If you are (or were?) a Pistons fan – and you think college performance means something – then last night did not fill you with hope.  The Pistons selected three players — Brandon Knight, Kyle Singler, and Vernon Macklin – who were described as “good kids”.

Unfortunately when each actually played college basketball in 2010-11, all three managed to post Win Score numbers that were below average for their position.  In fact, as noted below, each posted numbers that were far below average.  And although college numbers do not predict future NBA numbers perfectly, when a player doesn’t actually play basketball well in the past, we tend to wonder if he will play basketball much better in the future.  Yes, it could happen.  Brandon Knight could be a star.  But in general, his poor performance last year in college shouldn’t make fans of the Pistons happy.

And I am not the only one to think Knight may not be a sure-thing.  Peter Newmann and Dean Oliver – at ESPN TrueHoop – had the following to say about Knight about two weeks ago:

To help us, let’s use one of the key metrics for evaluating point-guard prospects: pure point rating (PPR), which calculates assists and turnovers into a single number projection of how a particular player will fare as a distributor in the NBA. The average PPR of all current NBA starters while they were in college is 1.2.

… Knight has a one-in-four chance of being good, but the numbers suggest that his chances of success ride heavily on his shooting ability, not his passing. Knight had a minus-1.4 PPR in college, which is extremely low for a point guard — lower, in fact, than any NBA starting point guard’s college PPR except for Stephen Curry, who did not play point guard until his third and final year at Davidson.

Knight’s youth and specific metrics on steals and rebounds also raise red flags. In short, studies show that point guards with his characteristics don’t live up to first-round expectations. Knight has about a one-in-three chance at failing — he is an NBA player, but he is a poor risk for a lottery team.

Other guys have succeeded with such a low PPR; for example, Gilbert Arenas and Jerryd Bayless are point guards who are better as shooters than distributors. But it takes more than 40 minutes for Knight to get a steal or block, far more than either of these guys. And while his shooting is probably good enough to keep him around, Knight’s defense could prove to be a problem, too.

Of course, Newmann and Oliver are relying on Knight’s college performance to predict his future NBA production.  And again, the correlation between college and the NBA is far from perfect.  So it is possible that Knight will prove Dumars is right.  But I think there might be another explanation for the choices Dumars made on Thursday night.

To see this other explanation, let me first note that yesterday (June 23) Kathleen Hays of Bloomberg Radio and I had another great conversation about a number of current stories in the world of sports (our discussion begins at the 11:38 mark and lasts for about 20 minutes).  Kathleen and I covered the following topics

-         the Dodgers meltdown

-         the NBA draft

-         the NBA labor dispute

-         the NFL labor dispute

With respect to the NBA draft I noted (as others have observed) that a number of college players – who likely would have been lottery picks — decided not to enter the NBA this year.  And that means next year’s draft might be much better.

If this is true, then I think I understand what Dumars is doing.  Rather than draft players who might actually help the Pistons in 2011-12, Dumars drafted players who would help the Pistons move up in the 2012 draft.  Yes, Dumars is this clever.  He actually drafted Knight, Singler, and Macklin in an effort to “trade-up” in next year’s draft.  WoW!! That is an amazing strategy.

Okay, I really don’t think Dumars was making choices in 2011 to improve Detroit’s draft position in 2012.  I think Dumars really believes Knight is going to help the Pistons.  The numbers, though, currently suggest a different story (and again, it is only a suggestion).

Enough on that story.  Let’s move on from the Pistons and briefly discuss the other teams who drafted players last night.

The following two tables present a rather simple perspective on each player (at least, the analysis is simple when compared to the recent analysis offered by Arturo Galletti, Ty Willihnganz, and others).  All I am noting is each player’s Win Score per 40 minute numbers (with and without a pace adjustment) and each player’s Position Adjusted Win Score per 40 minutes (the box score numbers used to make these calculations were taken from DraftExpress).  The PAWS40 number is calculated by

1. subtracting the average WS40 for players at each position who were recently (i.e. last few years) drafted out of college, and then

2.  adding back the overall WS40 for all players recently drafted out of college.

In looking at these numbers one should note that a PAWS40 of 10.2 is average.  Players who are one standard deviation above this average (12.9 or higher) have a good chance of being above average NBA players.  Players who are one standard deviation below this mark (7.3 or lower) have a good chance of being below average NBA players.

So based on these numbers, who should be happy today?  The Denver Nuggets managed to add two above average players — Kenneth Faried and Jordan Hamilton – to a 2011 playoff team.  Faried has the highest PAWS40 in the draft, primarily because he is an outstanding rebounder.  And as noted in Stumbling on Wins (and also noted by a number of other people), rebounding is a skill that does translate from college to the NBA (and I should note, Peter Newmann and Dean Oliver argued that Faried should have been a lottery pick).  So our very own Andres Alvarez – who wrote this week about all the problems Denver historically has drafting talent – is singing a different tune today.

Of the teams with multiple picks like Denver, the Houston Rockets, New Jersey Nets, and New York Knicks are the only other teams to spend all their picks on players with PAWS40 marks that are above average (although none of these picks were one standard deviation above average).

In contrast, the Boston Celtics, LA Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Washington Wizards were like the Pistons.  Yes, these teams spent all their picks on players who were below average.  Of these teams, though, the Pistons were the only team to draft a player who was at least one standard deviation below average.  And the Pistons – if we look at the pace adjusted numbers – managed to do this all three times!  Again, WoW!  Dumars drafted three players who were really far below average (again, doesn’t that suggest he is trying to move up in the 2012 draft?).

Two more notes…

There is a 0.99 correlation between WS40 and Pace-Adjusted WS40.  So I am not sure the pace adjustment is necessary (but people seem to like to see this).  Pace adjustment does matter when you look at teams. But for individual players I have never found that this mattered much.

And back to my conversation with Kathleen Hays… in our conversation Kathleen asked me why NBA teams don’t appear to be learning.  In response I noted that I think there is evidence that NBA teams are actually changing how they evaluate talent. I will offer more on this subject in the future.

- DJ

Arturo again. This is a very special simulpost with my own blog with all the draft goodness you could want. I also hope everyone likes the new layout.
Enjoy!

You know my methods. Apply them.
-Sherlock Holmes “The Sign of the Four“

Hey all. You may have noticed that I’ve stopped posting as often.

Hey now, Relax.

What you may or may not have noticed is that I’ve taken over as Editor over at the Wages of Wins.What this means is that I will be splitting my posting between the two sites.

In fact, this, will be a simulpost.

So if you were missing your daily fix just go over there and you will be sure to find the typical output from me.

Better now?

Let’s rate this Draft!

Projecting the 2011 NBA Draft

I built some models to project rookie performance based on the available stats for the prospective NBA players.

I built two models specifically (go here for the model build parts 1 & part 2 ) and I called them : Yogi and Booboo.

This is a totally legit picture

To give you an idea of the value of the models I decided to look at:

• The probability of landing a better than average player (>.090 WP48) for his first four seasons
• The probability of landing a good player (>.150 WP48) for his first four seasons

I also decided to show this for:

• Any qualifying pick (>400 MP in his rookie Year)
• Any Top 5 pick
• Any Top 10 pick
• Any 1st Round Pick
• And Both models.

And this was done for 1995 to 2009. The table is here:

If I rank the factors in order of predictive value for player success for this data from best to worst I get:

• Both models calling for you to draft the player
• Yogi picks
  
• Boo Boo picks
• A player being a Top five picks.

Yogi is more picky, Boo Boo casts a broader net and is more accurate.The takeaway though is that the models work.

Last year I did it for the 2010 Rookies and early returns were very good.

See here:

And in summary:

If we compare the top 10 picks versus model selection and set our benchmark for success at .080 WP48 for rookies, one model picks performed identically to top 10 picks and two model picks were can’t miss prospects in this draft. Only 30% of all picks were successful contributing rookies and the models clearly outperformed that mark.

The GM’s and scouting again get fairly trounced by the math.

The takeaway? Math always wins and it’s worth doing this again.

So here goes.

2011 NBA Draft Rankings

There are 6 good prospects in this draft according to the models and one slightly less attractive one (but he can be had cheap). The best prospect is easily Kenneth Faried, who will in all probability wind up on a pretty darn good team. Kyrie Irving and Derrick Williams the prospective 1 and 2 picks look to be good picks and not busts.

The other three good prospects are Kawhi Leonard, Alec Burks and Markieff Morris (all to be had outside the top 5).

The real steal may end up being Travis Leslie in the second round.

Enjoy the draft!

-Arturo

Consider today a tribute to two people; @Smooth_Operatah, a Colorado fan on Twitter, who produces great Twitter content (although sometimes the content is more adult, so follow at your own risk) and Mike Birbiglia(@birbigs), an amazing standup comic.

A few days ago, Twitter Smooth was lamenting the terrible performance of Dan Issel in the head office of the Nuggets from 1998-2001. Mike Birbiglia has a fun joke setup which goes “Now, what I should have said was <fill in with intelligent thought out remark> What I did say was <fill in with much worse remark>” So putting these two great thinkers trains of thoughts together I bring you. . . .

Now, who I should have drafted was …,  who I did draft was …

I’ll go back through the last 10 drafts the Nuggets participated in, which coincidently starts in 1998 ( Dan Issel’s first year in the Nuggets front office) I’ll only review picks where a quality player was “missed” by the Nuggets, so a few picks may be left out.  And I am only going to look at performance across the player’s rookie contract (the first four years the player played)

1998 With the 3^rd pick the Nuggets selected:

• Raef LaFrentz – 7734 MP, 0.125 WP48, 20.1 WP
• Should have drafted: Paul Pierce – 10637 MP, 0.219 WP48, 48.5 WP

Pierce was a beast in his rookie contract while Raef was a slightly above average player. Pierce would go on to a great career and a Finals MVP (arguably undeserved) while Raef would go on to be a large cap relief piece to the Blazers.

1998 with the 23^rd picK the Nuggets selected:

• Tyronn Lue – 2261 MP, 0.004 WP48 0.2 WP
• Should have drafted: Ruben Patterson – 6065 MP, 0.189 WP48, 23.9 WP

Tyronn Lue ended up being a complete waste. Ruben Patterson was a very productive rookie. He’d eventually end up on the Nuggets, so all good right?

1999 with the 18^th pick the Nuggets selected:

• James Posey – 9063 MP, 0.131 WP48, 24.7 WP
• Should have drafted: Andrei Kirilenko – 8608 MP, 0.281 WP48, 50.3 WP

James Posey wasn’t a bad pick, but Kirilenko was a super productive machine (a statement that might surprise fans of the Jazz). The Nuggets left almost 25 wins on the table with this miss.

1999 with the 33^rd Pick the Nuggets Selected:

• Chris Herren – 1005 MP, -0.040 WP48, -0.83 WP
• Should have drafted: Manu Ginobili – 7698 WP, 0.238 WP48, 38.2 WP

Would you rather have a completely useless player that played limited minutes or the best 6^th man since Bill Walton? The Nuggets picked the former. The Spurs would go on to win a title in 2003, while the Nuggets would win 17 games. . .

1999 with the 41^st pick the Nuggets Selected:

• Fransisco Elson – 4724 MP, 0.036 WP48, 3.52 WP
• Should have picked – Todd MacCallough 3440 MP, 0.153 WP48, 11.0 WP

Let’s call this strike three. Had the Nuggets used their three picks correctly they’d have added 100 wins across their next four seasons. Instead Elson was a marginal player at best.

2000 with the 26^th pick the Nuggets selected:

• Mamadou N’diaye – 781 MP, 0.076 WP48, 1.2 WP
• Should have picked – Michael Redd – 6788 MP, 0.171 WP48, 24.2 WP

The 2000 draft was not a good one. Of course there was a 2^nd round gem with Michael Redd. The Nuggets picked N’diaye instead, who played limited minutes at a below average level.

2002 with the 5^th pick the Nuggets selected:

• Nikoloz Tskitishvili – 1946 MP, -0.172 WP48, -6.96
• Should have picked: Amare Stoudemire – 7534 MP, 0.142 WP48, 22.35 WP

Adam Resinger (@TheAkronHammer), who incidently is listed in Tskitishvili’s Wikipedia article, had this to add: “Hey, it’s not like they could have had Nene and Amare in the same frontcourt. Oh, wait…” It gets worse. . .

2002 with the 25^th pick the Nuggets selected:

• Frank Williams – 952 MP, -0.009 WP48, -0.2 WP
• Should have picked: Carlos Boozer – 7438 MP, 0.233 WP48, 36.0 WP

Amare wasn’t even the best big in the draft. Boozer was still around into the 2^nd round, but instead the Nuggets picked up a useless Frank Williams who couldn’t even crack 1000 minutes (or positive wins).

2002 with the 32^nd pick the Nuggets selected:

• Vincent Yarbrough – 1381 MP, 0.0271 WP48, 0.78
• Should have picked: Luis Scola – 9593 MP, 0.126 WP48, 25.1 WP

Vincent was next to useless right out of the gate. Scola waited a few years before joining the league, but has been a productive player his “rookie years”. Amazingly the Nuggets got to strike out on 3 solid bigs in one draft.

2003 with the 3^rd Pick the Nuggets Selected:

• Carmelo Anthony – 11028 MP, 0.042 WP48, 9.61 WP
• Who they should have picked: Dwyane Wade – 9922 MP, 0.230 WP48 47.5 WP

Wade picked up almost 50 wins, willed his team to a title, and was just a joy to watch. Carmelo on the other hand was both unproductive and overrated. I’m still bitter.

2004 with the 20^th pick the Nuggets Selected:

• Jameer Nelson – 7686 MP, 0.110 WP48, 17.6 WP
• Who they should have picked: Kevin Martin – 7400 MP, 0.170 Wp48 26.2 WP

Nelson wasn’t a bad pick and never ended up playing for the Nuggets (and even let them make another mistake in 2005). That said, Kevin Martin would have been a great addition to the Nuggets who seemingly had every position covered except SG in 2004.

2005 with the 20^th pick the Nuggets Selected:

• Julius Hodge – 98 MP, 0.059, 0.1 WP
• Who they should have picked: David Lee – 8036 MP, 0.280 WP48, 46.7 WP

Injuries kept Hodge from ever becoming anything but trade fodder. David Lee was an amazing talent that was wasted on New York. The Nuggets missed 40+ Winners in two consecutive drafts. No big deal, right?

2005 with the 22^nd pick the Nuggets Selected:

• Jarrett Jack – 9129 MP, 0.048 WP48, 9.2 WP
• Who they should have picked: Marcin Gortat – 3953 MP, 0.218 WP48, 18.0 WP

Jarrett Jack never amounted to much. Gortat was amazingly productive despite being underused by Orlando. Luckily, Gortat has a new home now in Phoenix where he’s getting solid minutes.

2009 with 34^th Pick the Nuggets Selected

• Sergio Llull – Hasn’t laced up yet. Rights sold to Houston
• Who the should have picked: DeJuan Blair – 3228 MP, 0.203 WP48, 13.6

From 2006 to 2008 the Nuggets did not keep a draft pick (including giving away a very productive Leon Powe).  In 2009 they had a shot at a great big in the 2^nd round but chose to sell their pick to Houston again. San Antonio is currently underplaying Blair, which makes the situation even crueler.

Summing Up

In reviewing the Nuggets recent history of drafting I am not filled with happiness. While the draft is hard to predict — and the Nuggets are not alone in their mistakes — the truth is they have made many. Using hindsight like this is akin to realizing you could have picked the winning lottery numbers multiple times (okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration – drafting is a challenge but it is not exactly like guessing lottery numbers). In 1998, 1999 (two of Issel’s seasons in the Nuggets front Office), 2002 and 2005 the Nuggets let over 50 wins go in the draft. Could the Nuggets have changed their fortunes in the draft? Absolutely! Will they draft a game changing player in this year’s draft? I wouldn’t count on it.

-Dre (@nerdnumbers)

The draft info was taken from Basketball-Reference, who had all of the Nuggets picks in a handy single page. I’d love to see similar takes on other franchises.

Hey all. Arturo Here. This is a re-working/expansion of an earlier piece of mine.  Consider this appetizer. More will be coming during the next 24 hours. Including my draft model predictions. NBA General Managers please note that I am doing all this work pro-bono.

Just what is a draft pick worth?

It’s surprising that I haven’t actually written this piece before.Long-time readers know that the draft  is old and fertile ground for me (see here for a good example). Now, typically I need no prompting to start writing about the draft  but in this particular case you can blame squarely at the feet of my partner in crime Andres Alvarez and Truehoop Smackdown champion Benjamin Morris.

The impetus was two-fold:

• Andres Alvarez (@NerdNumbers) for asking the following on Twitter: “Opinion question. Does getting the #1 Pick in the Draft Lottery really up your odds at a title?”
• Ben for writing a nice piece in respbuonse (see here ,seriously, go read it).

Ben’s finding is that yes it does matter. This spurred my curiosity. Let’s just say inspiration hit like a sledgehammer.

Or like this

I dug out some data sets and confirmed that I do agree with Ben.The devil though is in the details. Which of course, I then spent a significant amount of time working out.

The key point in drafting right and knowing when to trade is knowing the value of the asset at hand (i.e. the draft pick). This led me to the question of the actual value of the pick and the idea that we can figure this out.

All I need to do is:

1. Estimate the value of a win to $1.7 million dollars (approximately the number of  wins in a season divided by the the total payroll).
2. Work out the  average number of wins produced by draft picks over their first four years in the league (their rookie contract).
3. Sprinkle in the Rookie salary

We can come up with an actual pick value chart .The data looks like so:

And as a graph it looks like so:

And for  those lazy readers out there, I can convert this to a relative pick value chart:

Now, you too can run an NBA draft for your favorite team.

The second part of the equation is the premise that you need high draft picks to win the title. I decided that it would be fun to look at this visually by charting  the draft pedigree of all the NBA Finalists since 1978. An important note is that I also decided that to actually count for a team the player had to crack the Top 6 in the Rotation for said team ( this is from my Half Baked Notion about the playoffs ).

This breaks down like so:

Turns out Miami-Dallas 1 and 2 have been the most loaded finals in terms of Draft Talent since 1991 Bulls-Lakers.

That’s not the poster though.

This is:

[Editor Dre's Note: The Poster is Really beautiful but it's also quite large. So rather than have you scroll a ton I figure it's easier if you click here for it!]

Draft Pedigree of top 6 Players in each Finals

All Business in the front and party in the back. Keep a lookout for more.

-Arturo

If you live in Chicago or New York you will have the opportunity to hear me on the radio tomorrow (Thursday).

At 7:40am, I am scheduled to be a guest on Chicago: 670 the Score.  We will be discussing the aging of Derrick Rose (a topic in this forum a few days ago). Keep in mind if you listen:  the hosts of this show will be awake.  In contrast, I am expected to go on the radio at 6:40am Utah time (so I am not sure I will be completely awake – but I will try).

Later tomorrow – at 2:30 EST (in New York City) to be precise – I am scheduled to be a guest of Kathleen Hays on Bloomberg Radio.  Kathleen and I will be discussing a variety of current events in the world of sports.

If you don’t live in Chicago or New York, you can still these discussions on-line.

In other news…

As you can see, the Wages of Wins Journals is undergoing some renovations.  Arturo Galletti and Andres Alvarez are now co-administrators.  And they are making some upgrades.  This is all part of a larger plan to create a bigger and better Wages of Wins Network website.  So look for more changes in the future.

- DJ