More notes on 2008 draft prospects

Over the last week and a half I've been slowly compiling statistical numbers in an effort to compare players' collegiate Win Scores to their subsequent professional Win Scores to determine the relationship between the two. I charted about 83 players, mostly players drafted in the late 90s, and I quit after that because I could not take anymore calculating. I came up with an average of 62.1%.

The standard deviation on that is 12.3, however, which is a lot. But still, 62.1% of collegiate production is a good benchmark for projecting a prospect's pro potential.

It seems, generally, that the type of players who are most susceptible to much larger than average dropoffs in production are shooting guards (especially "tweeners" like Juan Dixon) and power forwards who are either too short (Ryan Humphries, Rodney White) or too skinny (Marcus Haislip, Melvin Ely). The most dependable players on the other hand were point guards, burly and tall power forwards and centers, and small forwards.

Armed with this new information, here's my second crack at analyzing the '08 draft board as found on draftexpress.com:

1. Michael Beasley, SF/PF
I've warmed to this guy in a big way. His numbers are incredible. I still think his best position is small forward, but when you rebound and attack the basket like he does you can basically play anywhere. He should be a star. Perhaps another Marques Johnson circa 1977?

2. Derrick Rose, PG
I'm still not that high on this player. His numbers are average, his outside shooting is poor, and he turns the ball over too much even though from what I saw on Saturday in the Tennessee game, he doesn't really play the point for Memphis.

3. Jerryd Bayless, PG/SG
This player fits the profle of a bust. He's a short, skinny shooting guard whose college numbers really aren't that great. I'm not saying he's necessarily another Trajan Langdon, or Joseph Forte, but I would stay away from him.

4. Brook Lopez, C
Big centers translate well, but the problem with Lopez is his college numbers are below the NBA average for a center. That's a huge red flag. Centers don't usually more productive when they enter the professional ranks. If he can't do better against the much lesser centers in college, how can you expect him to produce big numbers in the pros?

5. Eric Gordon, SG
Again, the warning lights should be flashing. An extremely small shooting guard whose college numbers are inflated by the collegiate 3, and a player who doesn't rebound at all.

6. Danilo Gallinari, SF/PF
Now, what does draftexpress.com see in this guy? He's a poor shooter (43%), his European Win Score/40 is low, and he doesn't rebound at all. There's no way he can play power forward in the NBA. No way. He rebounds like a shooting guard and he's 6'9 and only 209 lbs. Basically, he's Adam Morrison redux.

7. DeAndre Jordan, C
Okay, this guy I kind of like. The only hesitations I have are that his college numbers are eerily similar to Michael Olowakandi's (aka, the Candy Man Couldn't), and I always worry when a guy has a very high FG% (63.1%) and a very, very low FT% (46.2%). It implies he's probably getting a lot of baskets simply by overpowering his college competition. Will that translate up to the pros?

Okay, I've got to go to the gym. I'll continue this post later. Believe it or not, there are players I really like (Ty Lawson, Kevin Love and others) down their draft board, and I want to comment on why the very productive Tyler Hansborough scares the shit out of me.