DCZards wrote:By the end of his rookie season, Cunningham was showing that he has the potential to be a special (and versatile) NBA player.
He played all of 12 games last season.
I suggest we hold off on judging Cade as if he’s a finished product.
Judging him as a finished product? No.
Is Jalen Suggs a better player than him? Yes.
If you are a NBA GM, and it is your job to constantly be evaluating your roster and players for future decisions/contracts, it’s going to require some level of honesty about what Cunningham has or has not shown in 2500 minutes in the NBA. Same goes for every player.
It’s not about confirming your predictions on a message board from a year or two ago, that leads to endlessly defending certain players, and immediately writing off a guy like Johnny Davis, who is the exact same age as Cunningham.
I'm not sure what these recent posts are about.
Whether a guy is a good draft pick has nothing whatever to do with his rookie season or even his 2d season. Really, you could say it doesn't even have to do with how good a player he ever becomes, since any number of issues from injury to who-knows-what could impact that.
A guy is a good draft pick if, all things considered, he looks *now* (i.e. on draft day) like he's got the most potential of anyone left on the board. Period.
Coming to judgment on that question is obviously not a science. But, college numbers, combine measurements, interviews, & a whole range of other factors all figure in. Nor do any of them or all of them give you a 100% answer to the question.
Even with all of that, even given how much depends on making consistently good draft choices, it's rare for the draft order to mirror results as judged later. TBH, it's rare for it to come close to mirroring results as judged later.
That problem is inherent in any human situation. So, yeah, Zards is right, Cade Cunningham could turn out great. & Nat is also right that he hasn't looked good yet.
DCZards wrote:OTOH, 2/3/4 have produced some outstanding players over the last 20 years, including Morant, Luka, Jaren Jackson, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Brandon Ingram, Beal, KP, Embiid, Harden, Westbrook, Durant, Chris Paul.
Several of these guys have been All-NBA players and 5-6 are surefire HOFers.
I'm not against trading back but if I'm sitting at 2, 3 or 4 I'm just as likely to take a chance on a Miller, Scoot or one of the Thompson twins.
I'm super curious on the various combine numbers this year.
I like Miller because I know the level of competition against which he is measured. Likewise Taylor Hendricks. I have lesser esteem for the Ignite due to my feel for a general low level of team play in the G-league. There is no doubt the past few years have had serious raw talent on that team. But players like Isaiah Todd had standout games on that squad and he can't even lace up his shoes in the NBA. As for Amen/Ausar there is no gauge for how their skills will translate against pro players in any competitive league.
Okay, if they are outlier physical freaks in lane agility, no step jump, if they measure long in standing reach or max vert, okay. A freak is a freak and you can see why scouts would be tantalized.
Really though I am more intrigued by the idea that the NBA will now require prospects to participate in the scrimmages. Darvin Ham shattered backboards in college. James Flight White skywalked over the heads of highschoolers and AAU ballers. In the NBA they didn't prove they could play at an elite level.
I want to see how these mystery cats are going to react when matched against fire-tested prospects who have had to play team ball in pressure situations with thousands of opposing fans cheering against them. I want to see flashes of understanding of the game. Vision. Reaction time and decision-making. OR if that superior athleticism will make up the difference and negate any shortfall in experience.
My sense is the presence of a guy like Jarace Walker on court in these games will make some truly talented players look timid or overmatched. I'm mad curious to see if players like Zach Edey can keep up with quicker competition. Those combine games will be worth it as an all-star collection of pre-professional prospects. These games tend to be something of an ugly mishmash, where few players can get it going -- unless you have a naturally gifted true PG who can direct traffic and find the open guy. Still, you can dial in on the one or two talents that might translate quickly. Ranged shooting, break-you-down dribble, bigs with low post moves, and shutdown defenders are the types of players who can look good early in these games. And true athletic outliers who can play, will still steal the spotlight.
I fully expect shuffling at the top of the draft after the combine, but IF they can compel the invitees to play then that shuffling may not be on the usual wingspan and jump-jump projections that we get after they put the tape to them.
Jarace Walker by the way, is the sort of player I usually gravitate towards. Best defensive player on the Number 1 defense in the NCAA. You can see why he is in the lotto talk if you solely look at his work on that end of the court. Reminds me of Ron Artest in his quickness and strength on defense. Pterodactyl arms on this one.
I'd bet he falls because he will measure short due to no-neck syndrome, but his standing reach and wingspan will be that of a much taller player, which often is an indicator of a strong defender in the NBA. His offensive game is underdeveloped. He doesn't rebound as well as he could. But his feet and situation recognition on defense are so quick, that he challenges everything. This is the sort of player who coaches love. The kind of non-star who just wants to win, nevermind his personal stats.
We have Deni and Gafford already in the non-ranged defender category. But with a little better rebounding, Walker looks like the type of player that would work well next to Porzingis. A defender who can cover ground, match up 2-5, and take defensive pressure off anybody. Too his rebounding numbers suffer somewhat in that he is nominally a PF but he is constantly in motion challenging the shot. The rebounding numbers of players next to him rise while the opposing attackers eFG% drops through the floor.
I like the hint of a 3pt game, he is raw but has that DOG in him where you know he wants to compete. Which suggests he may get better in the offseasons.
I would not be surprised if this is the guy who teams look back and wonder how they skipped him over. Reads as a key role-player on a championship team at some point in his career.
Here's another good breakdown of how his stats don't measure his input except that he is the front court equivalent of an Off-night player. Every time I look at a prospect who played Houston I see they got shut down for at least one of the games.
Doc, the new combine rules don’t kick in until 2024…and players will not be required to participate in the scrimmages…only the medical physicals and tests for agility, strength, etc.
Alright, yeah it seemed too good to be true. So again top picks will be awarded for avoiding competition. In weak leagues or by dodging games and workouts. Too bad.
NatP4 wrote:Do a giant historical analysis of each pick slot in the draft over the last 15 years. There is not THAT big of a gap in terms of future production between picks 1-30, as you know. Seems pretty obvious to me that on average, you want 9+16+28 over 2. But again, I am making the case for this year in particular as well.
This is off the 10-year span from 2010-2019, which is what I found easily available in list form with a google search:
If you had all the #2 picks from 2005-2019, your top 8 rotation would look like this: Durant Morant Ingram Aldridge L.Ball Oladipo D.Russell MKG Assuming everyone is in their prime at the same time, that team would be title favorites, particularly if they traded one guard for a big to balance their roster
If you had all the #3 picks from 2005-2019, your top 8 rotation would look like this: Luka Embiid Tatum Harden J.Brown Horford Beal Porter That's the greatest team of all time.
If you had all the #9, #16 and #28 picks, your top 8 rotation would look like this: G.Hayward Derozan J.Noah K.Walker Drummond Vucevic Rozier Poole That's a 2nd round playoff team
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That's not surprising, nate. But it's an effect of numbers not nature.
It'd be a shock if you couldn't list 8 outstanding players taken #2 over a period of 16 years! How bad can GMs be!
Suppose instead you take the 8 worst players from those 16 #2 picks instead of the 8 best. & then you take the 2d best 8 from that alternate list of 24 (picked at 9, 16 & 28 over the same period).
How do those 2 teams match up? Pretty different situation I bet!
Edit -- I should mention that I don't have a horse in this race. In fact, in a way it's sorta pointless: how often has it ever been possible to trade the #2 pick for 9, 16 & 28? My guess is that it's been possible exactly once -- this year!
I don't understand how this is a refutation of my point. The point is, high picks have a MUCH higher likelihood of landing a great player.
You may be right that worst 8 taken with the high pick are worse than the middle 8 taken with the low picks, but still, the middle 8 taken with the low picks aren't going to be difference makers because the talent drop-off later in the draft is so steep.
For example, the next 8 guys from the 9/16/28 group looks something like this: Nurkic Hachimura Poeltl Vonleh Burke Augustin Ellington N.Young
Those guys are rotational NBA players, but none of them except the centers (Nurkic and Poeltl) are quality starters. They're just easily replaceable role players that you could have found with MLE money or less. (And the centers are regular season guys who would get played off the floor in the playoffs.)
Here's another way of looking it. Below is a chart showing all the selections from 2005 to 2019 for the #2, #3, #9, #16 and #28 selections. All-Stars are in bold. 2-time All-NBA are in yellow (these are "franchise players" likely to carry a team to the playoffs as the best player). MVP's are orange. Strikethroughs are busts. I considered busts to be guys out of the league after 4 years, or who lasted up to 6 years but their career VORP was negative.
Would you rather close your eyes and throw a dart at the #2 column or #3 column? Or would you rather close your eyes and throw 3 darts, one each at the #9, #16 and #28 column?
The #2 and #3 columns combined have 14 All Stars out of 30 possible selections, including 8 2-time All-NBA players and 3 MVPs. So if you pick in that range, you have 47% chance at an All-Star, a 27% chance at 2-time All-NBA franchise player, a 10% chance at an MVP, and only a 7% chance at a bust.
Picking #9 gets you a 33% chance at a lower-tier All-Star, a 7% chance at a 2-time All NBA franchise player, and there is very low bust potential. So #9 isn't that bad. But the key is that you get very little from the #16 and #28 picks. There are zero All-Stars in the entire group and a greater than 50% bust rate. And most of the guys who don't bust aren't really that valuable either. They're just journeyman vet types you can find in every offseason with less than MLE money. The only real exceptions are Rozier, Poole and a couple of regular-season bigs who will get played off the floor in the playoffs.
It's worth noting that the #9 pick was fluky good compared to #8 which had 0 All Stars in the last 15 years. FWIW, Pick #10 had 3 All-Stars (Paul George, Brook Lopez, and Andrew Bynum) but all were picked before 2011.
It's also worth noting that, looking at the chart, it appears that teams are getting better about drafting. The last 7 years (2013-2019) have seen no busts at #2 or #3, and the All-Star hit rate at those two slots is up to 57%. Meanwhile, there were zero All-Stars who slipped to #8, 9 or 10 (though Mikal Bridges is a strong candidate next year).
Do you really think Deangelo Russell and Brandon Ingram have had better careers than Nikola Vucevic because they snuck into an all star game?
What was your basis for crossing out players? Norris Cole was a rotation player on a championship team. Jahlil Okafor never played a meaningful minute of basketball in his life.
And combining the results of the 3rd pick with the 2nd pick is nonsense. Why not randomly change the 28th pick to 27th which produced Rudy Gobert, Pascal Siakam, Larry Nance Jr, Kyle Kuzma, Robert Williams, and Bogdon Bogdonavic over the span of 2013-2018.
Bagley started 25 games for Detroit this year? Yeah, he's terrible for a #2 pick, but he's still a rotation player in this league, which is about as good as Kevin Knox, Zhaire Smith and Jacob Evans combined.
D'Angelo Russell made an All-Star game, which is way more than anyone picked at 9, 16 or 28 that year achieved.
Jabari Parker played 8 seasons, 8500 minutes and scored 4300 career points. He averaged 20 points a game in his 3rd season. That's a legitimate NBA career. Yeah, he was terrible for a #2 overall pick, but not terrible for an average first round pick.
I seriously debated putting Okafor in the bust category. He was right on the edge, with only 6 seasons and a VORP of 0.0. My cutoff was a negative VORP so he made the cut, but just barely.
NatP4 wrote:And combining the results of the 3rd pick with the 2nd pick is nonsense. Why not randomly change the 28th pick to 27th which produced Rudy Gobert, Pascal Siakam, Larry Nance Jr, Kyle Kuzma, Robert Williams, and Bogdon Bogdonavic over the span of 2013-2018.
Combining the #2 and #3 is not nonsense because I'm detracting from the #3 column as I'm adding to #2. It's a reasonable consideration when dealing with a small sample size. The principle we are talking about here is trading down from the high lotto (2-4 range) for a handful of picks later in the draft. The distinction between #2 and #3 is relatively meaningless, and the outperformance of 3 versus 2 is clearly a low sample-size fluke that one should average out if they're going to use it as a predictive tool.
If you want to go back and redo this analysis and take the average of #8, #9 and #10 in lieu of #9, and the average of #15, #16 and #17 in lieu of #16, and the average of #27, #28 and #29 in lieu of #28, that would be totally legitimate. It's just more work.
NatP4 wrote:What was your basis for crossing out players? Norris Cole was a rotation player on a championship team. Jahlil Okafor never played a meaningful minute of basketball in his life.
I stated my criteria for busts: 4 or fewer years is an automatic bust. 5 or 6 years with a negative VORP is a bust. 7 or more years is out of bust territory.
My thought was that anyone who doesn't make a second contract is clearly unwanted. There are a few guys who might bounce around on vet minimum deals for a year or two when the rookie contracts are up, but I don't consider to really have "made it" in this league unless they are contributing positively on the stat sheet. But if you last 7 years, clearly teams had use for you.
My analysis was based on a different methodology. & I didn't make my conclusion at all clear.
I wasn't looking at the history of actual picks but, rather, asking who were the best players actually available at 2, 9, 16 & 28 in each draft (2008-2020).
Because, looking back, we possess that knowledge, we can isolate the drafts in which an all-knowing 100% accurate draft picker would have benefited from the trade as opposed to the drafts in which that god-like GM would not have benefitted by trading 2 for 9, 16, & 28.
E.g.:
payitforward wrote:...in 2008, I can take Westbrook at 2. Who was available at 9/16/28 that I'd rather have as a trio? No one....
Even a perfect picker wouldn't have benefited from the trade -- rather the opposite.
OTOH
payitforward wrote:...2010 & Paul George at 2. But he was still there at 9, so the trade works.
IOW, the perfect picker does benefit from the trade that year.
I concluded that for a GM who is always able to pick the best player on the board at any spot...
payitforward wrote:......it seems to be a good trade about 1/2 of the time....
I probably should have unpacked this conclusion to communicate what it means:
1. A trade with a 50% chance of delivering any benefit isn't a good trade. That's true by definition. 2. In this case, we would need a god-like GM even to get to that level of 50%. 3. Hence, exchanging 2 for 9, 16 & 28 is a terrible idea.
Doesn't mean it would never deliver benefit. Once in a while. At random.
Do you really think Deangelo Russell and Brandon Ingram have had better careers than Nikola Vucevic because they snuck into an all star game?
What has Vucevic ever done that was noteworthy? He was decent starter for a few years but Cs are generally more productive and should be held to a slightly higher standard. Ingram isn't great for a 3rd pick but he's been a solid starting SF for years so I give him a decent edge. Russell is mediocre but still a starting PG.
NatP4 wrote:What was your basis for crossing out players? Norris Cole was a rotation player on a championship team. Jahlil Okafor never played a meaningful minute of basketball in his life.
Norris Cole was awful and barely playable. He was the 9th guy in a 9 man rotation. That doesn't mean he was useful.
I see 9/15 years in which 9/16/28 was better than #2.
That is without the “god-mode GM/hindsight” picks.
Again, #3 has been uniquely great slot over the 15 years compared to 1/2/4/5.
And of course, picking higher is better, but if you did this same exercise with #1 instead of #2 and #3, and #27 instead of #28, and #11 instead of #9, it’s drastically different.
NatP4 wrote:I see 9/15 years in which 9/16/28 was better than #2.
Really?
I see the #2 pick better than 9/16/28 in: 2019 2017 2016 2015 2013 2007 2006 2005
The 9/16/28 are better in: 2014 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
2018 is a toss up.
So that's 8 to 6 in favor of the #2 pick (which, again is a fluke for how bad it was relative to #1 and #3). It's an 10-3 win for the #3 pick, with 2006 and 2007 being toss ups. So on average a top 2 or 3 pick beats a basket of later picks about 2/3rds of the time. And the top picks are the only ones that give you a realistic chance at a franchise player.
NatP4 wrote:I see 9/15 years in which 9/16/28 was better than #2.
That is without the “god-mode GM/hindsight” picks.
Again, #3 has been uniquely great slot over the 15 years compared to 1/2/4/5.
And of course, picking higher is better, but if you did this same exercise with #1 instead of #2 and #3, and #27 instead of #28, and #11 instead of #9, it’s drastically different.
And this is why I always viewed this as a nonsensical exercise and complete waste of time.
What's the benefit of drafting #1 or #2? You have nearly every draftable player at your disposal!
Who the hell is pigeon holed into one specific player? I can't speak for Memphis drafting Thabeet at #2 & Mayo #3. Or Cleveland deciding on Bennett at #1. Its an imperfect science and there are alot of bad GMs but historically your star quality players, your 1st/2nd option types are going to be found higher in the draft. You can find quality role players later but that's what they usually are, low usage role players. Of course there ocassional diamonds in the rough who usually are undervalued due to being outside the box (Jokic/Giannis) or guys who's work ethic was unparalleled (Jimmy Butler/Middleton) but that's the exception, not the rule.
No Nate, you can’t just say that without doing the same analysis of pick #1, which is significantly worse results than #3.
But I would also disagree, Poeltl has been much better than Ingram. Rozier much better than Russell. That’s 8 in my (biased) view.
If you did this massive analysis of each and every pick in round 1 over the last 15 years, it would of course clearly show that picking higher is better, but not by much.
Picks 7/11/13/27 have been better than picks 1/2/5/6 over a 15 year span. Pick 3? Uniquely great. Best pick in the draft. Worst pick in that span? 28th actually haha
That's not surprising, nate. But it's an effect of numbers not nature. 
