Why do people forget that the draft is always wrong? Every year we think "the draft evaluators know who are the best players and now we won't get one of them!!!" How often are the first 4 picks in order the best four players in the draft? Exactly never. If we hadn't got the #1 pick and basically had to pick Oden we would've been in position to pick Joakim Noah and the Blazers would have been much better off.
That's why I said "Actually the first 4 players MIGHT be pretty good". Draft is usually a crap shoot. On the other hand everyone was pretty much saying Wemby was going to be very good and he is. If you remember back when Ayton was being drafted he was pretty well sought after. Zion brought a consensus number one pick as I remember.
Obviously if you look at just a few examples there's a ton of statistical noise, top players picked high worth much less and other lower picked players worth much more. But if you look at many, many picks then it becomes crystal clear that a higher draft position is a massive predictor of the player being worth more. https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/651330
I don't understand that chart at all. All I know is that there is a certain type of player that teams feel they have to take with a high pick and it's a high risk player. Meanwhile "boring" but great players like Draymond Green and Jalen Brunson slip in the draft because they (supposedly) haven't got "upside".
So teams are making dumb decisions but you know how to easily do a better job drafting? I think its just that the best player to draft is very hard to exactly predict - so there is a lot of variance in the player worth vs draft position. But its very clear NBA teams do make a lot of good judgements on whom to draft - otherwise the observed value of players would be much more random with less correlation to draft position throughout the draft.
2 of the best bigs in the playoffs, Jokic and Giannis, were not taken with top draft picks. There are gems outside of the top picks in every draft, you just have to dig for them.
This place would come unhinged If Cronin took a player that had this kind of report out. "Jokic's upside isn't too spectacular because he's a below-average athlete," "The big downside, though, is his athleticism. He doesn't get much lift off the floor at all, and he doesn't have the speed burst to drive past opponents or stay in front of them laterally." "It's going to give him major problems on defense and limit him to being a role player on offense." "As a second-tier prospect, he may not be expected to produce much, but you can't underestimate a player with good instincts and intelligence." "Jokic had shown some glimpses of outside shooting during his Adriatic League season, but he shot just 22 percent from behind the international line in 2013-14." "Jokic's weaknesses revolve around his bottom-tier athleticism. While he moves his feet pretty well from point A to point B, he lacks the quickness and vertical agility that the rest of the league owns." "These deficiencies will be most glaring on the defensive side, where he'll struggle to keep up with NBA-caliber speed. Whether he's guarding power forwards or centers, he'll have trouble staying in front of them or consistently protecting the rim. He also won't be as effective on the boards as he is in the Adriatic League." Ha Dude just put up 27-20-10 triple double against Anthony Davis and Lebron James. "The slow-footed tendencies will also hurt his chances to create offense. Even on closeout drives, his slashing will get corralled pretty easily by help defenders, and he won't be able to elevate over upper-echelon defenders." "In addition, he should speed up his shooting delivery in order to maximize his spot-up chances." "A high IQ and great length might be enough to earn Jokic some minutes early in his career, but he won't provide enough defense or scoring firepower to gain a substantial role." This one is hilarious!!! "he could be a poor-man's Diaw and a long-range threat like Antic. Jokic would probably be the fourth or fifth scoring option when he's in the game" "Unfortunately, his defense will likely prevent him from ever playing 30-plus minutes or starting. However, there's no shame in being a respectable reserve on a winning team in the future."
I'm not sure what you're saying here. For years, GMs and fans were high on short, strong power forwards because of Charles Barkley. Very few of these guys were even decent nba players. Giannis's brother is almost identical to him, but he's widely considered the worst player in the nba. Jokic-type players tend to be terrible. What I'm trying to say is that you can't predict corner cases like Barkley, Giannis, and Jokic. Chasing them is a really bad idea. However, giving up too early on your 2nd rounders is probably also a bad idea.
You're not giving yourself enough credit. The chart is saying that when you are selected earlier (with the first pick all the way to the left and the last pick being all the way to the right), players tend to be better (with the first overall pick being the most valuable and set at 100% and each of the other picks being worth less than that with an overall downward trend although some spots have turned out better than ones before them). If you look at any given couple of players, you can come to the conclusion that draft spot doesn't matter (LaRue Martin at #1 was wayyyyy less valuable than thousands of guys picked at a lower spot in their drafts) but that is just the nature of variance. Anyone who is certain we will get a better player because we have a higher pick, or certain that a guy in the second round is going to be less valuable... that's just wrong. But as percentages go those are strong positions to take.
Meh? I doubt that. Now if they pick him and he becomes an MVP caliber player they will be excited yes.
