2016-2020 NBA Draft Retrospective

July 21, 2021

Introduction

Before I do my annual ranking of the upcoming NBA draft class, I figured it was about time to re-visit my previous rankings (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020) and methodology and update my thinking. What have I been overrating? What have I been underrating? What players did I badly miss on and why? I'm going to try and put myself in the mindset that I do not know what type of career each player has had so far and just try to adjust their pre-draft rankings with my current day mindset of what is/is not important, but also keeping in mind that some of the player's career will likely seep into my brain, call it cognitive fallacy.

As a general trend, I think I noticed a few traits across the board I overrated and a few I underrated. First off, outside of bigs that have a chance to be elite All-NBA type players (e.g. Jaren Jackson Jr., DeAndre Ayton, Zion Williamson, Jonathan Isaac), I think I generally overrated big men. Having a Joel Embiid or Anthony Davis is a game changer, but otherwise it's the most easily replacable position in the league, so outside of the opportunity to draft a player with that potential, it seems a bit like wasting resources to draft a player who will take development time/roster space just to potentially become a player you can sign for a near vet minimum each offseason. Obviously bigs should still be drafted at SOME point, but I think my rankings over-rate them by a 5-15 FV points across the board. For example, I think if I were to re-do my 2016 board, I would still like Dragan Bender quite a bit, as he hits a lot of the indicators I like in a prospect, but having him #2 overall over some of the skilled guards and athletic wings seems too high. Similarly with Marquese Chriss and Zhou Qi and Deyonta Davis and Jakob Poeltl and so on and so on.

The second major trend is that I have been underrated shot creation full stop. My brain and eyes have been at a disjunction between what is aesthetically pleasing and what is effective. In theory, I want all the best teams to play like the early 2010's Spurs, succeeding through quick passing, decisive cutting, and overall cohesion. In practice, having an individual player who is able to create a good look for themselves or one of their teammates seems like an easier, more effective, and sustainable (at least currently) way to generate offense.

Even though I think I've been higher than consensus on a lot of wing players, I think I've still been underrating them. As a general, I think wings with two of {shooting, athleticism/frame, high-level basketball IQ/awareness} are some of most critical players in the league, and players with all 3 can become star level players without some of the other "star" traits like shot creation or ball handling.

Additional things I have now adjusted is to adjust down the important of guard defense while still maintaining the defensive importance and versatility of wings and bigs. I think age is very important for elite or raw players, but for lesser players (~45 FV and below) it's less so, as you are more looking for any capable rotation player, so if there is a highly productive older senior, it's not a terrible investment to make. Finally, I think I overrated a lack of data. I think I too often operated with the mentality of, "a player is capable until they prove they are not" versus "a player is incapable until proven otherwise". For example, a one-and-done player who doesn't play their freshman year. In the past, my mentality more along the lines of, "this player has yet to fail at anything", while now it is more closer to, "this player has yet to show they can do anything". Okay, now onto the yearly reviews (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020):

2016

2017

2018

This was the first year I used FV grades, and I don't think I was well calibrated. Nearly every original grade should have probably been lowered by ~5 FV across the board outside of the very top of the board.

2019

Most of the grades are still high by at least ~5 FV. I'll note the more egregious (at least a grade and a half) re-grades here.

2020