Although the new season has just started for more than half a month, there will never be a shortage of focus events worthy of attention and hot discussion in the exciting league-"The Great" who has not made his season debut Embiid but are frequently attacked by alliances Investigation, after the coaching change, the Cleveland Cavaliers ushered in a strong start to the season with nine consecutive wins. At the same time, the Milwaukee Bucks unexpectedly suffered a dismal six-game losing streak...
However, the sensation brought by last year's No. 1 pick Bunyama In comparison, the discussion about the performance of this year's rookies seems a lot more deserted. Although this year is recognized as a weak year for the draft, who would have thought that the top three picks combined would not receive as much attention as Bronny James , the 55th pick in the second round?
Take a look back at the first ten games of the careers of Zachary Lizache, Alex Sarr and Reed Sheppard. Except for scoring 33 points against the Knicks , No. 1 pick Rissa Shee was really lackluster, and his offensive efficiency was even more appalling. He often shot 1-for-1 from the field; and in terms of sluggish efficiency, the No. 2 pick Sal is no less generous, with an outside shooting percentage of just over 20%, and his offensive skills are still very rough; even Sheppard, who had an eye-catching performance in the summer league and was once the most promising pick, also looked quite limited in his extremely limited playing time. For mediocrity.
In the latest rookie rankings, none of the three entered the top four, and Shepard even failed to make the list. Looking at the top three draft picks in the history of the league, although parallel rookies appear from time to time, it is rare for the No. 2 pick to be drafted at the same time - is this draft really the best in history?
1. Limited by team positioning and low tactical status
As we all know, in previous draft draws, the worse a team's record in the previous season, the higher the chance of obtaining a higher draft pick. Moreover, reconstruction does not happen overnight, so after most teams obtain high-ranking draft picks, it still takes one, two or even years to form a competitive lineup and attack the playoffs and even higher goals. Therefore, high-ranking picks often have higher shooting rights and tactical status in the first year.
Obviously, none of the top three picks in this year's draft have this advantage. This is due to the positioning and goals of their respective teams.
Looking back at the draft lottery in the past 25 years, the Eagles , Wizards and Rockets that received the top three picks this year have a combined winning rate of 37.3%, ranking fourth. The No. 1 ranking in 2017 (total winning rate 43.5%) was entirely due to the fact that the Celtics (53 wins and 29 losses) had their No. 3 pick from the Philadelphia 76ers in a trade the previous year. , so the Celtics who reached the Eastern Conference Finals that year increased the overall winning rate of the top three teams that year.
Back to the three teams this year - although the Hawks completed a blockbuster trade this summer and sent away Dejounte Murray, they still retained Trae Young, Capela, Jaylen Johnson and Bogdanovich includes the main Strong lineup, has not yet entered the reconstruction period, and still has record goals and requirements this season; the Wizards have accumulated a large number of young players, and Sarr, as a center whose selling point is physical talent, is not suitable for ball-holding style; Rockets They achieved a 50% winning rate this season and almost made it to the playoffs. Of course, they will hit higher goals this season and cannot provide Sheppard with many opportunities for trial and error.
As of now, Risashe's positioning tends to be a 3D player on the wing, Sarr is a blue-collar inside and a space-based inside, and Sheppard is the team's third point guard. Under such preconditions, it is understandable that the data does not appear to be eye-catching.
2. How to define parallel import rookie?
The concept of "parallel import" is not a simple label, but involves multiple evaluation criteria. Defining "parallel import rookies" is often a highly subjective question, because the evaluation criteria are not limited to on-field data and performance, but also involve the player's long-term contribution to the team, the possibility of realizing his potential, injury factors, and the selection of that year's draft. overall quality and many other dimensions.When a high-draft pick fails to fulfill his expected potential on the court, fails to make a significant contribution to the team, or even has a huge gap with the publicity and expectations at the time of the draft, it is easy to be labeled as a "parallel import." Then it will be easy to use this as a standard to choose our measuring stick.
Therefore, we have identified three general directions for measuring a player's strength, and assigned their respective weights according to their importance, namely average data category (accounting for 30%) and career honors category (accounting for 35%) , high-order data category (accounting for 35%). Each direction is divided into several small categories, namely -
average data category: average points per game (7%), average rebounds per game (6%), average assists per game (6%), average steals per game (5 %), average blocks per game (5%)
Note: The average data per game is a direct reflection of the continuous performance of the player's career, so it accounts for a relatively large proportion. Scores, rebounds and assists tend to contribute more to the team, and their weight is slightly higher than steals and blocks.
Career honor categories: All-Star times (5%), All-NBA teams (5%), All-Defensive team times (5 %), mvp times (8%), best defensive player times (5%), best sixth man times (2%), fmvp times (5%)
Note: Career honors reflect a player’s peak performance and widespread recognition Spend. MVP and FMVP have higher influence and scarcity, and have higher weight. Number of All-Stars, Best Team, and Best Defensive Team also reflect a player's career status, but their influence is secondary to MVP honors. The best sixth man has less impact than other honors, so the weight is lower
High-level data categories: victory contribution value (ws) (12%), box plus-minus (bpm) (11%), cumulative contribution value (vorp ) (12%)
Note: Advanced data is a more in-depth analysis of a player's overall contribution and can measure a player's direct contribution to a team's victory. Because it can comprehensively reflect the overall performance of the player, it occupies a larger proportion in the total weight. The weights of ws and vorp are slightly higher than bpm because the first two cover more comprehensive aspects.
If you want to judge whether a certain draft pick is a "parallel import rookie", then horizontally comparing players with the same pick in other years may be a good method. Because as long as the sample is large enough, the players in the median should be able to reflect the approximate average level of players in this pick.
Therefore, we summarized the career data and honors of the top three draft picks and a total of 63 players from 1995 to 2015 in a total of 21 years, and arranged them from high to low, and found the median of each data - if a If a player's data is higher than the median, the score will be positive, if the player is lower than the median, the score will be negative, and if it is equal to the median, the score will be 0; for every player higher than the median in the ranking, the score will be positive. Add 1 point, otherwise 1 point will be deducted.
Take the 2003 No. 1 pick LeBron James as an example. He ranks first in vorp data, 31 places higher than the median (ranked 32nd) player Derrick Favors, so in this data his The score is -31x0.12=-3.72. According to this standard, the final sum of James' scores in several other categories is calculated. The calculated result (let's call it "comprehensive strength value" for the time being) can represent LeBron James's comprehensive strength among the top three draft picks. .
The lower the overall strength value, the closer the player is to our definition of a parallel import player. Due to the large amount of data, we only show the parallel import values of a few representative players here.
After calculation, the five players with the lowest overall strength values are: Anthony Bennett, Adam Morrison, Hasheem Thabeet, Darko Milicic and Michael Olavokandi. It is worth mentioning that because teams prefer to bet on interior players with high picks during this period, eight of the top ten players are centers or power forwards.
The five people with the highest overall strength values are: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Tim Duncan, Anthony Davis and James Harden.
The average players who best represent the top three picks in these 21 years are Antonio McDyess, Kenyon Martin and Victor Oladipo.
In the end, we added up the comprehensive strength values of the top three draft picks in each year. The ones with the lowest scores were the most popular rookies in the past 21 years - Bennett, Oladipo and 2013. Otto Porter became the top three picks; the rookies in 2006 and 2000 ranked second and third respectively.
3. Are the top three in this year’s draft good or bad?
As of November 14, Risashe, Thrall and Shepard have all played in at least 10 games. If we take these 10 games as a reference and compare them with the top three draft picks in 2013, it will be clear whether this year's Triple A is a success or not. And it just so happens that the top three in the two seasons are all combinations of inside players + forwards + defenders, which makes it easier for us to compare.
Obviously, the overall performance of the top three in the 2024 draft is better.
Although the playing time in the 2013 class was on the low side, it was at a disadvantage in the comparison of average data per game. But even if we compare the per-36-minute data of the two waves of players, the 13th generation players will still be at a disadvantage due to their low efficiency.
So from the current point of view, it is certainly biased to say that the top three rookies of this year are the best, but the strength they have shown is indeed lower than the average level of other years.
In any case, the career of the 2024 rookies has just begun. With enough patience, the seeds planted by each team in the summer may finally come to fruition.
Although the new season has just started for more than half a month, there will never be a shortage of focus events worthy of attention and hot discussion in the exciting league-"The Great" who has not made his season debut Embiid but are frequently attacked by alliances Investigation, after the coaching change, the Cleveland Cavaliers ushered in a strong start to the season with nine consecutive wins. At the same time, the Milwaukee Bucks unexpectedly suffered a dismal six-game losing streak...
However, the sensation brought by last year's No. 1 pick Bunyama In comparison, the discussion about the performance of this year's rookies seems a lot more deserted. Although this year is recognized as a weak year for the draft, who would have thought that the top three picks combined would not receive as much attention as Bronny James , the 55th pick in the second round?
Take a look back at the first ten games of the careers of Zachary Lizache, Alex Sarr and Reed Sheppard. Except for scoring 33 points against the Knicks , No. 1 pick Rissa Shee was really lackluster, and his offensive efficiency was even more appalling. He often shot 1-for-1 from the field; and in terms of sluggish efficiency, the No. 2 pick Sal is no less generous, with an outside shooting percentage of just over 20%, and his offensive skills are still very rough; even Sheppard, who had an eye-catching performance in the summer league and was once the most promising pick, also looked quite limited in his extremely limited playing time. For mediocrity.
In the latest rookie rankings, none of the three entered the top four, and Shepard even failed to make the list. Looking at the top three draft picks in the history of the league, although parallel rookies appear from time to time, it is rare for the No. 2 pick to be drafted at the same time - is this draft really the best in history?
1. Limited by team positioning and low tactical status
As we all know, in previous draft draws, the worse a team's record in the previous season, the higher the chance of obtaining a higher draft pick. Moreover, reconstruction does not happen overnight, so after most teams obtain high-ranking draft picks, it still takes one, two or even years to form a competitive lineup and attack the playoffs and even higher goals. Therefore, high-ranking picks often have higher shooting rights and tactical status in the first year.
Obviously, none of the top three picks in this year's draft have this advantage. This is due to the positioning and goals of their respective teams.
Looking back at the draft lottery in the past 25 years, the Eagles , Wizards and Rockets that received the top three picks this year have a combined winning rate of 37.3%, ranking fourth. The No. 1 ranking in 2017 (total winning rate 43.5%) was entirely due to the fact that the Celtics (53 wins and 29 losses) had their No. 3 pick from the Philadelphia 76ers in a trade the previous year. , so the Celtics who reached the Eastern Conference Finals that year increased the overall winning rate of the top three teams that year.
Back to the three teams this year - although the Hawks completed a blockbuster trade this summer and sent away Dejounte Murray, they still retained Trae Young, Capela, Jaylen Johnson and Bogdanovich includes the main Strong lineup, has not yet entered the reconstruction period, and still has record goals and requirements this season; the Wizards have accumulated a large number of young players, and Sarr, as a center whose selling point is physical talent, is not suitable for ball-holding style; Rockets They achieved a 50% winning rate this season and almost made it to the playoffs. Of course, they will hit higher goals this season and cannot provide Sheppard with many opportunities for trial and error.
As of now, Risashe's positioning tends to be a 3D player on the wing, Sarr is a blue-collar inside and a space-based inside, and Sheppard is the team's third point guard. Under such preconditions, it is understandable that the data does not appear to be eye-catching.
2. How to define parallel import rookie?
The concept of "parallel import" is not a simple label, but involves multiple evaluation criteria. Defining "parallel import rookies" is often a highly subjective question, because the evaluation criteria are not limited to on-field data and performance, but also involve the player's long-term contribution to the team, the possibility of realizing his potential, injury factors, and the selection of that year's draft. overall quality and many other dimensions.When a high-draft pick fails to fulfill his expected potential on the court, fails to make a significant contribution to the team, or even has a huge gap with the publicity and expectations at the time of the draft, it is easy to be labeled as a "parallel import." Then it will be easy to use this as a standard to choose our measuring stick.
Therefore, we have identified three general directions for measuring a player's strength, and assigned their respective weights according to their importance, namely average data category (accounting for 30%) and career honors category (accounting for 35%) , high-order data category (accounting for 35%). Each direction is divided into several small categories, namely -
average data category: average points per game (7%), average rebounds per game (6%), average assists per game (6%), average steals per game (5 %), average blocks per game (5%)
Note: The average data per game is a direct reflection of the continuous performance of the player's career, so it accounts for a relatively large proportion. Scores, rebounds and assists tend to contribute more to the team, and their weight is slightly higher than steals and blocks.
Career honor categories: All-Star times (5%), All-NBA teams (5%), All-Defensive team times (5 %), mvp times (8%), best defensive player times (5%), best sixth man times (2%), fmvp times (5%)
Note: Career honors reflect a player’s peak performance and widespread recognition Spend. MVP and FMVP have higher influence and scarcity, and have higher weight. Number of All-Stars, Best Team, and Best Defensive Team also reflect a player's career status, but their influence is secondary to MVP honors. The best sixth man has less impact than other honors, so the weight is lower
High-level data categories: victory contribution value (ws) (12%), box plus-minus (bpm) (11%), cumulative contribution value (vorp ) (12%)
Note: Advanced data is a more in-depth analysis of a player's overall contribution and can measure a player's direct contribution to a team's victory. Because it can comprehensively reflect the overall performance of the player, it occupies a larger proportion in the total weight. The weights of ws and vorp are slightly higher than bpm because the first two cover more comprehensive aspects.
If you want to judge whether a certain draft pick is a "parallel import rookie", then horizontally comparing players with the same pick in other years may be a good method. Because as long as the sample is large enough, the players in the median should be able to reflect the approximate average level of players in this pick.
Therefore, we summarized the career data and honors of the top three draft picks and a total of 63 players from 1995 to 2015 in a total of 21 years, and arranged them from high to low, and found the median of each data - if a If a player's data is higher than the median, the score will be positive, if the player is lower than the median, the score will be negative, and if it is equal to the median, the score will be 0; for every player higher than the median in the ranking, the score will be positive. Add 1 point, otherwise 1 point will be deducted.
Take the 2003 No. 1 pick LeBron James as an example. He ranks first in vorp data, 31 places higher than the median (ranked 32nd) player Derrick Favors, so in this data his The score is -31x0.12=-3.72. According to this standard, the final sum of James' scores in several other categories is calculated. The calculated result (let's call it "comprehensive strength value" for the time being) can represent LeBron James's comprehensive strength among the top three draft picks. .
The lower the overall strength value, the closer the player is to our definition of a parallel import player. Due to the large amount of data, we only show the parallel import values of a few representative players here.
After calculation, the five players with the lowest overall strength values are: Anthony Bennett, Adam Morrison, Hasheem Thabeet, Darko Milicic and Michael Olavokandi. It is worth mentioning that because teams prefer to bet on interior players with high picks during this period, eight of the top ten players are centers or power forwards.
The five people with the highest overall strength values are: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Tim Duncan, Anthony Davis and James Harden.
The average players who best represent the top three picks in these 21 years are Antonio McDyess, Kenyon Martin and Victor Oladipo.
In the end, we added up the comprehensive strength values of the top three draft picks in each year. The ones with the lowest scores were the most popular rookies in the past 21 years - Bennett, Oladipo and 2013. Otto Porter became the top three picks; the rookies in 2006 and 2000 ranked second and third respectively.
3. Are the top three in this year’s draft good or bad?
As of November 14, Risashe, Thrall and Shepard have all played in at least 10 games. If we take these 10 games as a reference and compare them with the top three draft picks in 2013, it will be clear whether this year's Triple A is a success or not. And it just so happens that the top three in the two seasons are all combinations of inside players + forwards + defenders, which makes it easier for us to compare.
Obviously, the overall performance of the top three in the 2024 draft is better.
Although the playing time in the 2013 class was on the low side, it was at a disadvantage in the comparison of average data per game. But even if we compare the per-36-minute data of the two waves of players, the 13th generation players will still be at a disadvantage due to their low efficiency.
So from the current point of view, it is certainly biased to say that the top three rookies of this year are the best, but the strength they have shown is indeed lower than the average level of other years.
In any case, the career of the 2024 rookies has just begun. With enough patience, the seeds planted by each team in the summer may finally come to fruition.
Source: nba official website
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