2012 NBA draft ratings

[Mathketball]

Hey all, I thought it was time to start a thread for the 2012 draft ratings. Here's a link to my rankings (by position) for this draft. https://docs.google.com/a/kent.edu/spre ... UU0E#gid=0

A quick key for how to read it:
Success:Failure is a stat I've developed to expand assist to turnover ratio to the rest of the players offensive game. It's the ratio of number of possessions a player ends with a success to the number he ends with a failure.

Rating is as it sounds, the result of my formula to rate the prospects. It's scaled by RPI, SOS, age, and height.
A key for how to read it would be something like this:

1.6+ = Very good NBA player/potential all star.
1.4's and 1.5's NBA starter.
1.3's high 1.2's Role players.
Low 1.2's and below guys who struggle to stay in the NBA.

I've plugged 6 draft classes into my formulas and I've noticed post players tend to be around 0.05 below front court players. So if comparing wing to a PF add 0.05 to the PF's score. For example, Thomas Robinson scores 1.54 but compared to a wing would be 1.59.

I've also noticed trends that lead to guys being overvalued. Every draft has a couple players that exhibit these trends and this draft it's Kendall Marshall, Scott Machado, and Robbie Hummel. From what I've gathered from past drafts I would consider these to be more accurate scores for the three:

Marshall: 1.96 -> 1.64
Machado: 1.64 -> 1.47
Hummel: 1.58 -> 1.52

Also, I believe Kidd-Gilchrist is undervalued on my scale. First off he's known as an exceptional on-ball defender and I definitely feel that defensive specialists are undervalued here as they are in most metrics. The other reason is his relatively low usage rate. Thanks to the roster he played on he had to defer more often than the other top 5 picks.

So with all that said, my top 5 would be this:

1. Anthony Davis
2. Brad Beal - best 2 eye browed player in the draft.
3a. Michael Kidd-Glichrist - I can't pick which of these two I like better. So they’re both my #3 pick (I bet Washington wishes they could do the same)
3b. Thomas Robinson
5. Dion Waiters

Top Sleepers in the draft:
1. Will Barton - As I mentioned in the NCAA players thread I love Barton. I feel he has the potential to be a top 10 or even top 5 player from this class when it's all said and done. Obviously needs to add weight but that's not something that scares me off.
2. Jae Crowder - I know kjb loves him. I do too. Some team is going to get really lucky in the second round.
3. Drew Gordon - Like Crowder, I'm sold on him as a second round steal.

Guys I'm afraid of:
1. Andre Drummond - Who isn't afraid of him. Under 30% ft shooting... Ton of potential though.
2. Harrison Barnes - He isn't an efficient scorer and seems to be immune to assists. Like Drummond, gotta love the size and athleticism but from a stats stand point I'm nervous. When he decided to go back for a second year I expected to see him progress a lot more. Bright side here, pairing him with an elite PG could hide some of his short comings.

Here's one more metric I've been working on. https://docs.google.com/a/kent.edu/spre ... fQlE#gid=0

RPG:Var is Rebounds Per game/Variance in rebounds per game. The idea is if two guys average x rebounds one of them has a variance of 16 and the other a variance of 8 the guys with var = 8 brings a much more consistent effort. I only plug post players into this because I feel back court players could have more variance caused by the player they matchup with on any given night. For an example, JJ Hickson had an exceptionally high rebounding variance at NC State (16+ I believe). Therefore he scored poorly on here. That inconsistent effort translated perfectly to the NBA.

Hope you guys enjoyed this. I'd love to see anyone else’s draft ranks as well.

[kjb]

I posted my rankings over on my seldom-updated blog. Two posts:

This one is an ordered ranking of 1st round prospects.

This one is position rankings of college players with draftable scores in my system.

For next year, I hope to be able to incorporate international prospects.

In terms of draft strategy, I wouldn't pick Crowder, Denmon or Zeller as high as I have them rated if I was making the pick. The reason: I think they're underrated by other teams. So, for the Wizards picking third, they could conceivably take Beal at 3 and then take Crowder at 32, getting two players I have ranked in the top 10 of this year's draft.

So, here are the players in my system by tier:

The tiers according to me:

Tier One

• Anthony Davis, PF, Kentucky -- Davis posted the most impressive freshman season I've analyzed. He's the second rated prospect in my database behind Shaquille O'Neal's sophomore season. Similar scores: Kevin Durant and Greg Oden.

Tier Two

• Jae Crowder, SF, Marquette
  Tyler Zeller, C, North Carolina

Tier Three

• Marcus Denmon, SG, Missouri

Tier Four

• Bradley Beal, SG, Florida
  Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, SF, Kentucky

Tier Five

• Damian Lillard, PG, Weber State
  Thomas Robinson, PF, Kansas
  Will Barton, SG, Memphis
  Dion Waiters, SG, Syracuse

Tier Six

• Kendall Marshall, PG, North Carolina
  Jared Sullinger, PF, Ohio State
  Miles Plumlee, F/C, Duke
  Harrison Barnes, SF, North Carolina
  Terrence Jones, F, Kentucky
  Andre Drummond, C, Connecticut

Tier Seven

• Darius Johnson-Odom, SG, Marquette
  Jeremy Lamb, SG, Connecticut
  Ricardo Ratliffe, PF, Missouri

Tier Eight

• Jeff Taylor, SF, Vanderbilt
  John Jenkins, SG, Vanderbilt
  Orlando Johnson, SG, UCSB
  Tony Wroten, PG, Washington
  Quincy Miller, SF, Baylor

Tier Nine

• John Henson, PF, North Carolina
  Reggie Hamilton, PG, Oakland
  Kevin Jones, PF, West Virginia
  Jordan Taylor, PG, Wisconsin
  John Shurna, F, Northwestern
  Devoe Joseph, SG, Oregon
  Drew Gordon, PF, New Mexico

In my case, the tiers are for ranking purposes only. There are significant differences between tiers; insignificant differences between players on the same tier.

[Mathketball]

Good stuff kjb.

I agree with you in terms of your draft strategy. Barton for example rates very high on my scales but I wouldn't take him until the 20-25 range simply because it's likely he'll be there.

By the way, your system might have the best name of any I've seen. I certainly hope when someone asks you what you think about a player you say, "Well, YODA says..."

[YaoPau]

Two more people with Henson low, I don't get it.

24 PER as a sophomore with elite defensive potential ... great size, very athletic, good kid, good rebounder, skilled in the post, decent form on his jumper. If you've got him as a bad pick, I'd like to know why.

He'll bulk up and has raise that FT% as he gets older... besides that he's a pretty completely prospect imo, with all-star upside.

[Mathketball]

YaoPau, I think you answered your own question. You mentioned his defensive potential, athleticism, form on his jump shot, and that he's a good kid. I don't dispute any of these claims but my formulas are based solely on numbers. Regardless of what his jump shot looks like, for a big man his PPS was very low and his FG% was OK but not amazing. You mentioned his low FT%, which is a stat that generally translates very well from college to the pros, so it's not a given that he's going to improve that much.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Henson (and neither do my formulas). If you look at the key I posted he projects as a starter on the PF scale. Remember my post player formula scores slightly lower, so his 1.36 roughly translates to 1.41 on that key. So I do like him. Had his PPS been on par with most big men and if he had a better FT% he would have been near the top of the PFs.

[huevonkiller]

Excellent analysis everyone.

Random stat but when Kevin Love was 19, he had a higher WS/48 than Davis. I'm not totally surprised since Davis has a raw offensive arsenal and Love is underrated.

AD is going to be a star but he's not quite Shaq. I think his ceiling is D12 or KG. I guess Dwight Howard already proved you don't need any refined moves to succeed in the NBA, though.

[schtevie]

AD is going to be a star but he's not quite Shaq. I think his ceiling is D12 or KG.

Apologies for any drift that results from this comment, but I feel compelled to address the extraordinarily strange comparative statement above. First, and less glaring, if AD's ceiling is KG, then it is the ceiling of a first round, unanimous selection HOFer, arguably the best power forward of all time (or whatever his hybrid position truly is).

But second, I find it disheartening that after all the public progress that has been seen in basketball analytics over the last two decades, that an unequivocal assertion can be made that Shaq is a player of a higher echelon than KG. It is as if the APM/RAPM era came and went without a whisper. It is as if the clear result of the "natural" experiment of KG's effect on the Boston Celtics in 2007-08 has been erased from memory. Very, very strange.

What are the insights that RAPM provides on this matter? Do a common age comparison for the years when there are data (ignoring 2002 where there is no prior - hence no stars in the league) and what do you see? For ages 30 to 35, who is the better player? Well Shaq is the known beast and better on offense (1.5 points per 100 possessions better) but KG is so much better on defense (3.9 points better) that he is clearly the better player on net (2.4 points better)! But we knew this, no?

But what about the earlier two thirds of each player's career. Might Shaq have been 1.44 points per 100 possession better on average over the first ten years in the league? This is what he would have had to have accomplished just to have been KG's equal. And this is a tall order. It is possible, but by no means obvious. To begin, we know given KG's RAPM performance at ages 27 through 29, he was extraordinarily good - average RAPM of 6.3, the best in the league, 1 point better than second place Tim Duncan. For Shaq to have topped that at the same ages, he pretty much would not only have had to have been the best player in the league but by a transcendent margin. Was he that player? Maybe there is some evidence on this account coming from statistical APM. Comparison of average WS, however, doesn't suggest that Shaq was better, however, and WS relatively neglects KG's relative forte which is defense (though there is evidence that KG wasn't the same quality defender he is today).

And then, for completeness' sake, there are also KG's "declining" years, yet to play out (hopefully). To date, he has been remarkably, remarkably resilient in maintaining his elite status. For him to be better the next three years (assuming - hoping - there are three more years) than Shaq was at age 36 through 38, he will need to post RAPMs of 0.9, -1.5, and 0.5. Anyone want to bet that he won't accomplish this?

Defense matters, and that fact must always be remembered.

[xkonk]

Here are the first ten years for Shaq and KG: http://bkref.com/tiny/W15TD. Over those 10 years, Shaq's PER is nearly five points higher and his WS48 is .05 points higher. You say that isn't a big difference but across the 10 years Shaq produced almost 9 more wins than KG even though Garnett played 4000 more minutes. Shaq's defensive rating is 1 point worse, but his offense is four points better. So for as much as those numbers are reliable, Shaq was indeed three points better over those 10 years. Shaq was similarly better in playoff PER and has even more of an advantage in playoff WS48.

In terms of 'natural experiments', Orlando won 20 more games after drafting Shaq, then won another 9 and 7 additional games the next two years (going from 21 to 57 wins in three seasons). After he left, the Magic dropped from 60 wins to 45. The Lakers' swoon happened between when Shaq left and when Gasol arrived (they lost 24 more games when he left). The Heat won 17 more games when Shaq arrived even though they were already an average team. When Shaq started to get hurt (more often) and left the Heat, they still dropped from a 44 win season to a 15 win season. Shaq only missed the playoffs twice in his career: his rookie season and the 08-09 Suns season when they won 46 games but didn't make the cut. There's a pretty clear story that teams get much better when Shaq arrives and much worse when he leaves, although it isn't 100% solid.

You mentioned ASPM; Daniel's historical spreadsheet puts Shaq's first 10 years at a total (just sum up the ratings for those years) of 59.5 versus KG's 38. That's an average of 2 points better per 100 possessions over 10 seasons.

Garnett's defensive contributions are hard to quantify properly, and he appears to have aged better than Shaq did. But it certainly seems like Shaq's offensive dominance for the first half of their careers is hard for KG to catch up to.

But, in attempt to keep on point, if Davis' ceiling is near the level of any of Shaq, Howard, or Garnett, he'll be an extremely impressive player to say the least.

[Mike G]

... Do a common age comparison for the years when there are data (ignoring 2002 where there is no prior...

Prior to 2003 or so, we'd say of a player metric that does not have Shaq as clearly the best player, that it does not pass the laugh test.
Right around that time, certainly by 2004, Garnett was considered as good or better.

But the numbers corroborated observation, and vise versa. Shaq could not be stopped. He was always the best player on the court, for a good many years. KG's dominance was less, and less lasting.

[huevonkiller]

Here are the first ten years for Shaq and KG: http://bkref.com/tiny/W15TD. Over those 10 years, Shaq's PER is nearly five points higher and his WS48 is .05 points higher. You say that isn't a big difference but across the 10 years Shaq produced almost 9 more wins than KG even though Garnett played 4000 more minutes. Shaq's defensive rating is 1 point worse, but his offense is four points better. So for as much as those numbers are reliable, Shaq was indeed three points better over those 10 years. Shaq was similarly better in playoff PER and has even more of an advantage in playoff WS48.

In terms of 'natural experiments', Orlando won 20 more games after drafting Shaq, then won another 9 and 7 additional games the next two years (going from 21 to 57 wins in three seasons). After he left, the Magic dropped from 60 wins to 45. The Lakers' swoon happened between when Shaq left and when Gasol arrived (they lost 24 more games when he left). The Heat won 17 more games when Shaq arrived even though they were already an average team. When Shaq started to get hurt (more often) and left the Heat, they still dropped from a 44 win season to a 15 win season. Shaq only missed the playoffs twice in his career: his rookie season and the 08-09 Suns season when they won 46 games but didn't make the cut. There's a pretty clear story that teams get much better when Shaq arrives and much worse when he leaves, although it isn't 100% solid.

You mentioned ASPM; Daniel's historical spreadsheet puts Shaq's first 10 years at a total (just sum up the ratings for those years) of 59.5 versus KG's 38. That's an average of 2 points better per 100 possessions over 10 seasons.

...

But, in attempt to keep on point, if Davis' ceiling is near the level of any of Shaq, Howard, or Garnett, he'll be an extremely impressive player to say the least.

Thanks for your input, it is appreciated.

I'd rather compare their primes, since one player entered the league as a teenager, but your post is essentially what I was going to write. I am aware of Shaq's defensive shortcomings, but the metrics still show his prime was just below LeBron/Jordan level.

[xkonk]

Garnett was 19 in his first season while Shaq was 20, so it isn't a big difference. According to Daniel's ASPM, Shaq's 'prime' lasted about 12 seasons, depending on when you want to say the drop-off was too severe. From his second season (age 21) to his 13th (age 32) he had a rating over 4 every year (actually only one season that low) including six years over a 6 and an additional season over 7. The season after that and his rookie seasons were also both over a 3.

Garnett's range for age 21 to 32 is between 2.82 and 6.69. Only 7 or 8 of those seasons are over 4 (one is 3.96), with none over a rating of 7 and three over a 6. Garnett was not above a 4 in any other seasons, so his prime is pretty solidly below Shaq's. The difference is that the past two seasons, at age 34 and 35, Garnett has put up ratings of around 4 and 3. Shaq's ratings were closer to 2 and 0 (those were the injury years at the end of the Miami/beginning of Phoenix stints; he put up a 2.5 in Phoenix at age 36). As far as ASPM is concerned, Garnett has only been the better player for maybe three years while Shaq was better for at least 13.

[kjb]

Good stuff kjb.

I agree with you in terms of your draft strategy. Barton for example rates very high on my scales but I wouldn't take him until the 20-25 range simply because it's likely he'll be there.

By the way, your system might have the best name of any I've seen. I certainly hope when someone asks you what you think about a player you say, "Well, YODA says..."

Thanks. Glad you like the name. I wasn't thrilled with it at first, but it needed something and YODA stuck. If I ever tried to do something serious with it, I'd probably want to rename it.

Now to the draft: I was frustrated when the Wizards made their pick in round 2. I wanted Crowder for the Wiz. I'd have been happy with Denmon, Barton or Quincy Miller. They picked an athletic Euro who apparently doesn't shoot very well and needs work on defense. So, if he can get better on offense and defense, he might be good someday.

Thought it interesting that guys YODA would say were significantly underrated went to Dallas (Crowder), San Antonio (Denmon -- 2nd to last pick in the draft), Portland (Barton) and Cleveland (Zeller).

I hope this Satoransky guy can play.

[bchaikin]

Two more people with Henson low, I don't get it...

plus - very few college players the last couple of decades have rebounded and blocked shots in combination at similar (or better) rates to what henson did yet also committed fouls at the very low rate he did. the only similar college players i can find are tim duncan, adonal foyle, and first pick anthony davis...

[kjb]

A significant issue with Henson is his inefficiency on offense. Last season, he shot 50% from the field with no 3pt attempts, and 50% is low for a PF prospect. He shot 51% from the FT line. Rebound and block numbers are nice, but the efficiency numbers have to be a concern.

[bbstats]

@kjb

Firstly, quite a few of his shot attempts were jumpers last season, so he wasn't playing the most PF-y style. Thanks to his insanely low TO rate (8.7%, 1st in the ACC, 43rd in the NCAA, 17th in NCAA Forwards), his overall efficiency (110.2) was still excellent, especially when you consider UNC having the 38th most difficult defensive schedule last year.

Here are all forwards last year with usage>20 and ORTG>110 by ascending defensive rating, where Henson is 8th.
http://cbbref.com/tiny/QjFY1


EDIT: But I'm with you on the free throws thing!