I went back to the 1995 draft forward (did not include the most recent draft). I started in 1995, as that was the year Kevin Garnett was drafted thus ushering in
the high school player, and also because the vast majority of international players have been drafted after 1995.
I rated each player on a 6 point system.
6 = All Star (is regularly in contention for a spot on an all star team) examples - Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, VC, Shawn Marion, Rasheed
5 = An above average NBA starter (may have made an all star team, but is generally not in contention for an all star team, but is in the top 1/2 of all NBA
starters) - examples - Rip Hamilton, Kenyon Martin, Damon, Andre Miller, Micheal Finely, Shareef Abdur Rahim
4 = A below average NBA starter or a high quality reserve Examples - Bobby Jackson, Antonio Daniels, Bonzi Wells, Shane Battier, Matt Harpring, Bob Sura, Derek Fisher
3 = An NBA journeyman with 3+ years in the league (or at least MY projection of what you could reasonably expect based upon the data you have).
Examples - most first year #1 draft picks who played some but not a lot, Austin
Croshere, Gary Trent, Corliss Williamson, Fred Jones, Chris Mihm
2 = An NBA journeyman with 3 years or less in the league. A little crossover here, but I think the example would express the difference
Examples - Shawn Respert, Ed O'Bannon, Trajan Langdon, Mateen Cleaves, Moochie Norris, Evan Eschmeyer, Eric Barkley, Corey Benjamin.
1 = An NBA bust, less than 80 games in the NBA, and in most cases zero NBA games.
The results were as follows
College Seniors # of picks Avg pick Quality Score
Lottery Pick 40 8.33 3.85
Other 1st round 81 21.14 3.15
Second round 206 43.87 1.8
College Juniors # of picks Avg pick Quality Score
Lottery Pick 28 6.57 4.25
Other 1st round 18 21.44 3.22
Second round 14 39.07 2.21
College Sophomores # of picks Avg pick Quality Score
Lottery Pick 21 5.33 4.76
Other 1st round 11 21.27 3.18
Second round 11 48 1.91
College Freshman # of picks Avg pick Quality Score
Lottery Pick 16 7.5 4.31
Other 1st round 4 21.75 3.75
Second round 7 41.29 2.43
High Schoolers # of picks Avg pick Quality Score
Lottery Pick 15 6 4.47
Other 1st round 11 21.73 3.55
Second round 4 41.5 2.25
International players # of picks Avg pick Quality Score
Lottery Pick 11 7.73 3.82
Other 1st round 31 21.97 3.1
Second round 49 44.76 1.61
The best players to pick in the lottery are college sophomores. The reason is because only 9.5% of the lottery picks who were sophomores did not become
starters (Keyon Dooling, and Jerome Mosio). TJ Ford could be considered a non-starter but I am willing to see how the next 2 seasons progress, so I made him a
4.
The next best lottery picks were HS players. Out of 15 lottery picks, 5 have become all stars (Garnett, James, Bryant, McGrady, and Amare), and only 1 has
been a marginal player (Diop), and 1 seems to have become journeyman (Kwame Brown), and one (Robert Swift) looks like a potential journeyman, but that
could change.
College Seniors and International players selected in the lottery have about the same level of success.
There are only 2 college seniors that could be described as all stars (Duncan and Ray Allen). Only 1/2 of all college seniors that have been lottery picks would be considered NBA starters. That is a terrible success rate.
With International players lottery first round picks have a high degree of variability. There have been some poor lottery selections of international players
Vitaly Potapenko
Nikoloz Tskitishvili
Andris Biedrins (a work in progress)
Aleksandar Radojevic
Darko Milicic (another work in progress)
but some very good late first round picks
Predrag Stojakovic
Zydrunas Ilgauskas
Andrei Kirilenko
Tony Parker
Hidayet Turkoglu
Nenad Krstic
The moral of all this
#1 - Draft Sophomores, and High Schoolers in the lottery.
#2 - Seniors are generally rated higher on draft boards than they should be, so after finishing your draft board, drop the seniors 5 spots or more.
#3 - Juniors have generally the least amount of risk (low % of players rated a 1 or a 2), but upside is not as great. Juniors drafted later in the first round have a better than average level of success.
#4 - Unless you have an absolute sure thing with an international player, draft them later in the first round.
Lets look at the latest draft based upon these results
1.) Andrew Bogut - Based upon this I would call this an A. Bogut is a sophomore and soph lottery picks have the highest success rate.
2.) Marvin Williams - There has not been a Freshman drafted #2 or #1 in 10 years. Those who were selected 3-5 have been 5 of the 6 best freshman picks. I think it is safe to say this is a good pick. I call it an A.
3.) Deron Williams - There has not been a junior selected #1 in 10 years. Of those who who have been selected 2-3-4 they are
Steve Francis
Antawn Jamison
Emeka Okafor
Mike Dunleavy
Ben Gordon
Jay Williams
Drew Gooden
That is a solid but not a great group. I would rate this pick as no better than a B.
4.) Chris Paul - A soph, and the clear #2 sophmore in the draft. I rate this an A
5.) Raymond Felton - A junior. There have been a number of case of 2 Juniors selected in the same draft having success. Very few juniors selected in the top 5 haven't had success, but seldom has there been 2 juniors in the top 5. I would rate this pick a B.
6.) Martell Webster - HS pick. Six HS have been all stars, and I think there are 3 or 4 more who may get to that level. The first HS picks have been
Kevin Garnett
Kobe Bryant
Tracy McGrady
Al Harrington (#25)
Jonathon Bender
Darius Miles
Kwame Brown
Amare Stoudamire
LeBron James
Dwight Howard
The 3 worst picks were Bender, Miles, and Brown, all drafted higher than #6.
This is an A.
7.) Charlie Villanueva - Soph There has been only 1 time when there were 3 good soph lottery picks (1995) Rasheed, Stackhouse, McDyess, Joe Smith. Generally when the 3rd sophmore is picked in the lottery, the third one is a disappointment. With this being the #7 pick(or in other words pretty high in the lottery), I rate this pick a D
8.) Channing Frye - Sr. He is the first senior taken. Previous first senior taken
Bryant Reeves
Ray Allen
Tim Duncan
Michael Olowokandi
Wally Szczerbiak
Kenyon Martin
Shane Battier
no senior lottery pick 2002
Kurt Hinrich
Rafael Araujo
This a pretty diverse group, from great to pretty marginal. The good one were drafted earlier, the marginal ones later (the only exception is Candy Man) I would have to rate Frye as no better than a C.
9.) Ike Diogu - Jr. There have been some good juniors drafted at around this level who have been successful, but a lot that were pretty marginal. Overall I would rate this a B
10.) Andrew Bynum - HS HS centers take a longer time to develop, and are very hard to project (Robert Swift, Eddie Curry, DeSagana Diop, perhaps Kwame Brown) I say this is a long term project, with no guarantees. Seldom do teams like the Lakers have the chance to make a lottery pick and when you do you need to make it count.
The average ranking for players rated 10-11-12 has been 3.4. The average score of players drafted 13-20 has been 3.6. the Lakers would have been better served to trade down 5 or 6 spots, and acquired another player they could use or another draft pick. In all reality they could have got Bynum then, and added another pick or another player.
I have to rate this pick as a C-, maybe a D.
11.) Fran Vazquez - Realistically you have better luck selecting international players after the lottery, as only 3 lottery picks have been good (Yao, Dirk, and Gasol) while non lottery picks have been (Peja, AK47, Manu, Illguaskis, Parker, Okur, Udrih). The #11 and #12 players over the last 10 years have been on the average nothing more than NBA journeymen. I would rate this a C, because it is at least not in the top 10.
12.) Yaroslav Korolev - See Fran Vazquez above. Of course 1 pick later means that is a slightly better pick, so maybe a B-, but really I think it is a C.
13.) Sean May - There has been some decent success drafting Jrs. at 12-13-14-15. Those players drafted then would be (Richard Jefferson, Troy Murphy, Luke Ridnour, Mo Taylor, and Marcus Haslip). I would rate this a B-.
14.) Rashad McCants - Also a Jr., so he would be much like May. In other words a B-
It is late so I will do the rest of the first round tomorrow.
