Rating Danny in the Draft

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  In other words, if the other teams knew that a player would be great, they'd never let that player slide to the teens or 20s so it's impossible for Ainge to have great drafts, despite the fact that he's drafting great players. That's one of the most convoluted arguments I've seen on celticsblog, and I've seen a lot of posts. I'm not sure if this was your original point or if you switched to it to defend your evaluation of the Rondo/Jefferson/Perkins picks, but it doesn't make sense.

  Also, it would have been a lot simpler if you'd articulated earlier on that your criteria for a great drafter is someone who picks players that, by the nature of the draft, won't be available when he chooses. I wouldn't have bothered to argue how great a player Rondo was for his position in the draft because how good the players Danny picked turned out to be has little to do with your evaluation of his drafting.

Right.  I'm trying, with mixed success, I hope, to fend off several competing arguments about how to evaluate how good a pick was.  It's making for several parallel arguments that are admittedly not easy to follow or make coherent sense of, since they each start from a different premise.  Perhaps "how you you evaluate draft picks" should have come before "is Danny a good drafter"?

So, your question of how can you draft great players without being a great drafter, I would respond by saying that nobody can be evaluated based on only one pick that worked out, but on overall record.  There's Rondo, but also GG and Banks...big hits offset by complete busts.

SO, Was Rondo such an incredibly awesome, out of nowhere, great players never come at that level of the draft, Danny MUST have seen something others didn't-type pick that it make up for GG and Banks? 

I've tried to fend these different arguments in appropriately different ways. 

The one, by pointing out that the odds of finding a star at that level aren't as long as some suggested, listing several players taken around there in recent years that are stars, champions, starters, all-stars, or just really good.  I get the response that Rondo is better than the other players right now, which was not my point. 

To the other, I point out very valid reasons that Rondo was not in fact taken higher by other teams at the time, and get generally poo-poo'd on with the idea that he should have been, which seems to me to be a denial of the level or risk involved with taking him.  I suggested playing with a great team helped emphasize his strenghts and hide his weakness, and someone wrote that he'd still be an allstar if he played for Minny, which I strongly disagree with.

SO it's no wonder things seem a little fragmented and inconsistent.  I stand by the objective criteria in the OP, with the modification that the second round is much harder to predict than I initially figured.  My criteria for what to expect from middle 10 picks, 11-20ish, is generally consistent with what 82games has on their site for what to expect from these picks, by the way, but still that seems to be where the most disagreement is about what to expect.  That I didn't allow for some busts and should have is the only major deviation I'd make there from the OP, based on the many good perspectives I've read here.

[BballTim]

This is what's happening in the discussion that sometimes create disagreements where there are none:

I wrote that:
 "...solid starting players, stars, all-stars, and even championship starters happen at that level of the draft more regularly than some have suggested."

You responded that:
"couldn't you also argue that it's not that hard to get an all-star in the second round, citing names like Gilbert Arenas, Michael Redd, Manu Ginobili, etc.?  Sure, it happens, but it's not something that any franchise can count on, and it's not a standard that a GM should be held to."

Notice the shift?  It went from my saying it happens more often than some think, and then it is reframed to suggest that I think 1) it's not hard and 2) that GM's should be expected to pull these off regularly, both of which are pretty far from what I wrote.

  I think Roy's point may have been that it *doesn't* happen more often than people think. You looked at 13 draft slots for 8-10 years (over 100 picks) and only came up with a few players that are on Rondo's level and none that are clearly better. How is 3-4 players out of over 100 more regularly than people were suggesting?

  Rondo's in the top 3% or so for his "range". Shift that "range" down 6 spots for Perk so you get 24-36 and he'll probably be in the top 10% or so. Look at the players in Al's range and he's probably not for from that range either.

[BballTim]

  In other words, if the other teams knew that a player would be great, they'd never let that player slide to the teens or 20s so it's impossible for Ainge to have great drafts, despite the fact that he's drafting great players. That's one of the most convoluted arguments I've seen on celticsblog, and I've seen a lot of posts. I'm not sure if this was your original point or if you switched to it to defend your evaluation of the Rondo/Jefferson/Perkins picks, but it doesn't make sense.

  Also, it would have been a lot simpler if you'd articulated earlier on that your criteria for a great drafter is someone who picks players that, by the nature of the draft, won't be available when he chooses. I wouldn't have bothered to argue how great a player Rondo was for his position in the draft because how good the players Danny picked turned out to be has little to do with your evaluation of his drafting.

Right.  I'm trying, with mixed success, I hope, to fend off several competing arguments about how to evaluate how good a pick was.  It's making for several parallel arguments that are admittedly not easy to follow or make coherent sense of, since they each start from a different premise.  Perhaps "how you you evaluate draft picks" should have come before "is Danny a good drafter".

  Personally I think you're going to have problems convincing people that looking at how good the players he drafted are isn't the way to go. If someone has the top 5 pick and they get LeBron or Carmelo or Wade you can say there wasn't much skill involved because the choice was such a no-brainer. If someone picks a player that 15 or 20 teams have passed on it doesn't make sense to say it was the obvious choice. If ut wasn't the obvious choice then making the correct pick shows that you had skill the other teams didn't.

[dlpin]

I wrote that:
 "...solid starting players, stars, all-stars, and even championship starters happen at that level of the draft more regularly than some have suggested."

Haven't people shown several times that it doesn't happen as often as you have suggested?

The odds of someone picked at 21 or later of becoming an all star is far, far less than 10%.

[Roy Hobbs]

  In other words, if the other teams knew that a player would be great, they'd never let that player slide to the teens or 20s so it's impossible for Ainge to have great drafts, despite the fact that he's drafting great players. That's one of the most convoluted arguments I've seen on celticsblog, and I've seen a lot of posts. I'm not sure if this was your original point or if you switched to it to defend your evaluation of the Rondo/Jefferson/Perkins picks, but it doesn't make sense.

  Also, it would have been a lot simpler if you'd articulated earlier on that your criteria for a great drafter is someone who picks players that, by the nature of the draft, won't be available when he chooses. I wouldn't have bothered to argue how great a player Rondo was for his position in the draft because how good the players Danny picked turned out to be has little to do with your evaluation of his drafting.

Right.  I'm trying, with mixed success, I hope, to fend off several competing arguments about how to evaluate how good a pick was.  It's making for several parallel arguments that are admittedly not easy to follow or make coherent sense of, since they each start from a different premise.  Perhaps "how you you evaluate draft picks" should have come before "is Danny a good drafter".

  Personally I think you're going to have problems convincing people that looking at how good the players he drafted are isn't the way to go. If someone has the top 5 pick and they get LeBron or Carmelo or Wade you can say there wasn't much skill involved because the choice was such a no-brainer. If someone picks a player that 15 or 20 teams have passed on it doesn't make sense to say it was the obvious choice. If ut wasn't the obvious choice then making the correct pick shows that you had skill the other teams didn't.

I generally agree, although the one exception I would make is the drafting of Paul Pierce.  I don't consider that a "great" draft pick, only because I thought it was an absolute no brainer.  Rather, I hold it against the other idiotic teams that passed on him, at least outside of the top three.

It was tremendous value, though.  I just don't give Pitino much credit for it; Pierce kind of fell into his lap.  (He does get credit for being so high on Dirk, though, when many weren't.)

[BballTim]

  In other words, if the other teams knew that a player would be great, they'd never let that player slide to the teens or 20s so it's impossible for Ainge to have great drafts, despite the fact that he's drafting great players. That's one of the most convoluted arguments I've seen on celticsblog, and I've seen a lot of posts. I'm not sure if this was your original point or if you switched to it to defend your evaluation of the Rondo/Jefferson/Perkins picks, but it doesn't make sense.

  Also, it would have been a lot simpler if you'd articulated earlier on that your criteria for a great drafter is someone who picks players that, by the nature of the draft, won't be available when he chooses. I wouldn't have bothered to argue how great a player Rondo was for his position in the draft because how good the players Danny picked turned out to be has little to do with your evaluation of his drafting.

Right.  I'm trying, with mixed success, I hope, to fend off several competing arguments about how to evaluate how good a pick was.  It's making for several parallel arguments that are admittedly not easy to follow or make coherent sense of, since they each start from a different premise.  Perhaps "how you you evaluate draft picks" should have come before "is Danny a good drafter".

  Personally I think you're going to have problems convincing people that looking at how good the players he drafted are isn't the way to go. If someone has the top 5 pick and they get LeBron or Carmelo or Wade you can say there wasn't much skill involved because the choice was such a no-brainer. If someone picks a player that 15 or 20 teams have passed on it doesn't make sense to say it was the obvious choice. If ut wasn't the obvious choice then making the correct pick shows that you had skill the other teams didn't.

I generally agree, although the one exception I would make is the drafting of Paul Pierce.  I don't consider that a "great" draft pick, only because I thought it was an absolute no brainer.  Rather, I hold it against the other idiotic teams that passed on him, at least outside of the top three.

It was tremendous value, though.  I just don't give Pitino much credit for it; Pierce kind of fell into his lap.  (He does get credit for being so high on Dirk, though, when many weren't.)

  I generally agree. Weren't there rumors of Pierce trying to get teams before us to not draft him so he could get to the Celts? I would agree that he's an exception, though.

  In any case, though, Acie Earl and Gerald Green also fell into our laps. We should be a little choosier when it happens.

[Roy Hobbs]

  In any case, though, Acie Earl and Gerald Green also fell into our laps. We should be a little choosier when it happens.

Yeah, ironically enough, those were probably the three Celtics drafts I was most excited about; in each case, I thought we ended up with an absolute steal.

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  In other words, if the other teams knew that a player would be great, they'd never let that player slide to the teens or 20s so it's impossible for Ainge to have great drafts, despite the fact that he's drafting great players. That's one of the most convoluted arguments I've seen on celticsblog, and I've seen a lot of posts. I'm not sure if this was your original point or if you switched to it to defend your evaluation of the Rondo/Jefferson/Perkins picks, but it doesn't make sense.

  Also, it would have been a lot simpler if you'd articulated earlier on that your criteria for a great drafter is someone who picks players that, by the nature of the draft, won't be available when he chooses. I wouldn't have bothered to argue how great a player Rondo was for his position in the draft because how good the players Danny picked turned out to be has little to do with your evaluation of his drafting.

Right.  I'm trying, with mixed success, I hope, to fend off several competing arguments about how to evaluate how good a pick was.  It's making for several parallel arguments that are admittedly not easy to follow or make coherent sense of, since they each start from a different premise.  Perhaps "how you you evaluate draft picks" should have come before "is Danny a good drafter".

  Personally I think you're going to have problems convincing people that looking at how good the players he drafted are isn't the way to go. If someone has the top 5 pick and they get LeBron or Carmelo or Wade you can say there wasn't much skill involved because the choice was such a no-brainer. If someone picks a player that 15 or 20 teams have passed on it doesn't make sense to say it was the obvious choice. If ut wasn't the obvious choice then making the correct pick shows that you had skill the other teams didn't.

I don't really expect anyone on this board to ever be convinced of anything...people tend to stick to their guns around here...so I guess I fit in?

And I never wrote Rondo wasn't a good pick or was the obvious choice, just to be clear.

And I never wrote to not look at how good the players he drafted were, but value for position in the draft relative to what can be expected in that range.

Sometimes players fall and nobody knows why, like Pierce did.  That's not the case for Rondo.  He fell out of the top 10, because his shot was/is so bad, which is a big criteria some use to evaluate guards, and some teams took gambles on other positons.  

He may be a better player than many picked ahead of him, and is, but that doesn't automatically mean he was a better prospect than many of them and that 20 GM's missed something.  I don't think it's fair to say a GM that took a chance on a risky Center or PF prospect instead of a risky PG prospect missed something, though some picks ahead of him really didn't make sense, but quite a few did.  In his draft, there were probably about 10 other picks ahead of him that made perfect sense, even if they didn't work out as well. He was a good value at 21, and a good pick, but he wasn't passed over strictly because other teams misevaluated him.

[BballTim]

So, your question of how can you draft great players without being a great drafter, I would respond by saying that nobody can be evaluated based on only one pick that worked out, but on overall record.  There's Rondo, but also GG and Banks...big hits offset by complete busts.

  The big hits aren't offset by the busts. Would you trade a 11, 18 and 21 for Rondo? I wouldn't even think of it. A big hit MORE than makes up for even multiple misses.

The one, by pointing out that the odds of finding a star at that level aren't as long as some suggested, listing several players taken around there in recent years that are stars, champions, starters, all-stars, or just really good.  I get the response that Rondo is better than the other players right now, which was not my point. 

  You're pointing out 4-5 stars, 5 or so other starters and 8 or so rotation players out of over a hundred picks. Danny's got a star, a starter and 2 rotation players out of 6 picks in the range you looked at. It should have taken him 20-25 picks to get what he did in 6.

To the other, I point out very valid reasons that Rondo was not in fact taken higher by other teams at the time, and get generally poo-poo'd on with the idea that he should have been, which seems to me to be a denial of the level or risk involved with taking him.  I suggested playing with a great team helped emphasize his strenghts and hide his weakness, and someone wrote that he'd still be an allstar if he played for Minny, which I strongly disagree with.

  Rondo has been playing like an all-star with Ray playing like he's old and Paul and KG both either missing or gimpy. All the "Rondo only looks good because of his teammates" talk should be put to bed by now.

SO it's no wonder things seem a little fragmented and inconsistent.  I stand by the objective criteria in the OP, with the modification that the second round is much harder to predict than I initially figured.  My criteria for what to expect from middle 10 picks, 11-20ish, is generally consistent with what 82games has on their site for what to expect from these picks, by the way, but still that seems to be where the most disagreement is about what to expect.  That I didn't allow for some busts and should have is the only major deviation I'd make there from the OP, based on the many good perspectives I've read here.

  Look at the 82games numbers again. They add up points and assists and rebounds to get those expected averages. Right now Perk's career average is like a 13, Rondo's a 21 and Al's a 25. That would put Perk in the mid teens, Rondo top 5 and Al top 2 or so. And their numbers are weighed down because they all have their early years and haven't hit their prime years yet. For the year Perk's a 21, Rondo's a 29 and Al's a 30. That puts Perk top 5 and Rondo and Al top 1. Their career averages will should end up close to where they are now.

[Fafnir]

He may be a better player than many picked ahead of him, and is, but that doesn't automatically mean he was a better prospect than many of them and that 20 GM's missed something.  I don't think it's fair to say a GM that took a chance on a risky Center or PF prospect instead of a risky PG prospect missed something, though some picks ahead of him really didn't make sense, but quite a few did.  In his draft, there were probably about 10 other picks ahead of him that made perfect sense, even if they didn't work out as well. He was a good value at 21, and a good pick, but he wasn't passed over strictly because other teams misevaluated him.

So basically its okay for GMs to be wrong if they had good reasons for their actions?

And GMs don't get credit for seeing how good a player could become despite his warts?

By your logic Red doesn't get any credit for taking Bird because everyone knew he wasn't going pro till next year!

[BballTim]

  In other words, if the other teams knew that a player would be great, they'd never let that player slide to the teens or 20s so it's impossible for Ainge to have great drafts, despite the fact that he's drafting great players. That's one of the most convoluted arguments I've seen on celticsblog, and I've seen a lot of posts. I'm not sure if this was your original point or if you switched to it to defend your evaluation of the Rondo/Jefferson/Perkins picks, but it doesn't make sense.

  Also, it would have been a lot simpler if you'd articulated earlier on that your criteria for a great drafter is someone who picks players that, by the nature of the draft, won't be available when he chooses. I wouldn't have bothered to argue how great a player Rondo was for his position in the draft because how good the players Danny picked turned out to be has little to do with your evaluation of his drafting.

Right.  I'm trying, with mixed success, I hope, to fend off several competing arguments about how to evaluate how good a pick was.  It's making for several parallel arguments that are admittedly not easy to follow or make coherent sense of, since they each start from a different premise.  Perhaps "how you you evaluate draft picks" should have come before "is Danny a good drafter".

  Personally I think you're going to have problems convincing people that looking at how good the players he drafted are isn't the way to go. If someone has the top 5 pick and they get LeBron or Carmelo or Wade you can say there wasn't much skill involved because the choice was such a no-brainer. If someone picks a player that 15 or 20 teams have passed on it doesn't make sense to say it was the obvious choice. If ut wasn't the obvious choice then making the correct pick shows that you had skill the other teams didn't.

I don't really expect anyone on this board to ever be convinced of anything...people tend to stick to their guns around here...so I guess I fit in?

And I never wrote Rondo wasn't a good pick or was the obvious choice, just to be clear.

And I never wrote to not look at how good the players he drafted were, but value for position in the draft relative to what can be expected in that range.

Sometimes players fall and nobody knows why, like Pierce did.  That's not the case for Rondo.  He fell out of the top 10, because his shot was/is so bad, which is a big criteria some use to evaluate guards, and some teams took gambles on other positons.  

He may be a better player than many picked ahead of him, and is, but that doesn't automatically mean he was a better prospect than many of them and that 20 GM's missed something.  I don't think it's fair to say a GM that took a chance on a risky Center or PF prospect instead of a risky PG prospect missed something, though some picks ahead of him really didn't make sense, but quite a few did.  In his draft, there were probably about 10 other picks ahead of him that made perfect sense, even if they didn't work out as well. He was a good value at 21, and a good pick, but he wasn't passed over strictly because other teams misevaluated him.

  Any time anyone talks about evaluating a draft the first thing they say is "we'll have to wait at least 3 years before we know anything". You're basing your evaluation on draft night reviews by espn types. You're calling Gerald a bust because of his play yet you refuse to consider the play of Danny's better picks when you evaluate those picks. You're using different criteria to evaluate different picks and are (surprise) choosing the criteria that looks worse for Ainge.

[Roy Hobbs]

Sometimes players fall and nobody knows why, like Pierce did.  That's not the case for Rondo.  He fell out of the top 10, because his shot was/is so bad, which is a big criteria some use to evaluate guards, and some teams took gambles on other positons.  

Well, he fell because of his poor shot, his lack of dominating numbers at KU, and because teams didn't expect him to be this good in other aspects of the game.  In other words, they greatly underestimated him.  Danny, on the other hand, was enamored with him from the start, and saw him as having starting PG potential.

He may be a better player than many picked ahead of him, and is, but that doesn't automatically mean he was a better prospect than many of them and that 20 GM's missed something.

How do you define "prospect"?  You mean the conventional wisdom of draft scouts?   

Also, of course a bunch of GMs missed something.  If they didn't, they wouldn't have passed on an all-star guard for guys like Paddy O'Blount, Shelden Williams, Tyrus Thomas, Sene, Redick, Hilton Armstrong, Cedric Simmons, Rodney Carney, Shawne Williams, Quincy Douby, Pecherov, etc., etc. 

I think Rondo is unquestionably in the top five players in his draft class.  Therefore, by definition, several GMs missed something.  I'm pretty sure, for instance, if you asked the Hornets whether they'd rather have the combo of Armstrong and Simmons versus Rondo, they'd go with the latter option, despite having CP3.

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This is what's happening in the discussion that sometimes create disagreements where there are none:

I wrote that:
 "...solid starting players, stars, all-stars, and even championship starters happen at that level of the draft more regularly than some have suggested."

You responded that:
"couldn't you also argue that it's not that hard to get an all-star in the second round, citing names like Gilbert Arenas, Michael Redd, Manu Ginobili, etc.?  Sure, it happens, but it's not something that any franchise can count on, and it's not a standard that a GM should be held to."

Notice the shift?  It went from my saying it happens more often than some think, and then it is reframed to suggest that I think 1) it's not hard and 2) that GM's should be expected to pull these off regularly, both of which are pretty far from what I wrote.

  I think Roy's point may have been that it *doesn't* happen more often than people think. You looked at 13 draft slots for 8-10 years (over 100 picks) and only came up with a few players that are on Rondo's level and none that are clearly better. How is 3-4 players out of over 100 more regularly than people were suggesting?

  Rondo's in the top 3% or so for his "range". Shift that "range" down 6 spots for Perk so you get 24-36 and he'll probably be in the top 10% or so. Look at the players in Al's range and he's probably not for from that range either.

Rondo certainly is high on the list, but I don't think it's correct to say there are only a "few" players there that are better than him when the point was that comparable talent happens at that level of the draft.  It isn't the same thing.  

SO there are not a few players listed, but 18 (add Josh Howard please) 19 players in 8 drafts that look pretty good, or 15 in 7 drafts 2001-2007 if you don't count the 4 I listed in 2008 (too soon to tell).  I think that supports the point I was making that there is star-talent at that level of the draft more often than people tend to think.

[BballTim]

This is what's happening in the discussion that sometimes create disagreements where there are none:

I wrote that:
 "...solid starting players, stars, all-stars, and even championship starters happen at that level of the draft more regularly than some have suggested."

You responded that:
"couldn't you also argue that it's not that hard to get an all-star in the second round, citing names like Gilbert Arenas, Michael Redd, Manu Ginobili, etc.?  Sure, it happens, but it's not something that any franchise can count on, and it's not a standard that a GM should be held to."

Notice the shift?  It went from my saying it happens more often than some think, and then it is reframed to suggest that I think 1) it's not hard and 2) that GM's should be expected to pull these off regularly, both of which are pretty far from what I wrote.

  I think Roy's point may have been that it *doesn't* happen more often than people think. You looked at 13 draft slots for 8-10 years (over 100 picks) and only came up with a few players that are on Rondo's level and none that are clearly better. How is 3-4 players out of over 100 more regularly than people were suggesting?

  Rondo's in the top 3% or so for his "range". Shift that "range" down 6 spots for Perk so you get 24-36 and he'll probably be in the top 10% or so. Look at the players in Al's range and he's probably not for from that range either.

Rondo certainly is high on the list, but I don't think it's correct to say there are only a "few" players there that are better than him when the point was that comparable talent happens at that level of the draft.  It isn't the same thing.  

SO there are not a few players listed, but 18 (add Josh Howard please) 19 players in 8 drafts that look pretty good, or 15 in 7 drafts 2001-2007 if you don't count the 4 I listed in 2008 (too soon to tell).  I think that supports the point I was making that there is star-talent at that level of the draft more often than people tend to think.

  How many of those players you listed were all-stars either by their 4th year or by the time they were 23? Because that's Rondo's level. And which ones do you consider better than him? More than a few that have accomplished what he has by this point in their careers? More than a few that were better than him at the same age or number of years? I can't imagine that by any realistic criteria the list would have more than 2-3 people in it.

  And consider what you're saying. You're looking at 13 players per draft and coming up with 2 "pretty good" players per draft. That's one in 6 or 7 picks. Danny's had 6 picks in that range and had 3-4 hits including one of the top few over an 8 year period. How can you not understand how far above average that is?

[ManUp]

I'll say above average because a majority of the player hes drafted are still hanging around the league. Green, Banks, Giddens, and Walker are what keep him from being excellent.