Danny's draft performance

[Boris Badenov]

There's understandably been some discussion (again) about whether Danny has drafted well or poorly, here on the eve of the draft.

Here's my take on things, hoping it gives us all reason for optimism heading into tomorrow. I also hope that this might change the minds of those who think Danny's done a bad job.

My approach here is pretty simple. Because Danny's draft position has varied over time, I think the best benchmark of his performance is how the guys he's chosen have done vs. the guys who were chosen right after the guys he picked.

I've argued this out before, but this is a more reasonable thing to do than to ask whether *any* player drafted after Danny's pick turned out to be better. (I call this the "Chandler Parsons Fallacy"). If you evaluate any GM this way he will look awful, because hindsight is 20/20.

So, I'm going to go through every Celtics draft pick since Danny took over and compare each of Danny's picks to the very next two players actually drafted. This gives us two separate lists of "but-for" talent to benchmark Danny against.

I think my approach is more informative because (a) Danny clearly could have drafted those next two guys if he wanted to, so this is a good benchmark of how he chose between closely ranked players, and (b) the very next two players drafted are a good measure of how everyone else in the league ranked talent on that very same day - rather than looking back after the fact and choosing for comparison the one guy in the next 15 who turned out to be good (like people do with Chandler Parsons).

Here we go, with Danny's actual picks on the left and each draft's next two picks on the right. For each of Danny's picks, you can assess his pick by comparing to the players on the right.


Marcus Banks        Luke Ridnour           Reece Gaines
Kendrick Perkins    Leandro Barbosa        Josh Howard
Al Jefferson        Kirk Snyder            Josh Smith
DWest/TA            Kevin Martin           Sasha Vujacic
Justin Reed         David Young            Victor Sanikidze
Gerald Green        Hakim Warrick          Julius Hodge
Ryan Gomes          Robert Whaley          Alex Hervelle
Orien Greene        Dijon Thompson         Lawrence Roberts
Rajon Rondo         Marcus Williams        Josh Boone
Leon Powe           Ryan Hollins           Cheikh Samb
Glen Davis          Jermareo Davidson      Josh McRoberts
Gabe Pruitt         Marcus Williams        Nick Fazekas
JR Giddens          Nikola Pekovic*        Walter Sharpe
Bill Walker         Malik Hairston         Richard Hendrix
Semih Erden         n/a                    n/a
Lester Hudson       Chinemelu Elonu        Robert Dozier
Avery Bradley       James Anderson         Craig Brackins
Luke Harangody      Pape Sy                Willie Warren
Jujuan Johnson      Norris Cole            Cory Joseph
E'Twuan Moore       Chuk.. Maduabum        Targuy Ngombo
Sullinger/Melo      John Jenkins           Jared Cunningham
Kris Joseph         Ognjen Kuzmic          Furkan Aldemir


By my count Danny has picked 11-12 legit NBA players, with 2 stars and several starting-caliber players.

The second list has 5-6 NBA players, with one borderline star and a couple of borderline starters.

The third has 4 NBA players with one star and two borderline starters.

To me, this is pretty indisputable. Danny outperforms his draft position. The guys he picks are pretty consistently better than "comparable" picks, year after year. A team of Danny's picks would IMO slaughter a team with players from one of the other two lists.

The talent at the top is notable - Rondo at 21 is without question the best player taken at no. 21 in *any* NBA draft since 1980. Al Jefferson is the second best taken at 15 (only Nash is better).

http://www.mynbadraft.com/nba-draft-picks/15th-overall/150509/

http://www.mynbadraft.com/nba-draft-picks/21st-overall/210509/

But also, what is notable is how many of Danny's low picks in the second round at least become NBA players, when so many other players taken in similar spots never play at all, or only a handful of games. I consider myself a close follower of the NBA, and I found myself saying "who?" more often than not on those other lists.

Anyway, here's hoping we get another good pick tomorrow. More Rondo-ish, less Giddens-y, if you will.

* You cannot consider Pekovic a possible pick for Danny because Pek needed to be drafted in the second round for his buyout to be realistic. (The next player drafted after Sharpe was Joey Dorsey).

** If I've missed anything (this was a lot of work!), let me know and I'll edit the list.

[LooseCannon]

You might want to take a look at not just the next two players taken but the next five or six players taken.

I'd also say that Ainge seems to be rather good at making draft-day trades.

[Boris Badenov]

You might want to take a look at not just the next player taken but the next few players taken.

I'd also say that Ainge seems to be rather good at making draft-day trades.

You can, and you can even look at one or two taken just before. The key is that it's not right to look at all of the players taken after player X and say that Danny chose poorly if any one of them was better than player X.

I mean, that would be like criticizing a stock pick by going out and finding one stock with superior performance after the fact. You're always going to be able to find one. A better measure is performance relative to the average of "peers." Which is what I was doing here.

Your comment did give me an idea for something a bit more involved (but which could be summarized pretty easily). Maybe I'll do it while I'm watching the draft tomorrow.

[Mazingerz]

My only concern is that some of Danny's team already left. PArticularly Mcdonoough - who is the stats guy.

I hope this does not have an effect on Danny's drating.

[hwangjini_1]

Great post Boris, and by the way, please say hello to Natasha for me. 

Just add to your excellent points above, let me auto-plagiarize and restate a post I put up a few days ago.

A portion of this post from from SOSH. specifically, it is a very informative post by wutang112878. if you want to see more go to...

http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/78033-the-doc-saga/page-17

SOSH was debating a similar topic to us here, and wutang looks at ainge's drafts so far. keep in mind wutang's orginal post showed some different info than i am stealing and posting here. but i have also added some information.

also refer to this link on draftexpress about historic success of drafted players from 1980-2001.

http://www.draftexpress.com/article/Predicting-NBA-Draft-Success-and-Failure-through-Historical-Trends-1362/

At the end of this post is a list, with ratings, of dannys's draft picks.

AINGE FIRST ROUND DRAFT PICKS
In the bottom 1/2 of the draft (basically picks 16-30 now) 49% of those players chosen were either marginal players or out of the nba within a few years.

conversely, only about 21% of those players drafted in the bottom 1/2 of the draft were stars or solid starters.

ainge has had 10 picks in that range as GM of the celtics. So if 2 of his picks became solid starters or stars he matches the league average. Not bad.

but in reality, easily 6 of his 10 picks are stars or solid starters. SIX!!!!! this is far and away above the nba average for successful drafting in the last part of the draft.

ainge has drafted in the top half of the draft only twice (#13 & #15), here he is at 50% success, but to be fair they were picks #13 and #15, and only 33% of the second 1/4 of draftees (#8-15) are stars or solid starters.  meaning? ainge beats the nba average once again.

AINGE SECOND ROUND DRAFT PICKS
now what about the second round picks by ainge? harder to say because i could not find similar stats for the second round. but all in all, of ainge's 11 2nd round picks, 4 are useful players and 7 are duds. Note:  I put Leon Powe in the useful list since he helped the celtics win a championship. But, due to his injuries some people may prefer to view him as a dud. Fine by me.

In the second round, ainge has a succes rate is 36%. The percentage of second rounders who are useful in the nba is no where near that.

so what does all this mean? for me, it means "in danny i trust" come draft day.

AINGE'S DRAFT HISTORY

1st round
 
Absolute Assets
Al Jefferson  -  #15 Overall
Kendrick Perkins -  #27 Overall
Rajon Rondo - # 21 Overall
Avery Bradley  -  #19 Overall
Jared Sullinger  -  #21 Overall
Tony Allen  -  #25 Overall
Delonte West  -  #24 Overall
 
Duds:
Marcus Banks -  #13 Overall
Gerald Green  -  #18 Overall
Fab Melo  -  #22 Overall
JaJuan Johnson -  #27 Overall
J.R. Giddens  -  #30 Overall
 
2nd Round
 
Useful
Ryan Gomes  -  #50 Overall
Semih Erden  -  #60 Overall
Big Baby Davis - #35 Overall
Leon Powe - #49 Overall

Not that Useful
Gabe Pruitt  -  #32 Overall
Justin Reed  -  #40 Overall
Kris Joseph  -  #51 Overall
Luke Harangody  -  #52 Overall
Orien Greene  -  #53 Overall
E'Twaun Moore  -  #55 Overall
Lester Hudson  -  #58 Overall
 

[BudweiserCeltic]

Danny's biggest asset is not only of finding some good players, but when he doesn't, he usually has a good exit strategy for them, often involving them in a good trade for us.

[Boris Badenov]

Great post Boris, and by the way, please say hello to Natasha for me. 

Just add to your excellent points above, let me auto-plagiarize and restate a post I put up a few days ago.

A portion of this post from from SOSH. specifically, it is a very informative post by wutang112878. if you want to see more go to...

Thanks.

I've argued the same point using those numbers before. One reason I opted for this list above is because you can match guys specifically with some other names.

It can really brings home the difference in quality. A lot of people look at our recent picks and aren't impressed. But if you look at the names it becomes obvious that to get an actual NBA player in those slots is pretty amazing. Like who is Chinemelu Elonu? Who in blazes is Targuy Ngombo?

I mean, people will complain that we missed on Parsons when we took JJJ. But I don't recall anyone complimenting Danny for taking AB over Craig Brackins, or Rondo over Josh Boone.

[BballTim]

You might want to take a look at not just the next two players taken but the next five or six players taken.

I'd also say that Ainge seems to be rather good at making draft-day trades.

  If you look at 5-6 players you need to factor that into your analysis, like only calling it a bad pick if at least half of those 5-6 players are better than who he drafted, not 1-2 of them.

  I think it's somewhat interesting to compare the picks to the same pick in different years. For instance, pick a 10 year period (say from 12 years ago to 3 years ago) and compare (for example) Al Jefferson to the 15th picks in the 9 other drafts. If your player is in the top 3 or so it was a good pick, in the bottom 3 it's a bad pick, otherwise it's a decent pick.

[hwangjini_1]

Great post Boris, and by the way, please say hello to Natasha for me. 

Just add to your excellent points above, let me auto-plagiarize and restate a post I put up a few days ago.

A portion of this post from from SOSH. specifically, it is a very informative post by wutang112878. if you want to see more go to...

Thanks.

I've argued the same point using those numbers before. One reason I opted for this list above is because you can match guys specifically with some other names.

It can really brings home the difference in quality. A lot of people look at our recent picks and aren't impressed. But if you look at the names it becomes obvious that to get an actual NBA player in those slots is pretty amazing. Like who is Chinemelu Elonu? Who in blazes is Targuy Ngombo?

I mean, people will complain that we missed on Parsons when we took JJJ. But I don't recall anyone complimenting Danny for taking AB over Craig Brackins, or Rondo over Josh Boone.

Good points. But whether looking at league averages or a comparison as you did, the outcome is the same. Danny is better than most GMs at drafting talent.

Also, your post brings out the point that we should not just look randomly at any name not drafted by ainge and say "Danny missed the boat.". Everyone GM missed the boat in those cases.

Rather by looking at the names close to the Celtic pick we can see better the context for ainges choices.

Thanks and be sure to watch out for Rocket J. squirrel.

[apc]

AINGE'S DRAFT HISTORY

1st round
 
Absolute Assets
Al Jefferson  -  #15 Overall
Kendrick Perkins -  #27 Overall
Rajon Rondo - # 21 Overall
Avery Bradley  -  #19 Overall
Jared Sullinger  -  #21 Overall
Tony Allen  -  #25 Overall
Delonte West  -  #24 Overall
 
Duds:
Marcus Banks -  #13 Overall
Gerald Green  -  #18 Overall
Fab Melo  -  #22 Overall
JaJuan Johnson -  #27 Overall
J.R. Giddens  -  #30 Overall
 
2nd Round
 
Useful
Ryan Gomes  -  #50 Overall
Semih Erden  -  #60 Overall
Big Baby Davis - #35 Overall
Leon Powe - #49 Overall

Not that Useful
Gabe Pruitt  -  #32 Overall
Justin Reed  -  #40 Overall
Kris Joseph  -  #51 Overall
Luke Harangody  -  #52 Overall
Orien Greene  -  #53 Overall
E'Twaun Moore  -  #55 Overall
Lester Hudson  -  #58 Overall
 

Moore deserves more credit for #55.
and Fab i think will be useful even if its only for his size.

[Boris Badenov]

You might want to take a look at not just the next two players taken but the next five or six players taken.

I'd also say that Ainge seems to be rather good at making draft-day trades.

  If you look at 5-6 players you need to factor that into your analysis, like only calling it a bad pick if at least half of those 5-6 players are better than who he drafted, not 1-2 of them.

  I think it's somewhat interesting to compare the picks to the same pick in different years. For instance, pick a 10 year period (say from 12 years ago to 3 years ago) and compare (for example) Al Jefferson to the 15th picks in the 9 other drafts. If your player is in the top 3 or so it was a good pick, in the bottom 3 it's a bad pick, otherwise it's a decent pick.

Yeah, that tendency to look at many picks (or even all of them) after Danny's and cherry-pick the best player is what I think gets people into trouble.

Your idea about doing it by pick number is pretty interesting.

I think just going and looking at the actual full lists of everyone drafted would be eye-opening for the people who seem to have such high expectations. It is [dang]ed difficult to draft legit NBA players, much less stars, and it is exponentially harder to do that drafting below 15th.

[LarBrd33]

FYI,

Danny was hired on May 9, 2003.  The draft was only a month after.  I kind of give him a pass on the Marcus Banks pick for that reason.  He didn't have a lot of time to scout and prepare and probably didn't have a team in place.  He still ended up picking Perk late in that draft, though... which made up for it.  Also, there wasn't like there were a ton of players better than Banks picked after him... David West was taken 5 picks later, but that's not fair.

Danny Ainge is one of the best GMs in the league without question.  We are very lucky to have him.  Dude is a master.

Think about it... the only Top 5 pick we ever got, we traded for Ray Allen... a key part of our title.  We then later brought in that guy we traded (Jeff Green) for the dude we took 27th in the 2003 draft.  Dude is a complete master.  A MASTER.

[CelticsFan9]

Great work as usual, BB.  TP.

I love that Danny is never afraid to take a chance on guys.  Many of the guys we've drafted have had red flags, question marks, etc., yet they've panned out.  It not only shows Danny's eye for talent, but also his willingness to have the patience to develop players.

[syfy9]

TP, great analysis.

[Beat LA]

FYI,

Danny was hired on May 9, 2003.  The draft was only a month after.  I kind of give him a pass on the Marcus Banks pick for that reason.  He didn't have a lot of time to scout and prepare and probably didn't have a team in place.  He still ended up picking Perk late in that draft, though... which made up for it.  Also, there wasn't like there were a ton of players better than Banks picked after him... David West was taken 5 picks later, but that's not fair.

Danny Ainge is one of the best GMs in the league without question.  We are very lucky to have him.  Dude is a master.

Think about it... the only Top 5 pick we ever got, we traded for Ray Allen... a key part of our title.  We then later brought in that guy we traded (Jeff Green) for the dude we took 27th in the 2003 draft.  Dude is a complete master.  A MASTER.

Why is that unfair?