A Statistical look at the 2015 NBA Draft

I wanted to find a way to compare the different college players and predict their NBA success. For example, how do we compare a senior center from Duke, to a freshman guard from Weber state? How have players with similar stats fared in the NBA?

Here’s what I did:

I first take the basic stats (FGM, FGA, 3PM, 3PA, FTM, FTA, Ast, Dreb, Oreb, Blk, St, Fls, TO) and made a few adjustments:

- 40 minute game
- Team’s strength of schedule
- Team’s win/loss record
- Players class (FR, SO, JR, SR)
- Players age​

I then take the adjusted stats and place a weighting factor on them (similar to PERs), with some additional modifications:

- Scaled 0 – 100

* 60 is a solid starter
* 50 is the break between a starter (higher than 50) and bench (lower than 50).
* 40 is a solid bench player​

- Height of player taken into account

* A ‘big’ gets a premium for rebounds/blks.
* A ‘small’ gets a premium for assists/stls.
* A ‘wing’ gets a premium for scoring and a balance of reb/blks/ast/stls.​

- All ‘negative’ stats aren’t graded equal

* Hustle factor: A player doesn’t get graded down as much for fouls if they get a lot of rebounds, blocks or steels.
* Ball handling: A player doesn’t get graded down as much for turnovers if they get a lot of assists.
* Knowing your role: A missed two pointer or three pointer isn’t as bad for a player that typically makes them (I’d rather have my best 3 point shooter miss a 3 pointer than someone who doesn’t typically take or make them.)​

- Ball-hog factor. A player that has a very low points-to-assist ratio is graded negatively for not sharing the ball.​

I then take the adjusted stats and compare them against a database of over 1,100 college players that either played in the NBA, or were drafted. I adjust the players rating up or down depending upon the average success of players that had similar adjusted statistics.

I call the final rating the BdB Score. BdB is short for a few things – First off, it’s my initials. It also stands for “Basketball database”.

I’ve put my results and notes here: http://www.nbadraft.net/nba_mock_drafts/comments/29791

This is not a mock draft, but rather a listing of the results of the BdB scores. It only includes those players that have college stats from the previous season. No foreign players are ranked.

Here are the top 15:

1. Karl-Anthony Towns, 72.6
2. Jahlil Okafor, 66.4
3. D’Angelo Russell, 63.6
4. Cameron Payne, 60.9
5. Frank Kaminsky, 59.7
6. Justise Winslow, 58.8
7. Tyus Jones, 58.1
8. Stanley Johnson, 57.5
9. Kelly Oubre, 57.4
10. Delon Wright, 56.8
11. Bobby Portis, 55.0
12. Cliff Alexander, 54.6
13. Jerian Grant, 52.9
14. Devin Booker, 49.0
15. Sam Dekker, 46.1​

Some others of note:

21. Trey Lyles, 44.2
24. Myles Turner, 42.6
30. Robert Upshaw, 39.6
33. Willie Cauley-Stein, 38.2
34. Montrezl Harrell, 38.1
35. Justin Anderson, 37.9​

Cameron Payne, Tyus Jones and Delon Wright are rated higher than I expected. Cliff Alexander is the highest rated player that will probably be picked in the second round. I’m also surprised Miles Turner and Willie Cauley-Stein are rated so low. Only time will tell…

Of course no rating system or predictive measurement is able to capture all of the factors. Misses definitely happen. But it’s fun to give it a shot and see how it turns out in the long run. I’ve been tinkering with this over the past few years and tweaking it to line up with the drafts since 1997. Some of the highest BdB scores since 1997: Anthony Davis 85.5, Kyrie Erving 84.2, Elton Brand 81.9, Kevin Love 80.9, DeJuan Blair 80.7, Blake Griffin 79.3, Michael Beasley, 76.7, Kevin Durant 76.4 (Greg Oden 63.8), DeMarcus Cousins 76.4, Dwyane Wade 74.0, Paul Pierce 73.6, Vince Carter 72.5, and Stephen Curry 72.4.

If the Blazers stay at 23, I’m hoping they pick up Delon Wright if he’s available. I think a big guard like him would match up well with Lillard and McCollum. Bobby Portis would be a great pickup if he falls to 23. More than likely he’ll be gone by then though. Cliff Alexander would also be a good value pick if the Blazers could acquire a pick in the second round. If he can overcome some of his red flags he might develop into a nice player.

The draft is always a fun time of the year! Let me know your thoughts…

 

Interesting. Do you do anything to weight strength of schedule? Also, I don't quite understand this part - could you elaborate?

 

ALSO: did you do this last year? If so, what was your mock draft then?

 

Yes. SOS is taken into account. And team win/loss record.

 

Yes. I compare all of the drafts since 1997. Some turn out well, other not so well.

Last year is looking ugly. The 2014 top 11 were 1. Jordan Adams, 2. Doug McDermott, 3. Joel Embiid, 4. Marcus Smart, 5. Gary Harris, 6. Jabari Parker, 7. Nik Stauskas, 8. Kyle Anderson, 9. Spencer Dinwiddie, and 10. Elfrid Payton, 11. Andrew Wiggins.

2013 was a bit better: 1. Victor Oladipo, 2. Nerlens Noel, 3. Otto Porter, 4. Anthony Bennett, 5. Reggie Bullock, 6. Michael Carter-Williams, 7. Ben McLemore, 8. Trey Burke, 9. Kelly Olynyk, and 10. Nate Wolters.

 

The matching algorithm took quite a while to work out. Essentially it looks for the 10 most similar players and weights their NBA Success. For example, if the 10 most similar players all sucked in the NBA, it would weight the BdB score down quite a bit. If all of the 10 similar players were NBA all-stars, then it would pull up the Bdb score.

 

Ah. You're counting on Embiid and Parker to come back and bail you out there. But I like that it likes Dinwiddie - I like him too.

Otto Porter's looking a lot better after his playoffs than he did his rookie year. Good luck with Anthony Bennett, though. (Nate Wolters? It looks like your metric really likes tall PGs.)

 

For 2012: 1. Anthony Davis, 2. Dion Waiters, 3. Jae Crowder, 4. Draymond Green, 5. MKG, 6. Tony Wroten, 7. Will Barton, 8. Jared Sullinger, 9. Tyler Zeller, 10. Damian Lillard.

Yea, it picked up Michael Carter-Williams reasonably high. I wasn't a big fan of him going into that draft.

 

Good one with Draymond. And I'm sure Will the Thrill would agree with you.

Where is Tony Wroten these days? He passed through Philly recently, didn't he?

 

He averaged almost 17 ppg last year in 30 games with Philly. Not bad for a 25th pick.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/wroteto01.html.

 

Yeah, Draymond wasn't a bad choice at 35 in that draft. 11.7 points a game, 8.2 rebounds per game, 3.7 assists per game. His best stat this year is that they're still playing.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/greendr01.html

 

2011: 1. Kyrie Irving, 2. Derrick Williams, 3. Alec Burks, 4. Kawhi Leonard, 5. Markief Morris, 6. Jordan Hamilton, 7. Marcus Morris, 8. Nikola Vucevic, 9. Kemba Walker, 10. Klay Thompson

 

Jordan Hamilton lol what happened to him?

 

Really cool stuff here, nice job!

 

Thanks. I always find it interesting to see who that "sleeper" is late in the draft. Each year I add the newest players to the comparison database to make it a bit more refined.

 

Drafted #36 - He only averaged 5.5 points over 4 years. He was about as successful as Jimmer Fredette, drafted #10 that year. BTW, Jimmer Fredette was drafted one in front of Klay Thompson, and 5 in front of Kawhi Leonard. Ugh.

 

I have wanted Portland to draft Delon since the first time I watch him play his junior year. At first I thought he would be available, then I thought he would be already gone, then the mocks came out and he was listed at the end of the first round, now he seems to be moving up............Who knows where he will land but I agree, he would fit well with both Dame and/or CJ.

A tall, defensive minded PG is just what we need coming off the bench.

 

Whats yourthought of the overall depth of this draft? It looked like you had 13 with a score over 50 (solid starter) and 28 over 40 (solid role player). If you get 13 starters out of a draft, I would imagine that is an above average draft.

 

There was another guy with a college system who started a thread here 3 years ago and then disappeared. His biggest difference from mock drafts was that his system had Jae Crowder as a high choice. Crowder then got drafted #34, quite higher than the mocks had expected, and has succeeded.

You aren't that poster, are you? Can anyone find that thread?

 

I like Ryan Boatright and Aaron White, Also I think both of the Kentucky brothers should do well although I haven't seen them enough to even tell them apart. Dekker and Kaminsky both played very well in the tournament.
It's a great job you did with the numbers but I'd be interested about how many players you took into acount. I don't completely understand how to do the equation but I think a guy like Warren Gillis could do very well in your statistical system.