Analytics, Models and the NBA Draft

by: DraftExpress
May 27, 2015
By: Daniel Frank

Every year, members of the APBR metrics bulletin board come together and share their rankings for the ensuing NBA draft. As the online home of the NBA analytics community, featuring NBA team executives, leading basketball journalists and of course, a gifted and passionate fan base, the draft rankings are a little different than a typical mock draft. Due to the increased popularity and ubiquity around the league of basketball analytics, the APBRmetrics community wanted to share their rankings with the passionate fans and followers of DraftExpress.

Before you read this, please look at any previous year's mock draft. Note how many lottery picks quickly left the league and how many later picks became stars. Every year following the NBA draft, analysts will tell you that the teams that “won” the draft are those that drafted players who slid from their projected location in mock drafts, while the teams that lost are those who drafted players above their projected location. Despite the increase in information available for NBA prospects, mock drafts have become less prescient. In today's landscape where analytics play such a large role in determining where and when a player is drafted, traditional mock drafts are left in a state of turmoil.

Despite the amazing statistical tools available to evaluate the impact of NBA players, ranking college prospects is a much more complicated task. Not only must team style, strength of schedule and age be accounted for, a more important question must be asked; how will a player's game change when competing against bigger and faster opponents? Other important factors simply cannot be measured with stats: how much room does the player have to grow (physically and mentally)? What about their work ethic? Do they have a good head on their shoulders? Can they guard a position in the NBA? Additionally, teams need to prioritize if they want a player who excels in traditional basketball metrics, or has good “analytics”. Zach LaVine was selected to the Rising Stars challenge, won the 2015 Slam Dunk Championship and named to the NBA All-Rookie Second team. Most consider this to be a successful rookie season and a good draft selection by Minnesota. On the other hand, “analytics” rate LaVine's year as one of the worst in the entire NBA and a bad draft choice.

Keep in mind when looking at these models that they are not mock drafts. Use these rankings in supplement to all of the other information you know about a prospect. Further, due to the limited information available for international prospects, these models only provide rankings for NCAA players eligible for the NBA draft that are likely to be drafted.

From DraftExpress.com http://www.draftexpress.com/#ixzz3bSzpnHKs
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