was the RMLT knock down 40% of his treys (done, with room to spare), or... well, you get the idea. So this year I want to put it to you, the reader: which rookies are the most likely to live up (or down) to each of these expectations?

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I love the way the web's best draft sites provide comparable NBA players for draftees, because -- while totally unscientific -- it provides a decent framework upon which to build your view of (and expectations for) each rookie. Today, I'm going to look at the comparisons from Basketball Prospectus' Kevin Pelton, HoopsHype, DraftExpress, and NBADraft.net for each lottery pick, and show the best seasons (by Win Shares) for each comp to get a feel for what they may turn into, including potential strengths and weaknesses.

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Last year, Justin had a great series about the expected career and rookie-contract value (in Win Shares) of a draft choice by overall pick #, and it's a must-read this week as you prepare for Thursday's event. I don't want -- or need -- to tread the same ground here today; instead, I'm interested in what kind of peak performance you can expect out of a player drafted in each slot. Because as good as longevity is, I feel like a player's peak years say a lot about his overall talent level, and the type of production he's capable of putting up, even if he only did it for a brief time. There's an old saying in baseball: "Once a player displays a skill, he owns it." Peak performance is like that -- a guy like Penny Hardaway may have only been super-elite for 1 season before getting hurt and declining, but 1 season is all it took to show he had that type of innate talent.

Now, the question becomes, how do we measure peak performance? Justin already used WS, so I'm going to look at peak Statistical +/-, defined as the highest 3-year moving weighted average* of the player's career.

(* The average for Year Y was determined by regressing each season to 222 minutes of -2.57 +/-, and weighting the previous seasons like this: Y, 66%; Y-1, 22%; and Y-2, 12%. Players who never made the NBA were said to have peaked at -2.57.)

Here are the average peak performances for each draft slot from 1976-2000:

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With the 2010 NBA Draft coming up in just 2 days, here are some features to help you get prepared for the big event:

• Justin's 2010 Draft Preview - A table with the 2010 draft order (as of today); the expected value in Win Shares of each pick #; the historical probability that each pick # played in the NBA; and the best players ever taken in each slot.
• Recent Drafts: 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005
• Play Index - Draft Finder - Search historical draft results by many different criteria
• All-Time 1st Overall Picks
• All-Time Franchise Draft Histories
• The Value of An NBA Draft Pick: Part I | Part II | Part III
• College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
• BBR Blog: Peak Performance by Pick # | Early Impact of #1 Picks | All Draft Posts
• Other Go-To Draft Links on the Web

Over at APBRmetrics, longtime BBR reader/commenter DSMok1 has been putting together a great thread about the expected value of a draft pick, expanding on a post Justin made last year. The graphs are really fascinating, especially with regard to the possible range of production you might get at each draft slot, as well as the odds of getting a good player by pick#, and the chart of the surplus values of each pick#. With the lottery being held last night and the draft quickly approaching, that thread is a must read.

As you might imagine, Len Bias' name comes up quite a bit in Bill Simmons' new Book of Basketball. As a lifelong Celtics fan, I understand the emotions that surround the very mention of Bias' name -- for instance, my father was convinced Bias was going to be almost as good as Bird, and take the torch from Larry Legend as he extended the C's dynasty into the 1990s. (Instead, Reggie Lewis died, and we got Rick Pitino & Antoine Walker. Go figure.) So I can see why Bias is such a burning "what if?" for the NBA, and Celtics fans in particular, because he represents untapped potential and a posthumous legend that's only grown by leaps and bounds since his tragic demise. But I want to know -- coldly, rationally -- how good Bias could have legitimately been if we put down the green-tinted glasses: What were his college numbers like? What were people saying about him before the draft? In other words, I want to remove the James Dean aspect from the Bias story and focus solely on the facts at hand.

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Let me ask you a question: Would you rather have Blake Griffin for the next 3 years, or 3 years of one of the 5 best players in basketball last year? How about one of the Top 10? One of the Top 20? In other words, how does the #1 pick typically fare during his 1st contract when compared to one of the league's best players from the year before he was drafted?

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Following up on his excellent draft previews, Ed Weiland of HoopsAnalyst offers up his grades on last Thursday's draft, including an interesting comparison between the bevy of point guards in this year's draft class and the iconic group of quarterbacks taken in the 1983 NFL draft. (Ty Lawson = Dan Marino!)

Here's the final part of Ed Weiland's draft coverage over at HoopsAnalyst:

NBA Draft 2009: Centers
NBA Draft 2009: Power Forwards
NBA Draft 2009: Combo Forwards