We are now less than a week from the 2009 NBA Draft. In looking over Chad Ford’s latest mock draft at ESPN one is struck by how many point guards are projected to go in the first round. Nine of the thirty players Ford thinks will go in the first round are classified as a point guard.
Beyond the number of point guards ranked is the ordering of the players. There appears to be a substantial disconnect between the ranking of these players and how these players performed in college.
Table One: The “Top” Point Guards in the 2009 Draft
Table One reports what the seven of these lead guards did in college last season (Ricky Rubio and Brandon Jennings didn’t play college basketball). The players are listed in the order provide by Ford in his mock draft. In looking over the list the play of Jonny Flynn and Ty Lawson stand out. Of the guards listed, Flynn was the least productive in college last year. Yet Flynn is considered a possibility for the Sacramento Kings with the fourth pick and certainly a lock for the lottery. Meanwhile, Lawson was easily the most productive point guard last year and only DeJuan Blair and Blake Griffin posted a higher Position Adjusted Win Score per 40 minutes (PAWS40). Lawson, though, is not considered a possibility for the lottery. In sum, the consensus appears to be that Flynn is clearly better than Lawson. But last year in college it wasn’t even close. Lawson was more productive with respect to shooting efficiency, rebounds, steals, turnovers, and assists. Flynn only has advantage with respect to personal fouls.
It’s important to emphasize that college numbers are not a perfect predictor of future NBA performance. So it’s possible the consensus is correct here. That being said, there is a statistical relationship between what a player does in college and in the NBA. And Flynn did do far less than Lawson. That suggests that supporters of Flynn need to offer some explanation for why the differences we saw between Flynn and Lawson last year in college are going to reverse once these players enter the NBA.
By the way, PAWS40 is not the only metric that ranks Lawson ahead of Flynn. John Hollinger ranks Lawson and Griffin as the two best players in the draft (insider access required). Hollinger’s PERs model does have problems if you are trying to explain wins. But it’s a great model if you are looking for a summary statistics that captures perceptions of performance (NBA Efficiency is also a great model if you just want to consider perceptions).
Given this characteristics of PERs, one might wonder if the consensus regarding Lawson will change as we approach the draft. Ford currently argues that seven point guards will be taken before Lawson. But with PERs ranking Lawson as the top point guard, will Lawson still last until the 23rd pick?
One last note…Erich Doerr did send me some analysis for the 2009 draft but he doesn’t have time to write a post. I will do my best to get at least some of Doerr’s analysis posted soon.
– DJ
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.
The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score
Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:
Simple Models of Player Performance
What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say
Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics
Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.
Wages of Wins Journal 
mrparker
June 18, 2009
IMO Flynn is borderline. He is a terrible rebounder and right on the cusp of terrible concerning turnovers. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be a solid pro and I wouldn’t be surprised if he flamed out of the league.
TRad
June 19, 2009
There is Ed Weiland’s draft preview on the basketball-reference blog. He also thinks Lawson is the best PG prospect (behind Rubio). It seems that every analysis based on stats has Lawson on top. It’s very unusual – a player with high As/G, high As/TO _and_ great shooting (FG% and FTA/FGA) and scoring stats.
brgulker
June 19, 2009
Frankly, I was surprised to see Curry’s numbers. They’re better than I would have thought.
brgulker
June 19, 2009
forgot to subscribe to comments. ignore.
romalley
June 19, 2009
http://www.hoopsanalyst.com/0809ew7.htm
Ed Weilands analysis is excellent, IMO. The only problem I have is his analysis of Aaron Jackson. He says there aren’t many red flags when I think there are. He’s a year or two older than others in his class at 23. He only showed up his senior year (to be fair he comments on this). His three point shooting seems to be suspect, and he played low competition. I think his stats are interesting and should be mentioned but not 5th best point guard.
DSM
June 19, 2009
DBerri, question…
How come the WS40 numbers on the chart are higher than the PAWS40 numbers? I thought PAWS40 was simply WS40 minus the average, and therefore should be lower.
DSM
June 19, 2009
Here are the WS40 and PAWS40 stats, adjusted properly for opponent strength and for pace. PACE GREATLY BIASES WIN SCORE TOWARDS LAWSON. If you simply scale all his totals by pace, he isn’t so much of an outlier.
Here they are:
Name Opp% Pace% Total WS40 PAWS40
Ty Lawson 115% 88% 101% 13.01 9.63
Stephen Curry 88% 94% 83% 9.59 6.21
Darren Collison 118% 101% 119% 9.09 5.71
Eric Maynor 104% 101% 104% 8.60 5.22
Jrue Holliday 119% 101% 120% 8.31 4.93
Jeff Teague 115% 89% 102% 7.84 4.46
Jonny Flynn 135% 94% 126% 7.28 3.90
The first number is the bump for opposition faced, scaled linearly based on opponent offensive and defensive efficiency. If you will recall, Syracuse faced one of the toughest schedules. I corrected the stats according to whether the offense or defense of the opponent was involved in their accumulation–for example, splitting up rebounds and correcting for each end of the court.
Then I scaled for pace, which is quite easy.
The third column is the composite correction factor for those two biases. Finally, I calculated the WS40 and PAWS40–the position adjustment is a minutes-weighted average of the entire NCAA.
I hope this additional analysis clears up some of the potential criticisms of DBerri’s analysis.
DSM
June 19, 2009
EDIT:
Lawson is still an outlier… because the strength of competition compensates for his high-paced stat accumulation. (I’m sure everyone could see that…)
DSM
June 19, 2009
“Meanwhile, Lawson was easily the most productive point guard last year and only DeJuan Blair and Blake Griffin posted a higher Position Adjusted Win Score per 40 minutes (PAWS40)”
When I did the calculations, Hasheem Thabeet was above Lawson among potential draft picks, and John Bryant, Cole Aldrich, Kenneth Faried, and Trevor Booker also beat out Lawson, when adjusted for pace and opposition.
Jason E.
June 19, 2009
I suspect that many people are not able to distinguish Ty Lawson from Ray Felton in their minds and believe that the NBA career of the latter is indicative of the future for the former.
MC Welk
June 19, 2009
Thanks for the pace clarification. I also wonder how much better a PG rates when surrounded by NBA-caliber finishers.
Chad Ford
June 19, 2009
My name is Chad Ford you twit.
Caleb
June 19, 2009
As a Hornets fan, I’m hoping NBA teams stay stupid about Lawson so the Hornets can land him at 21. Lawson backing up Chris Paul would be very nice.
Italian Stallion
June 19, 2009
As a Knicks fan, I am hoping they get Curry.
However, if he is off the board at #8, IMHO the correct move is to trade down, get an extra pick, and draft Ty Lawson. That’s what I have been suggesting everywhere for the last few weeks. The typical response has been that Lawson has much less upside than some of the younger, bigger, more athletic prospects.
Perhaps that’s true, but Lawson looks like a near certainty to be a decent NBA player to me. Going the other route could lead to drafting a star, but it could lead to a bust. I’d rather have Lawson and then gamble with the extra pick you could get by trading down.
The real question is what to make of Rubio.
Visually, he appears to have many of the qualities you would want in a PG. He has great court vision, can get to the hoop, passes well, seems extremely team oriented and intelligent etc.. Also, some of his stats may be depressed because he was playing with a bad hand for awhile.
All that said, his shooting has been pretty bad.
I’d like to see some stats on the probability of young players improving their outside shooting relative to some other skills.
romalley
June 19, 2009
Yeah people do make the Ray Felton and Ty Lawson comparison. Theyre both 6 foot tall and former UNC point guards. Thats where the comparison ends. If Feltons college stats were included in this analysis Lawson would have crushed him too. People make the dumbest comparisons. Another one is Rubio is Steve Nash. Theyre white point guards, end of comparison really. Rubio can’t shoot and is a much better defender. Rubio kind of reminds me of Rondo. Lawson reminds me of a better Jameer Nelson maybe but not Felton.
UB
June 19, 2009
If I may, I’d like to note that going by Jrue Holiday’s statistics in an attempt to judge his draft status is silly, as he played out of position his entire freshman season (he’s a 1 guard who was forced to play at the 2 because of the presence of Collison). Of course his college numbers won’t stack up to his current draft stock – even if the latter is somewhat inflated, the former is so far depressed due to coaching decisions that it’s a bit irresponsible not to note as much in the analysis of same.
DSM
June 19, 2009
UB–you’re right–
I run an algorithm to classify players by position–and Jrue Holliday showed as a shooting guard by the stats. I manually changed him to PG for the PAWS part of my stats up there.
That said, he beat Flynn and Teague, which is saying something!
khandor
June 19, 2009
IMO, the Point Guards with a chance to be special players in this year’s draft class are:
Rubio, 6-4
Curry, 6-3
Holiday, 6-4
De Colo, 6-5.
khandor
June 19, 2009
Btw … I would like to add that I do not use “stats” analysis to determine my opinion of a Point Guard, as a prospect for the NBA … I go by what I see when I watch him play the game.
brgulker
June 20, 2009
Then why on earth do you post here?
khandor
June 20, 2009
Because … Many of the judgments I can make by sight are THEN confirmed by David Berri’s statistical work. :-)
The best evaluators of athletic talent work in that way, not the other way around.
Ray
June 21, 2009
Caleb, why would you hope your Hornets draft a backup PG? Wouldn’t you hope they found a wing player that can do more than camp beyond the 3 point line?
TRad
June 21, 2009
Khandor, if you throw away the stats when they don’t support your judgement – then why bother at all?
You shouldn’t use stats to support your views. You should use them to challenge your views.
shizumaru76
June 21, 2009
It would be interesting to see a list of below average college performers that ended up producing at an above average rate when they turned pro…
Just curious if being below average in college dooms you as a pro or not.
romalley
June 21, 2009
khandor your statements make no sense. If you use stats to back up what you already think they are essentially worthless.
And of course the eye test is full proof see…every NBA GM. Of course they are all right all the time, it’s not like their success rates are toss ups at best.
/sarcasm
Phil
June 21, 2009
I agree that Lawson looks like the best, but the one thing that would concern me is that he has had injury problems at least the last two years at North Carolina (I can’t remember if he did as a freshman). Given that the NBA schedule is for a lot more games, I’m not sure if you can count on him lasting a full season.
Westy
June 22, 2009
I think considering Hollinger’s PER as a proxy for NBA media ‘perception’ sells it a bit short. There are many examples of times the media has been ‘surprised’ by his analytics. (Chuck Hayes and others come to mind) While it may be correlated with this ‘perception’, it may be only slightly moreso than WP.
While you may disagree with Hollinger’s rating due to its valuation of scoring, it is certainly more analytical than most media’s evaluation. And the correlation between it and WP is I suspect closer than between the ‘perception’ you’re referring to here and his work.
media_________PER__WP
In the case of these draftees, I have yet to see an analysis based on data (your own, Hollinger’s, and several others) that does not regard Lawson well. As Hollinger notes in his article, Lawson will certainly be a good test case of these analyses. But I would not be shocked if there are several teams out there that think the same and he ends up being drafted higher than Ford currently shows, and I wouldn’t credit Hollinger alone with that either.