Ben Simmons
LSU Forward Big Board: No. 1 Stats: No. 2
Consensus: 3.7 WARP
As I've discussed with Ford, the only reason Simmons isn't atop the WARP projections is the way they regress players to positional averages -- meaning that the system assumes that some of his great stats are difficult to sustain. That tends to penalize versatile players like Simmons, particularly when they only have one year of data.
Despite his disappointing finish, Simmons had one of the best freshman seasons of the one-and-done era and is the obvious No. 1 pick from a statistical standpoint.
Brandon Ingram (2)
Duke Small forward Big Board: No. 2 Stats: No. 5
Consensus: 3.1 WARP
Where Simmons rates in the top 25 percent of prospects at his position in four different categories, Ingram only has one such strength: his shooting ability. So far, his wingspan hasn't translated into elite defensive performance in terms of box-score stats. Age does work in Ingram's favor, though: At 18, he's more than a year younger than Simmons.
I wouldn't put much weight on it. I'd personally translate it as both are good prospects but it necessarily means player A is better than player B.
Their stats model seems to favor Ingram's non-stats traits for their a big gap between Simmons and Ingram's stats IMO. Drafting Ingram over Simmons is turning a blind eye over their college stats and valuing shooting, length and age, three very good to elite attributes of Ingram.
They has DLO over KAT last season. Ford had Jah on top of his draftboard but Pelton had him at 14th.
There’s never been a time in history when we look back and say that the people who were censoring free speech were the good guys.
