Last week I looked back at the 1993 NBA Draft. Today I thought I would discuss the 1994 draft.
This draft is one that stands out in my memory. The 1993-94 season did not go so well for the Detroit Pistons (the team I have always followed). And as I recall, that was not my expectation during the summer of 1993. That summer the Pistons had two lottery picks, which they used on Allan Houston and Lindsey Hunter. I can still remember Dick Vitale telling us that Houston was going to be a star. As for Hunter, he was supposed to be the future Isiah Thomas, or at least someone more than capable of taking Isiah’s place in the starting line-up. As I reported last week, each player has produced a combined 34.6 wins in their careers. Their combined WP48 is only 0.033. In sum, I think Dickie V was just a bit off with respect to Houston. And Hunter has been no Isiah.
Still, back in the summer of 1993 people thought differently. In addition to adding these “future stars” the Pistons had also added Sean Elliott. Elliott was an All-Star small forward, and the Pistons got him from the Spurs for Dennis Rodman. Again, I thought this trade was a great idea at the time. With Elliott on board the Pistons had Isiah at the point, Joe Dumars at shooting guard, and Elliott at small forward. Off the bench were Houston and Hunter. This much talent at the 1, 2, and 3 spots meant the Pistons were definitely contenders.
When the 1993-94 season ended the Pistons had won 20 games. Only the 1979-80 edition of the Pistons – partially coached by Vitale – finished with a worst record. So clearly the assessment of Detroit’s talent was just a bit off.
Although the 1993-94 season was a disaster, the team was rewarded with the third choice in the NBA draft. The Milwaukee Bucks chose first, and selected Glenn Robinson. The Dallas Mavericks – coming off a 13 win season – took Jason Kidd. That left the Pistons with Grant Hill.
When the 1994-95 season ended, it looked like the Pistons had chosen well. Hill produced 10.5 wins his rookie season. Kidd was above average, but only produced 8.7 wins. And Robinson only finished with 3.4 wins.
If you looked at this draft after six seasons, you would still place Hill on top. After the 1999-00 season, Hill had produced 100.6 wins, Kidd had offered 79.6, and Robinson’s career wins production stood at 23.9.
Since this point, though, Kidd has been the star of the class. In the past seven seasons Kidd has produced 143 victories. Hill, who was first seriously injured in 2000, had one health problem after another. Consequently he has only produced 21.6 wins since leaving the Pistons in the summer of 2000, leaving his career production at 122.3. As for Robinson, he is now out of the NBA. His career production finished at 40.7 wins. In sum, he never came close to the productivity of Kidd or Hill.
What of the rest of the class? Table One reports the career wins production — at the conclusion of the 2006-07 season – of every player taken in the first round in 1994.
Table One: Re-Living the 1994 NBA Draft
The average player taken in the first round in 1994 had a Wins Produced per 48 minutes [WP48] of 0.123. Given that average is 0.100, this draft was “good” (which means above average). The leaders of this class were of course Kidd and Hill. After these two, though, were Eddie Jones, Donyell Marshall, Brian Grant, Aaron McKie, Charlie Ward, and Wesley Person. All of these players produced at least 50 wins and posted an above average WP48.
The top pick in the draft, Glenn Robinson, was only the 9th most productive player in terms of career wins. If we look at career WP48, though, Robinson falls to 13th best. So he didn’t quite work out as the Bucks thought.
Robinson was not the only pick that didn’t quite work out. Sharone Wright and Eric Montross were both lottery picks who produced nothing in the NBA (or in Wright’s case, less than nothing). Lamond Murray and Juwan Howard are also below average players. Murray, though, was in the NBA Summer League where he posted an above average PAWSmin (Position Adjusted Win Score per minute). So perhaps Murray is on the verge of turning his career around.
Okay, that was a bit of a joke. Obviously Murray really likes playing basketball. But I am not sure why professionally he is playing summer league basketball.
Although Murray was a lottery pick that did not develop into a consistently above average NBA player, five other lottery picks from 1994 were above average players. In 1993 we saw only three lottery picks develop into “good” players, so the 94 lottery was a bit better.
Still, many lottery picks are more like Houston and Hunter. And few become Kidd or Hill. This is the lesson such analysis teaches. Our optimism at this point for the 2007 draft is at an all-time high. But when we look back at the historical record, we learn that many players fail to live up to the expectations of Dickie V (or anyone else, for that matter).
- DJ
13 responses so far ↓
NickS // July 18, 2007 at 6:44 pm
this is completely OT, but I have a somewhat techincal question about Wins Produced, and I’m curious if anyone here is interested in helping my.
Question is here.
dberri // July 18, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Not sure I want to get into a technical discussion tonight. Anyone else up to the task?
NickS // July 18, 2007 at 8:35 pm
I’m not in a hurry. I’m certainly interested in anyone who wants to respond, but if you decide to respond to the APBRmetrics thread at any point I would be honored.
The Franchise // July 18, 2007 at 9:55 pm
While it is now obvious that Kidd or Hill would have been better picks, I’m still not that down on Robinson as the #1, though. Sure, he went on to produce only 40 wins, but only four very productive players came out of the draft. The difference, in number of wins, is only twenty between Robinson and Brian Grant, the fifth-best player. Thus, I’d say that in retrospect, the pick was a reach, but not big enough to be called a bust. If my team had picked him fourth or later, I wouldn’t be disappointed.
The player that really surprises me on this list (and probably surprises a lot of people, including the teams that passed on him,) is Eddie Jones. The tenth selection of a draft is generally not a player that is that productive for that long.
Jason // July 18, 2007 at 10:30 pm
25+ points per game? 10 rebounds?
A wing forward shooting 48% from the floor and 40% from three point range and getting more than a block a game for his college career? Durant, er I mean Robinson looked like a sure thing.
Scott // July 19, 2007 at 6:50 am
I agree that the ‘94 draft is generally better than the ‘93 draft, but not as good as you make it out to be in this post. You state that the “average” player in the ‘94 draft had a WP48 of .123, but this is heavily skewed by Jason Kidd’s performance as the calculation wasn’t done as mean[WP48] (the average of the WP48 in each player’s career)
but as mean[sum(minutes/48)/sum(wins produced)]
the average WP48 for every 48 minutes played by the whole draft class.
So any player that contributed more minutes is going to provide greater weight to the “average” performance by a player from the draft.
If the calculation you performed is done without Jason Kidd we would have a draft with an “average” WP48 of 0.104…or average NBA players.
I find it more interesting to evaluate the median WP48 in the draft or as you mentioned at the end the frequency of “good” players, than some average of data that is going to be influenced heavily by one or two stars. The median shows that the ‘94 draft would give you a player with ~.78 WP48 and the ‘93 draft would give you a player with ~.46 WP48.
Mark // July 19, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I would be interested in hearing DJ respomd to NickS whereever. Reading some of his posts I take him as serious, cordial and open to discussion in the mode of fellow searcher. The “best” accounting system is still a topic with room for refinement.
Looking Back at the 1992 Draft « The Wages of Wins Journal // July 19, 2007 at 1:25 pm
[...] of that class, yesterday I looked at the class of 94. Last week I looked at the 1993 draft class. Today, let’s take a look at both the first and second [...]
Brian // July 19, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I’m not so sure that the WP48 for the first round is a good indication for the overall quality of a draft. If the poor players are out of the league uickly, and the top of the draft (Shaq, Kidd) play at an extremely high level for 15 years then the whole first round benefits…Perhaps counting the number of players exceeding a “Career Wins Produced” of 50 would be a better indication of overall quality?
Troy // July 20, 2007 at 2:49 am
These results seem to accord with the general perception that Hill and Kidd were fairly even until Hill first went down with a serious injury. (My favourite team is Detroit, so sucks to him.) Actually Hill’s and Hardaway’s injuries represent a minor conundrum: was Hill half as valuable as Kidd, because he produced half as many wins, or around 80% as valuable, based on WP48. It’s not obvious to me which is the best way of rating a player’s career, and by extension, the draft.
Lukas // November 24, 2007 at 2:51 pm
How can you say that Juwan Howard is a “below average player”???
He produced around 18 points and 8 rebounds in his first 8-9 years or so. So your “average” player must be around 20 and 10 or what?
mrparker // November 24, 2007 at 3:40 pm
for a power forward yes that is under average…im not sure of his shooting percentage but im pretty sure its under 50% which is also below average
dberri // November 24, 2007 at 3:55 pm
These posts will help.
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2006/11/07/were-the-fab-five-all-fabulous/
http://www.wagesofwins.com/WebberHoward.html
As the WebberHoward table indicates, Howard is below average in terms of shooting efficiency, rebounds, steals, blocked shots, and turnovers. In sum, he has never been a very productive player.