2012 NBA Draft - Part II

[Nivek]

Seraphin's recent run shouldn't change a thing. It would be a bad decision of epic proportions to get the top pick and pass on Davis because of Seraphin. If whoever's running the draft for the Wizards made that decision, I think I'd have to become an OKC fan or something.

I kinda feel the same way about picking Drummond where the Wizards are likely to be picking. There are guys who are better now, and who I think will have much better pro careers, that can be taken high. If they made a move and ended up picking something like 15th AND if Drummond was still there AND depending on who else is on the board at the time, then maybe.

[jangles86]

... and Drummond would be a big risk in any year, and will take years to develop if we take that risk. So I don't think Seraphin's string of good games changes our strategy.

When Serephin was drafted how long was it predicted before he could contribute? I'm guessing it wasnt a year?
Let's not get carried away in saying Drummond is some completely raw project. The guy has been through a year of college and has very sound defensive fundamentals. His scoring side needs a lot of work,but I know for a fact he was utilized in the complete wrong way at Uconn. And was pretty much the 4th or 5th option every play.

I think it would be a risk not taking Drummond at two or three. Obviously taking him at one would be a big call, but I think he actually has a higher ceiling than Davis.it would take a GM with extra large kahunas taking him at one or two but I think it could pay the biggest dividends from this draft.

All this is a moot point if he decides too stay which wouldn't be surprising, since Uconn would probably revolve their offense around him and Napier next year. But after all the trouble he went to in coming out of high school early to play college wouldn't he have waited if he wasn't going one and done?

[Nivek]

Okay, the scores on Sam Bowie underscore how colossally bad a choice he was as the 2nd overall pick -- ahead of Jordan. As a freshman, he would have been borderline as a late 2nd. As a soph, he improved to mid-to-late 1st status -- anywhere from 15-25 depending on the depth of the draft. Then he got hurt and missed two full seasons. He returned as a senior to the same level he was as a freshman -- borderline late 2nd in today's draft.

Portland made him the 2nd pick in the draft. Wow.

I'll add Drexler to the list. Also the guys on fugop's list. From that list, I already have in Beasley and Morrison. Beasely rated as a really good prospect. I've looked at his numbers and I can't really find a red flag on him. He was efficient, shot well from 2pt and 3pt range, was a beast on the boards. The only warning signs on him were MAYBE low assists and high turnovers. Maybe. Perhaps something could have showed up in his background check that would have been a bigger warning sign. Based on his production and physical tools, I would have been comfortable picking him in the top 5 of most drafts.

As for Adam Morrison, there were plenty of red flags. He was an efficient college scorer, but he did almost nothing else. He was below average for a SF prospect in rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Then add in that he was slower, weaker and a smaller vertical than the AVERAGE SF prospect, and there should have been huge questions about his viability as an NBA player. My system graded him as a late 2nd round pick.

[tontoz]

Seraphin's progress has no relevance to Davis. However i do think his progress should make the Wizards even more reluctant to take Drummond.

A team who doesn't have a quality defensive big would have more incentive to take a chance on Drummond.

[jangles86]

Seraphin's progress has no relevance to Davis. However i do think his progress should make the Wizards even more reluctant to take Drummond.

A team who doesn't have a quality defensive big would have more incentive to take a chance on Drummond.

Disagree, with Seraphin 6"9 Booker 6"8 Nene 6"10 we need legit size

[veji1]

Drummond is a risk, but might still be worth it because both NEne and Seraphin can play the 4, so a mix of all of them is possible.. It would massively hurt Vesely though, thus quasi automatically makin this pick (Vesely's) a bad pick from the Wizards' perspective.

Of course Davis is a no brainer and would actually work really well with both Nene and Seraphin, Davis being the help defender and weakside blocker while Nene or Seraphin do the man to man ground base defending. ie Davis would play the Garnett role and Nene and Seraphin the Perkins role.

[Nivek]

Height doesn't matter as much as length. Booker has a standing reach of 8-10, which is about average for a PF. Nene's is 9-1, which is about average for a center -- a little above average for a PF. Seraphin's standing reach is also 9-1.

Drummond will probably be longer than these guys, but the Wizards don't just need size -- they need talent everywhere. Drummond might be worthwhile as a project pick, but his offensive game is deficient and it's going to take a lot of time and work to get him to an NBA level there -- IF it happens at all.

Besides, there's no reason to reach on a risky pick like Drummond when there are good players who are far more likely to have quality professional careers sitting there. Not worth the risk.

[tontoz]

Seraphin's progress has no relevance to Davis. However i do think his progress should make the Wizards even more reluctant to take Drummond.

A team who doesn't have a quality defensive big would have more incentive to take a chance on Drummond.

Disagree, with Seraphin 6"9 Booker 6"8 Nene 6"10 we need legit size

They have legit size, 270 pounds + 240 pounds + 250 pounds with plenty of athleticism as well. When those 3 were playing together they shut down the paint defensively and could score efficiently.

They also have Vesely at 6'11.

[pancakes3]

Compare those 3 guys we have for our PF/C rotation to the guys we have for our SG rotation and the weakness on our roster should become clear. Compound that to the fact that we have 0 all stars on our squad - John Wall included - tells us that we can't afford to draft based on need. We're between a rock and a hard place, team composition-wise.

[Nivek]

The Wizards need talent at every position, except MAYBE PG. No point in gambling on Drummond when there will be talented players at other positions available.

In other news, I added Caron Butler. Kind of an interesting player. His efficiency was a shade below average as a soph, but he had decent rebounds, assists and steals numbers. He was on the short side for a SF, but had average length. His draft camp numbers were all bad -- below average verticals, only 2 reps on the bench press, and agility/sprint scores more like a center than a SF. But, he actually played quicker, stronger, tougher and bigger than what the draft camp numbers would suggest.

All that said, I have a mid-first round grade on him if he was in this year's draft. Depending on the depth of the draft class, he'd rank somewhere in the 10-18 range most years.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Height doesn't matter as much as length. Booker has a standing reach of 8-10, which is about average for a PF. Nene's is 9-1, which is about average for a center -- a little above average for a PF. Seraphin's standing reach is also 9-1.

Drummond will probably be longer than these guys, but the Wizards don't just need size -- they need talent everywhere. Drummond might be worthwhile as a project pick, but his offensive game is deficient and it's going to take a lot of time and work to get him to an NBA level there -- IF it happens at all.

Besides, there's no reason to reach on a risky pick like Drummond when there are good players who are far more likely to have quality professional careers sitting there. Not worth the risk.

+1

Instead of drafting Drummond, I think makes better sense to wait to round two for either Fab Melo, Festus Ezeli, or Jeff Withey.

[Nivek]

Chris Webber -- as a soph has the 10th best rating in my spreadsheet so far. As a freshman, his rating is in the top 20. Helluva prospect who had a very good NBA career. As a sophomore he shot 67.9% from 2pt range. In my spreadsheet, only Pierce Hornung and Ricardo Ratliffe shot a higher percentage, and they both used significantly fewer possessions.

[sashae]

Nivek -- How about another couple of famous value picks -- Dwyane Wade and Paul Pierce? ...and in Wizards history, Jarvis and Cal Cheaney?

[Nivek]

I already have Wade, Pierce and Jarvis in the spreadsheet. Pierce's final season rated as a top 10 pick in most drafts -- maybe as high as 5 depending on the depth of the draft class. Wade rated as a top 5 pick in nearly any draft, the top pick in many drafts.

Jarvis rated as a late 1st. As early as 20 in a weak draft, as late as the early 2nd round in a strong draft.

I also have in another former Wizards pick -- Jared Jeffries. Jeffries had a late 2nd round grade in my system. He had poor offensive efficiency and was actually a poor rebounder for a SF. Heck, even for a SG.

One guy who actually rated about where he was picked was Juan Dixon. Juan was efficient offensively, and generated assists and steals. Undersized and not strong enough to be sure, but not a bad pick for where they got him.

[fugop]

Okay, the scores on Sam Bowie underscore how colossally bad a choice he was as the 2nd overall pick -- ahead of Jordan. As a freshman, he would have been borderline as a late 2nd. As a soph, he improved to mid-to-late 1st status -- anywhere from 15-25 depending on the depth of the draft. Then he got hurt and missed two full seasons. He returned as a senior to the same level he was as a freshman -- borderline late 2nd in today's draft.

Portland made him the 2nd pick in the draft. Wow.

I'll add Drexler to the list. Also the guys on fugop's list. From that list, I already have in Beasley and Morrison. Beasely rated as a really good prospect. I've looked at his numbers and I can't really find a red flag on him. He was efficient, shot well from 2pt and 3pt range, was a beast on the boards. The only warning signs on him were MAYBE low assists and high turnovers. Maybe. Perhaps something could have showed up in his background check that would have been a bigger warning sign. Based on his production and physical tools, I would have been comfortable picking him in the top 5 of most drafts.

As for Adam Morrison, there were plenty of red flags. He was an efficient college scorer, but he did almost nothing else. He was below average for a SF prospect in rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Then add in that he was slower, weaker and a smaller vertical than the AVERAGE SF prospect, and there should have been huge questions about his viability as an NBA player. My system graded him as a late 2nd round pick.

Are you using some aggregate score for athleticism? DX used to do a rank of each year's prospects, but hasn't done that in a while.

As an aside, Kevin, I'm sure you've got a website, but if you're interested in putting together some of your analysis prior to the draft, send me a PM. I've been playing around with charting options lately, and wouldn't mind putting something together.

[Nivek]

Here's the skeleton of the system: run the per minute stats through my own PER/Wins Produced like stat* then I adjust for strength of schedule and position and add in bonus/penalties for categories that cover athleticism and intangibles. Maximum score in any category is 1, minimum score is -1. The physical attributes I look at are measurable -- length (not height), strength, agility/quickness/speed, and leaping (all relative to his position). The only non-measurable is "intangibles" and that's a maximum of plus or minus 1.

Intangibles could be anything from a high motor to superior defense to off-court problems to a pattern of injuries to a pattern of being out of shape to toughness to nearly anything else I think is relevant.

The most common score in these categories is 0.

I have a column which shows me how much of a guy's final score is related to physical attributes/intangibles. In this year's draft, the guys with the "physical" being the biggest share of their final grade are Drummond, MKG, Harkless and Wroten. For Crowder, who ranks 2nd overall in my stuff this year, 0% of his score is related to physical characteristics. Marcus Denmon -- another guy who looks really good in my system -- actually loses points for being smaller than average for a SG.

Guys with great physical tools who aren't productive worry me. If their tools are so great, why aren't they more productive? In the case of MKG, I think it's because he's competing for stats with Davis and Jones (primarily).

Thanks for the offer on charting this stuff. I'll think about it. I have a blog that I seldom update. I may start writing about this if I get some time.



* -- Why my own system instead of PER or David Berri's Win Score? For me, one of the big issues is how they handle efficiency. PER doesn't put enough value on it. A player can boost his PER merely by shooting more frequently so long as he makes something like 27%. That makes no sense. Berri's system overvalues efficiency -- it penalizes scoring if the shooting percentage is below 50%. In my system, the break-even point on shooting is about 41% because of how I handle offensive rebounds.

[Nivek]

Chris Paul -- another interesting player. Actually rated slightly better as a freshman than as a soph. The difference: in his soph season, he struggled from 2pt range. He shot the three great both years. Either way, his rating for both years was in the same range as a top 3-5 pick. Other guys with about the same rating as a prospect: Carmelo, Duncan (JR), Webber (FR), Ewing (FR), Crowder (SR), Wall. About a quarter of Wall's rating was due to physical attributes -- only about 6% was "physical" for Paul.

[Shamrock]

Height doesn't matter as much as length. Booker has a standing reach of 8-10, which is about average for a PF. Nene's is 9-1, which is about average for a center -- a little above average for a PF. Seraphin's standing reach is also 9-1.

Drummond will probably be longer than these guys, but the Wizards don't just need size -- they need talent everywhere. Drummond might be worthwhile as a project pick, but his offensive game is deficient and it's going to take a lot of time and work to get him to an NBA level there -- IF it happens at all.

Besides, there's no reason to reach on a risky pick like Drummond when there are good players who are far more likely to have quality professional careers sitting there. Not worth the risk.

This could be said the same about Dwight Howard. You think Dwight was a worthwhile pick? I think a lot of people overlook the fact that Drummond wasn't correctly used at Uconn. For a big man with Drummonds athleticism and at his development stage he needed a distributing point guard. Problem with that Uconn team is they had a majority of scorers on the wings instead of distributors. Now the same could be said about last years Uconn team but Kemba at least did a decent job to get others involved. A one two punch of wall and Drummond would be a deadly combo. Though Drummonds performance in the reg season didn't show it he's a very good passer. I mean it's just my opinion but I think a lot of people are gonna look back just like with Cousins and say "Damn I can't believe he fell that far back". If the Wizards lose out on Davis, Drummond is a worthwhile pick.

[The Consiglieri]

Is Serephins great form changing our draft strategy? I still think if we got Davis or Drummond it would be the best result

On the positive side for most, it probably means we will be more inclined to pass on Drummond. NOBODY will pass on davis at 1. If we get #1, we'll take Davis, and simply sort out how to maximize assets later.

[Rafael122]

Ford's got the Wizards taking MKG in his updated mock draft:

Kidd-Gilchrist, like the other Kentucky players, still hasn't officially declared for the draft, but he will. The Wizards desperately need MKG's leadership, toughness and work ethic. But I hear they also may be tempted by Brad Beal's shooting and the upside of Andre Drummond. I think the Beal vs. Kidd-Gilchrist scenario is a toss-up. But after the Kwame Brown and JaVale McGee experiences, I would be surprised if Washington chased Drummond.

That last point about Drummond is something I brought up weeks ago, Drummond's not mentally all there yet. Do we really want to coddle another big? I think Beal would win out, if MKG was half the shooter Beal was, no question I'd take Kidd-Gilchrist.