How many times have you heard someone call a player a bust? Darko Milicic, what a bust of a pick for Detroit! Ben Simmons is a bust! What defines a player as a bust, and why do I care?
I like to collect RCs for famous busts. Think Greg Oden, and all his wonderful RCs. They were so beloved in 2006 and now are considered trash by many. I, a kind soul, welcome them to my home where they will be cared for and loved.
Well...as long as they come cheap. My collection is only made up of card that I have rescued from dime and quarter boxes. Would I grab a Oden RC Auto from a dollar box? Probably, but that's pushing it.
Last month I did this same post, only for NFL busts. I evaluated them on position (QBs, RBs, and TEs rate higher), draft capital, and career value. The top 3 ended up being Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith and JaMarcus Russell. Now is the time to build the algorithm for the NBA.
I used basketball-reference.com for my numbers. I grabbed every 1st rounder from 1987 to 2017 and put them in a spreadsheet. Then, I determined the average VORP (value over replacement player) for each draft slot. Then, a simple comparison of how much above/below that average each player is and then order everyone by that. Simple.
Fun Fact: While you would expect the #1 pick to have the highest average (it does, 28.7), you'd also expect over 30 years for each draft slot to be lower. In fact, the order of picks goes 1, 3, 5, 4, 2, 9, 10, 7, 11, 13. Pick 8 has the 18th best value.
Now, why stop at 2017? NBA player careers are longer than NFL players, especially those at the top of the draft. Right now Jason Tatum is considered a pretty average #3 pick according to the algorithm, but obviously he will continue to churn value for the foreseeable future.
These are non-perfect results.
Here's the Top 10 in descending order.
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| 10. Adam Morrison |
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| 9. Pervis Ellison |
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| 8. Andrew Wiggins |
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| 7. Joe Smith |
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6. Andrea Bargnani
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| 5. Markelle Fultz |
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| 4. Greg Oden |
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| 3. Anthony Bennett |
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| 2. Kwame Brown |
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| 1. Michael Olowokandi |
Two names stick out, and they are Markelle Fultz and Andrew Wiggins. Now, neither have met or will meet their lofty expectations, but both have worked at turning around their careers. Fultz is starting to come into his own in Orlando and Wiggins was a key piece to Golden State winning it all last year.
Where the algorithm fails is in its ability to recognize players showing talent and working their way through it. The other fault is that LeBron keeps skewing the results for the #1 picks. Are Pervis Ellison, Andrew Wiggins and Joe Smith bigger busts than Nikoloz Tskitishvili, 2002 #5 pick who only played 172 games and averaged 2.9 points a game? No, but there is the collecting side of this where Nikoloz wasn't as big a collection target.
Some other players that just missed out include Jahlil Okafor, Josh Jackson, Dante Exum, Marcus Fizer, Eric Montross, Kris Dunn and Alex Len.
Just for fun, here is the player that typifies the average value of each pick:
- Karl-Anthony Towns (If Towns never played again)
- Tyson Chandler
- Christian Laettner
- Donyell Marshall
- Mike Miller
- Josh Childress
- Eric Gordon
- T.J. Ford
- Clarence Weatherspoon
- Brandon Jennings
- Bonzi Wells
- Austin Croshere
- Ed Davis
- T.J. Warren
- Anthony Peeler
- Tony Delk
- Rasho Nesterovic
- Tracey Murray
- Scot Pollard
- Renaldo Balkman
- Anthony Parker
- Kenny Thomas
- Rondae Hollis-Jefferson
- Tyus Jones
- Reggie Bullock
- Jordan Farmer
- Kyle Kuzma
- Scott Padgett
- Cory Alexander
- Josh Hart
Just for fun, let's look at the bottom of the list. These players have the best value:
My Sports Busts PC is based on autographs. I've added a few from this list: Adam Morrison, Kwame Brown, and Michael Olowokandi. I'll have to see if I own a Greg Oden autograph in my collection.
ReplyDeleteOne guy I didn't see on your list is Shelden Williams. He did end up playing six or seven years in the league, but never lived up to the hype of being a #5 pick in the 2006 Draft.