For the past few weeks (or longer) people have wondered who would get drafted and in what order. Last night the wondering ceased and we got to see how NBA decision-makers ranked the players – both international and collegiate — who hope to embark on a career in professional basketball.
In a few days I hope Erich Doerr can offer some insights into the international players selected (and perhaps more thoughts on the draft overall). For today I want to put up some quick comments on the college players selected.
These comments begin with Table One, which lists each college player selected and the player’s Position Adjusted Win Score per 40 minutes (PAWS40).
Table One: Ranking the Players Selected from College in the 2009 NBA Draft
In looking at Table One it’s important to remember that college numbers do not predict perfectly what we will see in the NBA. Still, there is a correlation. And that should not be surprising. If a player was not able to excel in college we should suspect he might struggle against the superior talent in the NBA. So Jonny Flynn, Jordan Hill, and Gerald Henderson (just to name a few) might end up disappointing the fans of the teams that selected these players in the lottery.
At the other end of the spectrum we see DeJuan Blair, Blake Griffin, and Ty Lawson. Obviously most people consider Griffin the best talent in this draft. Blair has better numbers, but from what I understand, his knees might be a problem. Of course, if the knees are not an issue the Spurs might have found an extremely productive player. Rebounding in college is highly correlated with what we see in the NBA.
Okay, those are my quick thoughts. Here are some quick thoughts from Erich Doerr:
2008-2009 ROY
After last year’s draft, I claimed “Beasley, Oden, Fernandez, and Love easily grade out as the best projected rookies. For the statistical purists, I’ll provide a 60% confidence interval that one of these four will win rookie of the year and a 70% confidence interval that one of them will actually deserve it.” Apparently, I was overconfident in predicting the trophy winner and under-confident in predicting the biggest Win Producer. This year, the top selections seem to project better, so I’m left to claim that one of Griffin, Harden, Curry and Thabeet will win the Rookie of the Year award and probably deserve it, given a 75% confidence interval.
2009 Prospects
While Blake Griffin’s freshman numbers didn’t warrant much attention, his improvement and subsequent season certainly did; Griffin became well worthy of #1 overall. Outside of Griffin, outstanding Win Scores pointed to Harden, Curry, and Hansbrough as underrated by the early mocks and the stats were vindicated by last night’s selections.
Summer school
For the year round fans, keep your summer league eyes on players like Lester Hudson, Ahmad Nivins, Lee Cummard, and Jon Brockman. DeJuan Blair would make this list, but in my opinion, you’ll likely see plenty of him in the preseason and rotational minutes in 2009-2010.
Once again, Erich and I should have more thoughts on this draft next week. And I have a few trades to discuss as well.
– 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 
P-Dawg
June 26, 2009
David, I’m begging you. Please respond to Boston Globe columnist Tony Massaroti’s idiotic piece about Rajon Rondo:
http://www.boston.com/sports/columnists/massarotti/
Apparently, the reason to trade Rondo is that he doesn’t help the Celtics WIN.
simon
June 26, 2009
The Spurs GM is a genius. The Jefferson deal makes a perfect sense now, and I’m still amazed by how many GMs refused to use their 2nd round picks on Blair. People, it’s a friggin’ 2nd round pick! I don’t care if the guy is on a wheelchair in two years, if he gets you anything near his college production he’s a massive steal.
Palamida
June 26, 2009
Genius? Idk about that…
Compared to some of the other “geniuses” currently employed as GM’s The Spurs could do worse, but don’t make this out to be the plan of a mastermind, lol. No way they knew Blair would drop so far down, he was just the highest rated player on their board when their pick was up.
So yes – they did snag the WP ROY to be (at least per min), but this is still the same franchise who just traded for RJ and his 15M contract which he won’t produce nearly enough to deserve, not to mention, The Bowen era, and Finley’s wonderful contributions. And that’s just last season.
Long story short, this draft , clearly demonstrates again the kind of irrational backward thinking which dominates the league and pushing it more and more to be the way it is: “explosiveness” and “athleticism” trumping Skills.
and gambling on “upside” instead of banking on proven production.
The only trouble with that is that surprise, surprise…. Skills win ball games.
simon
June 26, 2009
Palamida I was exaggerating and (very poorly) being sarcastic. They hit the jackpot big time.
Austin
June 26, 2009
As a Blazers fan, I still can’t believe we didn’t take Blair at 33.
Still, glad to see Pendergraph measures up well (though it’s not a surprise).
It would be interesting to see whether teams more often take a risk on big men or guards, and the bust rate of each as well.
AWC
June 27, 2009
How do we factor age? I’m a 76ers fan, and I wanted them to take Lawson, on account of his stats and his team’s success. Instead, the 76ers took Holiday, a player with terrible numbers, but who’s only 19 years-old.
This fits with the team’s draft strategy the last few years: draft h.s. megastars who leave college a year too soon (Young and Speights). Both have done well by some metrics (PER), and not so well by others (WP). But Lawson is older _right now_ than Young, the same age as Speights, and two years older than Holiday.
In other words, how much statistical improvement do we expect from players who are under the age of 22?
John Giagnorio
June 27, 2009
AWC, I know of no precise way to do it, but I have a few suggestions that might shed some more light on things. First, take a look at:
http://hoopsanalyst.com/0809ew7.htm
which compares Holiday to the other prospects in the draft this year. Also take a look at:
http://hoopsanalyst.com/0708ew14.htm
which shows more of a baseline for what different levels of players in the NBA – star, bench player, etc – did in college in different years. You can look at how Lawson stacks up against typical Junior years and how Holiday stacks up against typical Freshman years.
I’d also recommend using DraftExpress.com to compare Holiday’s freshman production to other players in the NBA. For what it’s worth, Ty Lawson was quite a bit better than Holiday as a Freshman.
Hope that helps.
John Giagnorio
June 27, 2009
P-Dawg,
What a horrible column. Maybe it’s time for someone to start a website for awful basketball journalism. I suggest FireVinnyDelNegro.com.
Peter
June 27, 2009
AWC,
I think Lawson would do well wherever he goes, but it’s important to mention that much of the spike in his productivity was due to a ginormous 1.2+ points per shot in his junior season at UNC, helped out in large part by a 47%+ rate from beyond the collegiate arc. For any player, let alone a point guard, this pace would be extremely difficult to attain or even get close to. That, his draft spot, and Chauncey Billups/Anthony Carter already getting a good chunk of minutes, could very well be why Doerr did not pencil in Lawson as a legit ROY candidate.
Even throwing out these numbers, though, he still posts better overall numbers than Holiday. That being said, I consider age to be only part of the equation when it comes to statistical improvement before 22.
Usually, pro scouts will tell you that the shorter players are more likely to contribute right away; big men need time to grow into their bodies. So it would be more likely to expect greater leaps from young big men than young point guards.
Thabeet got picked 2nd in spite of his 13.6 and 10.8 because of this reason. So did Kwame Brown and Dwight Howard.
Peter
June 27, 2009
I should mention that if Speights had stayed for his junior year and put in one more really good offseason at Florida, he almost certainly would have been a mid-lottery selection, if not higher, in the draft. That being said, talent is one thing, but realizing it is another.
John Giagnorio
June 27, 2009
Thabeet’s 10.8 rebounds per game are a mark in his favor, not a weak point in his game.
AWC
June 27, 2009
I actually like the 76ers strategy. If you’re picking between 10-20, it makes sense to pick risky young guys with upside. On the other hand, Young and Speights had excellent college stats, while Holiday did not.
Also, it’s worth remembering that we’re talking about a small sample: 35 games, 950 minutes. But still, I wish he’d excelled in one of the major statistical categories.
brgulker
June 27, 2009
As a Pistons fan, I’m baffled, confused, and disappointed. We drafted guys who didn’t produce all that much in college, and they were SF’s. Our biggest need right now is at the 4/5. We passed on both Pitt big men in the first round. But then we did the same thing in the second round? Unbelievable.
mrparker
June 27, 2009
I have a system for finding out how well
college players will play in the nba. These
projections are players peak levels.
15-19 projects as a .1-.18
20-24 projects as a .2-.28
25+ projects as .3+
Here is how each player graded out in this
year’s draft. The system has been pretty
accurate and have posted on dberri’s site
for the past 3 years my results.
in 07 the top rated player was Noah
in 08 it was Rose/Love
THis year is Griffin/Blair are my highest rated
players
1.griffin 28
2.thabeet 6
3.harden 25(system overrates princeton offense
so I adjusted him to a 20 to be on the safe side)
4.Evans 12
5.Flynn 14
6.Curry 14
7.Hill 10
8.derozan 11
9.t. williams 18
10.henderson 12
11.hansborough 16
12.clark 11
13.daye 13
14.johnson 11
15. holiday (as a shooting guard 18 and a pg below average)
16. lawson 19(very borderline to being proj as below average)
17. teague 10
18. maynor 26
19. collison 14
20. mullins 11
21. gibson 11
22. carroll(14-16)
23. ellington 5
24. douglas 10
25. pendergraph 11
26. taylor 7
27. cunningham 6
28. summers 9
29. sam young 8
30. blair 28
31. brockman 15
32. derrick brown 12
33. meeks 7
34. thornton 9
35. budinger 13
36. calathes 29(really odd result taking this with a
grain of salt)
37. danny green 8
38. taylor griffin 10
39. suton 14
40. mcclinton 9
41. aj price 19(another borderline guy)
42. vaden 7
43. mills 14
44. nivins 11
45. lester hudson 21
46. dozier 9
romalley
June 28, 2009
I think it’s going to be funny when the Spurs improve due to stealing DeJuan Blair and Manu getting healthy and everyone will be like” OMG Richard Jefferson is JUST WHAT THEY NEEDED”
Because the improve just has to be due to the guy that shoots a lot.
romalley
June 28, 2009
improvement*
Daniel
June 28, 2009
Jefferson doesn’t have to shoot much, though. The Spurs are the best defensive rebounding team in the NBA by a wide margin. They haven’t gotten ANYTHING out of their 3s other than defense for YEARS. If Jefferson returns to his old rebounding ways, the Spurs upgraded big time. Kurt Thomas was very productive last season, but in the past he has barely been above average.
If healthy, Manu, Parker, and Duncan can (translated: they have before) combine for 40 wins, Hill, Finley, Jack McClinton, Marcus Williams, Malik Hairston, and Mason can combine for 10 wins, and Bonner, Blair, James Gist, and Ian Mahinmi, and can combine for 10 wins. If they pick up Gortat, Chris Anderson, or Rasheed Wallace, they can get 5-10 wins there. With another big man before Jefferson’s contribution is added, the Spurs have a ceiling of 65 wins. If they get a productive big man and 2009 Jefferson, they should win at least 60. If they get a productive big man and 2004 “rebounding is fun” Jefferson, they can win 70+.
Italian Stallion
June 28, 2009
I think some percentage of evaluating very young players is always going to come down to things like athletic gifts, intellectual gifts, and personality (work ethic, self centered or team oriented, more or less likely to get into trouble etc..) injury history etc…
I suspect that if you ignore those kinds of things, you aren’t going to evaluate the probabilities correctly. In fact, I suspect that at least some of the draft order that seems to make no sense based on stats, probably makes more sense in light of other factors.
I would be surprised if Lawson’s injury record didn’t weigh a little in some people’s minds. I’m not saying he wasn’t underrated in the draft, but as someone with a history of injury, perhaps it was appropriate to drop him a little relative to the stats.
A guy like Jennings seems very talented, but he’s probably 30% to get into trouble, be disruptive, be overly self centered on the court etc… I think that’s why he drooped to #10.
mrparker
June 28, 2009
Its scary what the Spurs will become if
a. Dejuan blair lives up to his college efficiency
b. Tim Duncan isn’t too old
c. Manu can stay healthy for one year
I think all 3 are distinctly possible because
a. I have a few reasons why I think Blair will be a less selfish Charles Barkley clone
b. Pop never plays Duncan too many minutes
c. Manu didn’t play in the olympics or deep into the playoffs this past season.
Palamida
June 28, 2009
Dropped to the #10 Stallion? if he’s personality issues are what “dropped” his stock to #10 I dread to think what the NBA Bigwigs thought process is like,
I follow European basketball and do not think European stats are that easily converted to the NBA, meaning it’s an entirely different game, unlike the NCAA which is more a diminished version of the NBA and the connection between performance measured by the stats is quite strong. However with that said, his numbers being this bad, one has to think he was drafted on “upside” and “explosiveness” and many other such nonsenses alone. MAYBE (we just don’t know) he’s got talent, but the truth is he’s a SG in a PG body and a poor one at that. Sure, he’s young , but why pick an unproven likely to be a bust player Like Jennings based solely on subjective observation when you can actually look at the data and pick a promising player?
I really think the Bucks kicked the bucket in this one. For starters they don’t NEED a PG. That was all the talk predraft: the Bucks need a PG and they’ll take one with their 10th pick (Flynn, Jennings, whomever).
Sessions is a very promising young PG who is in any case much better right now. The chances that a player who performed so poorly (can’t shoot, can’t pass, can’t do anything well, really except maybe excite fans but hey, so can Gerald Green and you won’t see him owning a championship ring anytime soon) will ever be better Wp’er then Sessions are slim to none (more like none) . The Bucks are going to let their own player, a vastly superior PG go to another team who’ll probably offer something that’s surely lower than his real worth. And wait a few years while waiting on Jennings to develop, which naturally will never happen.
The real tragedy is what Romaelly mentioned in his comment: Same way the Spurs, their fans , and media pundits will credit RJ for their improvement (much like all of those credited Mo Williams this year) such will be the case in many other teams and their draft picks.
Minny wouldn’t be as good as people expect but barely anyone would chalk that up to Flynn’s poor performance, or the Bucks and Jennings and so forth. Such poor picks….
While it is true that certain players do not demonstrate their true talent while in college and thus outperform their college stats, those players are few and far between. on the other hand almost every player who had been productive and then some in college continue to do so going to the pros.
There is just no reason, to try and guess (ok, ok, predict) who those rare players be when you can just take your pick from the proven and bound to be productive pool. Thoughts?
הבלוג של שחר
June 28, 2009
very good post and good blog
hope that you will write more good posts like this
have a nice day
mrparker
June 29, 2009
Pal,
I’m with you on the bound to be productive players. My main goal is not to find which unproven players will be productive but instead try and figure out to what level a proven college player’s productivity will translate to the nba.
Matt Walters
June 29, 2009
Palamida,
I agree with most of your post, but I don’t think any player is “bound to be productive.” Even leaving aside the possibility of injuries and off-court issues, the college statistics of the players in the draft are insufficient to claim that anyone has “proven” himself to be an above-average NBA player before his first NBA season. That said, as Dr. Berri and others have pointed out, a productive college player is much, much more likely to be a productive NBA player than a player who was unproductive in college.
Dr. Berri,
I would be interested to know if some of the workout/combine measurements the teams take have any predictive power whatsoever. Have you ever tried holding NCAA production constant and examining the effect of speed, body fat, leap, etc. on NBA productivity? Whether or not such an effect exists would be excellent fodder for a future post on the value of pre-draft workouts and athleticism/”upside” in general.
Roofin Reality
June 29, 2009
Spurs made out because they now have the ability to rest each of their stars at different intervals. Particularly Duncan, and especially if Blair can give them production similar to Milsap in Utah.
Jefferson can start with Duncan, Parker, Mason and Bonner.
Then, bring in Blair, Finley, Hill, Ginobli and whatever big man (Pachulia from Atl, Gortat from Orlando, Rasheed from Detroit, Andersen from Denver) as a nice second unit.
This type of team allows Duncan to rest up in the reg season, if for no other reason than he no longer will have to carry scoring, low post scoring and rebounding. That saves his body (knees in particular). A rested and relatively healthy Duncan, Ginobli and Parker in the playoffs means a problem for the team on the other bench.
Tommy
June 30, 2009
Enough with all the “Spurs management is great” BS!!!
Look it up… they should’ve won the championship this year, but they gave away Luis Scola for NOTHING, and drafted 2 unheard of INT’l players when BigBabyDavis & Carl Landry were on the board.
Manu wouldn’t have had to play so many tuff minutes, and duncan could have just been TIMMAAY if he had 4-4-5 help from Landry, BBDavis, and Scola to help on D down low and hit spot up jumpers, instead of El’Stiffo Umberto Ubutu, or whoever their 5 was, and if you think BBDavis only got boosted by playing with KG, are you saying he’d have grown less with Duncan-Parker-Manu & Pop?
I’m a Lakers fan so I’m glad they gave away 3 of the best Role-Playing, Up-N-Coming 4’s in the league. Thanks4theChampionship, and Stay Classy San Antonio!!
Italian Stallion
June 30, 2009
Palamida,
“Dropped to the #10 Stallion? if he’s personality issues are what “dropped” his stock to #10 I dread to think what the NBA Bigwigs thought process is like,”
If you were reading the various reports, he was doing extremely well in various workouts and was generally considered to be great prospect.
So yes, I think managements were looking beyond his European stats to his visible talents and his record in HS before he didn’t get much time in Europe. IMO he would have gotten drafted higher than #10 if he wasn’t such a knucklehead. (something that was again demonstrated after my last post via his youtube video with a rapper). The kid is a complete asshole, everyone knows it, and it hurt his position.
Italian Stallion
June 30, 2009
By the way, that does not mean I think he deserved to be drafted at #10 or higher, just that he would have been drafted even higher if he wasn’t an asshole.
Palamida
June 30, 2009
Stallion, you say that : “If you were reading the various reports, he was doing extremely well in various workouts and was generally considered to be great prospect.” What are you saying here exactly? who says he did “extremely” well? the same scouts, coaches, and gm’s who use faulty logic in the first place and lack understanding of quite a few basic concepts of NBA Bball as evidenced by the way the wages are divided in the players. meaning the wages of wins “story” basically… overvaluing scoring, with little regard to efficiency, and underestimating the value of a possession – Rebs are undervalued and To’s are disregarded. Hell, some site and media pundits don’t even bother to post TO stats!.
“generally considered”… that’s exactly the problem. I argued that there is just no justification to drafting unproven players based solely on subjectivity, (Workouts? really? that’s a very poor method of evaluation, and seeing how every year prospects “rise” in the mocks after a series of good workouts is downright bewildering).
Drafting based on “upside” or what not could actually be argued for If there weren’t proven players; if everyone was an unknown, great , use subjectivity ; but when teams draft Jennings and Flynn for example before Lawson that’s just mindboggling.
Maybe Jennings will develop into a superstar (in productivity I mean, not perception) and maybe he didn’t get enough PT in Europe, played some SG or whatever and Maybe a case can be made for the fact that without historical precedent it’s really hard to conclude anything, who knows maybe if CP3 went to Europe at 18 he would have been awful… maybe. But that’s a questionable assumption to make. Why make those excuses who may be true, but probably aren’t. The fact is he was terrible. maybe that can be explained in some way and maybe he will be productive in the NBA, but why not assume the opposite? up to this point Jennings has proven to be unproductive. Why bother with all that? out of every 10 players that scouts are eager to draft and even more eager to tell us how one day they’ll be…. idk, stars? 9 turn out to be exactly who we thought they were: sure they develop, every young player develops, but in most cases the improvement isn’t all that dramatic. Sometimes ,that 1 out of 10 guy, (obviously i mean 1 out 0f 10 as a figure of speech) really surpasses the expectations that were based on his Collegiate performance, but come to think of it, when that happens usually it isn’t those “upside” guys, but just a random player who for some reason was a late bloomer and simply didn’t demonstrate his true talent and value in college, an outlier.
Hope that clarifies my point. As to would he have gone higher if he weren’t an A-hole thingy, I dread to say that your’e probably right… Exhibit A: Mr. nice guy, best smile in the draft guy Johnny Flynn going 6th. Unreal.
Joe
July 14, 2009
So according to your table Ahmad Nivins and Lester Hudson should have been drafted 4th and 5th and DeJuan Blair should have been #1 overall? I don’t think so.
I know about outliers in statistics but when your theory is predicting that marginal draft players should be 4th and 5th and half your predictions are outliers then something has to be wrong about your theory. Either explain the data to eliminate these outliers(conference, whatever) or fix your theory.
Chris
February 4, 2010
Eat those words about Brandon Jennings and him clearly being an asshole, and a bad pg and all that other noise. He looks like a future star, and he’s already a better pg that Razor Ramon Sessions. Machismo sucks, this kid is the real deal.