Category Archives: Big Boards

Qualitative Draft Predictions

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in Big Boards

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I have my final big board as my rough ranking of draft prospects, but I hate being evaluated purely numerically since some of my predictions are less confident than others. So I want to verbalize my most confident predictions since words tell a more specific story than my big board.

1. Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker will not both be above average starters, and neither will be the best player in the class.

I think both prospects are overrated with both a lower floor and lower ceiling than the wisdom of the crowd suggests. Most likely outcome strikes me as one being good but not great and the other as a big disappointment.

2. One of Joel Embiid, Dante Exum, Marcus Smart, or Aaron Gordon will wildly overachieve expectations. There is at least one future top 10 player in this quartet.

These players all have hurdles to overcome. Embiid has his injury concerns, Exum plays questionable defense and isn’t a fully known commodity, Marcus Smart isn’t great offensively, and Aaron Gordon’s shot appears to be broken. I don’t know who will have a better fate than the others, and in all likelihood at least one of these guys will appear wildly overrated on my big board when all is said and done. But the draft is all about upside, and these guys have it.

Embiid’s upside stands out by far the most, he is going to be a stud if he stays healthy. He can so easily become an all-time great if his body cooperates.

Exum is more of a mystery as a talent, and the lack of hustle and defense in his game is a bit disconcerting. But his combination of physical tools, smarts, and vision create a ridiculous offensive upside.

Smart and Gordon are great defensive prospects with some workable amount of skill offensively.  They have the physical tools such that they can be good offensively if they develop their base skill well. They both have clear paths to 2 way playerdom.

3. Jarnell Stokes will become a better pro than Julius Randle

Stat models tend to rate the two exceptionally close with a slight edge often going to Stokes. They are both bruising SEC PF’s with similar measurements and less than a year in age difference.

My eye test says Stokes going to be better. Randle appears to lack an ability to quickly process his surroundings and make crisp decisions. I don’t know that this will completely submarine his NBA career but it might. He’s going to have a tough time keeping up defensively and operating in traffic vs. NBA defenses. I just don’t see how he becomes a good NBA player in spite of this, especially without long arms or explosive leaping ability. Best case he becomes an empty stats guy, but I could see him being real bad.

I don’t know how far Stokes will get. He may just be a 3rd big who brings energy + rebounding off the bench and is never that great. He isn’t in an ideal mold. But I don’t see a flaw as frightening as Randle’s slow decision making, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see Stokes become a solid starter.

So I’m going out on a major limb and saying that in spite of being picked 35th to Randle’s 7th, Stokes will become a better pro.

4. Zach LaVine will not be good at all

On one hand his great athleticism and the fact that he (along with scouts) feels that he has some unproven PG ability made me not want to fade him too much. But since the draft I have been feeling like I may have given him too much benefit of the doubt. The “LaVine can play PG” narrative is all such a reach I’m calling BS. I don’t see a single shred of evidence that he is a PG, and I have no idea why high school scouts think this is a possibility. He averaged 28.5 pts 2.5 assists 0.6 steals (that steal rate is truly pathetic and it is common for even wings to average more assists) as a HS senior. Then for UCLA he never got to the rim in the half-court and had lackluster steal and assist rates in spite of a zone defense and ball movement offense that boosts both.

Once we get past the fact that he’s like 2% to have PG skills, he doesn’t even have good tools for a SG. He isn’t tall or long and is horribly skinny. I don’t know how well he moves laterally but I doubt it matters because he has horrible instincts defensively and in spite of his athleticism he couldn’t even rack up steals in high school or UCLA’s zone. Leaping isn’t everything and doesn’t atone for his horrible body and poor feel for the game.

He went from #52 RSCI player to lotto pick without even doing anything good at UCLA. There just aren’t enough NBA prospects outside the top 25 for that to happen and the fact that it did is baffling. Nothing about his ascent makes sense and I don’t buy the idea that he has upside. I think the RSCI rankings had it right and then Chad Ford messed everything up by noticing he has the intersection of the two most overrated draft traits ever: shooting and athleticism. Unfortunately everything else appears to be a glaring weakness. If I am drafting for worst NBA player in 2014-2015, LaVine is my first pick.

5. At least 3 players drafted in the 30-45 range will peak higher than Gary Harris

I don’t doubt Gary Harris’s ability to be useful, but I do doubt his ability to have upside and man is this 30-45 range loaded with good prospects. KJ McDaniels, Jarnell Stokes, and Spencer Dinwiddie were 3 of my favorite role player prospects in the draft. Kyle Anderson going to San Antonio is just perfect in terms of both value and fit. Damien Inglis and Nikola Jokic seem underdrafted to me from afar. Nick Johnson, Jerami Grant, and Glenn Robinson are all athletes who did enough in college to possibly have solid pro careers. Dwight Powell could be something and Walter Tavares is an intriguing international flier.

Gary Harris could become a solid rotation player. But he’s so bland and the 30-45 range is so rife with underdrafted players that I think a few of them will inevitably turn out better than him.

6. None of Doug McDermott, Rodney Hood, or Shabazz Napier will become above average starters.

Maybe one of them becomes good enough to make their draft position look alright in retrospect, but the draft is all about upside and I don’t see it in these guys. They all have poor tools and aren’t world beaters offensively relative their age to truly have elite upside.

McDermott is probably the best prospect of the bunch. His shooting and scoring could amount to something, I could see him becoming the SF version of JJ Redick. But I don’t see him becoming better than that and he may become significantly worse. The Bulls were out of their minds trading 16 + 19 for him. This move might look decent in retrospect, but it’s far more likely to look horrible than it is to look great.

Napier had a good college steal rate to inspire some hope of defensive competence in the NBA, but he’s so small and unathletic it’s hard to get too optimistic. His tools are so lackluster and he’s so old and not great at passing, where does the upside come from? For a guy who plays the deepest position in the NBA, he’s not 1st round value. It’s great that LeBron likes him but he probably will be worse than Chalmers and LeBron might not be that excited to have him on the roster by the time summer league is over.

Rodney Hood would be a decent 3 + D prospect if he wasn’t one of the worst defensive prospects in the entire draft. His defensive instincts are just awful and his physical profile is not too great either. This is the prospect whose hype truly puzzles me. Guess everybody just wants a piece of Duke pedigree (which explains why Duke had a reputation for prospects busting until recently). I’d be surprised if he’s starting caliber at all.

7. Tyler Ennis will have an above median career for an 18th overall pick.

Median is difficult to define since a number of active 18th picks are due to move up the standings over the next few years, but right now Jason Collins is 11th out of the past 29 years with 20.1 win shares and he will be the approximate median once he gets passed by active picks. So let’s say that Ennis will have at least 20+ career win shares. I don’t see him falling flat on his face.

Interestingly the most career win shares for any #18 pick is Mark Jackson with 91.8. He shares all of Ennis’s deficiencies: not that athletic, not a great shooter, not a great scorer. But he was an assist to turnover hero in college and went on to have a long and successful NBA career. Ennis is 2 years and change younger as of their respective draft nights, and posted better college stats. So it’s within Ennis’s reach to have a better career than Jackson did and go down as the best 18th pick of all time. I think people slept on Ennis big time.

8. Neither CJ Wilcox nor Cleanthony Early will become starting caliber players

They probably won’t become useful at all, but I want to leave myself some margin for error here.

9. At least one of Jusuf Nurkic or Clint Capela will become a top 10 player in the draft class

This is a fairly conservative projection based on how good they seem to me, but I didn’t get to scout them to the extent I would have liked. Nevertheless, I don’t see how they can have the tools and stats they do and still not be top 10 prospects, so I’m sticking to my story that they were underdrafted.

10. There probably is not an all-star in the 46-60 range, but if there is it’s Vasilije Micic

Micic looms as the possible Dragic of the draft. It seems crazy that he slid to 52 and he probably won’t be all that good, but he definitely stands out to me as the upsidiest in the range.

11. Within 5 years I will be hating at least one of these predictions

I feel so good about all of my logic now, but how can I not have made any mistakes? This is the first year that I have gotten intimately familiar with all prospects, and I can’t exactly compare minute details with historical prospects. Watching the minutia play out will certainly enable more confident future projections from me.

My rules are that I’m OK with a guy I like becoming not much. GM’s get fired for drafting busts, but that’s backwards: they should really get fired for passing on stars. I’m OK with 1 or 2 of my top 4 becoming not all that much, I don’t think all 4 are going to become great and I can’t really fight the variance on this. But if any of them truly rock, I’ll be glad to have my nice words in their favor down on paper. Of course it is still possible that I overrated prospects that I like, and I will do my best to be mindful of situations when it was actually a bad idea to rank somebody high as opposed to a great idea that went horribly wrong.

What I’m most worried about is any of the guys I declared overrated drastically outperforming their upper bound in my mind. I’m betting against picks 1, 2, 7, 11, 13, 19, 23, 24, 28, 34 and one of them will in all likelihood hit a top 10% outcome. This is fine, since I can’t control for variance. But it’s also likely that I completely underrated the strengths of one of these prospects and they will exceed my mental boundary for their upside and force me to update my perception.

Between variance and imperfect reasoning I’m bound to feel silly about some of these. But by assigning precise words to my predictions, I am forced to be honest with myself 5 years down the road about where I was on the wrong track. So I’m just hoping to be on the right track with most of these and then I can use the feedback of being wrong to perfect my process down the road.

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Post Draft Re-Ranks: 1. Hinkie

28 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by in Big Boards

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Now that I have seen how the draft actually played out and processed all of the twists and turns and surprises, I. And if the title doesn’t make it clear, I think Sam Hinkie absolutely crushed the draft and has furthered my suspicion that he is the future best GM of all time.

I loved that he was a stone cold baller and gambled on Joel Embiid at #3 overall, but what I was also anticipating how he would use the #10 overall pick.  The players that I liked there were international bigs (Capela, Nurkic) which didn’t make a world of sense with Noel and Embiid there or PG’s (Ennis, Payton) who didn’t make much sense with MCW there.  Then the next guys on my board were KJ McDaniels and Kyle Anderson who slid all the way to the 30’s, so there is no need to expend a valuable lottery pick on them as Sam Hinkie went ahead and snagged KJ at #32 overall. I felt that trading down was the obvious play, but finding a good deal can be hard. Hinkie ended up finding his own deal by reading Rob Hennigan’s soul.

Orlando surprised when they took Aaron Gordon 4th overall with Marcus Smart and Dante Exum on the board as logical choices for a team that badly needed a PG. Of course Hinkie perfectly deduced the implications of this: they were targeting Elfrid Payton 12th overall, as Payton had been dominating workouts and fits Hennigan’s affinity for toolsy, defensive minded prospect who cannot shoot.  But it’s not easy to get much in a trade down from 10 to 12 when the teams at 10 and 11 are not likely to snipe Orlando, so Hinkie came up with the creative solution of becoming 100% likely to snipe Orlando by taking Payton himself. Instead of getting a nominal fee for trading down two slots, Hinkie picked up the 2017 1st rounder that Philly had sent Orlando in the Dwight Howard trade, and a 2015 2nd rounder that should be in the 30’s. That’s a significant vig for trading down from 10 to 12.

Note that I’m not certain that this is precisely how it played out, it’s merely how it sounds to me after piecing the available information together. I’m not sure how Hinkie may have roped Hennigan into paying that much to move up 2 slots without playing Jedi mind games.

Hinkie then took Dario Saric 12th overall who will be stashed in Europe for the next 2+ years, and should appreciate in value over that span. I imagine that Saric ends up getting dealt to another overmatched GM before he ever puts on a Philadelphia uniform, as he seems to have more value as a trade chip than an NBA player based on limited info. I may be wrong, but that’s my prediction.

For Sam Hinkie the draft is more than an opportunity to draft potential superstars like Joel Embiid. It’s also a chance to ravage lesser front offices in trades. We kept hearing over and over about Wiggins being Philly’s #1 target, and to me that reeked of misinformation since Joel Embiid was in the draft too. I don’t know if he was going to leverage that to trade up for #1 and surprise snipe Embiid from Cleveland, or if he was going to snag Wiggins #3 overall and then completely clean out a team who feels that Hinkie’s adoration for Wiggins confirms the hype. But after the draft we got this from Woj:

 ·  Jun 26
As it turns out, Philadelphia never made a run at Cleveland’s No. 1 overall pick, league sources tell Yahoo.

The great thing about Woj is that he always has his facts straight in a world where Ric Bucher and Chris Broussard sometimes try to break news as well. If Hinkie didn’t try to trade up for #1 after Embiid’s injury red flags were heightened, that supports my hypothesis that Embiid was his target all along. Unfortunately we will never know exactly what Sam Hinkie’s master misinformation plan was, but I imagine it was awesome.

Hinkie also went ahead and drafted my #13 player at #32 overall and my #21 player at #52 overall. And since New Orleans had so much fun getting hustled by Hinkie last draft, they decided to sneak in a quick losing trade when they shipped D-League extraordinaire Pierre Jackson for the #47 pick. I didn’t love the Jerami Grant pick at #39, but I had it above slot value and I don’t have a hard time hopping on board with the pick if Hinkie likes him.

If you root for a team that isn’t going to be good anytime soon and is low on my prediction list for good drafting, it might be a while before you can root for a winner. I highly recommend adopting Philadelphia as a 2nd team to root for (or a new favorite team altogether). You can get in on the ground floor and while it will be a few of years before they are good, they are eventually going to be great. Hinkie is too sharp and too creative for their fate to be otherwise.

 

Here are my updated predictions for who had the best draft nights, with my pre-draft predictions in the far right column for comparison.

Team Post Pre
Philly 1 2
Houston 2 3
Spurs 3 1
Boston 4 4
Denver 5 17
Orlando 6 12
Utah 7 10
Detroit 8 9
Memphis 9 11
Phoenix 10 8
OKC 11 5
Toronto 12 7
Charlotte 13 22
Atlanta 14 6
Sacramento 15 18
Miami 16 15
New Orleans 17 21
Brooklyn 18 25
New York 19 22
LA Clippers 20 16
Minnesota 21 24
Chicago 22 14
Milwaukee 23 13
Cleveland 24 20
LA Lakers 25 19

I still think Houston got the steal of the draft in Capela. For whatever reason, NBA teams are much quicker to sour on toolsy bigs with questionable skill/feel than toolsy wings with questionable skill/feel (evidence: Harrison Barnes was drafted before Andre Drummond), even though bigs have such an easier path to usefulness. It doesn’t make sense to me that Andrew Wiggins can show worrisome skill deficiencies and still get picked #1 overall in the same world where DeAndre Jordan slides to round 2. And the reasons for Capela sliding sound especially dubious (he was bad at all-star practices, let’s value that more than playing for an actual professional team in a real sample of games). Maybe Capela never becomes anything but at 25th overall there’s no way it’s anything other than a great gamble.

Note that I placed a premium on higher picks, which is why Minnesota and Chicago evaded the bottom 3 in spite of having the most obviously bad drafts.

I also decided to re-rank the players based on the actual draft outcome. I’m truncating the list at top 40, because I don’t see the value in going beyond that. I was pretty much picking names out of hats to fill out the bottom of my list, and does it really matter if I rank Cleanthony Early 50th or 73rd or 374th? I wouldn’t draft him and I doubt there are more than 40 players worth drafting in any given crop of prospects, so that’s the limit to which I will rank in the future:

Rank Player
1 Joel Embiid
2 Dante Exum
3 Marcus Smart
4 Aaron Gordon
5 Andrew Wiggins
6 Jabari Parker
7 Jusuf Nurkic
8 Clint Capela
9 Noah Vonleh
10 Tyler Ennis
11 Elfrid Payton
12 Kyle Anderson
13 KJ McDaniels
14 Nik Stauskas
15 TJ Warren
16 Dario Saric
17 Mitch McGary
18 Damien Inglis
19 James Young
20 Jarnell Stokes
21 Spencer Dinwiddie
22 Jordan Adams
23 Julius Randle
24 Adreian Payne
25 Nikola Jokic
26 Gary Harris
27 PJ Hairston
28 Bogdan Bogdanovic
29 Jerami Grant
30 Doug McDermott
31 Vasilije Micic
32 Walter Tavares
33 Nick Johnson
34 Glenn Robinson III
35 Zach LaVine
36 Shabazz Napier
37 Dwight Powell
38 Semaj Christon
39 Josh Huestis
40 Russ Smith

I didn’t go too wild scooting Saric up my board since I’m not convinced Hinkie is keeping him. But I upticked him anyway based on the possibility of such and my lack of conviction that he is definitely overrated.

I mostly skewed up the good team picks that I was not high on. I’m still fairly skeptical of the Payne pick for Atlanta since Ferry isn’t the most proven GM. He has impressed me recently and seems to have genuinely improved from his Cleveland days, but he is no Hinkie and I think he overdrafted for fit and eschewed a fair bit of value in the process.

TJ Warren I have an easy time getting on board with. I didn’t have a strong reason to oppose him before, and he’s such a unique mold that he probably has his own brand of upside. Jeff Hornacek mentioned that his defensive versatility stood out in workouts (which is credible given Warren’s steal rate), and if Horny likes TJ’s defense then I do too.

I’m still somewhat skeptical of James Young, as I feel Ainge is overrating his odds of becoming a good defensive player. It doesn’t seem impossible for him to become above average, but he strikes me as a clear underdog. Ainge also pointed out that Young has always been a great shooter and believes he ran bad as a freshman, which is a hypothesis I had too. If Young shoots well as a rookie and/or sophomore, he can hike up his trade value to bad teams who are poor at assessing defensive potential. There is something about him that is highly attractive to casual fans (as far as I’m concerned bad GM’s are glorified casuals), and he may have been drafted higher if he didn’t miss workouts due to a car accident.

Huestis seems like a complete zero offensively and I think Presti erred on that one. But he’s toolsy and can play defense, so at least that’s something.

What About Bruno?
I didn’t bother trying to rank Bruno Caboclo because I have no idea, but you may note that I gave Toronto an above average ranking in my post draft prediction. That is in spite of pick #37 being a throwaway in DeAndre Daniels, which I docked the Raptors for. This is because I think Masai Ujiri is a good GM, and when he drafts an 18 year old 6’9″ guy with a 7’7″ wingspan who can apparently shoot at #20 overall, I am not going to tell him he is wrong.

It doesn’t seem possible that somebody with that physical profile who can shoot somehow entered the draft and was completely glossed over by everybody.  This is especially true for an age where the Internet and social media spread information like wild fire. But it happened, and I don’t feel overwhelmingly compelled to knock the pick due to the ignorance of almost everybody.

To offer some perspective: Zach LaVine went 13th overall because he can shoot and he can jump through the roof. The only evidence that he can do anything else comes from people who watched him in high school, even though the people who watched him in high school also graded him as not a top 50 player in the class.

Bruno’s tools are straight up better. I don’t even know how athletic he is and I don’t care. Zach LaVine is a leaper in Nik Stauskas’s body minus 25 pounds. His athleticism will aid his rim finishing and transition play, but he’s likely poor defensive player anyway and his athleticism isn’t going to help him get off a huge volume of 3’s (he attempted just 5.7 per 40 at UCLA).  The reason why Durant is so elite is because being 6’10” with a 7’5″ wingspan enables him to get off his elite shot from any spot on the court, and he’s roughly unstoppable once he catches the ball. This is similar to why Dirk is so dominant. The combination of a great reach and great shot has unique synergy to create a special player.

Of course Durant is great for reasons other than just length and shooting, but the good news is that Bruno can be vastly inferior to Durant at a number of things and still be great value at #20 overall. LaVine’s physical tools aren’t special at all but Bruno’s are. It’s rich to me that Chad Ford gave Toronto a D for taking Bruno 20th overall for being raw after a full season of slurping LaVine as a lottery pick and giving Minnesota a B+ for taking him 13th.

For all I know Caboclo is a complete scrub, but his based on the tiny bits of info we have and Ujiri’s history of making smart moves, there is no way I am ever criticizing this type of gamble at 20th overall. The draft is all about upside, and if Ujiri thinks Caboclo has it then I agree with him.

Mega Board

26 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by in Big Boards

≈ 15 Comments

After months of agonizing over the most nuanced details of college aged basketball players, it’s time to present my final big board for draft night. This is the first season where I have delved this deeply into information, and I developed my process for evaluating prospects on the fly. Overall I feel good about the process that I developed, and I feel my analysis is likely on the right track for the majority of these players. That said I am sure that I overlooked or incorrectly valued plenty of information, and I imagine that in 5 years I will look back on this and be pained by my lack of foresight for at least a handful of players. I expect to be wrong due to variance, and I expect to be wrong due to the inefficiencies of my analysis. I estimate it will take about 5 years of similar analysis before I attain mastery in draft evaluation, and even then I will still have room to grow.

But the good news is that nobody is perfect at draft analysis, and my only goals this year were to outperform ESPN + DX rankings as well as the actual draft order. I feel like this big board puts me in a strong position to do so, and now all that remains is to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Tier 1: Possible superstars
1. Joel Embiid:  7’0″ C, Kansas, 20.3 years old. DX: 1, ESPN: 4
Embiid has all of the talent and none of the durability. He was in a tier by himself until he became a medical disaster, and now I’m not sure where to put him. I’m going to be optimistic and assume that modern medicine and nutrition is advanced enough to give him the possibility of a normal, healthy career.  I understand that this puts me at big time risk of looking terrible down the road, but I never claimed to be able to predict health. I don’t have access to his medical report, and it’s possible that having access would alter my opinion.  Consider this a shaky #1 ranking based on my strong belief in his talent. The draft is all about binking upside, not avoiding downside.

2. Dante Exum: 6’6″ PG, Australia, 19.0 yrs. DX: 4, ESPN: 3
The best able bodied talent in the draft, the thin slice of Exum is promising. His size, length, speed, and quicks give him uniquely good physical tools for a PG, and he supplements that with awesome court vision and basketball IQ. He still needs to learn to play defense and move off the ball, and there is the risk that the 9 game FIBA sample overstates his talent level. I like rolling the dice on him anyway, his great physical profile with a hint of CP3ish BBIQ gives him special offensive upside.

3. Marcus Smart: 6’3″ PG/SG, Oklahoma State, 20.3 yrs. DX: 5, ESPN: 6
The best intangibles and the best defensive player (with respect to position) in the draft. His offense is a work in progress, and he doesn’t quite share Exum’s upside on that end. Smart still has the potential to be quite good offensively and I was tempted to put him above Exum due to his superior defensive projection, but for guards it seems wise to err on the side of offensive upside and give the edge to Exum.

4. Aaron Gordon: 6’9″ SF, Arizona, 18.8 yrs. DX: 9, ESPN: 7
Gordon is young, toolsy, and good at everything except shooting. Unfortunately he is frighteningly bad at shooting, which is a difficult wart to weigh. Given that his shooting sometimes lends itself to outlier leaps, this feels like the right place to slot him.

Tier 2: Maybe All-Stars, Maybe Not Even Close to All-Stars
5. Jusuf Nurkic: 6’11” C, Bosnia, 19.9 yrs. DX: 6, ESPN: 17
6. Clint Capela: 6’11” C, Switzerland, 20.1 yrs. DX: 11, ESPN: 27
The frustrating part of evaluating this class is that all of my expertise lies in NCAA basketball, and it’s hard to find a place where I’m comfortable ranking all of the compelling internationals. It may be ill advised to place two underhyped internationals above the consensus top 2 picks, but if at least one of them becomes a better pro than both Parker and Wiggins I will consider this ranking a success. If this looks silly later, I will take overseas stats with a bigger grain of salt next time. But bigs with good stats and good tools are good picks, and the gambler in me is more attracted to these two than Parker and Wiggins.

7. Andrew Wiggins: 6’8″ SF, Kansas, 19.4 yrs. DX: 2, ESPN: 1
8. Jabari Parker: 6’8″ PF, Duke, 19.3 yrs. DX: 3, ESPN: 2
The top two contenders for #1 overall are also rife with flaws that sit unwell with me.

Andrew Wiggins’ draft rating is a battle between his uniquely good speed, quicks, and athleticism vs. his lackluster skill level. He was able to perform well in college by burning teams in transition, but draft models still don’t love him and he requires loads of development to become good enough offensively to justify a top 3 draft slot. He still has plenty of potential as a 3 + D role player, however.

Parker posted great scoring and rebounding numbers as a big man for Duke, but that was largely due to bullying undersized bigs. He struggled vs. teams with good interior defense, and had a horrible assist to turnover ratio which bodes ill for his ability to translate to NBA perimeter player. There are also questions about his defense. His stats are good and he has enough skill, but he needs to become less selfish to become an attractive NBA player and I’m not comfortable betting on players to overhaul their nature.

Part of me fears betting against Jabari since he’s such a fierce competitor, but between the two I have to give Wiggins the edge due to superior tools, defense, and a much clearer path to usefulness.

9. Tyler Ennis, 6’2″ PG, Syracuse, 19.9 yrs. DX: 14, ESPN: 16
His game isn’t sexy but it’s effective, and he was at his best vs. good defenses and in clutch situations.  Ennis boasts a stellar assist to turnover ratio and great statistical splits, which dually suggest that he has excellent feel for the game.  There are questions about his ability to play man to man defense, but he offers a unique form of offensive upside.

10. Noah Vonleh: 6’10” PF, Indiana, 18.9 yrs. DX: 10, ESPN: 5
Vonleh is tall and long and he can shoot and rebound.  He’s also exceptionally young, so these qualities add up to a top 10 pick.  His bad hands, poor passing, and mediocre rim finishing cause enough doubt for me to keep him in the back end of the top 10, however.

Tier 3: Good Starter Potential
11. Elfrid Payton: 6’4″ PG, Louisiana Lafayette, 20.4 yrs. DX: 15, ESPN: 12
Payton is tall, long, quick, and uses his tools to hawk the ball defensively. Offensively he crushed the Sun Belt competition in transition, but how will that translate? He has solid floor general skills and slick handles, but he’s a poor shooter and there are questions about his ability to finish in traffic since he’s not an elite athlete.

12. Damien Inglis: 6’8″ SF/PF, France, 19.1 yrs. DX: 26, ESPN: 30
He offers a similar appeal as Wiggins: average stats at a young age, good tools, and good defense.  I get that super athleticism is sexier than having LeBron James’ body with longer arms, but I believe BronBod needs more love.

13. KJ McDaniels: 6’6″ SF, Clemson, 21.4 yrs. DX: 18, ESPN: 24
KJ was a one man wrecking crew on defense for Clemson, as he used his length and explosiveness to rack up an obscene block rate for a SF. He’s a bit small for the position and his offensive skill level isn’t great, but KJ has solid 3 + D  potential nevertheless.

14. Nik Stauskas: 6’6″ SG/SF, Michigan, 20.7 yrs. DX: 12, ESPN: 11
Stauskas can dunk surprisingly well for a white shooter, but his tools still aren’t that good overall and he’s lock bad defensively. But it’s hard to not love his handle, passing, and shooting combination as well as his smarts and presumed work ethic given his improvements last offseason.

15. Kyle Anderson: 6’8″ SF/PF, UCLA, 20.8 yrs. DX: 21, ESPN: 19
The best NCAA passer this past season, his nickname of SloMo accurately describes his mobility, his leaping ability, and his shot release. But stat models love him and he has super long arms to equip him with at least one great physical tool, so I believe he’s a good gamble outside of the lottery.

16. Nikola Jokic: 6’11” C, Serbia, 19.4 yrs. DX: 42, ESPN: 31
His poor athleticism and speed make it fair to take his stats with a grain of salt, but based on his stats he appears to have a shot of becoming the best passing big man of all-time. That gives him a world of intrigue to me on its own.

17. Spencer Dinwiddie: 6’6″ SG, Colorado, 21.2 yrs. DX: 29, ESPN: 40
He’s coming off an ACL tear, but Dinwiddie is custom made to be a 3 + D SG in the NBA. As a bonus he seems to take an interest in analytics.

18. Jarnell Stokes: 6’8″ PF, Tennessee, 20.5 yrs. DX: 25, ESPN: 26
The physically strongest player in the draft, Stokes suffers from being an undersized PF without 3 point range.  But he does enough things well for stat models to like him, and he’s essentially Julius Randle with better defense and less hype.

19. Jordan Adams: 6’5″ SG, UCLA, 20.0 yrs. DX: 27, ESPN: 28
Scouting reports hate him, stats love him.  I feel scouting reports raise a number of valid points, but at a certain point it’s time to gamble on the stats, especially since he was out of shape when he accrued them.

20. PJ Hairston: 6’5″ SG, Texas Legends, 21.5 yrs. DX: 20, ESPN: 18
An endless supply of catch and shoot 3 pointers with the physical tools to not be a sieve defensively.

21. Vasilije Micic: 6’6 PG, Serbia, 20.5 yrs. DX: 36, ESPN: 41
An exceptionally creative passing PG with the height to guard SG’s seems worth comfortably more than an early 2nd rounder.

Tier 4: Everybody Else
22. Julius Randle: 6’9″ PF, Kentucky, 19.6 yrs. DX: 7, ESPN: 8
Randle brings skill, rebounding, strength, and quick feet to the table but shoots himself in the foot with poor length, mediocre athleticism, and poor feel for the game. This causes translation concerns and exceptionally slow defensive rotations.

23. Dario Saric: 6’10 SF/PF, Croatia, 20.2 yrs. DX: 13, ESPN: 9
The one first round international prospect that I’m not lower on than consensus. Waiting 2 years for his services isn’t a big deal, but having less than stellar translated stats with his lackluster physical tools is a big deal. His skill and height may enable him to be a good role player, but I don’t see the star potential.

24. Gary Harris: 6’4″ SG, Michigan State, 19.8 yrs. DX: 16, ESPN: 10
Vanilla 3 + D combo guard who can’t get to the rim and may be too small to guard SG’s.  Stats like him enough to take him in round 1, but he has questionable upside.

25. Mitch McGary: 6’10 C, Michigan, 22.1 yrs. DX: 24, ESPN: 25
Back problems hurt his stock, but stat models tend to like him and his quick feet and high steal rate give him an non-traditional form of defensive appeal.

26. Javon McCrea: 6’8″ PF, Buffalo, 21.7 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: 52
The undersized PF measured to have surprisingly good size at his Clippers workout: 6’8″ height, 7’3″ length, 8’11” reach, 250 pounds.  That is legit PF size, and stat models like him.  McCrea has some Millsap-esque upside.

27. James Young: 6’7 SF, Kentucky, 18.9 yrs. DX: 30, ESPN: 15
He’s young and uses his 7’0″ wingspan to get shots off vs. tough defenses.  He needs to improve his defense and develop his offense quite a bit to become an attractive NBA player.

28. TJ Warren: 6’8″ SF, NC State, 20.8 yrs. DX: 17, ESPN: 20
One of the weirdest prospects in the draft, TJ Warren thrives off of his elite floater. An great 2 point scoring wing that lacks athleticism is an exceptionally uncommon mold. It seems unlikely to amount to much, but the stats are good enough for a late 1st gamble.

29. Kendrick Perry: 6’0″ PG, Youngstown State, 21.5 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: NR
He needs help running the offense from his backcourt mate, but his stats are good and so are his length and athleticism.  One of the more compelling sleepers in the draft, and my top prospect who appears on neither DX nor ESPN’s top 100.

30. Walter Tavares: 7’3″ C, Cape Verde, 22.3 yrs. DX: 33, ESPN: 37
He’s old, he started playing late, and he projects to be a complete zero offensively.  But he’s 7’3″ with a 7’10” wingspan and offers quite a bit of rim protection intrigue.

31. Glenn Robinson: 6’7″ SF, Michigan, 20.5 yrs. DX: 35, ESPN: 33
His appeal is as an athletic 3 + D SF, except neither the 3 nor the D can be taken for granted. But he did finish a scintillating 83% of rim attempts as a sophomore.

32. Semaj Christon: 6’3″ PG, Xavier, 21.7 yrs. DX: 67, ESPN: 44
His offensive skill level leaves plenty to be desired for his age, but his physical tools and defensive potential make him worth a pick in the early 2nd.

33. Adreian Payne: 6’10” PF, Michigan State, 23.4 yrs. DX: 19, ESPN: 22
He offers appeal as a stretch 4 with solid tools, but his poor passing for his age and lack of rim protection may be his undoing.

34. Doug McDermott: 6’8″ SF, Creighton, 22.5 yrs. DX: 8, ESPN: 13
One dimensional scorer with poor physical tools. He’s an elite spot up shooter, but will struggle to fit in defensively and translate his interior scoring. The lottery hype is insane.

35. Zach LaVine: 6’6″ SG, UCLA, 19.3 yrs. DX: 31, ESPN: 14
He has the athleticism to make this ranking look silly down the line, but I’m 90% sure he doesn’t have the skill level to do so. You need to believe that Steve Alford severely held him back to take him in round 1.

36. Bogdan Bogdanovic: 6’6″ SF, Serbia, 21.9 yrs. DX: 34, ESPN: 45
His poor 2p% calls his shot selection into question and hurts his rating in stat models. But he has good tools, good defensive potential, and he impresses in workouts.  Not a bad early round 2 flier.

37. Shabazz Napier: 6’1″ PG, UConn, 23.0 yrs. DX: 32, ESPN: 23
I believe The Real Shabazz has potential to be a perfectly decent role player. But he’s old, tiny, and unathletic at the deepest position in the NBA. Hard to buy the round 1 hype when he has such narrow odds of becoming an above average starter.

38. Jerami Grant: 6’8″ SF/PF, Syracuse, 20.3 yrs. DX: 22, ESPN: 34
I don’t see how he has the skill level to thrive in the NBA, but I’ll pay enough respect to his good physical tools and OK enough stats to rate him as an early 2nd.

39. Artem Klimenko: 7’1″ C, Russia, 20.5 yrs. DX: 37, ESPN: 39
Is not proven against anything remotely resembling serious competition, but he’s tall, long, mobile, and he can make free throws at 74%.  That’s worth a flier once the known talent starts to thin.

40. Russ Smith: 6’0″ PG, Louisville, 23.2 yrs. DX: 28, ESPN: 58
He’s tiny and old but he’s also exceptionally quick with both his feet and his hands. He has also developed his game impressively over the past 2 seasons, and I like him in round 2.

41. Dwight Powell: 6’10” PF, Stanford, 23.0 yrs. DX: 48, ESPN: 64
Powell would really benefit from improving his 3 point shooting, as a stretch 4 with good mobility, athleticism, and passing is a neat piece to pick up in round 2.

42. Nick Johnson: 6’3″ PG/SG, Arizona, 21.5 yrs. DX: 54, ESPN: 60
He’s an underskilled SG in a PG body, but he also is explosively athletic and has good 3 + D potential if you pair him with a bigger PG.

43. Chris Udofia: 6’6″ SF, Denver, 22.0 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: NR
Posted good stats that may have been somewhat inflated by Denver’s system as an undersized center, but his length and athleticism make him an intriguing prospect to convert to SF.

44. Isaiah Sykes: 6’5″ SG/SF, Central Florida, 22.6 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: NR
Brings length, athleticism, rebounding, passing, and ability to get to the rim. Needs to clean up his shot selection and improve his shooting, but he’s my favorite sleeper who is completely off the radar.

45. Scottie Wilbekin: 6’3″ PG, Florida, 21.2 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: 75
A young senior who played a key role in Florida’s #1 ranking and Final 4 run.  He is a jack of all trades, master of none.

46. Sim Bhullar: 7’5″ C, New Mexico State, 21.6 yrs. DX: 73, ESPN: NR
Can the giant find a niche in the NBA if he continues to trim down? Probably not, but in the back end of round 2 it’s worth a gamble that he might.

47. Khem Birch: 6’9″ PF, UNLV, 21.8 yrs. DX: 55, ESPN: 42
Posted good stats for a center in college, only trouble is that he’s an undersized and underskilled PF in the NBA.

48. Okaro White: 6’8″ SF, Florida State, 21.8 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: NR
His physical tools and shooting ability make him an intriguing 3 + D prospect. It’s uncertain if he has the skill level to translate from NCAA PF to NBA SF, but I like him as a completely under the radar flier.

49. Bryce Cotton: 6’1″ PG, Providence, 21.9 yrs. DX: 71, ESPN: 49
He can shoot, he can penetrate, and as a senior he showed he can pass too when he was given the PG reins as a senior. He’s tiny and will struggle to fit in defensively, but his offensive package is not bad.

50. Daniel Miller: 6’11” C, Georgia Tech, 23.0 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: 98
He’s old and he can’t score in the post, but his stats and physical profile suggest that he can become a solid role playing center.

51. Roy Devyn Marble: 6’6″ SG, Iowa, 21.8 yrs. DX: 50, ESPN: 53
He posted solid stats in college, but was the beneficiary of ample steal and transition opportunities at Iowa. He could translate as a role playing SG nevertheless.

52. Jordan Clarkson: 6’5″ SG/PG, Missouri, 22.1 yrs. DX: 47, ESPN: 23
He has decent tools and he can get to the hoop, but overall his stats aren’t too good. He needs to improve his shooting and finishing if he wants to be any better than Austin Rivers.

53. Patric Young: 6’9″ PF, Florida, 22.4 yrs. DX: 40, ESPN: 36
He’s a center in a power forward body, but he’s strong and plays hard and could find a niche off the bench in the NBA.

54. Lamar Patterson: 6’5″ SG, Pittsburgh, 22.9 yrs. DX: 58, ESPN: 50
He’ll have a tough time hanging with NBA SG’s defensively, but he has good skill level and is fairly crafty.

55. Fuquan Edwin: 6’6″ SG, Seton Hall, 22.8 yrs. DX: 69, ESPN: 90
He racked up loads of steals for Seton Hall and showed good defensive potential. He is limited offensively and his 3 point shot is a work in progress, but it has enough hope to offer 3 + D potential.

56. Kendall Williams: 6’4″ PG, New Mexico, 23.0 yrs. DX: 84, ESPN: NR
Good size and acceptable stats for a PG, but was heavily reliant on transition scoring. He may not be able to penetrate through NBA defenses.

57. Rodney Hood: 6’8 SF, Duke, 21.7 yrs. DX: 23, ESPN: 21
One of the absolute worst defensive players in the draft. He can be a solid role player offensively, as he’s a good shooter and passer and makes limited mistakes, but can his offensive goodness outweigh his defensive badness? I doubt it.

58. Ioannis Papapetrou: 6’8″ SF, Greece, 20.3 yrs. DX: 53, ESPN: 89
May not have the physical tools to be able to defend SF’s, but his skill level makes him draftable.

59. Alec Brown: 7’1″ PF/C, Green Bay, 21.9 yrs. DX: 78, ESPN: 88
He’s tall and he can shoot and that’s about it. But that’s such a good tandem of traits that it may be enough to merit a draft selection.

60. Markel Brown: 6’3″ SG, Oklahoma State, 22.4 yrs. DX: 51, ESPN: 61
He can pass, shoot, and jump through the roof. But he’s also undersized and didn’t post the best stats for his age.

61. Thanasis Antetokounmpo: 6’6″ SF, Delaware 87ers, 22.0 yrs. DX: 65, ESPN: 48
His D-League stats don’t inspire a world of confidence for his offensive upside, but his tools and defensive potential create enough intrigue to make him draftable.

62. Cristiano Felicio: 6’9″ PF, Brazil, 22.0 yrs. DX: 43, ESPN: 51
I know nothing about him, but DX and ESPN think he’s toolsy and draftable and frankly I’m running out of better ideas at this point.

63. James Michael McAdoo: 6’9″ PF, North Carolina, 21.5 yrs. DX: 74, ESPN: 63
McAdoo has really fallen off from his lottery hype as a freshman, but his tools are still there and his stats could be worse.

64. Deonte Burton: 6’1″ PG, Nevada, 23.0 yrs. DX: 45, ESPN: 62
He’s old, and based on his stats it may too late for him to capitalize on his great physical tools.

65. TJ Bray: 6’6″ PG/SG, Princeton, 22.0 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: NR
He’s likely too unathletic to translate to the NBA, but his size and stats make him a compelling undrafted free agent.

66. Troy Huff: 6’5″ SG, North Dakota, 22.4 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: NR
His stats grade fairly well, although they are aided by his lofty steal rate from North Dakota’s gambling defense. But he can also rebound and get buckets, and if he improves his shot he could make it in the NBA.

67. Davion Berry: 6’4″ SG, Weber State, 22.7 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: NR
Berry’s quicks and skill level are solid, but his size is limiting.

68. Alessandro Gentile: 6’6″ SG, Italy, 21.6 yrs. DX: 57, ESPN: 57
Gentile has the offensive skill to be draftable, but his lack of athleticism casts doubt on his ability to succeed.

69. Casey Prather: 6’5″ SF, Florida, 23.1 yrs. DX: 83, ESPN: 96
Prather is old and likely can’t shoot well enough to play the perimeter in the NBA, but his tools aren’t bad and he was arguably the best player in the SEC this past season.

70. DeAndre Daniels: 6’8″ SF, UConn, 22.2 yrs. DX: 64, ESPN: 59
He doesn’t have a clear niche defensively, and his non-existent passing may be his undoing. But he’s long and can space and score, and I’m running out of possibly useful players.

71. Aaron Craft: 6’2″ PG, Ohio State, 23.4 yrs. DX: 99, ESPN: 69
His ability to apply pressure defensively is something, but his lack of tools and offensive skill for such an old prospect cast doubt on his ability to cut it in the NBA.

72. Langston Galloway: 6’2″ PG/SG, Saint Joseph’s, 22.6 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: 94
He’s another SG in a PG body, but he can space the floor if you pair him with a big PG. Kevin Pelton’s WARP model is a fan.

73. Cleanthony Early: 6’8″ SF, Wichita State, 23.2 yrs. DX: 39, ESPN: 32
Can’t pass, can’t get to the rim, not great defensively, too small to play PF, old. He can jump and he can shoot, but that’s not enough to justify his fringe 1st round hype.

74. CJ Wilcox: 6’5″ SG, Washington, 23.5 yrs. DX: 38, ESPN: 35
Like Early, he’s an old, one dimensional shooter who can jump a little bit. I suppose scouts like these types more than I do.

75. Juvonte Reddic: 6’9″ PF, VCU, 22.1 yrs. DX: 100, ESPN: 93
Not sure what caused him to fall off a cliff as a senior, but his good junior year stats are enough to keep him on draft radar.

76. Taylor Braun: 6’7″ SF, North Dakota State, 23.1 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: 92
Stat models say he’s not that bad, but he did little to inspire confidence in his ability to translate with two disappointing performances in the NCAA tournament.

77. Trevor Releford: 6’0″ PG, Alabama, 22.5 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: NR
 He’s a 3 + D PG with OK enough stats. Super exciting stuff, right?

78. Cory Jefferson: 6’9″ PF, Baylor, 23.5 yrs. DX: 66, ESPN: 67
Center in a PF body. Likely can’t pass well enough to fit in at PF, but he did show signs of a budding 3 point shot as a senior.

79. Jerrelle Benimon: 6’8″ PF, Towson, 23.1 yrs. DX: NR, ESPN: NR
When he showed up, Towson went from a dumpster fire to a respectable mid-major program. He can rebound, pass, and almost shoot, but his lack of size and athleticism inhibit his draftability.

80. Xavier Thames: 6’3″ PG, San Diego State, 23.4 yrs. DX: 85, ESPN: 77
He was 3rd in the NCAA in win shares behind McDermott and Napier while playing fewer minutes than both. He had a big breakout as a 23 year old senior and offers appeal as a 3 + D PG.

#’s 81-100: Johnny O’Bryant, Billy Baron, Jake Odum, Halil Kanacevic, Jabari Brown, Jahii Carson, De’Mon Brooks, Andre Dawkins, Cameron Bairstow, Joe Harris, Jordan McRae, Melvin Ejim, Josh Huestis, Nemanja Dangubic, Eric Moreland, Richard Solomon, Austin Hollins, James Bell, Dwayne Evans, Sean Kilpatrick

 

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Big Board

02 Friday May 2014

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So now that we officially have the draft class set, I can publish my first big board specific to 2014!

Notes:
-Age is as of draft night
-This is not where I think players *will* get drafted, it’s where I think they *should* get drafted.
-I am aggressively thin slicing the international prospects and will modify my placement of them as I learn more about them.

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Before people new to the site get upset over my bold stances, I have detailed explanations for my contrarian positions.

Top Players: Save for Jabari Parker, all are underrated at this juncture: Joel Embiid, Dante Exum, Marcus Smart, Jusuf Nurkic

Overrated players: Andrew Wiggins, Julius Randle, Doug McDermott, Zach LaVine.

If you are wondering why some fringe first rounds such as Hood, Early, and Wilcox are buried so deep, I wrote about it in my post regarding the 2nd round lotto

Internationals:
-At age 19, Clint Capela was 2nd in French League PER narrowly behind 27 year old Ahmad Nivins. Good stats, good tools, and youth are the three important traits to seek in prospects on a macro level, and he checks all 3 boxes.

-Kristaps Porzingis is one of the youngest prospects in the draft. He is 7’0 and racks up steals and blocks and sometimes hits 3’s. He is fairly thin at 220 pounds and doesn’t rebound well, but his baseline package of height, defense, and shooting is rather compelling.

-Damien Inglis essentially shares LeBron James’s body with longer arms and merely decent athleticism. He doesn’t score much and his shot mechanics are questionable, but his small sample shooting stats are good and he gets good rebound, assist, and steal totals. He could become a stronger Nicolas Batum and appears to be vastly underrated.

-Nikola Jokic brings a high skill level and questionable tools. He is 6’11 253 with a 7’3 wingspan, but lacks speed and athleticism. He atones for this with good passing, shooting, and basketball IQ. His Adriatic League stats are strong in spite of struggling from 3 (15/68 = 22.1%). He has a similar skill set to Brad Miller.

NCAA:
–KJ McDaniels has been one of the most underrated prospects in the draft all season long and he is still underrated. He is a great defensive prospect with solid offensive potential as well

-DX and ESPN are finally catching onto Elfrid Payton’s goodness. He is a high upside PG with two way potential for the few teams that need a PG.

-Jordan Adams is such a weird prospect. He has great skill level and feel for the game but largely underwhelming tools. But his stats are so good for his age he is worth a gamble in the back end of round 1.

-Spencer Dinwiddie’s stock takes a slight hit due to him coming off an ACL tear, but he is an intelligent prospect who has the skills and tools to become a solid role playing SG that easily fits into any NBA lineup.

-Isaiah Austin is a rare top 5 recruit that is underrated at draft time. He has plenty of warts (poor finishing, mediocre rebounding, questionable feel) but he has an invaluable pairing of strengths: rim protection and 3 point shooting. I recently wrote that Julius Randle lacking these strengths submarines his stock in spite of his other goodness, and this theory applies in the opposite direction for Austin.

-I have a hard time getting excited for James Young. He requires significant offensive improvement to be worth anything, and even if he becomes a quality scorer his defense will still likely be a concern.

-Jerami Grant is somewhat difficult to peg. His value is largely based on defensive potential, which is difficult to assess as he played in the back of Syracuse’s zone. His other big question is: how does he fit into an NBA offense if he doesn’t develop surprising 3 point range?

-DeAndre Daniels’s stock has blown up following UConn’s title run. Color me skeptical. He is old for his class, rail thin, and never passes. His strengths are not strong enough to merit 1st round consideration. I prefer Okaro White who is slightly better in a similar mold, but projects to go undrafted.

-Sim Bhullar is 7’5 360 and is generally regarded as not draftable. I think he is worth a flier in the back end of round 2, as he has quite a bit of upside to improve his body and may be less stiff-like in the case that he successfully does so.

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17 Monday Feb 2014

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Age is as of draft night (6/26/2014). I still need to catch up on a few internationals, but it’s looking like we are going to have 4 important ones in this year’s crop, and I have included all of them in this iteration:

Big Board

Notable Exclusions:
Wayne Selden (26th DX, 27th ESPN)
CJ Wilcox (35th DX, 28th ESPN)
Jahii Carson (38th DX, 31st ESPN)

This draft is shaping up to have 3 clear prizes: Embiid, Exum, and Parker.  Marcus Smart would have been able to challenge Parker for #3 if not for his shooting woes.  Tyler Ennis’s stock is inhibited by his lack of tools and current NBA PG depth.  Noah Vonleh’s warts keep me from getting too high on him, but he still has quite a bit of upside intrigue.

People may think I’m being too harsh with my ranking on Andrew Wiggins, Aaron Gordon, and Julius Randle, but I think I am giving them all quite a bit of leeway to prove me wrong.  I have them all as 1st rounders and Wiggins as early lotto, after all.

Willie Cauley-Stein is dropping too far.  There are reasons to be skeptical of his odds of success, but there’s a limit to how far you can drop a player with his tools and possible defensive impact.  DX’s rank of 12th is reasonable, ESPN’s rank of 19th is not.

DX is starting to catch up on McDaniels, Hairston, and Portis all being underrated.  ESPN is much slower to pick up on sleepers.

For my money, KJ McDaniels is the best NCAA player in the country.  He has been posting some ridiculously insane February box scores.  Casuals can have their Ougie, I’ll take 2 way superstar KJ.  Shame that he goes to waste on that woeful Clemson team.

I have been doing some digging on Jusuf Nurkic and Clint Capela, and they both carry a good deal of intrigue as upside picks.  If I am gambling on a mystery box, I feel much better than them than college freshman such as Aaron Gordon or James Young.

I am warming up to UCLA’s Kyle Anderson.  His lack of quicks and athleticism are problematic, but he is so big, smart, and skilled that he can’t be sold too short.

Spencer Dinwiddie and Jerian Grant are underrated due to their seasons being over prematurely, and there’s a strong chance that neither of them is in this draft class.  But that does not diminish their appeal to me.  I have a suspicion that the wrong Grant brother may be getting the hype, as Jerian is a much easier fit into an NBA lineup.

Things become incredibly fluid from 19 down.  I am softening my anti-Saric stance until I am able to attain a thicker slice, but I still do not see what he offers that Kyle Anderson does not.

Briante Weber is an interesting new addition to my board.  His steal rate is off the charts, and anybody who is an outlier on defense is going to catch my eye.  He will likely become a prospect of note at some point as he breaks prediction models that heavily price in steals.

It’s time to put the Zach LaVine hype train on hold.  He can jump, he can shoot, and as far as I can tell that’s pretty much it.  I have a hard time getting excited for him until he shows some discernible basketball skill beyond shooting.  I like that DX is right there with me.  They are clearly sharper than ESPN on average.

Jordan Clarkson has an impact on others that completely and utterly mystifies me.  He is good but not great upperclassmen with OKish tools playing on a fringe tourney team, yet everybody wants to discuss him as a 1st rounder.  DX and ESPN are the least guilty, as I often see random mocks that have him in the 1st round and nbadraft.net has him as the #14 overall pick.  Can somebody fill me in on what joke I’m missing here?

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Big Board

24 Friday Jan 2014

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,

It’s time for my first big board of top 60 prospects.  Note that because internationals are less accessible for analysis than NCAA players, some highly rated ones are missing.  As the draft nears, more internationals will start appearing on the  board.

Note that age is as of draft night (6/26/14):

Of course these rankings are extremely fluid.  Notable variations from consensus:

-Marcus Smart belongs ahead of Exum as they are similar players, except Exum has significantly more downside risk since he is unproven against decent competition.  Exum may have slightly more upside, but to me it is clearly outweighed by Smart’s floor.

-Julius Randle is full of warts that will likely cause his stock to drop, which I will be sure to highlight in the near future.  Chad Ford mentioned earlier today that some NBA teams rate Vonleh as higher, and he has nowhere to go but down from #4.

-Tyler Ennis is having a fantastic start to his freshman season, and has been at his best against good competition.  He may not ooze appeal with tools and upside, but his production thus far points to him being lottery worthy.

-PJ Hairston had an excellent sophomore season and likely will climb boards as focus shifts away from his offseason woes and toward his impending D-League dominance.

-Spencer Dinwiddie drops due to his recent ACL tear, but he remains underrated.  He is a prototypical complementary SG and his intelligence will likely be attractive to analytics driven teams.

-I find it amusing that nobody can bring themselves to rate Aaron Harrison ahead of Andrew even though he is obviously the better player at this point.  They were rated similarly as high school recruits and Aaron’s skill set is an easier fit in NBA lineups, so I am comfortable with a massive rift between the two in my rankings.

-Elfrid Payton is a nice upside flier who needs more attention as a 1st round prospect.  He is reminiscent of a mid-major Rondo, as he is a productive PG with tools to be great defensively but is a horrible shooter.

-It is possible that I am too bearish on James Young, as he is young for his class and has not been necessarily bad as a freshman.  But his game does not have any elements that stand out as particularly strong, and he needs to develop quite a bit to become a useful pro.

-I do not understand how Chris Walker is rated so much higher than Bobby Portis.  He was rated slightly higher as a recruit (#7 RSCI vs #14), but Portis is having a solid start to his freshman year while Walker has been unable to gain eligibility.

-RJ Hunter is my favorite mid-major player that nobody is discussing.  He is a great shooter, and his steal and block rates suggest that he may have more defensive ability than his physical limitations would suggest.

-I do not understand Dario Saric’s rating as a lottery pick.  From what I have seen, he appears to be a slightly lesser version of UCLA’s Kyle Anderson.  This is a rating that will require closer analysis before I start preaching about it at a loud volume.

-Jahii Carson is having a disappointing sophomore season and given his age, size, and translation concerns, his value as a prospect is rapidly waning.