Compile Statistical-Based Draft Models/Rankings Here

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Oh, hey, look who's already done a little digging in DX's lists.

http://www.canishoopus.com/2015/5/29/8688513/composite-nba-draft-modelling-and-undervalued-prospects

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Here's another site. First, he compares rankings with and without high school recruiting rankings, to see who is most helped and hurt by this variable (I'm not totally sure why that's important, but hey).

More interesting to me, this person has put together charts that visualize what type of contributions a player can be expected to make, as well as a nice little basketball at the top to indicate overall impact. A couple other cool charts in there.

http://counting-the-baskets.typepad.com/my-blog/draft-model/

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Gotta love 538.com. The nerds over there are brilliant, especially with political stuff. But their sports rankings are very thorough and well-researched also. Keep in mind that they are only talking about college players, so guys like Mudiay, Porzingis and Hezonja are not included.

I found several things interesting, mostly because they supported my opinions :thumb: .

1) I have been touting Cliff Alexander as a great pick for us at 31, and 538 has him ranked 16th with over a 71% chance of being a starter or role player. He was a top 5 recruit at the start of the year, but clearly didn't hit it off with Bill Self and had a forgettable freshman year. He is going to be a very good NBA player, and would be a terrific pick for us at 31.

2) I'm a huge Stanley Johnson guy, and was pleased to see him ranked 3rd. As I have posted before, this guy is a SoCal high school legend, leading his team to 4 state championships. He's a winner, and is going to make some team very happy when they get him somewhere around 8-10. 538 gives him the same chance of starting as Towns.

3) Several posters here are high on Jerian Grant as a backup to Rubio, and even advocate giving up assets to move up and get him. I'm not as high on him, and have him rated behind several PG's. Same with 538.com. They have him ranked as only the 8th best PG and have him ranked 41st with a 52 % chance of being a bust. Ahead of him and certain to be available to us with pick 36 is TJ McConnell, who I think is exactly what we are looking for in a backup PG. He is a tough, pass-first PG (6.3 assists and only 2.1 TO's last year, and was one of the best PG college defenders. Perfect for us.

Great stuff here. I'm in favor of drafting Towns, Alexander and McConnell. I know carrying three rookies is unlikely, but that would be a stellar draft.

Can't say I agree. I have watched a bunch of videos of Alexander, including his most recent workout videos, and what I see is not only an undersized player...but also a player with very limited athleticism. This is not to say he can't become a good player, but his basic attributes certainly don't stand out. Also add in his struggles this year, and I think he is overrated. Even at pick 31, I struggle to take him.

And TJ MConnell. There is no way this guy plays in the NBA. Look, I like him as a college player as much as anyone, but every year these guys are touted by many on this board (see dude from Florida last year...can't think of his name), and they simply don't have the size, athleticism, or game to play in the NBA. He may be able to play in Europe.....but I want nothing to do with him.

I would describe Alexander as "undertall", not undersized, because he is a chiseled 254 with an almost 7-4 wingspan! I would agree that he is not an explosive athlete, but he moves very well...especially for a guy that big. He seems to me to be the kind of guy who will do the dirty work on the boards for you...kind of a skilled version of Jeff Adrien. He has an unusual personality though and might not be Flip's kind of guy.

I was a little surprised at McConnell's ranking too, because he's not a great scorer. But I think he may be an ideal pairing on a second unit with Martin and Shabazz. He reminds me a lot of a Dellavadova who doesn't need to score. Just feed our bench scorers and play gritty defense, and I'd be happy.

TJ is more of an Aaron Craft guy but he is shorter but looks to have a better shot. I wouldn't take him with #36 though that's too high. Buy a later 2nd round pick or offer him a deal if he is undrafted. He seems to be the type that Q is looking for though. :)

Of course, we could just go sign Aaron Craft himself! I like the fact he's paid his dues in the D-League.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Here's another site. First, he compares rankings with and without high school recruiting rankings, to see who is most helped and hurt by this variable (I'm not totally sure why that's important, but hey).

More interesting to me, this person has put together charts that visualize what type of contributions a player can be expected to make, as well as a nice little basketball at the top to indicate overall impact. A couple other cool charts in there.

http://counting-the-baskets.typepad.com/my-blog/draft-model/

Some pretty in depth stuff here Drew.

[Monster]

Gotta love 538.com. The nerds over there are brilliant, especially with political stuff. But their sports rankings are very thorough and well-researched also. Keep in mind that they are only talking about college players, so guys like Mudiay, Porzingis and Hezonja are not included.

I found several things interesting, mostly because they supported my opinions :thumb: .

1) I have been touting Cliff Alexander as a great pick for us at 31, and 538 has him ranked 16th with over a 71% chance of being a starter or role player. He was a top 5 recruit at the start of the year, but clearly didn't hit it off with Bill Self and had a forgettable freshman year. He is going to be a very good NBA player, and would be a terrific pick for us at 31.

2) I'm a huge Stanley Johnson guy, and was pleased to see him ranked 3rd. As I have posted before, this guy is a SoCal high school legend, leading his team to 4 state championships. He's a winner, and is going to make some team very happy when they get him somewhere around 8-10. 538 gives him the same chance of starting as Towns.

3) Several posters here are high on Jerian Grant as a backup to Rubio, and even advocate giving up assets to move up and get him. I'm not as high on him, and have him rated behind several PG's. Same with 538.com. They have him ranked as only the 8th best PG and have him ranked 41st with a 52 % chance of being a bust. Ahead of him and certain to be available to us with pick 36 is TJ McConnell, who I think is exactly what we are looking for in a backup PG. He is a tough, pass-first PG (6.3 assists and only 2.1 TO's last year, and was one of the best PG college defenders. Perfect for us.

Great stuff here. I'm in favor of drafting Towns, Alexander and McConnell. I know carrying three rookies is unlikely, but that would be a stellar draft.

Can't say I agree. I have watched a bunch of videos of Alexander, including his most recent workout videos, and what I see is not only an undersized player...but also a player with very limited athleticism. This is not to say he can't become a good player, but his basic attributes certainly don't stand out. Also add in his struggles this year, and I think he is overrated. Even at pick 31, I struggle to take him.

And TJ MConnell. There is no way this guy plays in the NBA. Look, I like him as a college player as much as anyone, but every year these guys are touted by many on this board (see dude from Florida last year...can't think of his name), and they simply don't have the size, athleticism, or game to play in the NBA. He may be able to play in Europe.....but I want nothing to do with him.

I would describe Alexander as "undertall", not undersized, because he is a chiseled 254 with an almost 7-4 wingspan! I would agree that he is not an explosive athlete, but he moves very well...especially for a guy that big. He seems to me to be the kind of guy who will do the dirty work on the boards for you...kind of a skilled version of Jeff Adrien. He has an unusual personality though and might not be Flip's kind of guy.

I was a little surprised at McConnell's ranking too, because he's not a great scorer. But I think he may be an ideal pairing on a second unit with Martin and Shabazz. He reminds me a lot of a Dellavadova who doesn't need to score. Just feed our bench scorers and play gritty defense, and I'd be happy.

TJ is more of an Aaron Craft guy but he is shorter but looks to have a better shot. I wouldn't take him with #36 though that's too high. Buy a later 2nd round pick or offer him a deal if he is undrafted. He seems to be the type that Q is looking for though. :)

Of course, we could just go sign Aaron Craft himself! I like the fact he's paid his dues in the D-League.

Craft was an affiliate player (you can send up to 3 camp releases toThe d-league) for GS last year but since he was undrafted he is free to sign with any NBA team correct? I'm not saying we should sign Craft (I wouldn't be against it either) I am just curious if we can.

http://www.nba.com/dleague/santacruz/dleague_faqs.html

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

It'd be nice to see the track records with these models. Are they close most of the time, some of the time, little of the time? They did design these specifically to predict NBA success. Obviously there are some other factors they can't account for like the situations players end up in, etc., but those would be pretty easy to take the blame off the prediction.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Good point khans. You have to do some digging with some of these. I've found the home sites of a few, and one of the guys seems to have been a friend of the guys at CanisHoopus at some point. The ones I've found say that they've gone back and crunched the last 10 or so drafts to keep tweaking the models. Not the largest sample size, and of course, life is complicated and changes and can't be figured out with a formula. But it's interesting to see where there is some consensus on players, and maybe even more, where guys have wildly different views on players.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

The more I look through these lists, the more happy I am with Jones. A lot of these models project him to be a good NBA player, even with a good chance of being a starter caliber player.

[60WinTim]

The more I look through these lists, the more happy I am with Jones. A lot of these models project him to be a good NBA player, even with a good chance of being a starter caliber player.

Yeah, I can understand Q picking out things he didn't like, but there are a lot of things to like, including some intangibles. I like the pick and believe he can be a solid backup PG in fairly short order, although it might be a tall order in his rookie year...

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I'm just catching up with Drew and Tim in terms of looking at this stuff with an eye toward Tyus Jones. Jones was not on my radar screen pre-draft because I didn't think we had the assets to move up that high, so I didn't focus on him in these rankings. But not that I have...wow!

One of the spreadsheets ranks the players based on an average of 8 Nerd Rankings, and Tyus comes out as the 8th best prospect in the draft. Another one, the PAWS-RSCI index ranks him 3rd! And finally, while 538.com only ranks him 13th, that relatively lower ranking is primarily due to having very low "star potential"...only 3%. But he is the second ranked PG in the draft behind D'Angelo Russell, and actually appears to be a much safer choice than Russell. Here are 538's percentages for each in the categories of star, starter, role player, and bust:

Russell: 15%, 34, 10, 41

Jones: 3%, 42, 28, 27

So, 538 gives Jones less chance of being a star, but also much less chance of being a bust. And he actually is given a higher chance of being a starter in the NBA, Very promising.

This is nerd stuff, and who knows how predictive they are. But a couple of them provide historical data to show how much more accurate they are than mock drafts, and 538.com did correctly predict the Warriors to win the 2015 championship. But they clearly need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Still, it's heartening to see how highly regarded the models hold Tyus.