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NBA Draft Review General Conclusions

11/26/2012

I would like to go over some of the main conclusions from the 15 Year Draft Review I recently conducted. That review covered every draft from 1997 to 2011, so it should give us some pretty good ideas of modern trends in NBA drafting.

The first thing I would like to talk about seems rather obvious: Great players almost always get drafted in the top ten. What is not quite as obvious is how rare it is for great players to drop past the first ten selections.

Let us define "great" players, in this context, as guys who make several All-Star teams, not just one or two. 25 players drafted since 1997 have made at least three All-Star teams. Only three of them were drafted outside of the top ten. They were Gilbert Arenas, Tony Parker and Rajon Rondo. All three played point guard, traditionally the hardest position for which to project future pro potential.

So it certainly seems scouts and teams are excellent at identifying future great NBA players. Very few top prospects slip through the cracks and drop out of the top ten, or even the top five. In particular, superstars – like Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose – are almost always taken within the first five selections. Perennial All-NBA players like these are rather easily identified by teams, and selected very early in the draft.

When superstar-type players do drop out of the top five - like Dirk Nowitzki, Tracy McGrady and Amare Stoudemire did - it is usually because they were unable to prove their value in college. Nonetheless, they are taken by pick #10. With the establishment of the “Over 19” rule and the larger emphasis put on international scouting, superstars today seem even more unlikely to drop outside of the top five.

The drop off in talent immediately after pick #10 has been stunning since 1997. In that span 14 different players drafted from picks #6 through #10 have made the All-Star team. Meanwhile no players drafted from picks #11 through #15 have made the team:

Pick Number Number of All-Stars Drafted There Since 1997

#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
#11
#12
#13
#14
#15

3
2
0
5
4
0
0
0
0
0

That is pretty amazing - 75 players drafted between #11 and #15, and zero All-Stars. It certainly underscores the shocking drop in talent immediately after the tenth selection. It therefore seems late lottery picks have been incorrectly overvalued in recent draft history.

So picking in the top ten seems essential if you want a chance to draft a future big star. If you are drafting outside of the top ten you probably want to shift your draft strategy and acknowledge it is highly unlikely you will be in position to select a great player. It simply does not happen very often. In the rare cases when it does happen it is almost always a point guard or a relatively unknown foreign player that falls.

Now let's go back to the 25 great players drafted since 1997 that have made at least three All-Star games, with their draft position. We should notice how many elite players were selected very early. It is hardly a coincidence, and proves that NBA teams really do know how to identify the very best talent:

Player Pick Number

Tim Duncan
Yao Ming
LeBron James
Dwight Howard
Derrick Rose
Kevin Durant
Chauncey Billups
Pau Gasol
Carmelo Anthony
Deron Williams
Chris Bosh
Chris Paul
Vince Carter
Dwyane Wade
Brandon Roy
Richard Hamilton
Tracy McGrady
Dirk Nowitzki
Shawn Marion
Amare Stoudemire
Paul Pierce
Joe Johnson
Rajon Rondo
Tony Parker
Gilbert Arenas

#1
#1
#1
#1
#1
#2
#3
#3
#3
#3
#4
#4
#5
#5
#6
#7
#9
#9
#9
#9
#10
#10
#21
#28
#30

Clearly it is best to pick as high as possible - but exceptional players are historically available throughout the top ten. It is also worth noticing that Rondo, Parker and Arenas were all picked from #21 to #30, and not in the teens - which transitions us nicely into our next finding.

Perhaps the most surprising discovery of the draft review is how random draft results become after pick ten. It is not as if the the best players remaining after the tenth selection are always picked in the teens and early twenties. In many drafts we find that some of the better players available in the entire draft are not picked until late in the first round or in the second round. Overall 61 different players drafted since 1997 have been selected to the All-Star team. Let's look at where these 61 All-Stars were selected:

Pick Number Number of All-Star Players Selected There

#1 through #10
#11 through #20
#21 through #30
#31 through #40
#41 through #50
#51 through #60
Undrafted Free Agent

39
7
7
3
3
1
1

Once again we see how important it is to have a top ten pick in order to get a star. But there are the same number of All-Stars selected between picks #21 through #30 as there are at #11 through #20. And we see, contrary to popular opinion, that All-Star talent is sometimes available all the way through the forties.

Here is a partial list of notable players drafted 25th or later since 1997: Stephen Jackson (picked #42), Rashard Lewis (#32), Brad Miller (undrafted free agent), Manu Ginobili (#57), Michael Redd (#43), Gerald Wallace (#25), Tony Parker (#28), Gilbert Arenas (#30), Mehmet Okur (#37), Carlos Boozer (#34), Luis Scola (#55), Josh Howard (#29), Mo Williams (#47), Kevin Martin (#26), Anderson Varejao (#30), David Lee (#30), Monta Ellis (#40), Lou Williams (#45), Marcin Gortat (#57), Paul Millsap (#47) and Marc Gasol (#48.)

Those are some pretty impressive late picks. So while the very best stars are almost always gone after pick #10, extremely good players are available throughout the draft. However, teams often seem to treat the end of round one and round two dismissively. They regularly even sell their later picks in a blatant salary dump. In my opinion, the negligence in regards to the later part of the draft is unfathomable, and the essence of terrible NBA roster management.

I have discussed this subject before in detail. It almost goes without saying that contracts for late first rounders, second rounders, and undrafted free agents are some of the best deals in the NBA. Late draftees do not need to turn into really good players to still have value; they just need to be adequate. This is because it is a huge financial advantage to have cheap, young adequate players on your roster as opposed to their expensive, adequate veteran counterparts. However, most teams fail to acknowledge this.

A lot of untapped value is lost in every NBA Draft because the majority of the draft is not taken seriously. In the NFL Draft, by comparison, teams stress out over seventh round draft picks. Such drafting vigilance essentially never happens in the NBA, despite statistical analysts like Ed Weiland, John Hollinger and Arturo Galletti regularly pinpointing underrated second round prospects who would be excellent assets to many teams.

In general, the framework of how NBA teams draft should be updated to more accurately hone in on prospects, both in the top ten and everywhere else. Statistical analysis is probably the best way for teams to improve in this regard, especially with later picks.

A NBA team that drafts well will have an advantage over almost every other team in the league. This 15 year draft review hopefully makes that point even more clear than it already was.

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Drummond's drop in the draft

11/15/2012

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Earlier today I wrote a piece for Bleacher Report on Andre Drummond, who in my opinion is easily the most interesting rookie story of the year. Few people expected him to look even remotely dominant as a 19 year old rookie - and so far he has looked phenomenal.

I am surprised that more people have not made note of this. Drummond does not look potentially good - he looks potentially great. There simply is no other player in the league that is this big and fast, including Dwight Howard. While Damian Lillard and a few other rookies have already looked very good, I think no team would have drafted Drummond lower than second if the draft was held today.

So how did Drummond slip all the way to ninth in the draft? A better question is: How the hell was Drummond so relatively ineffective at UConn? And for a guy with such incredible physical tools, how did Drummond not make an immediate strong impression in college?

Those are good questions. We can blame UConn's system, the turmoil that surrounded that team last year, and several other things - but the truth is Drummond never was consistently dominant at any point in his college career. If he ever had been, there is no way he would have slipped out of the top five.

It is a credit to draft pundits like Jonathan Givony and Aran Smith that they kept Drummond as the second best prospect in the 2012 draft. Most teams and scouts had stopped thinking Drummond would ever turn into a truly elite center. The numbers simply were not there, and neither were the visual signs of a player that could ever come close to realizing his upside.

Obviously there is a long road ahead, and Drummond could end up disappointing us. But a big man this talented rarely comes along. People are going to start paying attention pretty soon.

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On information overload

11/9/2012

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Chuck Klosterman had a nice little piece at the end of the Grantland Season Preview the other day. He basically made the argument that the regular season doesn't matter, and in many ways is detached from playoff results. I have a hard time arguing with this.

Klosterman's opinion has long been held by many smart basketball folks. In regards to the present, what makes it so striking is the amount of obsessive detail we now have focused on a regular season that is, at its core, not important. Winning in the NBA is defined by postseason success, and not the regular season.

The best teams in the league, and the best players, do not change quickly or constantly. We all are aware of this, but it is so easy to get swept up in the media furor over relatively short-term success and failure (look at this week's sensationalistic coverage of the Lakers and Knicks for example.) It is easy to forget who the best teams and players really are if you listen to the daily short-term narratives being espoused by countless analysts.

Today we also have so many complicated advanced stats, and sometimes they seem to completely contradict one another. Advanced statistics can be extremely useful, but only if one does not become obsessed with them to the point of ignoring everything else.

Overall, more than before, we have an information overload. Between the internet, league pass, and advanced stats we have a situation that is almost incomprehensible compared to twenty years ago. But the fundamental realities behind the NBA have hardly changed at all. These days we "know" too much, and the truth is that most of it is pretty useless.

Sometimes I watch a lot of regular season basketball. Sometimes I watch very little. Personally, I find it makes almost no difference in my ability to analyze the NBA effectively. I have already done my preparatory work - by watching thousands of hours of NBA games when I was younger, with little discretion. I guess this is the 10,000 hour rule in action - after watching and thinking about so many games over the years, you gradually understand the league much better than you used to. At least I do.

So for me, and many other NBA junkies, for whatever value you gain from watching regular season games, you are going to be subjected to an equal amount of delusional revelations that ultimately mean nothing. The key, to being able to analyze the game well and understand the value of particular players, is to stay calm and not overreact to the constantly wild tribulations a regular season brings.

In short, watching a lot of regular season basketball is not that important. I do it mainly for entertainment. Certainly I learn things from watching regular season games, especially about young players, but I do not learn much. I learn a great deal more about teams and players by looking at numbers (but not so many numbers that I become overwhelmed.) The important thing for me is to recognize this.

Of course, there are plenty of analysts that watch a huge number of games over the epic regular season, and base their opinions on the high volume of games they have seen. Apparently it works for them, and they hopefully are able to still separate the important information from the massive amount of flotsam they witness collaterally. It takes a huge amount of effort to watch so many games - and those who do it have final opinions that are usually no better than mine, and often far worse.

I like watching the NBA. I always have. But it is important to stay sober over what we witness and always remain aware of the big picture, especially in the regular season. That, in the end, is what understanding the league comes down to.

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Lillard's great start

11/4/2012

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It's far too early to take rookie's statistics all that seriously, but when a player starts off as hot as Damian Lillard has, it needs to be noticed. Lillard, as you may have heard, has put up numbers in his first three pro games that put him in the rare company of only Oscar Roberston.

Lillard's great start does not necessarily mean he will be an All-Star. But, like Jeremy Lin last year, when a player is extremely productive the first time they are given big minutes, it is an extremely auspicious sign. Lillard was excellent in Summer League, excellent in preseason, and excellent in his first three real games. This means something. In the very least, barring injuries, it seems safe to say Lillard will be a very good player in this league. And he might end up being much better than that.

Lillard's immediate stellar success comes as a surprise to almost everyone. Advanced statistics pegged him as a decent prospect, but not much more. Questions about his age (he's already 22) and whether he could be a true point guard seemed to hold him back. It was in interviews and pre-draft workouts that Lillard's stock really seemed to rise. He went to a small school and was relatively old - and he still made enough of an impression on the Trailblazers for them to select him #6.

It was a great choice by Portland, and they should be commended for it. It's too early to make any valid long-term projections on these rookie players, but both Lillard and Andre Drummond probably should have been selected much earlier (Drummond lasted to #9.) I'm sure a few teams that bypassed these guys are already kicking themselves.

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Class of '09 extensions

11/1/2012

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Some words on the extensions signed in the last few days to beat the deadline:

- I have all ready written enough about James Harden in the last week. Harden, unless he regresses, is worth the max - which in this case is about 5 years and $80 million (all numbers approximate, as always.) I do have questions as to why Houston decided to give Harden a five year deal as opposed to four. My assumption is because they are sure of him. Personally, I would have only given him four years - that's less money owed if something goes wrong.

A guaranteed fifth year at about $18 million seems a bit much for someone who has been a sixth man most of his career, and seemingly still has to prove if he can be a truly elite #1 or #2 option. Giving Harden five years also prohibits the Rockets from giving out another big five year contract to someone in the future. Houston must feel certain they have a true star; his performance in his first game seems auspicious.

- Ty Lawson's 4 year, $48 million extension is a very good deal for Denver. Lawson remains somewhat underrated - he is an excellent point guard who has always put up solid numbers, and still seems to be steadily improving. He has had no significant injury concerns in his career, and this deal will cover him during some of his prime years.

What I am getting at is that Lawson probably is worth the max a team would have offered him next Summer, and the Nuggets are lucky it did not come to that point. This is a good example of why a team should try to sign restricted players early - to save money. It makes much less sense when the team saves no money by signing a restricted player very early in the process - like the Clippers did with Blake Griffin's new deal.

- Stephen Curry's four year, $44 million deal with Golden State is much different than Lawson's, although the numbers look about the same. That is because a serious ankle injury caused Curry to miss 40 games last year, and there is major concern as to whether Curry's body can hold up over the next five years.

When healthy, Curry is a max player, and a semi-valid argument can be made that he is possibly even the best player from the entire class of '09. The only other player in the league with a comparable blend of shooting and passing mastery is Steve Nash. Despite being a subpar defender, a healthy Curry is definitely worth a four year max contract.

So you can see why Golden State wanted to get this deal done now - it could hypothetically save them about $15 million over the life of the contract. But we should think about the other angle here - if Curry is once again seriously hurt this season, and misses many games, would any team be foolish enough to offer him a max deal? I doubt it.

Essentially the Warriors are assuming Curry will be generally healthy this season. They have seen the medical information, so they have a far better idea than I as to whether that is possible. One has to believe that they feel highly confident that Curry will play 65+ games in '12-13. But if they didn't feel strongly about Curry's health, they should have just waited till next Summer. Paying a few million dollars more a year for a great player is better than paying $11 million annually to a talented guy who hardly plays because of injuries. I hope Curry is the former, not the latter.

- Jrue Holiday's 4 year, $41 million extension with Philadelphia is excessive, unless Holiday finally makes the leap and turns into an above average starting point guard. I am doubtful that will happen. Despite being only 22, and having had a perfectly decent start to his career, Holiday has never consistently displayed the offensive virtuosity to be worth eight figures annually. A good defender, Holiday really needs to improve offensively. Otherwise there are too many similar point guards providing almost the same value as Holiday at a far lower price.

- Demar DeRozan's 4 year, $40 million extension with Toronto is easily the most shocking deal of the bunch, and makes most fans wonder yet again how Bryan Colangelo can still be gainfully employed. DeRozan, in short, is just not that good a NBA player, and there has been no indications that he will ever dramatically improve. This deal might beat Jeff Green's as the stupidest long-term deal of the year. Like Green, DeRozan could get significantly better - and still not be near All-Star level. A terrible move by Toronto, which they will regret mightily.

- Taj Gibson's extension with Chicago is for at least $34 million over four years. I probably would not have done this deal if I were the Bulls. Gibson is a very nice player, a great defender, and I can definitely see why Chicago wanted to lock him up, as some team probably would have offered Gibson more money next Summer. But I don't see Gibson as a star, and I think long, expensive deals should only go to players who are at least borderline stars.

Gibson could get better, and be worth every penny of his new deal, but the first thing that needs to happen is for him to play more. Like Omer Asik, Gibson has to prove he can provide similar production with an increased workload. As long as Gibson stays healthy, this is an acceptable deal for Chicago, but personally I would not have done it.

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NBA Focus

NBA Draft Review General Conclusions

Drummond's drop in the draft

On information overload

Lillard's great start

Class of '09 extensions

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