High draft picks are great - but

don't place all your faith on them to deliver an elite player when used in the draft. Two players, Cousins and Davis are getting a lot of ink on this board in regards to potential trades to Boston ( probably wishful thinking ) - and of course both of our Net picks have entered into the conversation. As of today Cousins is averaging 20.3 points and 10.7 rebounds per game while for Davis it's 21.2 points and 9.7 rebounds per game.

Using the draft results for the years 1980 through 2011 ( 32 years ) I cataloged the results of the top 8 draft picks for each year based on a player averaging at least 17 points and 9 rebounds for his career.

The results.
The number 1 pick had 10 players with the above requirements
--------------2 pick had 0
--------------3 pick had 1
--------------4 pick had 0
--------------5 pick had 4
--------------6 pick had 0
--------------7 pick had 0
--------------8 pick had 0

So for Picks Number 2 through 8 only 5 of 224 (.022%) picks put up career numbers similar to the career numbers of Cousins and Davis. A bird in the hand looks mighty good to me.

Note: I did not include the last 5 drafts because most of the players are still in their teens and very early 20's and have not started to put up big numbers.


swish

swish wrote: don't place all your faith on them to deliver an elite player when used in the draft. Two players, Cousins and Davis are getting a lot of ink on this board in regards to potential trades to Boston ( probably wishful thinking ) - and of course both of our Net picks have entered into the conversation. As of today Cousins is averaging 20.3 points and 10.7 rebounds per game while for Davis it's 21.2 points and 9.7 rebounds per game.
 
     Using the draft results for the years 1980 through 2011 ( 32 years ) I cataloged the results of the top 8 draft picks for each year based on a player averaging at least 17 points and 9 rebounds for his career.

  The results.
     The number 1 pick had 10 players with the above requirements
     --------------2 pick had 0
     --------------3 pick had 1
     --------------4 pick had 0
     --------------5 pick had 4
     --------------6 pick had 0
     --------------7 pick had 0
     --------------8 pick had 0

  So for Picks Number 2 through 8 only 5 of 224 (.022%) picks put up career numbers similar to the career numbers of Cousins and Davis. A bird in the hand looks mighty good to me.

   Note: I did not include the last 5 drafts because most of the players are still in their teens and very early 20's and have not started to put up big numbers.


       swish

swish,

Always nice to back up hopes with some analysis.  Thanks.

What this does not identify is what positions those picks play.  For example, John Wall was the #1 pick in the 2010 draft.  It would be quite unreasonable to expect a point guard to average 9 rebounds.  You can go on and on with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and others.  Your filter focuses on BIGS, and that's appropriate for what we need, but it assumes a straight line I believe.  It assumes we draft a big and, from there, what can we expect from that pick.  It assumes we keep the pick.  What if Danny and Brad hadn't fallen in love with Jaylen Brown and instead traded the #3 pick to Minny so they could pick Kris Dunn (which they did anyway, but they didn't know he was still going to be available then.  What we do know, by virtue of them actually drafting him, is that they coveted him and that made them a possible trading partner) and we got Gorgui Dieng and their pick?   Other players might have to have been included for $ purposes but I hope my point is clear, we can also draft for other teams.  Therefore, the pick has value regardless of what our specific needs are.


bob


.

dboss and bob

By selecting players with a minimum of 9 rebounds, the list was pretty much limited to bigs - which is exactly what I was looking for - since the conversation has been pretty much focused on the Celtics need for a big with superior rebounding skills. Both Cousins and Davis fill the bill defensively with the added bonus of being superior scorers - a combination not easily duplicated via the draft as you can see from the numbers.


swish

Swish,
Don't worry about stats for the draft picks.
I'm 97.35% sure that the 2 BKN's picks will bring us v2.0 of MJ or Bird.
2 more years and Celtics will be pushing everybody down from the NBA Olympus apex.

AK

swish wrote: don't place all your faith on them to deliver an elite player when used in the draft. Two players, Cousins and Davis are getting a lot of ink on this board in regards to potential trades to Boston ( probably wishful thinking ) - and of course both of our Net picks have entered into the conversation. As of today Cousins is averaging 20.3 points and 10.7 rebounds per game while for Davis it's 21.2 points and 9.7 rebounds per game.
 
     Using the draft results for the years 1980 through 2011 ( 32 years ) I cataloged the results of the top 8 draft picks for each year based on a player averaging at least 17 points and 9 rebounds for his career.

  The results.
     The number 1 pick had 10 players with the above requirements
     --------------2 pick had 0
     --------------3 pick had 1
     --------------4 pick had 0
     --------------5 pick had 4
     --------------6 pick had 0
     --------------7 pick had 0
     --------------8 pick had 0

  So for Picks Number 2 through 8 only 5 of 224 (.022%) picks put up career numbers similar to the career numbers of Cousins and Davis. A bird in the hand looks mighty good to me.

   Note: I did not include the last 5 drafts because most of the players are still in their teens and very early 20's and have not started to put up big numbers.

swish

Great research there, I love it. 

It will be tough to get a franchise 17/9 center in any draft, they apparently only show up once every 3 years, let alone w/o the #1 pick. 

If you look back at 10 drafts between 2008-2015 however, these are the names of players I'd be THRILLED to have right now in that much needed 2nd big man role opposite Horford and moving Olynyk and Johnson to the bench where they belong. These guys range from All-NBA players to simply VERY good starters with borderline all-star upside:

Towns
Okafor
Porzingis
Myles Turner
Embiid
Parker
Adams
Gobert
Drummond
Anthony Davis
Valanciunas
Faried
Favors
Cousins
Ibaka
Griffin
Love
Brook Lopez

18 players. Only three #1 picks. 

If the Nets pick is between 2-7 in the draft this year as expected, there is an average of 1.5 franchise altering bigs in the draft available to take in that range. This year there appears to be just one (Harry Giles) who hasn't even played at Duke yet due to injuries, but if fully recovered the NBA player most experts say his game resembles most is Chris Webber. This is a PG and wing heavy draft, a transcendent talent the C's can't pass on may be selected that plays that position. Danny does always draft by best available, and then we'd have the opposite problem of the 76ers.

There is another group of big guys picked in rd  who would probably be starting on this Celtics team right now, or be a REALLY huge asset in rotation:

Aaron Gordon
Saric
Cauley-Stein
Mason Plumlee
Dieng
Henson
Cody Zeller
Kanter
Tristan Thompson
Robin Lopez
Noel
Capela
Nurkic
Vucevic
Biyombo
Markieff Morris
Monroe
Ed Davis
Hibbert
Koufos

Those 20 guys are either specialists, dominant at only one end, or all-around skilled but great at nothing. All are players I would be really excited about adding in the bottom half of the 1st round, where the C's have picked Bradley, Jujuan Johnson, Sullinger, Fab Melo, Young, Rozier, Hunter, Zizic and Yabusele the past 7 drafts. So there are two more real useful big men on avg per draft to be snagged usually outside the lotto, but sometimes end up being underachieving lotto picks. The C's should have four of those type of picks in the 2018-19 drafts. 

This is where Danny did so well early in his tenure in Boston (Perk, Tony Allen, D West, Rondo, Baby) but has been up and down with more recently. Jujuan Johnson over Jimmy Butler or Chandler Parsons? Fab Melo over Miles Plumlee, Ezeli, Dray Green or Crowder? It is a shame they missed on Dieng or Gorbert when trading UP to get Olynyk. The 34th pick in 2014 they traded up with could have been Clarkson or Jokic. Young over Rodney Hood or Clint Capela?

This team should have somehow found another VERY good starter to play alongside Horford by now, but unfortunately has not. Sully was a fat tease and Amir, while a solid FA move, isn't a starter on a top 5 team. Zeller and Lee were savvy trade moves but didn't meet expectations. I trust in Danny to upgrade what we have as 4th-5th big men right now (Zeller, Mickey) by the 2018 draft. The two kids overseas right now will probably be a better duo by 2018-19. But he really has to hit on one guy like those in that first group of players and maybe one more in that 2nd with all the assets he has. Or if he gets an all-star at PG or wing then he needs two guys on par with the players in that 2nd group. Keep Olynyk and Amir but as 4th-5th bigs and then this team will be doing really good. 

So in conclusion, while a 17/9 for their CAREER center is a unicorn VERY unlikely to find with the Nets picks, Danny will almost certainly find a way to upgrade 4-5 of the frontcourt roster spots he has next to Horford in the next 20 months. He should also have added an all-star caliber player at some position, whether it be those 4-5 or not and have put the team in a position to knock off Cleveland and an aging LeBron.

swish ram great posts

Ram, you can make the next draft pick for me when I buy the Celtics.

worcester wrote:Ram, you can make the next draft pick for me when I buy the Celtics.

Cool thanks!

Hindsight is 20-20 of course. 

Of Danny Ainge's blown picks in the last 8-9 years I would not have nailed all of them, haha. unlikely anyone would.

I definitely wanted DeAndre Jordan over Giddens in 2008 and was FURIOUS on draft night when that did not happen. 

I wanted Parsons over Johnson and Dieng over Olynyk but admit to not knowing Dray Green, Butler or Gobert would be anywhere near as good as they are nor do I remember coveting them over Melo, Johnson or Olynyk. I would have picked Arnette Moultrie, Plumlee or Ezeli in 2012 over Melo, but was not big on Dray Green and Crowder, seeing as we had Jeff Green and Bass. If Dieng was gone in 2013 I probably still go Olynyk over Gobert. I know I wanted one of Gary Harris, Rodney Hood or Young with pick #17 in 2014 and was happy with the pick at the time. I'd taken Bobby Portis over Rozier but Terry has really shown me something while Portis remains 'bleh' (although a young big we could def use). I was happy with RJ Hunter, thought he dropped. Was cool with the Brown and Zizic picks as well. Probably would have taken Skal Lab or Deyonta Davis over Yabusele, but look how far they fell!

Danny is being paid A LOT though and to just have selected one solid starter 6+ years ago with picks in the 16-28 range (Bradley) while also netting 2 solid rotation guys (Sully and Rozier) one of who is gone, selecting 2 HUGE busts in Johnson and Melo, 2 likely busts in Hunter and Young and 2 question marks overseas is NOT the solid use of NINE 1st round picks in 7 years. 

I grew up expecting guys like Reggie Lewis, Brian Shaw, Dee Brown and Rick Fox picked in that range;-)

Although I had zero faith in James Young, now I'm seeing glmmers of an NBA talent there. Zizic? Somehow methinks he'll be THE bomb, not a bust, and if a pessimist like Jeff Van Gundy can sing the praises of Jalen Brown, I am 100% on board his train. 100%. My big complaint with last night's game is that the guards wouldn't pass the ball to Jalen often enough. He played a fine game at both ends.

worcester wrote:Although I had zero faith in James Young, now I'm seeing glmmers of an NBA talent there. Zizic? Somehow methinks he'll be THE bomb, not a bust, and if a pessimist like Jeff Van Gundy can sing the praises of Jalen Brown, I am 100% on board his train. 100%. My big complaint with last night's game is that the guards wouldn't pass the ball to Jalen often enough. He played a fine game at both ends.

Yeah I'm pretty excited about Zizic and Brown as well. Not so excited that if a team like the Kings wanted Zeller, Zizic, Brown, Rozier and the Nets pick for Cousins I wouldn't ship them out of town. 

I can see Zizic, who is pretty mobile for 6'11" with a 7'3" wingspan and doesn't turn 20 until January, becoming a guy like Adonal Foyle, Andrew Bogut, Bill Laimbeer, Erick Dampier, Brad Miller or Marcin Gortat. Lots of directions he could go but I really wouldn't be surprised if her was a good starter. Just a tenacious rebounder, instigator and hustle guy who is disruptive on D and always attacking the glass on offense.

I see Jaylen Brown turning into a Jason Richardson type if he focuses more on shooting and his offensive gifts or Reggie Theus/Ron Harper if he does the same + some passing ball-handling skills, but never really develops his D. Maybe Andre Iguodala or Jimmy Butler if he reaches his scoring AND defensive potential. 

I'm pretty optimistic about both guys. But so were people about Kederick Brown and Dino Radja, similar young athlete/foreign big who never amounted to much, although Radja was ok for 2-3 seasons.

Ram wrote:

worcester wrote:Although I had zero faith in James Young, now I'm seeing glmmers of an NBA talent there. Zizic? Somehow methinks he'll be THE bomb, not a bust, and if a pessimist like Jeff Van Gundy can sing the praises of Jalen Brown, I am 100% on board his train. 100%. My big complaint with last night's game is that the guards wouldn't pass the ball to Jalen often enough. He played a fine game at both ends.

Yeah I'm pretty excited about Zizic and Brown as well. Not so excited that if a team like the Kings wanted Zeller, Zizic, Brown, Rozier and the Nets pick for Cousins I wouldn't ship them out of town. 

I can see Zizic, who is pretty mobile for 6'11" with a 7'3" wingspan and doesn't turn 20 until January, becoming a guy like Adonal Foyle, Andrew Bogut, Bill Laimbeer, Erick Dampier, Brad Miller or Marcin Gortat. Lots of directions he could go but I really wouldn't be surprised if her was a good starter. Just a tenacious rebounder, instigator and hustle guy who is disruptive on D and always attacking the glass on offense.

I see Jaylen Brown turning into a Jason Richardson type if he focuses more on shooting and his offensive gifts or Reggie Theus/Ron Harper if he does the same + some passing ball-handling skills, but never really develops his D. Maybe Andre Iguodala or Jimmy Butler if he reaches his scoring AND defensive potential. 

I'm pretty optimistic about both guys. But so were people about Kederick Brown and Dino Radja, similar young athlete/foreign big who never amounted to much, although Radja was ok for 2-3 seasons.

I'll take that nba proven elite player all the time over players considered to have the POTENTIAL to be elite players in the future - but only when the team can be considered to be only 1 player away from being a serious contender for the title. The nba is a super star driven league and only those teams with enough talent to play .610 ball and have a super star on the roster should be considered a serious threat for a ring.
By the way Ram - its quite obvious to me that you spend mucho time analyzing player performances etc - all of which, in my opinion, adds a great deal of credibility to your post.

swish

Dino Rajda, the last Celtic who regularly smoked after practices and games. Gotta love that Euro dedication to tobacco!