Lillard is not the 6th best pick in this draft...I just do not believe that at all...I think POR is reaching if they take him there...
Not a problem. Putting this program together was quite a learning process on my part. I often hear people compare player A to player B, but wonder what their basis is. Most often its a physical resemblance, with some vague stats resemblance. One guy I was high on before this process was Kendall Marshall. He ended up at 21 as a low end starter. Not bad. Just meh. With two second round picks, I would love to see Portland take a guy like Jae Crowder (Big East Player of the Year), Will Barton (Conference USA Player of the year), Quincy Miller (Big 12 Freshman of the year), Henry Sims, or Marcus Denmon. I think they all have "flaws", but they also bring a lot to the table. We'll see...
If you as the GM want him, need what he provides, and you don't take him at 6, you better know he'll be available at 11. Only then is he not worth spending your 6 on.
I have been slowly movin toward the Lillard bandwagon but I have to ask myself is if one of the reasons he looks so good is that there is simply no other PG is this crappy PG draft who is even close to him? Is he that good? or just the shinniest penny in a dull pond?
and if he is a bust? Or the next in a long line of 6'2 SG in a PG body? You just wasted a hight lottery pick b\c you reached for a need... well done....not...
Or you thought he was BPA. What if someone YOU think is BPA is a bust. Good job. You wasted a lotto pick.
It's interesting and POR is a team whose mgmt and fans are DESPERATE for a good PG after the drought we have had! The one saving grace IMO is tat our new GM does not bring that baggage with him and hopefully will be very objective the the selection process and not be swayed by our "PG baggage"
Nah. This game wouldn't be fun without all of the hope and emotions. Nobody really knows what they're talking about. It's just educated guesses. Here are some of the "expert" picks in years past - 2009 #2 Hasheem Thabeet; 2008 #8 Joe Alexander; 2006 #3 Adam Morrison; 2004 #8 Rafael Araújo; 2004 #10 Luke Jackson. And these GMs were suppose to 'know what the hell they were doing.'
I wouldn't draft Lillard at #6 because of need. If Anthony Davis, Bradley Beal, Thomas Robinson, and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist are all off the board, I think Lillard is the BPA. If any of those other individuals are there at #6, I'd go for them.
Not trying to shoot the messenger, but the one thing that jumps out at me is how flat out awful the highest ranked players have collectively performed at the NBA level. Here's the highest ranked players for each of the eight years presented: 2008 - Michael Beasley 2007 - Greg Oden 2006 - Adam Morrison 2005 - Sean May 2004 - Devin Harris 2003 - Michael Sweetney 2002 - Chris Borchardt 2001 - Shane Battier These guys are all listed as future all star+ or all star, but of the eight, there is only a single all star game appearance (Devin Harris) and several guys that just flat out sucked (Sweetney, Morrison, Borchardt, etc.). Adam Morrison's ranking of 116.9 is WAY off the charts, nobody else even comes close. But, we all know how well A_am fared in the NBA. As I study the past results, the only conclusion I can safely draw is that no matter how you slice and dice the numbers, the draft is still a crap shoot. Back to that class of 2006, the top three ranked players are Morrison, Tyrus Thomas and Shelden Williams. I'm not sure what system KP and company was using, but I'm sure glad they used it and not yours. Anyway, interesting analysis and very nicely presented. I'm not sure if it changes the way I feel about who we should take with our two lottery picks, but it's certainly more food for thought. BNM
Agreed. Those guys stats were off the charts. That's why I think you definitely need to take the 'intangibles' into account. It's easy in hind sight to recognize that they would have been bad picks. The challenge is doing it before the draft. Obviously the GMs have a similar problem, because on average, this program picked more talent overall. Why did the GMs miss Millsap, Rondo, Granger, and David Lee? The challenge is to look at these results, and weed out the 'obvious' future busts. If it were easy, the Blazers would have Chris Paul right now.
I guess my answer will be, I don't really care? I mean if some other team reaches for him and lets a better player slip to POR at #11, then good.... I am not even convinced that he is the best PG in this draft, I think Teague may end up being the best PG to come out of this draft in a few years time.... But, overall I think this draft is really weak in terms of PG prospects....Which is inflating him, that and POR fans (let's hope not mgmt) desire to find a PG....
Well put Blaze, reminds me of the time i spent in Alaska, the pretty girl was the one with teeth. I dont like any of the guards as a lottery pick. short, cant shoot, cant pass, cant cereate their own shot, tweener, etc. Lillard underwelms me beyond belief.
I'm curious if you tried combining this with a more easily quantifiable metric from the players' careers. Throwing out a random example, why not use a player's median career PER? Or to get a better idea how they performed at the peak of their career, a player's 2 standard deviation PER? You could still combine this with your player rankings since PER obviously isn't perfect. This would give you a combination of subjective and quantitative ratings and you can play with the weightings of each to see if your model gets better. Interesting project. Nice job!
Very good suggestion. Phase 2! To be honest, when I started this, I didn't expect it to make it this far. My first challenge was to design a system that could select "similar" players. I learned that sounds easier than it is, looking at just stats. Once I got that down pretty smooth, I then moved into determining how to average out those selected players to get a 'prediction'. Rather than getting too deep into that side, I started with the simple 0-100.
There certainly aren't any good classic point guards in this draft. People point to Kendall Marshall, but he has his flaws. Lots of scoring/combo guards. I think Damian Lillard certainly has risk, especially coming from a small school. But I am intrigued on his upside. I'm curious how Dion Waiters game will translate to the NBA. Marcus Denmon from Missouri also had a very successful college career. Each year there seem to be a guard that slips late in the draft that we look back and wonder how we missed him. No matter the position though, I say take the best player available. Although BPA is certainly a subjective measurement.
