Bruin wrote:mdenny wrote:Hansari wrote:
I’m quite content with the 18th pick, if we consolidate and move up to grab a prospect our scouts are very high on, great. If not, then 18 is a spot you can often land a solid contributor with upside if you’ve done your due diligence and things play out in your favour.
When you say "often"....is that just a cliche or thing to say?
Here are the 18th overalls from the past 15 years (while knowing the jury is still out on the most recent ones):
Jamie Jaques Jr
Dalen Terry
Tre mann
Josh Green
Goga bitadze
Lonnie walker Jr
Tj leaf
Henry Ellison
Sam dekker
Tyler ennis
Shane Larkin
Terrence Jones
Chris singleton
Eric Bledsoe
Ty Lawson
How many of these players constitute "solid contributors"?
I find whenever one simply "looks" at draft history....it becomes more and more clear how much a crap shoot it is. There is a subset of fans that LOVE undrafted prospects and then HATE THEM MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE after the player turns 26 lol.
I assume he means within that range, not specifically at 18.
But tbf, 7 out of 15 of those guys you listed are solid contributors. I’m counting Tre Mann since he’s still just 23 and has shown flashes that he can become a solid player in this league. Jury still out for him though.
Without Mann, 6 of those guys are starter or 6th man (Josh Green) caliber. If you can get that 40% of the time from the 18th pick, I’d say that’s quite solid.
I guess it depends on what one means as "solid contributors".
If you peg 7 of them as solid....how many would you peg as average contributors?
I mean...if we're looking at it like a binary (solid contributor vs non-nba player) then that's a different conversation. If someone contributes to an nba at any level....does that qualify as "solid" for the purposes of this discussion?
I've done this type of thing quite a bit. The range remains consistent. There's nothing particularly unlucky about the 18th overall selection. It comes down to this: the expected outcome of draft picks is significantly lower than the percieved value of fans who advocate for tanking/pick accumulative strategies. And part of that is due to some version of logical fallacy similar to those who are impulsive and superstitious.
There's also a great deal of conflation between "expected outcome" and "best possible outcome".
Ie "just look at all these star players that a team COULD'VE had with their 18th pick (*lists every great player ever drafted after 18) Which is not completely distinct from saying "well you COULD have won the jackpot if you played the slot machine one more time".