NBA Draft Analysis: Best/Worst Draft Year by Roland Beech, 82games.com

[Thanks to an assist from the wonderful Basketball-Reference.com web site, I gathered together the last twenty NBA Drafts (1989-2008) with an array of intended analysis in mind.]

Previously in this "NBA Player Development" series I've looked at:
- average performance of players by their draft pick number
- Best & Worst Drafting Teams
- Which players have been the best and worst "value" picks?
- Performance of drafted players by College

To recap a few principles, since B-R provides career games, and then per game points, rebounds, assists and minutes, I have gone with an admittedly highly simplistic look on things with:

Rating = points/game + rebounds/game + assists/game

Why use this definition? It's the data I have easily on hand, which while not a good player rating system is a decent wag for these purposes. Then I group players as follows (including a new category for this):

• Superstar -- 30+ rating
• Star -- 20+ rating
• Solid -- 15 to 19.9
• Role Player -- 10 to14.9
• Deep Bench -- 5 to 9.9
• Complete Bust -- less than 5
• DNP -- (never played in the NBA)

Since the drafts have grown in number of picks over the years (54 in 1989, 60 nowadays) it is necessary to adjust the career stats by the average for that draft pick number. For example, Kobe Bryant averages 25.0 pts per game for his career, but the average for a #13 pick (including Kobe) is just 9.8 pts per game so his year gets credit for +15.2 points per game for his pick and so on.

Draft by Year		Pick Performance					vs. Expected Perf.
Year	Picks	Gms	Pts	Reb	Ast	Rtg	Gms	Pts	Reb	Ast	Rtg	Super	Star	Solid	RoleP	DeepB	Bust	DNP
1998	58	354	7.4	3.1	1.4	11.9	100	1.5	0.5	0.2	2.2	3	9	7	7	22	8	2
1990	54	400	6.8	3.1	1.4	11.3	131	0.6	0.4	0.1	1.1		6	10	12	18	6	2
1992	54	395	6.8	3.1	1.4	11.3	127	0.6	0.3	0.1	1.1	1	7	11	10	9	10	6
1996	58	355	6.5	2.8	1.4	10.7	101	0.6	0.2	0.1	1.0	3	9	3	10	13	9	11
2003	58	217	6.6	2.6	1.5	10.7	-37	0.7	0.0	0.3	1.0	4	5	5	16	10	6	12
2005	60	143	6.3	2.7	1.3	10.3	-102	0.5	0.2	0.1	0.8	1	5	8	15	16	9	6
2001	57	263	6.2	3.1	1.3	10.6	6	0.2	0.4	0.1	0.7	2	8	6	8	14	11	8
1999	58	276	6.2	2.8	1.4	10.4	23	0.3	0.1	0.1	0.6	2	11	2	7	16	8	12
1989	54	369	6.5	2.6	1.6	10.7	100	0.3	-0.1	0.3	0.5		10	4	10	16	8	6
1995	58	346	5.8	2.8	1.2	9.8	93	-0.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	1	6	5	9	21	8	8
2002	57	202	6.0	2.8	1.1	9.8	-55	0.0	0.1	-0.2	-0.1	1	5	7	13	16	5	10
1997	57	302	6.0	2.5	1.3	9.8	45	0.1	-0.2	0.0	-0.1	2	3	9	11	15	7	10
1994	54	333	5.9	2.7	1.3	9.9	64	-0.3	0.0	0.0	-0.3	1	5	6	12	16	5	9
2004	59	153	5.5	2.6	1.2	9.3	-96	-0.3	0.0	0.0	-0.4	1	7	8	6	16	8	13
2000	58	260	5.7	2.6	1.1	9.4	6	-0.2	0.0	-0.2	-0.4		4	8	14	16	8	8
1991	54	326	5.7	2.5	1.4	9.7	58	-0.5	-0.2	0.1	-0.6		6	8	11	14	5	10
1993	54	330	5.6	2.3	1.3	9.2	61	-0.6	-0.4	0.0	-1.0	1	7	4	10	10	11	11
2007	60	55	4.8	2.4	0.8	8.0	-190	-0.9	-0.2	-0.4	-1.5		4	9	7	15	10	15
2006	60	96	4.6	2.1	0.9	7.6	-149	-1.1	-0.5	-0.3	-1.9		3	5	10	17	16	9
2008	60	20	4.3	1.9	0.8	7.0	-225	-1.4	-0.7	-0.4	-2.5		4	7	5	16	6	22

The first thing to notice is how strong the recency bias is...the three worst drafts at this point are the three most recent seasons. If we compared rookie season averages, chances are good that 2008 will actually shine, with already so many players establishing themselves that there are four stars in Rose, Mayo, Westbrook, Lopez, with Beasley, Gordon, Augustin, Love, and Thompson knocking on the door.

So if we assume over time things will improve for the 2006-2008 span (Kevin Durant as Superstar class of '07 by next season?) then the worst drafts of the past twenty years are 1993 and 1991.

1993 featured one superstar in Chris Webber, and some solid although troubled players in Mashburn, Cassell, Penny Hardaway, Vin Baker, Van Exel, Rider and Houston. Some top ten underperfomers though in Shawn Bradley (#2), Calbert Cheaney (#6), Bobby Hurley (#7) as well as few 'late hits'.

1991 pales in comparison despite the better overall net. The top performer by this simple pts+reb+ast is Larry Johnson, then you also got Brandon, Kenny Anderson, Mutombo, Billy Owens, and Steve Smith as "star" types. Top ten disappointments include Doug Smith (#6), Luc Longley (#7), Mark Macon (#8), Stacey Augmon (#9).

Enough of negativity though! The best year by far on this scoring system was 1998 which produced three superstars so far in Nowitzki, Vince Carter, and Pierce, with Jamison (29.4 career) still with a look at being a fourth. Then you add in Mike Bibby, Rashard Lewis, Mobley, Hughes, Ricky Davis, Al Harrington, Michael Dickerson and Jason Williams (the pg) all at 20+ career pts+reb+ast. Of the less stellar results, it's Olowokandi (#1), LaFrentz (#3), Traylor (#6).

For pure superstar power, 2003 makes a case with LeBron, Wade, Carmelo and Bosh. Hinrich, Josh Howard, David West T.J. Ford and Mo Williams for 'star' players as well. Darko (#2), Sweetney (#9) and Jarvis Hayes (#10) were the top ten strugglers.

Another superstar rich year was 1996 with Iverson, Kobe, and Marbury as the qualifying 'supers' while Ray Allen and Steve Nash don't quite get to the 30+ rating but are clearly mega-stars in their own right. Then you also have Camby, Jermaine O'Neal, Ilgauskas, Stojakovic, Abdur-Rahim and Antoine Walker as 'stars'.

The big picture might be that you usually discover about two superstars per draft, with another 6-7 solid types. The rarity of the superstars makes misses all the more costly. Consider:

• 1995: Joe Smith, McDyess, Stackhouse all taken ahead of Garnett (#5)
• 1996: Camby, Abdur-Rahim, Marbury, Antoine Walker, Lorenzen Wright, Kittles, Samaki Walker, Dampier, Todd Fuller, Potapenko all taken before Kobe (#13)
• 1997: Van Horn, Antonio Daniels, Battie, Mercer, Tim Thomas, Foyle all taken ahead of McGrady (#9)
• 1998: Olowokandi, LaFrentz taken before Carter (#5) and Traylor, Jason Williams, Hughes taken ahead of Nowitzki and Pierce
• 2001: Kwame Brown and Tyson Chandler taken ahead of Pau Gasol, and then another 26 players taken ahead of Arenas (#30)
• 2002: Jay Williams, Dunleavy, Gooden, Tskitshvili, Wagner, Chris Wilcox taken ahead of Amare (#9)
• 2003: Darko taken ahead of Carmelo (#3), Bosh (#4), Wade (#5)...arguably the biggest miss of the past twenty years!
• 2005: Bogut, Marvin Williams taken before Paul (#4)
• 2006: while not a superstar yet on career averages Brandon Roy (#6) makes the Bargnani, Morrison, Tyrus Thomas, Shelden Williams picks look bad
• 2007: keep an eye on Oden taken ahead of Durant...
• 2008: too soon to tell conclusively perhaps, but Gallinari and Alexander over Brook Lopez (#10)?

An alternative evaluation is to look at only the top ten picks per year:

TOP TEN PICKS		Pick Performance
Year	Picks	Gms	Pts	Reb	Ast	Rtg	Super	Star	Solid	RoleP	DeepB	Bust	DNP
1999	10	630	15.7	5.5	4.1	25.3	2	7			1
2003	10	356	15.2	5.4	3.5	24.1	4	2	1	3
1998	10	667	15.5	5.5	3.1	24.1	3	4	2		1
1996	10	761	15.0	5.9	3.1	23.9	2	5	2	1
1992	10	778	13.5	6.4	2.0	21.9	1	6	2		1
1994	10	758	13.1	5.8	2.7	21.6	1	4	4		1
1997	10	694	12.7	5.4	2.4	20.5	2	2	3	2	1
1995	10	706	12.4	5.7	2.3	20.4	1	5	2		2
1993	10	721	12.8	4.8	2.8	20.4	1	4	2	2	1
2002	10	341	12.4	5.5	2.0	19.8	1	4	3	1	1
2005	10	243	11.6	4.8	3.3	19.7	1	3	3	2	1
2004	10	266	11.6	5.3	2.3	19.2	1	4	3		2
2008	10	38	12.1	4.1	2.5	18.7		4	4		2
1990	10	615	11.5	4.0	2.7	18.2		5	1	3	1
2001	10	472	11.0	5.5	1.7	18.2	1	2	3	3	1
1991	10	682	10.6	5.1	2.4	18.1		5	1	4
2007	10	99	9.5	5.2	1.5	16.3		2	4	3	1
2000	10	466	9.7	4.4	1.7	15.8		3	2	4	1
1989	10	662	9.7	4.1	1.9	15.7		3	1	5	1
2006	10	149	9.8	3.8	1.6	15.2		3	2	2	1	2

Here we see 2008 is already climbing the charts, while 1999 has settled in as the best overall, with only one non productive pick in the ten.