Final 2013 DI Ratings

With the draft a two short weeks away, we present our final DI grades. If you're new to the blog, here's how to read them...

The Index scores, once obtained, are divided into four categories, which indicate primarily, the safety of the prospect.

(0.00-.24) - Grays – Prospects who are highly-suspect and rarely develop into productive NBA players.

(.25-.49) – Reds – Prospects who are suspect and develop into productive NBA players somewhat more frequently than Gray level prospects.

(.50-.99) – Golds –  Prospects outperform the two lower levels and often develop into productive NBA players.

(1.00 + Up) Greens – Prospects have produced consistently and the majority continue to do so at the professional level.

Green Prospects:
Michael Carter-Williams           2.16
Otto Porter                               1.33
Gorgei Dieng                            1.16
Peyton Siva                              1.12
Ben McLemore                        1.12
Jamaal Franklin                         1.05
Nerlens Noel                             Inc.

Notes: Carter-Williams cemented his place at the top of the ratings with a great effort in the NCAA Tournament. He has the size, passing skills, and defensive prowess of a top-level win producer. We have noted in the past that Louisville has given us some strangely high scores, and Pitino's best Cardinal team appears to be no exception. Short of actually curving the scores, I would merely caution that these might be a somewhat optimistic representation of their potential, though I do like both Siva and Dieng to an extent.
Jamaal Franklin needs to re-make himself a bit to pay this off, specifically he needs to improve his shot selection, but I would feel comfortable taking him within the Top 10 on the strength of his time at SDSU. Noel didn't record enough minutes to score, but he was well on his way to high Green level production.

Gold Prospects:
Jeff Withey                         .87
Deshaun Thomas                .78
Andre Roberson                 .77
C.J McCollum                    .74
Jared Berggren                   .71
James Southerland              .69
Mason Plumlee                  .67
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope   .64
Victor Oladipo                    .62
Shane Larkin                      .62
Pierre Jackson                    .59
James Ennis                        .59
Cody Zeller                        .57
Trey Burke                         .56  
Anthony Bennett                .55
Tony Snell                          .51
Kelly Olynyk                     .50


Notes: Gold Prospects are pretty questionable; players grading out here stands a good chance of sticking in the league and can become productive players, though many will be roster filler or worse. The Gold grade is a nice tool for pulling questionable guys out of the lottery conversation and zeroing in on some viable late first-round and second-rounders.

Red Prospects:
Phil Pressey                       .49
Elias Harris                        .47
Matthew Dellavedova        .46
Alex Len                          .46
Erik Murphy                    .45
Brandon Davies               .45
Tony Mitchell                    .43
Allen Crabbe                     .43
Mike Muscala                  .42
Isaiah Canaan                    .41
Robert Covington             .41
Tim Hardaway Jr.            .38
Seth Curry                        .37
Randy Bullock                 .37
Michael Snaer                 .37
Trevor Mbakwe             .36
Steven Adams               .35
Archie Goodwin             .35
Brandon Paul                 .35
Carrick Felix                 .34
Richard Howell             .34
Zeke Marshall               .33
Lorenzo Brown               .32
Christian Watford          .31
Jackie Carmichael         .30
Colton Iverson               .30
Nate Wolters                  .29
Ray Mccallum               .28
Will Clyburn                  .28
Erick Green                   .28
Rodney Williams Jr.      .28
Jamelle Hagins              .27
Solomon Hill                 .26
Vander Blue                  .25
Kenny Kadji                 .25

Notes: Past analysis suggests the vast majority of these players will have short, ugly careers or no career at all. That being said, each year we do see a small percentage of these players sticking on rosters and fulfilling limited roles.
A couple of the better looking prospects here are Erik Murphy, who had a nice final season to cap an underwhelming four-year career at Florida, Goodwin, who left Lexington too early and might be able to develop further, and Len, who has some desirable qualities, though is currently being vastly overrated by the majority of experts.

Gray Prospects
Khalif Wyatt                .24
Laurence Bowers        .23
Adonis Thomas           .23
Ryan Kelly                  .23
Alex Oriachi                .22
C.J Leslie                     .20
B.J Young                   .18
Myck Kabongo           .14
Shabazz Muhammed   .13
Grant Jerrett                .08

Notes: Gray prospects very, very seldom develop into productive NBA players and we wouldn't recommend anyone on this list. The big name here, Muhammed, might be losing some of his luster already, as he has slid down most mock draft boards. However in our opinion it's not nearly far enough. A volume shooter and utterly indfferent defender, we see Shabazz as a Demar Derozan type- an inefficient scorer who is very difficult to build around. Some analysts like Kabongo, but his lack of size, defensive instincts, and shooting ability look like three fatal strikes to the Index.