DI Review: 2003 Draft

DI Review: 2003 Draft

The following is the fourth in a ten part series in which we'll review the past 10 NBA drafts, provide the Draftability Index Score for every American college prospect, and analyze the findings. One note before we dive in, all of the data is being pulled from Basketball Reference and the NBA Geek and the win share numbers are the players' career average per 48 minutes to date. If you're new to that measurement, a league average score is .100 and 'star' level production correlates to .200 and above.

The rating system is as follows: Green level prospects are the strongest and will be notated with an E, Gold level prospects are reasonably desirable prospects and are notated with a G, Red level prospects are suspect prospects and are notated with an R, and Gray level prospects are highly suspect and are notated with a Y.

If 2002 was the weakest draft of the century, 2003 is almost certainly the strongest. Headlined by Lebron's entry into the league, 2003 saw a number of future all-stars- many of whom went on to be a part of the free agent bonanza that was summer of 2010. Let's see what a GM armed with DI would have done with this solid crop. 

Round One

                                             DI Score           Rating          WP per 48
3) Carmelo Anthony                1.07                    E                   .068
4) Chris Bosh                           .71                     G                  .134
5) Dwayne Wade                    1.49                    E                   .224
6) Chris Kaman                       .06                      Y                   .021
7) Kirk Hinrich                          .75                      G                  .105
8) T.J Ford                               .88                      G                  .068
9) Mike Sweetney                    .94                      G                  .103
10) Jarvis Hayes                      .14                      Y                  .049
12) Nick Collision                     1.04                    E                  .128
13) Marcus Banks                    .22                      Y                  .057
14) Luke Ridnour                      .35                      R                 .095
15) Reece Gaines                    .37                      R                -.005
17) Troy Bell                             .43                      R                -.033
18) David West                        1.54                     E                 .103
20) Dahntay Jones                    .32                     R                  .028
24) Brian Cook                          .44                      R                -.001
29) Josh Howard                       .86                      G                 .118

Analysis: Three of the four prospects we identified as green have been above-average NBA players and the fourth (Anthony) while inefficient, carries significant real world value. On the flip side, the prospects that scored the lowest (Kaman, Hayes, Banks) were all significantly disappointing top 15 picks and behind them Gaines, Bell, Cook and Jones also under-performed. Only Luke Ridnour mustered marginal production from the class of red and gray prospects. Three players that scored well (Ford, Sweetney, Howard) were productive players but had short careers due to recurring health issues. In these matters we must unfortunately rely largely upon traditional scouting and old fashioned luck, especially if the player in question was not greatly hampered during their college careers. 

Second Round 

                                       DI Score              Rating              WP per 48
31) Jason Kapono             .10                         Y                        .055
32) Luke Walton                .23                         Y                        .128
36) Mario Austin                 .17                        Y                        .000
37) Travis Hansen             .16                        Y                         .019
38) Steve Blake                  .64                        G                        .086
40) Derrick Zimmerman     .65                        G                        .000
41) Willie Green                  .25                        R                       -.004
43) Keith Bogans                .34                        R                        .089
45) Matt Bonner                   .36                       R                        .109
47) Mo Williams                   .60                       G                        .058
49) James Jones                 .68                       G                        .111
51) Kyle Korver                    .68                       G                        .108
53) Tommy Smith                .24                       Y                         .000
55) Rick Rickert                   .17                       Y                         .000
56) Brandon Hunter             .14                        Y                        .055

Analysis: We see mixed results from the second round: following DI isolates five gold prospects (Blake, Zimmerman, Mo Williams, James Jones, and Korver); four of whom went on to be at least marginally productive. However, this approach allows two of the most productive players (Walton and Bonner) to go unidentified. 
This was a rare second round with quite a few players that went on to have long, reasonably productive NBA careers and while DI has not matched the rate of success of round one, future production has been predicted to a mathematically significant degree. 

It was a prime year for threads too, of course...

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