I wanted to see if there really is a benefit of going a year early to be a 2nd round pick, vs coming back to play yourself into a 1st round pick. So I looked into the 2017 draft. I chose that draft because we are seeing the 1st year of everyone's 2nd contract kick in. I used Josh Hart as the baseline comparison since he was the final 1st round pick of that year. I also didnt include Hart's salary for this year. Since again the premise of this is the extra year of salary you get going early as a 2nd rounder vs going back to college for another year.
Spoiler:
For those that dont want to look at the player by player breakdown.
30th pick rookie contract vs all 2nd round picks:
2 early entry guys outperformed it
1 senior outperformed it
27 under performed it, even with the extra year
16 of them are no longer in the NBA
4 of them never saw any kind of contract at all from the NBA
Again I went with 2017 because just ease of searching this stuff. Easy to just go straight to career earnings for the 2nd round guys, no extra math needed. I will also say after a cursory look at some of the surrounding drafts 2nd round picks, I wouldnt be shocked if this comes out close to the average.
But ya I will say this is pretty much very close to what I was expecting. A few diamond in the roughs in the 2nd round, about half the guys not having long careers, and financially for the vast majority of them, being a 1st round pick vs a 2nd round pick is a drastic difference.