Year Player 2011 Marcus Morris 2010 Patrick Patterson 2009 Earl Clark 2008 Anthony Randolph 2007 Al Thornton 2006 Ronnie Brewer 2005 Rashad McCants 2004 Kris Humphries 2003 Luke Ridnour 2002 Frederick Jones 2001 Troy Murphy 2000 Mateen Cleaves 1999 William Avery 1998 Michael Dickerson 1997 Maurice Taylor 1996 Predrag Stojakovic 1995 Eric Williams 1994 Yinka Dare 1993 Scott Haskin 1992 Malik Sealy 1991 Rich King 1990 Travis Mays And some analysis from an (old) 2006 article: http://www.82games.com/nbadraft2.htm - Top 5 picks should be coveted. The results are significant that the top 5 picks in the draft produce starters or better 80% of the time. - Overwhelmingly, the most likely player a team is going to end up with from the lottery is a solid starter (44%). The next most likely is a bench player (25%). - Fans expecting a superstar should ice their expectations, especially if your pick is out of the top 5. Of the 180 picks from 6 – 14, only 7 turned into superstars (4%). - On the other side, 77 players selected from 6 – 14 turned into bench players or busts (43%). Clyde Drexler was a 14th pick way back. Maybe we can hope for that.
I tried so hard to look at that list and think of a good joke, but I then realized... The list is the joke.
It would be really damn long, but it should actually be a list of all players picked 14th or later to show all possible selections. Just listing the 14th picks themselves is basically superstition. Here's a guy who immediately jumps to mind: Rajon Rondo, 21st overall pick.
Here are a few more notables from today's PER leaderboards: Manu Ginobili - 57th overall Al Jefferson - 15th overall Tony Parker - 28th overall Paul Millsap - 47th overall It seems like international players may have a better chance of becoming star players after being drafted late. Maybe this bodes well for Donatas Motiejunas.
This is what I said was smart drafting in another thread. Rondo was a UK product (hooray!) but his game was terribly suited for the offense we ran at the time. Anyone who watched more then a little bit of his game film could tell you he was going to be above average (nobody projected a star) if given a wide floor and an ability to work his magic. The Tubby ball we ran at the time was Big 10 basketball. Slow, stupid half court sets that allows the defense to get set. Guess the Suns didn't watch enough film.
Anytime I see or am reminded of Yinka Dare is a good day. I remember back in the me and my buddy would do nothing but laugh at this guy. For some reason the fact that he had no assists his rookie year was the funniest thing to us back then.
Cherry picking players from near random draft years to illustrate "there is a chance" does not differ much from what you are criticizing. As demonstrated in the 82games article, a better approach is to examine the percentage chance of drafting a certain level of player within a pick range. While the article only goes to #14, the analysis could continue through to the end of the draft. We will likely find the same point of the article: yes, there is a chance at 14+ to draft a star, but the odds suck in comparison to the first 5 picks. I beleive in the value of smart drafting, but I think a smart drafter has even better odds of hitting the jackpot when they have more players to choose from. In short: while there is a chance at 14, there is a better chance in the top 5.
Actually we can continue to draft role player after role player until we have 5 role players that are close to an allstar, and we can trade them to get one or two stars..... and then again trade those for a superstar.....
I'm not really concerned with who has been the 14th pick, but rather, who has been taken with the 14th pick and later.
