Illuminaire wrote:I_Like_Dirt wrote:You've done that? I've done it too and come to the opposite conclusion. In the lottery? You want the younger guys most of the time - particularly at the very top. Outside of the lottery? It's disproportionately juniors/seniors in lesser scouted programs or transfers from such programs that scouts make up their mind early about, and international bigs.
Cool! I appreciate that you've put serious effort into this. I'm curious how we've come to different conclusions - it could be looking at different years for data, or rating players differently, or other differences in how we interpret the data.
I'll have to dig out the old spreadsheets sometime this week or next. We should compare notes.
I didn't make the spreadsheets themselves, but in my search on the topic when I was curious years ago I found a few papers from contributors to the Sloan Sports Analytics conference. The scuttlebutt seemed to be: if you find a young cat who is PRODUCTIVE early, then their upside surpasses that of a player who might have more experience later. Aside from that there was no little to no correlation between age and eventual success (years of career, All-star nods, draft order). A few players skew the stats (LeBron, Kobe) but even if you drop those two, the stats prove generally true. SO, if you are drafting for upside, youth, and potential, look for the guys who already do what you hope them to do. Score efficiently, rebound well, pass without mistakes.
In my search for BBIQ stars I always look for: Defensive Rebounds relative to their position. And Assist ratios relative to position. Compared against scoring metrics (eFG or TS%) (Also Bigs who steal the ball, which seems to be a decent indicator for P&R defense at the next level). I find that players who post decent per 100 numbers in any of these categories as freshmen, tend to be able to do that at the next level. The younger they are, the better they eventually prove to be, whether they stay in college or not.
Beyond that though what you look for is progressive improvement, and especially leaps of improvement. Or improvement despite increasing Usage %'s. These are players who both grind and have talent to do more. Players who do better when tested. Here seems to be where you can find steals. Talented late bloomers who are hard workers. Players who may be overlooked now but are more likely to reach their top end potential. If you see a cat steadily improving their FT%'s -- that is a guy who has the mindset to improve. You expect to see decreases in fouls and TO's --if you don't, you have a slow learner, or if it happens with increased usage but the other numbers are good, you have a guy who is more likely a role-player than a star.
It does seem to be true though that you get better production from sophomores and juniors who come out than you do from seniors. Makes sense though since talented guys make the leap early and few stick around to graduate.
