Players that come out of the draft late, does it affect their upside?

Simple answer: It depends. For a player like Chase Budinger, maybe it did have an effect on his upside. With his apparently mature and professional demeanor, maybe he could have came into the NBA a few years earlier and gaining more experience in a bigger role. But the opposite could also very well be true. Some young players don't have that same maturity and professionalism. A few years playing basketball in college helps to polish their game and help them develop the professionalism necessary to commit to playing in the NBA.

 

I don't think it matters, Tim Duncan played all 4 years and he was ok.

DD

 

Durant was the exception. Most of the guys that came out after their freshman year haven't done anything.

Here are the players from the last 5 years(Durant draft and later) that have been selected for the All-Star game.

Upper class men
Brandon Roy(Sr)
Al Horford(Jr)
Deron Williams(Jr)
Danny Granger(Sr)
David Lee(Sr)

Sophmore
Rondo(So)

Freshman
Durant
Rose

 

As far as maximizing where they got drafted, some guys should have left earlier (Patrick Patterson, Ed Davis, Ty Lawson, heck even freaking Josh McRoberts and Glen Davis had their draft stocks peak after freshman year before the college game exposed their weaknesses) and some left at the exact moment when their stocks would never have been higher (Blake Griffin (in a year when every other classmate in his high school class' top 12 left after their freshman year, fwiw I think he was rated in the teens), Evan Turner, Wes Johnson, Ekpe Udoh, Gerald Henderson) but the vast majority left too early (DeAndre Jordan, Hassan Whiteside, Bill Walker, Daniel Orton, and a slew of other names of undrafted players who I can no longer remember because they are no longer relevant).

 

By its very definition, "upside" is basically the untapped potential in the player. The less people know about you the higher your upside seems.

Kwame Brown is a good example of this. When he was drafted people thought his upside was through the roof which made him the number 1 pick. Of course had he gone to college first he would have been exposed. The same thing happened to C-bud, if he had declared in his highschool year he would have indeed been a lottery pick.