The SIMythbuster Presents...
Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 12:17 pm
I guess I'm revealing one of my secrets here, but oh well.
So I was originally going to just post a reply in the original thread, but as my word count grew, I figured I might as well make this a full post and pick up a few points for my trouble. Needless to say, I think the statement of "Second round picks are worthless" is wrong, and while it isn't necessarily bad advice, it's not particularly good advice either, especially if you're a bad team and/or fancy yourself good at evaluating talent and potential.
Most of y'all already know, I tend to play it fast and loose with my draft picks. As a consequence, I often find myself scouring the bottom half of the draft looking for talent, because I know the chances of me trading back into anything above the dead middle of the draft is quite low. I've noticed that ever since we moved to computer-generated draft prospects, and especially after the height adjustment, the number of lower-level prospects who eventually develop into something at least worth looking at has increased. I believe that this crop of players is just too weird overall to accurately predict their potential in the same way as we did in the past, and as many who weren't around in those days still do. Those who were around back then knew that it was generally rare to see a low-level draft prospect turn into a quality role player, let alone a star. That's part of the reason why Steven Hunter, who I mentioned in the Celtics article, was so memorable. Back then, players were generated on known quantities (their real-life stats and careers), and thus had traditional skillsets and potentials that, while not 100% accurate due to randomness, made it quite easy to predict what chances your draftee had to develop into a good role player. That is certainly not the case today, as players are being generated with all kinds of ridiculous ratings/potential that are completely unlike anything we've seen before.
What also bears mentioning is that we know that color ratings and player development (TC) are not determined in a vacuum, somehow the computer takes the league as a whole into account when determining these things. Consider this: What realistic chance did your lowly y/y or o/y PG with a C in HND/PAS and 40ish rating in both have to develop into a legit asset back in the real-life player days, when B/B potential and 50/60ish ratings in both was practically a requirement for a PG, and even then, you had guys like Brevin Knight: http://pbsl.ijbl.net/2000/players/player613.htm
This is after he took a hit in TC, mind you. He was only y/g before:
http://pbsl.ijbl.net/1999/players/player613.htm
Now obviously, Knight's height and complete lack of a 3-point shot hurts his overall rating. But I don't think it's a stretch to say that Brevin Knight circa 2000 would probably be y/g or g/g today (1999 Knight might've had a slim outside chance at y/b) and would almost certainly be starting for quite a few teams in the league, maybe even half, as I would assume that most would probably move their current PG with low HND (hi there, Okogie, Stoll, Yandell, and Fox) to SG to reduce turnovers. Knight was a journeyman throughout his career, but now? He'd probably be a valued piece and rather hard to get. So in a league filled with young PGs who can't really pass or handle the ball, and young bigs who can't play a lick of post D or rebound, relying on traditional ways of evaluating talent isn't wise. We're getting players unlike anything we've ever seen before, thus we are seeing players develop and take leaps in ways that we've never seen before.
But enough of the slight theory-crafting. Here's a list of current y/g or higher players drafted lower than #20 at y/y or lower (o/g counts as lower):
Eldridge Candelaria, #29
Christopher Fortunado, #7 (2nd Round)
Gerald Kerns, #2 (2nd Round)
Chad Wallace, #24
Olen Sutherland, #30 (2nd Round)
Brian Foote, #28
Phillip Cuomo, #21
Eric Eads, #24
Charles Giguere, #21 (2nd Round)
Don Sanchez, #23
Scott Brown, #25
Micheal Essex, #12 (2nd Round)
Victor Eldred, #25
Joe Futrell, #26
Norris McMaster, Undrafted
Bertram Pugh, #4 (2nd Round)
Andrew Baldwin (yes, that Andrew Baldwin), #28
Adrian Rodriguez, #26 (2nd Round)
Eugene Melson, #24
Gregory Haddock, #25
Brad Dodge, #22
Daniel Harrison, Undrafted
Wilburn Clark, #16 (2nd Round)
Ronald Jackson, #22
Wiley Paris, Undrafted
Jonathan Constantino, #24
Tony Ellis, #24 (2nd Round)
Carl Howard, #5 (2nd Round)
Charlie Porter, #14 (2nd Round)
Carlton Gamble, #27
Lenard Kipp, #1 (2nd Round)
Gregory Payne, #29
Stefan Rush, Undrafted
Hans Gillum, #1 (2nd Round)
Tommie Keener, #9 (2nd Round)
Justin Todd, #26
James Freeman, #17 (2nd Round)
Hollis Wiley, #28
Durant Badham, #21
Scott Leonard, #21
Jason Waters, #2 (2nd Round)
Corey Deltoro, #17 (2nd Round)
Nicholas Posner, #8 (2nd Round)
Marius Hemm, #2 (2nd Round)
Clemente Torres, #23
John Carlisle, #4 (2nd Round)
Andre Nickels, #25
Richard Forman, #30
Brian Mach, #11 (2nd Round)
Arthur Cornish, #21
Darius Binder, #3 (2nd Round)
James Shaffer, #27 (2nd Round)
Mark Barr, #27
Mark Hill, #10 (2nd Round)
Loyd Gilley, #29 (2nd Round)
James Terry, #3 (2nd Round)
Dino Washington, Undrafted
David Lassiter, #30
Richard Voelker, #18 (2nd Round)
Brian Neel, #11 (2nd Round)
Dean Bryant, #4 (2nd Round)
Coy Johnson, #25
62 players total, which is roughly 25% of all current players with green or higher potential. And this is just current players, meaning no mention of guys like Paul Webb (#7, 2nd Round), Frank Garden (#27), Isaias Stumpf (#5, 2nd Round), Aaron Pastor (#7, 2nd Round), Vicente Carvalho (#19, 2nd Round), among others. Granted, quite a few of the players listed are late bloomers, and a ton of them haven't shown much, if anything. My point is this, though: These are all generally players who, if given the choice, you would throw a vet min at just to have them warm a seat on your bench, fill a minor role in your rotation, or see if they improve more in TC. All of these players were drafted in the "No Man's Land" of below #20, where most GMs have already mentally checked out of the draft and are under pressure to keep the draft moving and get to a more exciting part of the offseason. And if they're busy and the computer drafts someone for them instead? Things get even crazier. I can tell you for a fact that, if all else stayed the same, Phillip Cuomo probably would've been cut, as the computer had him projected to go 41st. McMaster, Hill, Gamble, Voelker, and Fortunado were in the same draft, and they were projected to go 55th, 34th, 30th 43rd, and 35th respectively. That didn't even happen as projected for McMaster, who went undrafted.
Now, consider that all these picks happened in a full 30-team draft. We are now doing a 26-team draft, meaning that No Man's Land now starts around #18, has a very good chance of having at least one obviously solid y/y, o/g, or even a y/g prospect left on the board, and players that would've been late 1st round gambles...are now early 2nd Round picks. Go take a quick look at that list again. Any player drafted after #22 would've been a 2nd Rounder had they been drafted post-contraction. That's more than a third of the list. And the players who were originally taken in the 2nd Round to start with? They go even lower. And as for the late bloomers, it's been theorized by former GM Kucoach in "How To Train Your Player" that going "Recommended" in TC is generally bad for young players, for some unknown reason. Guess what unsigned players get during TC? So going back to theory-crafting for a second, if these low-level prospects were gradually able to show some level of competence in their mid-late 20s after several years of computer tutelage, how much quicker might they have shown such improvement with a GM (hopefully) setting TC priorities specifically for them instead?
Now here's the part where I explain what I meant by saying "it isn't necessarily bad advice, but it's not particularly good." Even with this evidence, the draft is still a crapshoot. Hell, I actually pay attention to this stuff, and quite a few of these guys still caught me by complete surprise. Don't go trading 2nds for 5-3 points just because I wrote this. While it all sounds nice, there are really only a few kinds of teams who should look at this and seriously consider incorporating this into their plans. Obviously, if you have a late 2nd rounder, it's not worth more than the cursory look you gave it before. Once you get below a certain point, there's no analysis in the world that can help you scout a future prospect. If you have limited roster space but the cap to make a move or two, cut them without hesitation unless you're not really in competing mode. Better to gamble on known than unknown quantities. But if you're capped out and will be for a season or two to come? Hold on to it. Operating over the cap is not as easy as it looks, and you might end up with something halfway decent down the line that might help in some way. You can cut him anytime, and if you're really worried about a 2nd Rounder's contract being on your books for 2 seasons, then I'm afraid you've grossly mishandled your finances up to that point. If you're rebuilding, hold on to it. You already have a high 2nd in in your possession as a reward for your suckitude, might as well make the most of it. Again, this is a two-season commitment that can be terminated at any time if he fails, and RFA rules will apply if he survives and shows promise. This is not a huge investment. You wouldn't think too hard about bringing in some crappy y/y vet min at the end of FA, so why would you overthink keeping a crappy y/y rookie around for the same amount of time?
I'd like to end with this: A potentially unreliable asset is still an asset, and should be treated as such. Unreliable does not equal worthless. PER has proven to be unreliable, especially in regards to evaluating defensive impact. Free Agency is unreliable, as the many, many teams who have struck out or lost a key guy to another team can attest to. 1st round picks are unreliable, even more so when they're lotto picks. So many teams continually put the fate of their franchises in the hands of luck twice, first during the draft order, and second during the player's development. Yet nobody would dare say that those assets are "worthless" when it comes to building and maintaining a franchise. So what makes 2nd round picks any different? There is a risk/reward ratio attached to everything you do as a GM, and that includes low 1st rounders and high 2nds. Calculate the risk versus the reward, and act accordingly. Or don't, it makes things just a little bit easier for GMs like me to scout cheap talent on the sly.
