DI Review: The 2006 Draft

The following is the seventh 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.

2006 was the year the Toronto Raptors pulled a little bit of lottery upset and promptly fell in love with an Italian sharpshooter named Andrea. The more forward thinking teams had been making hay off the Euro kids for years- what could go wrong?

Round One

                                             DI Score           Rating          WP per 48
2) LaMarcus Aldridge              2.01                    E                   .098
3) Adam Morrison                   0.18                     Y                  -.002
4) Tyrus Thomas                    1.11                    E                    .066
5) Sheldan Williams                0.99                    G                   .098
6) Brandon Roy                       0.31                    R                   .154
7) Randy Foye                        0.59                     G                   .044
8) Rudy Gay                            1.38                     E                   .075
9) Patrick O'Bryant                 0.37                     R                   .046
11) J.J Redick                         0.21                     Y                   .120
12) Hilton Armstrong               0.29                     R                   .052
14) Ronnie Brewer                 1.50                     E                    .210
15) Cedric Simmons              0.46                     R                    .005
16) Rodney Carney                0.65                     G                    .064
17) Shawne Williams             0.65                     G                    .056
19) Quincy Douby                  0.22                      Y                    .000
20) Renaldo Balkman             0.73                     G                    .212
21) Rajon Rondo                    1.02                      E                    .218
22) Marcus Williams               0.47                     R                   -.001
23) Josh Boone                      0.52                      G                   .097
24) Kyle Lowry                       0.65                      G                    .157
25) Shannon Brown                0.19                     Y                     .036
26) Jordan Farmar                  0.35                     R                    .072
28) Maurice Ager                    0.04                      Y                    -.003
29) Mardy Collins                    0.85                      G                    .022

Notes: Two of the five green prospects hit, including an impact player from the back half of the first round in Rondo. Of our misses- Aldridge and Gay have held good value and have flirted with the .100 mark throughout their career. Tyrus Thomas has been productive, but since getting a nice sized contract in Charlotte, has been indifferent and out of shape. We don't account for such things here, but he could play if he wanted to. 
From the gold level we have some productive players (Lowry, Balkman) and some dogs as well. Following DI and avoiding red and gray level prospects would have spared you busts like Hilton Armstrong, Patrick O'Bryant and the infamous Adam Morrison but also would have taken Brandon Roy and J.J Redick off your board. 
This isn't the Index's strongest showing, however zeroing in on the green and gold prospects here would have still left you far better off than whatever dartboard approach was used to actually make these picks.

Round Two

                                             DI Score           Rating          WP per 48
31) James White                      0.45                  R                     .062
32) Steve Novak                       0.11                  Y                      .089
33) Solomon Jones                  0.18                   Y                     .026
34) Paul Davis                          0.14                   Y                     .035
35) P.J Tucker                          0.77                   G                    .157
36) Craig Smith                        0.50                   G                     .092
37) Bobby Jones                      0.49                    R                    .060
39) David Noel                         0.19                     Y                    .024
41) James Augustine               0.85                    G                    .101
42) Daniel Gibson                    0.76                    G                    .056
45) Alexander Johnson            0.17                     Y                    .056
46) Dee Brown                         0.28                     R                    .008
47) Paul Millsap                       1.74                     E                     .165
49) Leon Powe                         0.26                    R                     .165
50) Ryan Hollins                       0.12                    Y                     -.002
52) Guillermo Diaz                   0.25                     R                    .033
54) Hassan Adams                  0.62                     G                     .072
60) Will Blalock                        0.31                     R                    -.004

Notes: We can't get in a time machine and say for certain but I have got imagine, that as the draft's second highest scoring player, Millsap would have been all over our radar. P.J Tucker register as one of the more surprising hits we'll see- spending one year in Toronto- the next five in Europe and then making the Suns out of camp and posting a really nice season off of the Phoenix bench. We missed a couple solid players in Novak and Powe all told this was a good round for the Index.

We are merciful and therefore bestow suit of the year upon...

MJ was so sure...

DI Review: The 2005 Draft

The following is the sixth 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.

The 2005 Draft was not a particularly strong crop of prospects and is a also the last draft with direct to high school prospects. Let's take a look at how things shake out...

Round One

                                             DI Score           Rating          WP per 48
1) Andrew Bogut                      1.14                    E                     .134
2) Marvin Williams                    0.34                   R                     .120
3) Deron Williams                    0.71                   G                     .149
4) Chris Paul                            0.35                   R                      .307
5) Raymond Felton                  0.53                    G                     .077
7) Charlie Villanueva                0.44                    R                     .022
8) Channing Frye                     0.51                    G                     .022
9) Ike Diogu                              0.17                    Y                      .057
13) Sean May                           0.49                    R                      .066
14) Rashad McCants               0.29                    R                      .035
15) Antoine Wright                   0.25                    R                      .029
16) Joey Graham                     0.25                    R                      .061
17) Danny Granger                  0.69                     G                     .117
19) Hakim Warrick                   0.48                     R                     .043
20) Julius Hodge                      0.40                     R                      .003
21) Nate Robinson                   0.29                     R                      .057
22) Jarrett Jack                        0.67                     G                      .093
23) Francisco Garcia               1.22                     E                      .085
24) Luther Head                       0.43                     R                      .122
26) Jason Maxiell                     0.76                     G                      .107
27) Linas Kleiza                       0.12                     Y                      .051
29) Wayne Simien                   0.14                     Y                      .085
30) David Lee                          0.25                      R                     .155

Notes: The green level prospects (Bogut and Garcia) split. On Garcia, he is one of those Louisville guys, and still would have been a decent choice in the mid-to-late first. The gold level prospects (Deron Williams, Felton, Granger, Jack, Maxiell) have all panned out, more or less, as well. 
From the red and the grays, we have eliminated some lousy players, but as you likely noticed pretty immediately, we missed some really good ones. DI would have had us pass on Chris Paul and David Lee- pretty big whiffs. I'd like to get into the Wake Forest film and figure out how precisely how CP3 posted such a weak number, but that's neither here nor there.

Round Two

                                             DI Score           Rating          WP per 48
31) Salim Stoudamire              0.07                   Y                     .040
32) Daniel Ewing                      0.30                   R                    .027
33) Brandon Bass                    0.35                   R                    .089
37) Ronny Turiaf                      0.27                   R                     .101
38) Travis Diener                     0.26                   R                     .125
39) Von Wafer                          0.04                   Y                     .064
42) Chris Taft                           0.69                   G                     .155
47) Bracey Wright                    0.19                   Y                      .068
50) Ryan Gomes                     0.29                    R                     .082
53) Orien Greene                     0.16                    Y                     -.002
54) Dijon Thompson                0.09                     Y                    .102
55) Laurence Roberts              0.49                    R                    .103
60) Alex Acker                          0.12                     Y                    -.004

Notes: By using Wins Produced per 48 minutes, we do lose some of the perspective one would gain from an aggregated measurement. In this case, we have a number of prospects, some of whom with  less than 200 minutes, registering as 'good' professional players. Whether or not we should read more into the fact that the player only lasted a year or two, or that they played decently when they got on the court, I'll leave to you to debate.
We do have some more established productive players (Turiaf, Diener, Bass, Gomes) none of whom would have registered as desirable options on DI. Nobody said the second round was easy...


There you have in folks, and now, 2005 in a nutshell...

"We're slightly above average!!"

DI Review: The 2004 Draft

The following is the fifth 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.

The 2004 Draft may be most remembered for the debate between Dwight Howard and Emeka Okafor at the Number One spot. It was a different time, and I'm quite thankful we no longer have to speak with conviction and authority regarding the potential of 17 and 18 year-olds. Analyzing one-and-dones is much more clear cut.

Round One

                                             DI Score           Rating          WP per 48

2) Emeka Okafor                     1.34                   E                     .134

3) Ben Gordon                         0.48                  R                      .039

5) Devin Harris                        1.04                   E                     .103

6) Josh Childress                    0.64                   G                     .238

7) Luol Deng                           1.19                    E                     .148

8) Rafael Araujo                      0.30                   R                     -.001

9) Andre Iguodala                   0.41                   R                      .201

10) Luke Jackson                   0.14                    Y                      .010 

14) Kris Humphries                 0.10                    Y                     .123

16) Kirk Snyder                       0.61                    G                     .061

20) Jameer Nelson                 0.61                    G                     .093

24) Delonte West                    0.77                    G                     .141

25) Tony Allen                         1.09                    E                     .149

26) Kevin Martin                     0.10                     Y                     .145

30) David Harrison                 0.29                     R                     .057

Notes: Of the college players to be selected in the first round, over half went on to become productive NBA players- so there was plenty of solid options to choose from in 2004. The four players scoring green (Okafor, Harris, Deng, and Allen) have all gone on to productive careers, which is what we expect, and I suppose, hope for. 

DI let some good players go by (Iggy, Humphries, Martin) and I don't contend that it won't do that now and again. The grades are reflections of production of certain variables throughout a college career- that a player fails in that regard is not necessarily a total condemnation of that player but more precisely an indicator that betting your job and a few million bucks (as GM's and organizations do) that said player will develop or reveal the ability to produce might not be a sound proposition. 

A GM using DI might miss a good player now and again, but in this case there's no way he's going home with Rafael Araujo or Luke Jackson, and avoiding decisions like that will go a long way to helping you keep your job.

Round Two

                                             DI Score           Rating            WP per 48

31) Jackson Vroman                0.35                    R                     .001

33)  Lionel Chalmers                0.39                    R                    -.002

34) Donta Smith                       0.00                    Y                     .043

35) Andre Emmett                    0.72                    G                     .040

36) Antonio Burks                    0.70                     G                    .004

37) Royal Ivey                          0.46                    R                     -.003

38) Chris Duhon                       0.83                    G                    .118

40) Justin Reed                        0.40                     R                    .016 

43) Trevor Ariza                        0.07                     Y                    .145

45) Bernard Robinson              0.15                     Y                     .045

47) Pape Sow                           0.07                     Y                     .044

48) Ricky Minard                      0.10                      Y                    .000

53) Christian Drejer                  0.03                      Y                    .000

53) Matt Frieje                          0.07                      Y                   -.005

54) Ricky Paulding                   0.17                      Y                    .000

55) Luis Flores                         0.37                      R                    -.002

56) Marcus Douthit                  0.28                       R                   .000

58) Blake Stepp                       0.39                       R                   .000

59) Rashad Wright                   0.20                      R                    .000

Notes: A lot of ugly scores and amazingly few players that even got serious run on an NBA court. Our highest scoring player, Chris Duhon, went on to be a nice back-up point guard, and from the muck and the mire emerged the very efficient Trevor Ariza. 

Faced with this set of scores, you might have taken a roll on Duhon or big Andre Emmett, drafted someone from Central Europe, or traded out and waited for next year- and really the trade would have been the best decision.

And now, for the fashion...

1) I totally forgot Sideshow was selected by the Magic,

who flipped him that summer for Steven Hunter- whoops!

2) This suit is totally sharp- only 

the hat is ridiculous

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.

The Rest of the Rest: DI Rankings #61 and on

61) Richard Howell - PF - North Carolina State
Draftability Index: .34
Red Prospect

62) Rodney Williams Jr. - SF - Minnesota
Draftability Index: .28
Red Prospect

63) Grant Jerrett  - F - Arizona
Draftability Index: .08
Gray Prospect

64) Jackie Carmichael - PF - Illinois State
Draftability Index: .30
Red Prospect

65)  Alex Oriakhi - PF/C - Missouri
Draftability Index: .22
Gray Prospect

66) James Ennis - SF - Long Beach State
Draftability Index: .59
Gold Prospect

67) Vander Blue - SG - Marquette
Draftability Index: .25
Red Prospect

68) Adonis Thomas - F - Memphis
Draftability Index: .23
Gray Prospect

69) Jamelle Hagins - PF - Delaware
Draftability Index: .27
Red Prospect

70) Christian Watford - F -  Indiana
Draftability Index: .31
Red Prospect

71) Khalif Wyatt - SG - Temple
Draftability Index: .24
Gray Prospect

72) Will Clyburn - SF - Iowa State
Draftability Index: .28
Red Prospect

73) Elias Harris - F- Gonzaga
Draftability Index: .47
Red Prospect

74) Laurence Bowers - PF - Missouri
Draftability Index: .23
Gray Prospect

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...

Check out LBJ in this Senior Prom special