Grantland:NBA Draft The Ultimate Crapshoot

[Tim_5rings]

http://grantland.com/features/nba-dr...t-repick-1995/

Vey long but very interesting & funny analyse of each draft since 1995

here a little shot:

That’s 57 picks in all. Twelve of 57 were drafted first overall; 18 of 57 were drafted 2-through-5; 16 of 57 were drafted 6-through-14; and 10 of 57 were drafted 15th or later. Even if you don’t land a top-five pick, there remains a 40 percent chance of drafting a top-three player. If you don’t get a top-three pick, you maintain about a SIXTY percent chance of landing one of the best three players. But hey, keep tanking your buns off, everybody.

then:

Let’s say you’re running the Jazz, picking fifth on Thursday and feeling confident that Wiggins, Parker, Embiid and Exum won’t be there. You’re looking at Vonleh, Smart, Gordon, Randle and Doug McDermott, who should never go fifth, but you’re the Jazz and you love white guys more than Justin Bieber loves hooking up with backup dancers. Recent history suggests that you have only a 20 percent chance of picking the right guy EVEN WITH THE FIRST CHOICE OF THOSE FIVE GUYS. Actually, it’s just as likely that one of the next three guys (Elfrid Payton, Gary Harris, Nik Stauskas) will become better pros than everyone you’ve been studying so painstakingly.

and each year review (exemple Draft 1997)




1997 Draft

SCRAP Rating: 3.5 out of 10
1. Tim Duncan (1)*****
2. Tracy McGrady (9)***
3. Chauncey Billups (3)**
4. Keith Van Horn (2)
5. Stephen Jackson (42)
6. Tim Thomas (7)
Lottery Whiffs: Adonal Foyle (8), Tariq Abdul-Wahad (11)
Lottery Rotation Guys: Antonio Daniels (4), Tony Battie (5), Ron Mercer (6), Danny Fortson (10), Austin Croshere (12), Derek Anderson (13)
Rotation Guys: Mo Taylor (14), Kelvin Cato (15), Brevin Knight (16), Scot Pollard (19), Anthony Parker (21), Bobby Jackson (23), Alvin Williams (47), Mark Blount (54)
Breakdown: Duncan, T-Mac, Billups … and three picks later, we’re at Tim Thomas? Now that’s a top-heavy draft. Duncan, McGrady and Billups were 1997’s only future All-Stars — between them, they have a better résumé (combined rings, All-Star appearances, All-NBA appearances, win shares, salaries earned or whatever you want to use), than any three guys from any post-1994 draft except for LeBron-Wade-Bosh. You know what really kills me? The Celtics lost the Duncan lottery, ended up with the third and sixth picks, took Billups third, passed on T-Mac at six, then traded Billups after 51 games. There’s an alternate universe where we could have had Billups, T-Mac and Pierce. It’s true.

(Translation: I STILL HATE YOU, RICK PITINO! YOUR GUTS ARE STILL HATED!!!!!!)

[ajh18]

Loved this one too:

2011 Draft
• My Draft Diary
SCRAP Rating: 10 out of 10

1. Kawhi Leonard (15)**
2. Kyrie Irving (1)**
3. Klay Thompson (11)**
4. Chandler Parsons (38)*
5. Kenneth Faried (22)*
6. Nikola Vucevic (16)
7. Jonas Valanciunas (5)
8. Kemba Walker (9)
9. Isaiah Thomas (60)
10. Markieff Morris (13)
11. Jimmy Butler (30)
12. Reggie Jackson (24)

Lottery Whiffs: Derrick Williams (2), Jan Vesely (6), Bismack Biyombo (7), Jimmer Fredette (10)

Lottery Rotation Guys: Enes Kanter (3), Tristan Thompson (4), Brandon Knight (8), Alec Burks (12), Marcus Morris (14)

Rotation Guys: Iman Shumpert (17), Tobias Harris (19), Nikola Mirotic (23), Norris Cole (28), Kyle Singler (33)

Breakdown: Be honest — if you’re trying to win les for the next 12 years and your life depended on it, you’d really roll the dice with Kyrie over Kawhi? If that’s true, YOU ARE LYING TO YOURSELF. Let’s see Kyrie win 35 games in a season before we take him over the 2014 Finals MVP. Cool? Cool. But look at those top-12 guys — we struck gold with 15-1-11-38-22 and came through with 22-16-5-9-60-13-30-24 while totally whiffing on 2-6-7-10 and missing out on a definite keeper with nine of the 14 lottery picks. Three additional quick thoughts …

• I spent far more time deliberating over Klay vs. Kawhi than I expected. Then I remembered that Kawhi stared down LeBron for three straight Finals games. The Kingslayer!

• Since I’m the last person on the planet not named Fredette who believes Jimmer will have an important NBA moment, I begrudgingly threw him into the “Lottery Whiffs” pile. It genuinely hurts. I can’t lie.

• Those back-to-back Vesely-Biyombo picks are funny right now and will remain funny 50 years from now. I can already see myself cackling about them during an OculusVR9.0 virtual canasta game in my assisted living home in 2064.

[Arcadian]

What if I told you this wasn’t an aberration? What if I told you that, other than the no. 1 overall spot, your draft position matters less than we thought? What if I told you that tanking was overrated, and thatPhilly’s 2014 tanknado masterpiece might have been a waste of time?

I've been saying it all year...the chances of getting a franchise player in the draft are always bad. Tanking is a fruitless endeavor most of the time.

I mean, just look at the Lakers. All that tanking for a 7th pick. And even if they had received the 1st pick, they would've ed it up.

[stnick2261]

It's funny how something like the draft is put in place to increase compe ion... by making bad teams get good players... and they still mess it up