David Biderman of the Wall Street Journal has once again referenced Wins Produced in telling a story. Biderman’s story — Good News, Nets: Third Pick’s Better Than the Second – offers evidence that the second pick in the NBA draft is not necessarily better than the third pick.
As noted, Biderman’s evidence is based on Wins Produced. And although these numbers started with my calculations, it was the work of Arturo Galletti – as Biderman notes – that allowed us to see the productivity of each draft pick since 1977 (the numbers are after four years in the league).
Biderman’s article is only 300 words long. And his table only has 13 rows. So there is a bit more we can say with the numbers Galletti provides.
One issue we have to address is that players taken earlier in the draft will get more minutes. And the increase in minutes – as published research from Colin Camerer and Roberto Weber (1999) indicates – is independent of player performance. So if we are going to evaluate the NBA draft, we can’t use aggregate measures. Top draft picks will produce more wins simply because they will get more minutes. So to evaluate the productivity of players at each draft position, one should probably consider per-minute (or per 48 minute) performance.
With that in mind, let’s look at the total minutes played, total Wins Produced, and WP48 [i.e. total Wins Produced divided by total minutes played multiplied by 48] at each draft position.
As one can see, the NBA appears to do a good job identifying wins producers at the top of the draft. The top five spots in the draft rank among the top seven spots in Wins Produced. Yes – as Biderman notes – the third spot is somewhat better than the second pick. But it looks like NBA decision-makers can generally identify players like LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Hakeem Olajuwon, Chris Paul, etc…
What do these players have in common? Each player can do many things well. Consequently, it is easier for decision-makers to see that these players will be able to contribute.
Once we get past the top five slots, though, you then have players who can’t do everything well. Now decision-makers have to evaluate players who can only score (think Allan Houston) and others who primarily rebound (i.e. Dennis Rodman, Anderson Varejao, Charles Oakley, etc…). As noted in Stumbling on Wins, decision-makers on draft day clearly favor scorers. And rebounds in college– again, as noted – do not really impact a player’s draft position. So we should not be surprised that after we get past the players who do everything (i.e past the first five slots), productive players can be found throughout the first round.
There are many more stories to be with Arturo’s numbers. And all these stories will be told eventually. But not in the next post. Hopefully the next post will be about the 2010 NBA draft.
– DJ
brgulker
June 23, 2010
Congrats on the WSJ Arturo! That’s awesome.
And the content of the post was interesting too :)
Arturo
June 23, 2010
Prof,
Thanks for the opportunity and the forum (and of course the data). My mom (who’s getting her doctorate in economics) is so proud.
brgulker,
Thank you.
robbieomalley
June 23, 2010
I don’t know what you mean by “hopefully” the next post will be about the NBA draft. Are you hoping someone will post one? I might write one, I’m too tired right now.
If anyone wants some numbers charts for the draft click on my name for PAWS40 numbers.
or
http://robbieomalley.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/position-adjusted-win-score-charts/
marparker
June 24, 2010
I have a draft system that I’ve been using since 2005. It projects what a player will be doing by their 3rd year in the league.
Hits- I’ve gotten almost all the big producers correct. I undersold Durant greatly(gave him 18 probably should have given him 22). I think I’ve fixed the issue in my system so we’ll have to wait until the next great prodigy comes along to see if I made the correct changes.
Misses- I’ve had a few misses with the point guards. I have oversold some guys(bayless 20, rose 27,conley 21) so I’ve been fudging with my system trying to find out what the overrated have in common. We’ll see. On my misses I’ve come to the conclusion that a ten point deduction was necessary. However, I haven’t quite got it down as to what deserves a deduction.
What the numbers mean:
15-19(.1-.2)
21-25(.2-.3)
26+(.3+)
fields 20
greivis 22
caracter 13
stephenson 18
Harangody 14
randle 11
Pittman 10
sherron collins 10
trevor booker 15
landesberg 20(suspect)
Jerome jordan 14
varnado 12
brackins 11
dominique jones 19(suspect)
crawford 11
lawal 14
ebanks 11
bradley 5
willie warren 19(suspect)
bledsoe 9
sanders 14
alabi 10
robinson 0
heyward 15(skinny)
james anderson 15
damion james 12
xavier henry 9
whiteside 16(center)
Orton 5
ed davis 13
Greg Monroe 23(princeton center)
udoh 13
aldrich 11
wes johnson 7
aminu 17
Cousins 28
favors 14
evan turner 32
John wall 26(suspect)
I don’t think I’ve ever given anyone a 32. So Turner is my highest ever rated player
Cousins is right in the group of Love/Blair.
John Wall has a couple traits of a suspect point guard. Mainly he’s a turnover machine right now. I think he could use another year of college to give scouts(me) the chance to evaluate him further but for now I think he’s more of a 16 than a 26. This is still above average. Point guard is the one position where guys seem to get better and better until their body won’t allow it.
There are a few guys not in the league that have scored high ratings(Nick Calathes and Julius Hodge). Hodge has spent alot of time putting up near triple double numbers in australia. Calathes is shooting 62efg% and averaging over 5reb and 5ast per 36 minutes in the Greek league. I have no idea how any of these numbers translate to NBA numbers.
.3+ players
Cousins, Turner,
.2+players
Greives Vazquez, Landry Fields, Sylvan Landesberg,
.1+players
John Wall, Aminu, Hasaan Whiteside, James Anderson, Willie Warren, Dominique Jones, Trevor Booker, Lance Stevenson
marparker
June 24, 2010
I forgot to mention my favorite player of the draft.
Marcus Blakely. I gave him a 22.
He’s not my favorite so much for the production potential as much as he played center at 6’5. He’s got a 7’1 wingspan and from what I’ve seen dunks everything.
I hope he goes to a team like the Rockets who care more about production(even if I don’t agree exactly with how they measure it) than hype.
robbieomalley
June 24, 2010
I like Blakely a lot too. His defense is ridiculous, I see no reason why he can’t be a rich mans Luc Richard mbah amoute.
Dre
June 24, 2010
Congrats Arturo. Awesome to see the WoW Writers get on to the big stage.
I’ve got to say the Melo > Darko comparison in the article is true but bitter sweet. That’s kind of like consoling the Nets that they didn’t have the worst all-time record. Technically true, shows it could be worse, but it doesn’t make their current situation good.
marparker
June 24, 2010
i never listed paul george for some reason.
paul george 2o
marparker
June 24, 2010
also luke babbit 17
marparker
June 24, 2010
Tiny Gallon 22
marparker
June 24, 2010
best undrafted players I have are
Landesberg 20
and Manny Harris 25(suspect)
dyeyk2000
June 25, 2010
Arturo,
I wonder how volatile this data is? For example has a “fortunate” Manu Ginobili pick at the tail end of the draft inflated the WP48 of a draft slot too much? (I don’t have the historicals of those draft slots, I just pulled out Manu as an arbitrary example).
Basically I just wonder if the high value of, for example the 26, 30 and 24 slots are the product of multiple high value picks occuring at those points over the years or just a one-time big-time pick that turned out to be a superstar?
Arturo
June 25, 2010
dyeyk2000,
It’s typically more than one for the picks. For example, picks 24,26 & 30 have 6, 7 & 6 players greater than .100 respectively whereas pick 8 has 9. There’s a lot more prepared on the draft that we’ll probably get to at some point .
dyeyk2000
June 26, 2010
Cool. I wonder what causes this phenomenon. Is it the same GMs/Teams consistently picking at those spots? Looking forward to the future articles on this. Thanks!
marparker
June 27, 2010
gotta adjust a couple of guys up
Favors 18
Aminu 20