Official 2013 Draft Thread - Part V

[Zonkerbl]

He's a lot like Bennett in that if someone is deciding to put him at the top of their board, it's based on unavailable evidence, and simply projecting out from hints.

Erm, no, this board is talking about Oladipo because Kevin's evidence-based system YODA gives Oladipo the top score in this draft.

[stevemcqueen1]

You guys (edit - last 2 posters) are seeing the trees and missing the forest. Oladipo is not a 1 dimensional player. He's not just a defender, and he's not just a shooter. He's a great defender, and he's an extremely efficient scorer.

And a freak athlete.

I think I got a little carried away by his sheer athleticism after the combine. Physically, Oladipo profiles like the next Jordan with that power and speed and leaping ability.

But Oladipo is a third year player who didn't do much his first two years and really only has the one great year of production as the second banana on a great team, on somewhat limited volume. Sustainability alarms should be going off with him.

I think the things for me that keep me from getting too high on him are the fact that he's a somewhat low skill player, doesn't really have a signature offensive game, and he's not as good as Beal. You won't trade Beal to make room for Oladipo. So the only way I'd take Oladipo at 3 is as part of a draft day trade.

[fishercob]

Supercool interactive map of birthplace of every foreign-born draft pick over the last 15 years.

[GhostsOfGil]

Supercool interactive map of birthplace of every foreign-born draft pick over the last 15 years.

Nigeria
Player: Chukwudiebere Maduabum

Awesome

[The Consiglieri]

He's a lot like Bennett in that if someone is deciding to put him at the top of their board, it's based on unavailable evidence, and simply projecting out from hints.

Erm, no, this board is talking about Oladipo because Kevin's evidence-based system YODA gives Oladipo the top score in this draft.

Erm, no, because at the end of the day, Oladipo never played full time starters minutes, and never put together anything resembling a year like '12-'13, in limited minutes until his "THIRD" year. Hence it's inherently flawed. There's a reason so many picks are so often blown and no matter what metric system you use, or create, you cannot create one that utilizes college #'s that are predictive, particularly in the current college game in which most well thought of prospects leave after 1 year or 2 max, and especially if the minutes said player uses are nothing remotely like what would be expected of a top player at the next level.

Hence the reason there are still plenty of doubters of Drummond (limited minutes), and hence the reason why there are so many busts.

People don't love Oladipo because YODA does, people love Oladipo because they love a guy who is the best defender in college basketball, tests out as efficient and so may actually be at the next level, and tests thru the roof athletically.

The people concerned, are concerned either because he doesn't have the size to play the 3, and didn't play anything remotely like enough minutes to project whether he'd be a legit offensive weapon, or efficient weapon at the next level AND he looked like nothing more than a mediocre offensive weapon and a speculative second rounder or undrafted guy when he was a freshman like Shabazz and Bennett etc and a sophomore like Porter.

I love him, and might take him at #3 over Porter because I think he's going to be better than Porter and that trumps positional need w/me just about always, and it has zilch to do with YODA because in the end, I can't rely on YODA or any numbered system as the end all be all of anything, even if I do like to incorporate things like it.

It's a real difficult thing for me to figure out how I'd order Oladipo, McLemore, Porter, and Bennett after Noel. Probably 3, 5, 4, and 2 respectively.

[fishercob]

Supercool interactive map of birthplace of every foreign-born draft pick over the last 15 years.

Nigeria
Player: Chukwudiebere Maduabum

Awesome

It's not comprehensive. I don't see Nocioni among the Argentines and Yotam Halperin or Lior Eliyahu from Israel. There must be others missing too.

[leswizards]

Every year I find a site that has a comprhensive look at all the top NBA Mock drafts on 1 page. Every year I forget to book mark it, and then have to spend a lot of time trying to find it again. Anybody know where I can find a site that has a look at all the top NBA Mock drafts on 1 single page.

[stevemcqueen1]

Supercool interactive map of birthplace of every foreign-born draft pick over the last 15 years.

Nigeria
Player: Chukwudiebere Maduabum

Awesome

It's not comprehensive. I don't see Nocioni among the Argentines and Yotam Halperin or Lior Eliyahu from Israel. There must be others missing too.

Bogut is missing. Bogut was born in Victoria too.

[closg00]

Every year I find a site that has a comprhensive look at all the top NBA Mock drafts on 1 page. Every year I forget to book mark it, and then have to spend a lot of time trying to find it again. Anybody know where I can find a site that has a look at all the top NBA Mock drafts on 1 single page.

DC Pro Sports NBA Consensus Mock. Sorry, don't have the link handy, but Google will get u there.

[Ruzious]

Nigeria
Player: Chukwudiebere Maduabum

Awesome

It's not comprehensive. I don't see Nocioni among the Argentines and Yotam Halperin or Lior Eliyahu from Israel. There must be others missing too.

Bogut is missing. Bogut was born in Victoria too.

Correct - even though some people insisted he was Croatian. His parents were Croatian, but he was born and raised in Australia.

[Zonkerbl]

He's a lot like Bennett in that if someone is deciding to put him at the top of their board, it's based on unavailable evidence, and simply projecting out from hints.

Erm, no, this board is talking about Oladipo because Kevin's evidence-based system YODA gives Oladipo the top score in this draft.

Erm, no, because at the end of the day, Oladipo never played full time starters minutes, and never put together anything resembling a year like '12-'13, in limited minutes until his "THIRD" year. Hence it's inherently flawed. There's a reason so many picks are so often blown and no matter what metric system you use, or create, you cannot create one that utilizes college #'s that are predictive, particularly in the current college game in which most well thought of prospects leave after 1 year or 2 max, and especially if the minutes said player uses are nothing remotely like what would be expected of a top player at the next level.

Hence the reason there are still plenty of doubters of Drummond (limited minutes), and hence the reason why there are so many busts.

People don't love Oladipo because YODA does, people love Oladipo because they love a guy who is the best defender in college basketball, tests out as efficient and so may actually be at the next level, and tests thru the roof athletically.

The people concerned, are concerned either because he doesn't have the size to play the 3, and didn't play anything remotely like enough minutes to project whether he'd be a legit offensive weapon, or efficient weapon at the next level AND he looked like nothing more than a mediocre offensive weapon and a speculative second rounder or undrafted guy when he was a freshman like Shabazz and Bennett etc and a sophomore like Porter.

I love him, and might take him at #3 over Porter because I think he's going to be better than Porter and that trumps positional need w/me just about always, and it has zilch to do with YODA because in the end, I can't rely on YODA or any numbered system as the end all be all of anything, even if I do like to incorporate things like it.

It's a real difficult thing for me to figure out how I'd order Oladipo, McLemore, Porter, and Bennett after Noel. Probably 3, 5, 4, and 2 respectively.

It's just a little weird to accuse THIS BOARD of engaging in an exercise that is not based on fact, when in fact Oladipo gets the top score in a fact-based metric.

Just because you don't like the facts doesn't make them not facts. Don't accuse people of chasing cobwebs and moonbeams when that's exactly what you are doing yourself. Propose an alternate way of interpreting the facts and I'll take you seriously. Reject the facts and then attack a straw man based on your irrational rejection of the facts and you'll deserve any and all mockery directed at you.

[pancakes3]

Nigeria
Player: Chukwudiebere Maduabum

Awesome

It's not comprehensive. I don't see Nocioni among the Argentines and Yotam Halperin or Lior Eliyahu from Israel. There must be others missing too.

Bogut is missing. Bogut was born in Victoria too.

Patty Mills. Lots of Great Britain guys. Joe Alexander from Taiwan. No Canadians listed at all... still very cool though.

[Dark Faze]

Oladipo being the best defender in college basketball is probably the funniest thing I've heard about a prospect this year.

[stevemcqueen1]

It's not comprehensive. I don't see Nocioni among the Argentines and Yotam Halperin or Lior Eliyahu from Israel. There must be others missing too.

Bogut is missing. Bogut was born in Victoria too.

Correct - even though some people insisted he was Croatian. His parents were Croatian, but he was born and
raised in Australia.

Croatia is well represented in the draft.

I guess according to that map, Canada doesn't count as a foreign country.

BTW fishercob, the two Israeli players you mentioned are on the map, you just have to zoom in really close.

[leswizards]

Erm, no, this board is talking about Oladipo because Kevin's evidence-based system YODA gives Oladipo the top score in this draft.

I believe Cody gets the second highest score in the YODA System, and he fits a more pressing long term need than Oladipo does. If it were up to me, and Oladipo were the BPA at 3, I would trade down into a spot where I was certain to get Cody, and then use the additional assets from the trade to get into a spot to also pick up Steven Adams, Kelly Olynyk or Gorgui Deng (players that rate decently in Kevin's Yoda system).

[Benjammin]

Just because you don't like the facts doesn't make them not facts. Don't accuse people of chasing cobwebs and moonbeams when that's exactly what you are doing yourself. Propose an alternate way of interpreting the facts and I'll take you seriously. Reject the facts and then attack a straw man based on your irrational rejection of the facts and you'll deserve any and all mockery directed at you.

I enjoy Kev's work with YODA, but I would be hard-pressed to describe it as a "fact-based metric". Just because something uses a more or less quantifiable system (although the weighting of the elements is subjective) doesn't make it "fact-based" for me; rather it is data-based that is also weighted. Data is data not facts except in the sense of being evidence used to support an argument, but certainly not as an indisputable assertion.There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics (Disraeli and others credited for that). I see YODA as an interesting tool to put into the mix, but it's far from gospel quality to me (and probably for Kev as well).

[Nivek]

I would describe YODA as "fact-based" just as I'd describe what Dat and DarkFaze and SteveMcQueen and Ruzious and CCJ and nate and fish and...etc. as fact-based. Everyone who's serious about analyzing draft prospects (even as a hobby) is using facts. We're choosing which facts to use, which ones to emphasize, which ones to focus on. Our analysis, experience, "eye" tell us what's more important and what's less.

With YODA, I've attempted to build something that looks at players as objectively as possible. But, I'm limited by the available data and my own expertise (or lack thereof) in building a good model. I know the system is flawed. I know it's not perfect or infallible. Nothing is -- including some of the all-time great personnel people like Jerry West or Red Auerbach. They missed too. Sam Presti does a great job, but he and his group miss on evaluations. Were I running a team, I'd want something like YODA (but better) providing input, but it would definitely not be the only input.

[AFM]

Nivek, do you believe in the "eye test"?

[Ruzious]

Erm, no, this board is talking about Oladipo because Kevin's evidence-based system YODA gives Oladipo the top score in this draft.

Erm, no, because at the end of the day, Oladipo never played full time starters minutes, and never put together anything resembling a year like '12-'13, in limited minutes until his "THIRD" year. Hence it's inherently flawed. There's a reason so many picks are so often blown and no matter what metric system you use, or create, you cannot create one that utilizes college #'s that are predictive, particularly in the current college game in which most well thought of prospects leave after 1 year or 2 max, and especially if the minutes said player uses are nothing remotely like what would be expected of a top player at the next level.

Hence the reason there are still plenty of doubters of Drummond (limited minutes), and hence the reason why there are so many busts.

People don't love Oladipo because YODA does, people love Oladipo because they love a guy who is the best defender in college basketball, tests out as efficient and so may actually be at the next level, and tests thru the roof athletically.

The people concerned, are concerned either because he doesn't have the size to play the 3, and didn't play anything remotely like enough minutes to project whether he'd be a legit offensive weapon, or efficient weapon at the next level AND he looked like nothing more than a mediocre offensive weapon and a speculative second rounder or undrafted guy when he was a freshman like Shabazz and Bennett etc and a sophomore like Porter.

I love him, and might take him at #3 over Porter because I think he's going to be better than Porter and that trumps positional need w/me just about always, and it has zilch to do with YODA because in the end, I can't rely on YODA or any numbered system as the end all be all of anything, even if I do like to incorporate things like it.

It's a real difficult thing for me to figure out how I'd order Oladipo, McLemore, Porter, and Bennett after Noel. Probably 3, 5, 4, and 2 respectively.

It's just a little weird to accuse THIS BOARD of engaging in an exercise that is not based on fact, when in fact Oladipo gets the top score in a fact-based metric.

Just because you don't like the facts doesn't make them not facts. Don't accuse people of chasing cobwebs and moonbeams when that's exactly what you are doing yourself. Propose an alternate way of interpreting the facts and I'll take you seriously. Reject the facts and then attack a straw man based on your irrational rejection of the facts and you'll deserve any and all mockery directed at you.

I use facts, but I also use opinions based on facts and experience and biases.

There's always the scouting vs science argument brought up by Moneyball. Personally, I don't think either one is adequate in and of itself. A mix of the two is best.

[Severn Hoos]

Supercool interactive map of birthplace of every foreign-born draft pick over the last 15 years.

Interesting that the Wiz have specialized in the Caribbean (Ramos, Seraphin - OK, northern S. America) and Northern Europe (Pech, VV, Jan, T-Sat) rather than the "obvious" places like Brazil/Argentina and Southern Europe - Spain, Turkey, and the Baltic states. Good thing that clever strategy has worked out so well for us!