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Revisiting Our Previous Draft Boards

By VoxMediaUser71923

Every now and then I think it's a good idea to go back and look at who we hoped for in drafts past. It's a good way to maintain some quality control around here and it allows us to learn from what went right (and wrong) in order to make this year's draft board as good as possible.

The action begins below the fold.

Our first draft board was broken down into a simple two-tier system: Guys to Take and Buyer Beware. Here are our top players in the 2008 Draft:

  1. Michael Beasley
  2. Kevin Love
  3. Derrick Rose
  4. Brook Lopez
  5. Joe Alexander
  6. Mareese Speights
  7. Mario Chalmers
  8. OJ Mayo
  9. DJ White
  10. Chris Douglas Roberts
  11. Roy Hibbert
  12. Richard Hendrix
  13. Brandon Rush
  14. Ryan Anderson
  15. Joey Dorsey
  16. Pat Calathes

We were one of the few sites that didn't rank Rose at the top of the draft. I think people tend to forget two things about Rose's only college season: he had a relatively slow start and he wasn't the best guard on his own team. I still believe that in 5 years, and if he can maintain his sobriety, Michael Beasley will be the class of this draft in the mold of a better rebounding Carmelo Anthony.

Our biggest miss is obviously Joe Alexander. Thankfully, were we selecting for the Wolves, Kevin Love and Brook Lopez would have saved us from making the Alexander pick. If we were drafting for the Wolves, here is how the picks would have broken down:

3- Kevin Love

31- Mario Chalmers

34- Chris Douglas Roberts

The bottom line for the top pick, in our eyes, was that the Wolves had to walk away with Love, Rose, Lopez, or Beasley or they should trade down for a value pick like Speights or, regrettably, Alexander.

Here's who we had in the Buyer Beware category:

  1. Jerryd Bayless
  2. Eric Gordon
  3. Anthony Randolph
  4. Russell Westbrook
  5. Donte Greene
  6. Deandre Jordan
  7. DJ Augustin
  8. Kosta Koufos
  9. Robin Lopez
  10. Bill Walker

I'm thinking that was a fairly solid stab at players who haven't quite yet turned out. Some of them have shown flashes but I don't think there are any Alexander-esque FUBARs on that list.

What say you? Were we on track with our 2008 Draft Board?

In 2009 we updated the Hoopus Score to account for different positions: guard, wing, and bigs. We also broke the score into two sections: net stats and efficiency. We then broke the picks down into three tiers:

  1. Blake Griffin: 45/18.196 (63.196-big)
  2. Stephen Curry: 42.6/13.203 (55.803-guard)
  3. James Harden: 38.4/10.393 (48.793-guard)
  4. Demar Derozan: 31.3/13.879 (45.179-wing)
  5. Ty Lawson: 35.275/10.616 (45.668-guard)
  6. Hasheem Thabeet: 42.7/14.703 (57.4-big)
  7. DeJuan Blair: 37.825/15.578 (53.403-big)

Tier Two (picks 11-20):

  1. Tyler Hansbrough: 39.375/13.766 (53.141-big)
  2. Nick Calathes: 33.3/10.575 (43.875-guard)
  3. Eric Maynor: 32.875/9.558 (42.433-guard) (17.2/13-22)
  4. Jeff Teague: 35.525/7.813 (43.358-guard) (15.2/8-22)
  5. Marcus Thornton: 31.875/9.685 (41.156-guard) (26.3/23-2nd)

Tier Three (picks 21-30):

  1. Jordan Hill: 33.999/12.451 (46.45-big)
  2. Lee Cummard: 30.6/11.359 (41.959-guard)
  3. Chase Budinger: 29.575/10.953 (40.528-wing)
  4. Tyreke Evans: 31.4/8.414 (39.814-guard)
  5. Jonny Flynn: 31.825/7.285 (39.11-guard)
  6. Gerald Henderson: 30.5/7.808 (38.308-guard)
  7. Sam Young: 29.8/8.196 (37.996-wing)
  8. Terrence Williams: 26.775/11.06 (37.835-wing)
  9. James Johnson: 29.375/10.77 (40.145-big)
  10. Toney Douglas: 31.25/8.842 (40.092-guard)
  11. Wayne Ellington: 27.3/8.828 (36.128-guard)

Were we picking for the Wolves, and without taking into consideration a certain Spanish point guard, we would have taken Stephen Curry and Demar DeRozan at 5 and 6. With Rubio available at 5, it would have been a tough choice between Curry and DeRozan at 6 and we would have went with DeRozan.

For the life of me I will never understand how Ty Lawson and DeJuan Blair were allowed to get past the Wolves' later picks. Two tier one guys fell into their laps with a mid round pick and a late round pick. We also had Marcus Thornton rated well above Wayne Ellington with the last 1st rounder.

In terms of screwing the pooch, it appears we did so with Tyreke Evans. Although, we did write this at the time:

You will probably notice that we do not think very highly of Jonny Flynn and Tyreke Evans. Evans was a tough call. On one hand, we all know the positives: He has upper-level height, length, and strength for his position and he can score the damn ball. On the other hand, he can't shoot. It's not just that he can't shoot from outside, but he can't shoot from anywhere. From spot up situations to isolation, Evans shoots roughly 25% on jump shot opportunities. This wouldn't be so problematic if jump shots didn't account for 40% of his possessions. On top of that, he's not exactly the world's greatest isolation player, scoring 0.54 ppp in these situations. This stat especially worries me in light of the physical display that Evans put on during his workout day with the Wolves. Against smaller guards he was able to muscle his way to the rim but he wasn't able to do this as efficiently as we'd all like to believe while at Memphis. When you don't have a jump shot and when you are inefficient in iso situations, where are you getting your points? Transition, transition, transition. Last year's game against Missiouri was a perfect template for what Evans brings to the table. He will torch teams in transition and in free-flowing opportunities into the lane, but he will torch his own team with his jumper and relative inability to create his own shot in a half court setting. The caveat here is that Evans' poor score is almost entirely dependent on his awful shooting. Unlike Flynn, who was somewhat underwhelming across the board, Evans is held back by one major thing. If you believe his shot is fixable, then he moves up the board. Since we here at Hoopus don't exactly have the type of scouting ability to answer this question, we'll stick with his college record. In terms of the Wolves, Evans is not a good pick. He is more in the D-Wade model than Randy Foye ever was or will be, but he's not a good shooter and his isolation abilities are not up to snuff enough to make up for the awful, terrible, no-good jumper.

It turns out Evans can create his own shot fairly well. Plus, I don't think I had a handle on just how much his size would be a positive at the next level. He physically dominates his position like few other players.

I will never, ever get the Flynn pick. It didn't make a lick of sense before the draft, during the draft, and right now. Imagine a team two years from now with Rubio and DeRozan in the back court with Rudy Gay on the wing. The 2/3 needs to be 6'7" and above with superior athleticism. Now they're stuck with a 5'11" guard who doesn't appear to know how to play the point and whose high usage rate seems to be correlated to a large negative +/- number (more on that later).

Well, that about does it. We have made a few more tweaks to this year's formula. Going back and applying the new formula to players in 2008 and 2009, we have Blake Griffin as the top rated prospect of the past 2 years by a fairly significant amount. Kevin Love comes in 2nd with Evan Turner coming in at a close 3rd. John Wall is off to a ridiculous start and if he improves his turnover ratio he'll likely be very near the top.

Anywho, the reason why I'm putting this up is so people can look at our track record and see whether or not we should be taken seriously with our draft analysis. Also, I'd like to see what format is preferable to our readers. Do you want the Buyer Beware list? Should I leave it out? Do you like things broken down by wings, guards, and bigs or do you like a single score?

What say you?