mark kieffer wrote:
True, but you also had Mike Muscala as the #1 guy last year, and Erick Green #4.... And Cuban did draft Olynyk which according to your ratings you would like.
I am not trying to hate, because I haven't attempted to do the work you have done. And I think there is some value knowing which college players are good vs. not... But at the same time, you can't go down the line and just say that exactly the Top 60 are what teams should have on their board either.
I think that's what makes it hard for somebody to buy into... When exceptions have to be made. I agree your general trends look good, but you can pick out guys that were great college players that may not belong per se.
Are you assuming those guys (Muscala, Green) won't have NBA careers? We don't know that yet. They were upper classmen, that's definitely going against them, despite their really good college ratings. Look at my article in late January:
http://www.hoopsnerd.com/1_23_13_Draft_Projection.html Green (not sure why) and Muscala didn't (I think his poor showing in ONE NCAA tourney game killed him) - but every other very top rated Hoops Nerd guy moved up drastically (Burke projected #17 by Draft Express in January - goes 9, Porter projected #14 - goes 3, Olynik #24 goes 13, Caldwell-Pope projected 11 the following season - goes 8, Oladipo projected #25 - goes 2).
The other end of the spectrum is more telling - EVERY guy projected in January to be a first rounder (Shabazz was projected #1 overall mind you) who rated outside my top 105 at the end of the season dropped at least 13 spots or more from their projection or didn't declare because they were no longer projected to be first round. Len was the outlier - he ranked 105th nationally (very good for a soph btw - just not really lottery pick good).
BTW, Dallas drafted Olynyk and immediately traded him - to a team that now has supposedly a very analytics minded coach - that's not Cuban and Hoops Nerd agreeing on a pick.
All that said, I have a long way to go before I construct the model - but if I had a gig full time to do it, I'd have it done in probably less than a month. I'd also eventually incorporate every foreign league I could get the full player stats and ages from.
Anyway, I'm trying to show, in a very simplistic and general sense, the ratings correlate better to NBA future than I'd expect since it is purely a college performance ranking system. Did ANY of you hear about Caldwell-Pope of Geogia at any point all season? He was top 10 in my rankings pretty much all year, only a sophomore - and many were still somehow shocked when he declared for the draft. Well, after the scouts got to watch all the video on him - he was mid lottery.
But, the projection work I am putting together will be a SIGNIFICANT step up from the "hey, look where they ranked in college last season". Since my ratings can be broken down into statistical minutiae AFTER SoS/Pace/etc. adjustments - I can use the statistical footprint of the player w/ their age/class (VERY important) incorporated. I won't miss ANY small school guys since EVERYONE is rated - the ratings usually highlight the Curry's/Coles/Farieds/Haywards, etc - it finds the true talent. There will be also statistical minimum threshholds that portend high likeliehood of failure (like Shabazz Muhammad's very poor combination of handles/passing/defensive stops rating, or #4 pick Len's steal rating) to help narrow draft lists.
But, as it is, working full time, kids & their sports, wife, updating NBA ratings every day (current rankings at
www.hoopsnerd.com right now - still also needing to do all the historical NBA ratings), still needing to compile about 8 more past college seasons of player stats (to have 15 seasons of data) - the projections I so badly want to do are still back burnered.