The NBA draft is dumb
I know most of us don't need more evidence that the NBA draft is one of the most baffling things in professional sports (potential! length! wingspan!)....but here's some more. The Ringer posted their Top-30 big board recently (LINK) and I went to see if there was even a slim chance one of Michigan's departing starters would sneak into that list. (Hey - it could happen! Sometimes the Ringer is more progressive than ESPN or other sites!)
I wasn't surprised to see that they didn't make the cut. What I was surprised by were the names of players in the top 20 and the comments associated with them. Here are some fun ones:
#15 - Romeo Langford
A favorite whipping boy around here for obvious reasons, he's at #15. His comment is "...must refine his decision-making and jumper for his ... talents to translate in the NBA" Always want to spend a top-15 pick on a guy who might make an impact if he fixes that pesky jump shot and decision making.
#11 - Nassir Little
This is a guy who didn't even crack double digit points per game in college, but is somehow #11 on the list. The comment they make for him is "...hasn't shown much in college, but was a late bloomer in high school and history could repeat itself." Okay....that's a great business plan. Draft the guy who couldn't score in college and hope he's a late bloomer.
#7 - Cam Reddish
Another guy ranked purely on how he looks getting off the bus. Gotta love a top 7 guy that they say "....his production leaves much to be desired."
#13 - Jaxson Hayes
I will admit that I've never heard of this guy and I'd like to think as an avid college fan I would know at least most of the top 15 guys. This gem of a prospect, who scored all of 10.0ppg this year, gets this comment: "...experience playing wide receiver in high school has given him the ideal tools for a rim-running big." What does that even mean!?!?
#22 - Kevin Porter Jr.
His comments are positive, starting with "Strong, stylish scorer...." and yet I'm left to wonder how a strong and stylish scorer averaged only 9.5ppg for a crappy USC team.
And my favorite one of all....ranked far higher than any of the Michigan guys or of college superstar Cassius Winston:
#18 - Jontay Porter
Who is he? Well, you might not know him and he has no stats because he didn't play this year. Why you ask? Here's what the Ringer says: "...has torn his right ACL twice in six months." That's right, they predict that the 18th best prospect for the NBA is a guy who's main selling point is his play-making but has torn the same ACL twice in just six months.
Zach Levine didn't crack double digits per game at UCLA and averaged 23.7 last year for the Bulls at age 23. Potential was seen by Flip Saunders.
This.
The NBA is not a league with a huge talent pool, so teams often find it more beneficial to take risks on guys who already display physical traits needed to be successful in the league and have a high ceiling over guys who are pretty much "what you see is what you get" because the risk is worth the reward.
You're probably not going to win in the NBA with a "system" because of the talent gap, so it's often better to swing on projects rather than languish in mediocrity by continuing to draft player after play who might top out as a decent role player because they'll never be fast, quick, or strong enough to be something greater.
What do you mean by "the NBA is not a league with a huge talent pool"?
The draft is two rounds, and a lot of those selected never even see the floor or meaningful playing time.
Compare this to the NFL, MLB, and NHL with several rounds where you can feasibly find a contributor in each one, some with more development than others.
In the NBA, the vast majority of second round picks will never develop into NBA-caliber players or play a meaningful minute. The gap from top to bottom is VAST and the pool of available talent is much smaller than other leagues.
The NBA has the best talent of any league, though. The talent pool is there, but it's just an incredibly elite league to make, and some guys are naturally better than the rest.
The NBA gets the best of the best athletes. I mean Antonio Gates and Cris Carter are all time great NFL players, and they would have rather played in the NBA if they could make it.
This seems like his point. It seems to me, as a third-party observer, that you're both saying the same thing using different words.
Eh, sort of, but not quite.
The NBA has the most talented pool. The NBA has an extremely large talent pool, but an extremely limited number of spots. Naturally there will be really good players and bad players, but that's all relative.
There's a difference between a small talent pool and a limited number of spots.
He's not wrong. We are making the same point with different nuances.
NBA athletes *are* elite, but the drop-off from star to role player to bench is stark at each level. You can't just plug in guys that fit like in the NFL, MLB, or NHL because the talent pool ISN'T large. If you expand that out to everyone who wants to play, sure, then the talent pool is large, but you're talking about 90% "talent" that isn't even 'replacement player's level talent in said league.
However, if you want to win you need those elite guys, and as you pointed out, there a very few of them. The available pool of talent that will regularly win you basketball games is relatively small because of said constraints, hence why teams go after guys who have a ceiling that could reasonably hit or come close to that status.
Here is a link that shows historically expected value of each pick in the NBA draft that briefly begins to show how quickly talent drops off in the NBA. Before you even get out of the first round, career expected value of a pick has dropped to "deep bench," meaning that player is expected to rarely play minutes... as his career ceiling.
Compare this to the NFL where teams are still grabbing quality contributors in the third, fourth, and sometimes even fifth rounds. The NBA doesn't even make it out of the first before you're taking a "maybe!" pick because that's all that is left. You kinda have to swing for the fences unless you want to grind your way to mediocrity, which is basically a death sentence in the NBA.
Couldn't you maybe argue then, on the flip side, that the NBA talent pool is so deep that even some star college players are not good enough/quick enough/strong enough/etc. to compete on a nightly basis?
April 19th, 2019 at 12:46 AM ^
Yes, this is the correct argument. The NFL doesn't have a "deeper" talent pool, i.e. contributors taken in the third, fourth rounds because there are somehow more good football players than basketball players. It's because there are MANY more roster spots and higher turnover because of injuries in football (good players can't play as long as a starter quality NBA player). So there are a lot more spots to fill each year.
Given the global nature of basketball, one could reasonably argue that the talent pool is much larger for basketball even on an absolute basis. Only people in the US (basically) play football. People all over the world are increasingly playing basketball.
The reason guys going in the middle of the first round of the NBA are question marks is because there are so few spots available and it is such a difficult league to make.
The NBA has the best talent of any league, though. The talent pool is there, but it's just an incredibly elite league to make, and some guys are naturally better than the rest.
The NBA gets the best of the best athletes. I mean Antonio Gates and Cris Carter are all time great NFL players, and they would have rather played in the NBA if they could make it.
I mean, you're right, but not in the way you think.
The talent pool the NBA has to draw from is colossal. The issue is not "talent pool", by which most people understand the list of players you might choose from. The issue is that the players-to-playing-time ratio is huge - a very few players can play most of the playing time. So the team that can assemble the very best players can dominate, and do so for years. The reason second-round picks don't usually develop long playing careers is because they're blocked from above, not because they come from a shallow talent pool.
Yes, I know that. I was just disagreeing with the "small talent pool" notion.
For example, USA swimming only has 24 guys qualify for the Olympics. A very select few spots. These are the top 24 swimmers in the entire USA. But are these truly the top 24 most talented swimmers in the USA? Not as many kids go into swimming as other sports, especially basketball.
I'd venture to guess that a lot of NBA players would be would have been world class swimmers had they swam instead of played basketball. For example, Kris Humphries was a national age group record holder and was Michael Phelps chief rival growing up. Tim Duncan had Olympic swimming potential as a teenager in the Virgin Islands, but the only Olympic pool was destroyed in a hurricane and he switched to basketball.
The talent pool in swimming is relatively small, but basketball has the top overall athletic talent to choose from. What you're seeing in the NBA is as good as it can possibly be in regards to talent/potential. Naturally, some people will be better and take most of the minutes, but that's not because there's a small talent pool, there's just a select few that are much better than the other extremely talented guys.
Isn't that basically ALL the NBA is?
The NBA is not a league with a huge talent pool
In comparison to...?
By definition there are going to be good, average and bad players in the NBA, like in any sports league.
NBA rosters are 15 men plus 2 in the G-league. Most often, that's 8-10 rotation players and some projects or "bust glass in case of emergency" types. There's not a lot of room to hold on to role players unless they are coming into a specific role to round out an almost finished team.
In comparison to other leagues...
NFL: 53 active roster players + 10 man practice squad. Draft is 7 rounds plus a bunch of guys get brought into camp for depth or as flyers
NHL: 18 skaters + 2 goalies dressed, 23 man roster total. Add to that 2 layers of minors (AHL and ECHL). 7 rounds of the draft for *rights* to players who can continue in minors (OHL/QMJHL/WHL), overseas, or college hockey. Very easy to draft guys and watch them grow into what you want
MLB: 25 man active roster (expanding to 26 next year) plus multiple layers of minor leagues (AAA, AA, high A, low A, short season, rookie, independent). Draft can last up to 40 rounds as long as teams want to continue to pick
Well sure, there are fewer players on a basketball team, but phrasing it in terms of the "talent pool" is odd.
Exactly. The best athletes want to be in the NBA. I guarantee you that all of those elite athletic WR's in the NFL would rather be in the NBA if you told them they would be equally good in the NBA.
The talent pool is there. It's just an extremely elite club to make it in
The talent pool is there. It's just an extremely elite club to make it in
This is exactly my point. You can't just grab guys outside of that elite group and expect to win. Hence, the actual talent pool is small. A very small percentage of players make it four years in the NBA and an even smaller percentage ever average a decent amount of minutes. Just because there are a lot of athletes that want to play does not mean the acceptable talent pool is large. It isn't. ...unless you're OK with having a team full of guys that will not win you basketball all games. That would be like assuming the available pool of talented data scientists (one of the most in-demand careers right now) is huge because, "look at how many kids have taken a math class at one point in their life and would like to make six figures at entry level!" Sure, there are people who have taken a math class, but how many of them could realistically be a *good* data scientist relative to demand? Very, very few. Hence the demand.
Well, that's just a horrible comparison.
What if every person on Earth that was amazing at math wanted to be a data scientist? You're going to get all the best talent in the world to be data scientists, but there will still be people like Carl Gauss, Newton, Euclid, etc that are that much more advanced than the other extremely talented people.
That's what the NBA is. The absolute best athletic talent on earth wants to be in the NBA over other leagues. But there still are going to be a couple guys that are that much better than the other out-of-world talented people.
It's really not that different than other sports where some guys at certain positions are vastly better than their contemporaries. The only difference is that, in the NBA, there's no question that those are the absolute best guys on earth that could be playing.
April 19th, 2019 at 11:27 AM ^
What about that Michael Jordan guy? Pretty good athlete and wanted to be a baseball player
But what about Adam Levine? He has potential.
He really got “CALIFORNIA” tattooed on him?
No, that one is not real. Little known fact. Adam Lavine likes to have the name of whatever state or country he happens to be performing in tattooed on his tummy. For example, when he played in Detroit last summer, his belly tat said MICHIGAN, but in Old English letters, like the Tigers Logo. It's kind of his way of saying, [city name] rocks, but with tattoo's instead of words.
The NFL is just as dumb.
I have no idea how people are so entertained by the NFL draft. NFL draft discussion is the best way to get me to change the channel, immediately.
I absolutely get sucked into the NFL draft and draft discussions every year, despite knowing that most of the pundits are going to be wrong about who teams pick. Wish I could explain it.
It is not only that the pundits are wrong about who is going to select what players, it is that talent evaluators and scouts have tried to convince everybody that talent evaluation is like this quasi-science that only really advanced minds can understand and they are wrong like 2/3 of the time. There is so much discussion of these really obscure combine requirements and "reps at 225" and "so-and-so did this with a medicine ball" and weird interview questions and "exams." And then 7 times out of 10 the player who performs better is...... the player who performed better playing the exact same sport in college!
Yessir!!! The NFL Draft is the most over-covered, guesswork laden thing in existence. Mock drafts? For why?
And so is this board. Most of people around here only refer to star rating to see how good of a recruit we have. Most of those ratings are based on potential and not necessarily how much they produced in high school.
EVERYBODY gauges their interest based on potential. Not sure why anyone is surprised by this.
Nearly all of these players have successful analogs currently playing in the NBA. NBA scouts know who's a good pro prospect and who isn't. Their production up to this point in their careers is far from the most important thing.
"....his production leaves much to be desired."
This could have been written about Gary in the NFL draft, and he will probably go top 15.
Could have been? It’s all that has been written about Gary. Some mock drafts don’t even have him in the first round. Of course he will be a round 1 selection because of potential. That’s why these underachieving nba guys will go 1st round.
I'll get negged to Bolivian for this but I think Gary will be average at best in the NFL.
College basketball and the NBA are on two different planets when it comes to the athleticism, speed, and size of the players you are going up against. There are plenty examples of great college players bombing out of the NBA because of that difference. Thus most NBA execs look for those check marks in first round picks.
Additionally, after the first few picks in the draft, each pick is really a just lottery ticket. You can look at the expected return on investment for players drafted at each slot, and it falls off a cliff quite quickly. Thus, teams are going to target players with the highest potential available, and it just so happens that the players with the highest potential are those with the size and speed required to excel in the NBA.
Finally, a lot of the players you mentioned are freshman. They have a lot of growth in their game and are exciting prospects. I don't think anyone would be shocked if Nassir Little or Romeo Langford was averaging 20+ points as an upperclassmen in college. That is something you have to weigh when you draft these players. You aren't drafting what they are now, but where they could be in a few years. We see the same thing with football recruiting prospects that have it all but are a few years from putting it together. You don't just recruit players that are the best football players at that moment, but have the potential to be the best players after elite coaching and weight training.
This is where the NFL has a major benefit with their 3-year rule. NFL teams know exactly what they are drafting because everyone has had to show a minimum of three years worth of capability. Drafting a RS Senior isn't much different than drafting a true Junior (2 years) because each has shown what they can do and the upside/downside isn't significantly different. Even if a guy is playing at a Group of Five or lower school, there is usually some game footage of how he fared against at least one good opponent or player.
The NBA has to sort between a range of prospects who are between 18-22 years old. Some have played multiple years against good competition and some just one. And they have played in such varying competition levels from international leagues, to mid-major college programs to power 5 programs.
Hi. I am entertained by the NBA and NBA-related discussion.
It's not simply a matter of college production. The primary thing is what skills and attribute a player has that can (potentially) translate. For example, despite the checkered injury history, Porter pretty much has all the skills and tools to be a modern NBA big in terms of his ability to play inside and out and work the pick and roll. A guy like Winston might be a college star, but he's going to struggle to get to his spots and score over bigger, more athletic players at the pro level, and he's already a poor defender at the college level. I've said it before, but people grossly underestimate the differences in talent, skill, and athleticism between college and the NBA.
Potential potential potential.
This gem of a prospect, who scored all of 10.0ppg this year,
averaged only 9.5ppg for a crappy USC team
The draft isn't a reward for a good college career.
Just because you think something is dumb and want to take comments out of context because you don't know how the NBA evaluates talent isnt a good excuse to make all of our Thursdays just a smidgen bit crappier.
Success in the NBA is extremely dependent on a team’s top 2-3 players. Thus, guys who have the physical traits to potentially become all star level players are worth the risk of a high draft pick over a proven player with a much lower ceiling.
Also, remember that in today’s environment they are drafting 19 year old kids. Cam Reddish played one season on a team with two players likely to go in the top five, it’s hard to judge him too critically for not putting up major production in that situation - it wasn’t his role. If these guys were mostly college juniors and seniors then your argument would carry more weight.
If you want your team to trot out a lineup of all average-ish starters and no star players, well don’t also complain about getting swept in the first round of the playoffs every year.
Giannis averaged under 10 points a game in the Greek second division the year before he was drafted. Now he's arguably the best player in the league. There's a ton of looking at/guessing at the ceiling for these guys once you get past the obvious top few picks in each draft.
This post is pretty dumb.
There are many, many, many, many examples of highly productive college players that couldn't hack it in the NBA. If players don't have NBA length and athleticism, they're going to have a very difficult time doing what they did in college against guys that do have NBA length and athleticism.
Skills and decision-making can be taught and acquired. NBA length and athleticism can't. It is a more scarce commodity.
So outside of a handful of sure bets that have both, you take the guys with NBA length and athleticism, especially if they're young and have a lot of time to learn, and you go about trying to teach them the skills and decision-making to be NBA players.
Posts like this are dumb. Random internet guy knows better than everyone involved in a multi-billion dollar business. Your post reads like "NBA draft is dumb, because obviously. Also I read one article and I don't like that article. In conclusion the NBA draft is dumb, obviously." Go find out if drafting based on potential works for NBA teams or if they should value college production.
College and NBA are very different. There is a long history of good college players sucking in the NBA and athletic, unrefined college players excelling in the NBA. Of course you want every player to be like Zion (high upside and success in college) but that's just not common. It takes time to develop and refine their skills. Being too small, too slow, or unathletic is something that will not get fixed over time.
An NBA team only plays about 8 guys. Any given year they only want 1 player from the draft. Getting an ok guy isn't useful so they are incentivized to gamble and hit a home run with an extremely athletic, unrefined player.
This is mgoblog home of horrible just utterly stupid NBA takes.
You kind of answered your own question in your post. NBA emphasizes so much of drafting players based on their potential. Its a big part of why DJ Wilson got drafted as high as he did. Not the greatest numbers, but he had all the physical attributes you'd look for in a first round pick.
Personally, I just can't wait to hear that the Knicks somehow didn't end up with the #1 overall pick and they continue to sputter in mediocrity every year. Everyone thinks its a foregone conclusion that they get the #1 pick and Zion. They are the most likely, but their chances are at 14%, and then I think Phoenix, Chicago and Atlanta are all hovering around 10-14% as well. So its almost the same possibility as NY.
Caris Levert and Nik Stauskas are good examples. Same class. Same team. Nik was wayyyy ahead of Levert in terms of skills when they were in college. Nik started his freshman year, Caris barely played. Nik was the alpha dog guy Michigan went to in the clutch.
But Caris had better length and athleticism. Once his skills caught up, he's now a much better NBA player. That's why those attributes matter more at a young age. Those can't be taught or acquired, skills can be.
April 18th, 2019 at 10:41 PM ^
Stop making sense and bringing facts into this NBA discussion...and don't EVER make it relevant by providing real Michigan examples.
People who come on MGoBlog and bitch about the NBA are the WORST. I'd rather talk politics or the best place to watch Michigan Squash in Bulgaria.