Is Ainge too concerned with a high floor when drafting

[Celtics4ever]

In no way was Yabu ever a higher upside pick than Levert. Yabu was sold to Boston fans as a high upside pick.

 Drafting him at 16 was asinine. Guy was a second round prospect

Total reach and a dud.

[Hoopvortex]

 I feel like he may be to cautious when drafting. Not many swing for the fences picks I can remember. Avery Bradley fits that mold and a little bit of Romeo Langford although I don't think he was the highest upside pick available.

You’re saying that Avery Bradley was a high-upside pick??

Smart#6 overall. Who doesn't love Smart. His shooting is finally coming around, although he's still not a complete offensive weapon.

 It was a sure thing he was going to be able to help right away with NBA Defense. And that was true.  9ppg 4apg 3rpg is underwhelming if we are being honest for the #6 overall.

 For me Julius Randle was the easy pick.
 Highest ceiling but you were gonna have to tolerate bad defense early on.

And, apparently, later on as well.

Now it's hard to argue that Smart is a better player.

I’d argue it all day long. If ‘better’ means ‘helps your team win basketball games’, then Smart is better.  I like what Brad Stevens said, with his gift for getting to the essential: Marcus does the hard things.

I’m not diminishing Randle, either; I’d question his choice of the Knicks as a destination, though. He got paid, it’s true, but - apart from the likelihood that NY is not going to make the playoffs this year, or for that matter next year - he’s competing for minutes with Marcus Morris, Bobby Portis, Kevin Knox, Taj Gibson, and Mitchell Robinson, all of whom are going to get minutes. I predict discontent.

The other high upside pick lots of people were talking about that I would not sign off on was Zach Lavine.

  That's a tough call but look Lavine is reaching that high upside now. Probably has higher trade value than Smart.

It’s not a tough call for the Celtics - not that we will EVER have to evaluate who won a LaVine/Smart swap.

Basketball, thank God, is still a team game.

 

Let's go to the #16 pick in 2016. Not gonna pretend I knew about Pascal Siakam that year.

 High upside guys that year for me were

 #1 Caris Levert. Absolutely loved him but he was a huge injury risk.
 #2 Skal Labissiere former too prospect. He sucked.
#3 Dejounte Murray

 Who did we take? Yabu. Enough said.

You’ve turned your argument on its head.

Yabusele is a great example of a high-risk/high-reward pick. A guy with his handles and touch, at his size, would be a matchup nightmare; and 16 was significantly higher than the conventional wisdom.

Danny likes solid over sky high upside IMHO.

Brown and Tatum have sky-high upside.

But that just points to the real problem here - it’s never a choice between ‘solid’ and ‘sky-high upside’, because those aren’t opposites at all.

I think that your real argument is that Ainge is risk-averse, but your examples don’t persuade me of that.

To the contrary, the consensus pick in 2017 was Fultz, and #2 was Lonzo. But Danny made it crystal clear that they would have taken Tatum #1. Now, Tatum was inarguably a “solid“ pick, but clearly his upside is All-NBA.

Likewise, Jaylen, Rozier, and even Robert Williams were picked higher than the consensus.

And though they got Carsen in the second round, they had him rated as first-round talent. I don’t know about you, but I am confident that he will outperform his draft status, probably by a long ways.

 In no way was Yabu ever a higher upside pick than Levert. Yabu was sold to Boston fans as a high upside pick.

 Drafting him at 16 was asinine. Guy was a second round prospect. The biggest reach I can recall Danny making in the first round.

 Where is Yabu now and where is Levert now. There is your answer as to who had the highest potential.

You’re trying to have it both ways.

Your thread question is not whether Boston is taking the players with the highest potential, and it’s beside the point whether LeVert is better, or even if he had a higher ceiling - or even if Yabusele had any success with Boston.

YOUR question is whether Danny Ainge is avoiding taking players with a low floor, and now you’ve moved the goalposts.

[Moranis]

One thing interesting about re-drafts is how they'd change over time.

Sure some guys like LeBron would be taken #1 every year for their entire career, but with others it flip flops.

2009 redraft by year probably goes something like this (assuming you're considering their entire careers to that point while estimating what's left going forward):
2010: Griffin, Evans, Curry, Jennings
2011: Griffin, Curry, DeRozan, Holiday
2012: Griffin, Curry, Harden, DeRozan
2013: Griffin, Harden, Curry, DeRozan
2014: Griffin, Harden, Curry, DeRozan
2015: Curry, Harden, Griffin, DeRozan
2016: Curry, Harden, Griffin, DeRozan
2017: Curry/Harden, Griffin, DeRozan
2018: Curry/Harden, Griffin, DeRozan
2019: Curry/Harden, Griffin, DeRozan

2010 draft (even if we're not considering injury impacts), we probably see Wall have go #1 in the first 2 redrafts, before he's overtaken by George, with a guy like Monroe probably going top 5 in the first couple of redrafts, before moving much further down the list.

2011 is probably all over the place.  Kyrie probably goes #1 in the first 3 redrafts, before he's overtaken by Kawhi.  But #2-#10 would change drastically over the years.  Maybe Rubio, Faried, Knight are top 5 the first redraft.  Butler, Parsons, Thomas, Jackson all vault into the top 10, pushing top 5, and all but Butler eventually fall out of it.  Kemba, Klay take a couple of year to secure their spots in the top tier.  Slowly but surely Harris and Vučević rise up the ranks.

2012 is probably pretty consistent with Davis #1, Lillard #2.  Normal, minor re-shuffling after that (guys like Drummond and Sullinger going high early, while Draymond takes a few years to get redrafted near the top).

2013-2014 have probably both vastly changed over the years, etc.

Oh no question when you are looking at a draft things can change, even dramatically, but at some point things settle in and it is at that time when you can really grade a draft.  Somewhere in the 2nd contract of players, things won't change much going forward.  So somewhere in the 2012-2014 range or earlier you can pretty easily grade selections and draft picks as they just aren't going to change much.  Take 2013, it would be almost impossible for MVP Giannis to not continue to be #1.  Even if he gets hurt and never plays again, I don't even know if he would fall out of #1 given just what he has already done for the Bucks.  2-4 in some order are Gobert, Oladipo, McCollum.  While people might view them differently and have them in a different order, it would take a lot to change whatever order you have them in going forward barring a career ending injury.  Adams seems solidly in 5th.  Then some order of Porter, Schroder, Hardaway, and Covington (who went undrafted).  After that there are several players that are who they are at this point including Olynyk.   

I think it is perfectly reasonable to analyze that draft and not feel it is going to change much because it would look basically the same if you did it last year or the year before.  And that makes sense because somewhere in the year 4-7 range players don't really change much.  Sure they get smarter and improve minor things, but they stop making big leaps and end up the player they were always meant to end up as.

[Moranis]

Markkanen was a monster for the Bulls in game 1.  Be curious to see if he remains as the #1 option in Chicago and if he can keep up the same level of efficiency.  If he does, he will make a decision on him vs. Tatum far more difficult. 

[KG Living Legend]

 I feel like he may be to cautious when drafting. Not many swing for the fences picks I can remember. Avery Bradley fits that mold and a little bit of Romeo Langford although I don't think he was the highest upside pick available.

You’re saying that Avery Bradley was a high-upside pick??

Smart#6 overall. Who doesn't love Smart. His shooting is finally coming around, although he's still not a complete offensive weapon.

 It was a sure thing he was going to be able to help right away with NBA Defense. And that was true.  9ppg 4apg 3rpg is underwhelming if we are being honest for the #6 overall.

 For me Julius Randle was the easy pick.
 Highest ceiling but you were gonna have to tolerate bad defense early on.

And, apparently, later on as well.

Now it's hard to argue that Smart is a better player.

I’d argue it all day long. If ‘better’ means ‘helps your team win basketball games’, then Smart is better.  I like what Brad Stevens said, with his gift for getting to the essential: Marcus does the hard things.

I’m not diminishing Randle, either; I’d question his choice of the Knicks as a destination, though. He got paid, it’s true, but - apart from the likelihood that NY is not going to make the playoffs this year, or for that matter next year - he’s competing for minutes with Marcus Morris, Bobby Portis, Kevin Knox, Taj Gibson, and Mitchell Robinson, all of whom are going to get minutes. I predict discontent.

The other high upside pick lots of people were talking about that I would not sign off on was Zach Lavine.

  That's a tough call but look Lavine is reaching that high upside now. Probably has higher trade value than Smart.

It’s not a tough call for the Celtics - not that we will EVER have to evaluate who won a LaVine/Smart swap.

Basketball, thank God, is still a team game.

 

Let's go to the #16 pick in 2016. Not gonna pretend I knew about Pascal Siakam that year.

 High upside guys that year for me were

 #1 Caris Levert. Absolutely loved him but he was a huge injury risk.
 #2 Skal Labissiere former too prospect. He sucked.
#3 Dejounte Murray

 Who did we take? Yabu. Enough said.

You’ve turned your argument on its head.

Yabusele is a great example of a high-risk/high-reward pick. A guy with his handles and touch, at his size, would be a matchup nightmare; and 16 was significantly higher than the conventional wisdom.

Danny likes solid over sky high upside IMHO.

Brown and Tatum have sky-high upside.

But that just points to the real problem here - it’s never a choice between ‘solid’ and ‘sky-high upside’, because those aren’t opposites at all.

I think that your real argument is that Ainge is risk-averse, but your examples don’t persuade me of that.

To the contrary, the consensus pick in 2017 was Fultz, and #2 was Lonzo. But Danny made it crystal clear that they would have taken Tatum #1. Now, Tatum was inarguably a “solid“ pick, but clearly his upside is All-NBA.

Likewise, Jaylen, Rozier, and even Robert Williams were picked higher than the consensus.

And though they got Carsen in the second round, they had him rated as first-round talent. I don’t know about you, but I am confident that he will outperform his draft status, probably by a long ways.

 In no way was Yabu ever a higher upside pick than Levert. Yabu was sold to Boston fans as a high upside pick.

 Drafting him at 16 was asinine. Guy was a second round prospect. The biggest reach I can recall Danny making in the first round.

 Where is Yabu now and where is Levert now. There is your answer as to who had the highest potential.

You’re trying to have it both ways.

Your thread question is not whether Boston is taking the players with the highest potential, and it’s beside the point whether LeVert is better, or even if he had a higher ceiling - or even if Yabusele had any success with Boston.

YOUR question is whether Danny Ainge is avoiding taking players with a low floor, and now you’ve moved the goalposts.

 What are you talking about?

 Danny Ainge is a bad drafter. He's not great at assembling a proper team either.

 He got Lucky that the Twolves gifted Garnett instead of the Lakers. McHale's decision Ha.

 

[gouki88]

 I feel like he may be to cautious when drafting. Not many swing for the fences picks I can remember. Avery Bradley fits that mold and a little bit of Romeo Langford although I don't think he was the highest upside pick available.

You’re saying that Avery Bradley was a high-upside pick??

Smart#6 overall. Who doesn't love Smart. His shooting is finally coming around, although he's still not a complete offensive weapon.

 It was a sure thing he was going to be able to help right away with NBA Defense. And that was true.  9ppg 4apg 3rpg is underwhelming if we are being honest for the #6 overall.

 For me Julius Randle was the easy pick.
 Highest ceiling but you were gonna have to tolerate bad defense early on.

And, apparently, later on as well.

Now it's hard to argue that Smart is a better player.

I’d argue it all day long. If ‘better’ means ‘helps your team win basketball games’, then Smart is better.  I like what Brad Stevens said, with his gift for getting to the essential: Marcus does the hard things.

I’m not diminishing Randle, either; I’d question his choice of the Knicks as a destination, though. He got paid, it’s true, but - apart from the likelihood that NY is not going to make the playoffs this year, or for that matter next year - he’s competing for minutes with Marcus Morris, Bobby Portis, Kevin Knox, Taj Gibson, and Mitchell Robinson, all of whom are going to get minutes. I predict discontent.

The other high upside pick lots of people were talking about that I would not sign off on was Zach Lavine.

  That's a tough call but look Lavine is reaching that high upside now. Probably has higher trade value than Smart.

It’s not a tough call for the Celtics - not that we will EVER have to evaluate who won a LaVine/Smart swap.

Basketball, thank God, is still a team game.

 

Let's go to the #16 pick in 2016. Not gonna pretend I knew about Pascal Siakam that year.

 High upside guys that year for me were

 #1 Caris Levert. Absolutely loved him but he was a huge injury risk.
 #2 Skal Labissiere former too prospect. He sucked.
#3 Dejounte Murray

 Who did we take? Yabu. Enough said.

You’ve turned your argument on its head.

Yabusele is a great example of a high-risk/high-reward pick. A guy with his handles and touch, at his size, would be a matchup nightmare; and 16 was significantly higher than the conventional wisdom.

Danny likes solid over sky high upside IMHO.

Brown and Tatum have sky-high upside.

But that just points to the real problem here - it’s never a choice between ‘solid’ and ‘sky-high upside’, because those aren’t opposites at all.

I think that your real argument is that Ainge is risk-averse, but your examples don’t persuade me of that.

To the contrary, the consensus pick in 2017 was Fultz, and #2 was Lonzo. But Danny made it crystal clear that they would have taken Tatum #1. Now, Tatum was inarguably a “solid“ pick, but clearly his upside is All-NBA.

Likewise, Jaylen, Rozier, and even Robert Williams were picked higher than the consensus.

And though they got Carsen in the second round, they had him rated as first-round talent. I don’t know about you, but I am confident that he will outperform his draft status, probably by a long ways.

 In no way was Yabu ever a higher upside pick than Levert. Yabu was sold to Boston fans as a high upside pick.

 Drafting him at 16 was asinine. Guy was a second round prospect. The biggest reach I can recall Danny making in the first round.

 Where is Yabu now and where is Levert now. There is your answer as to who had the highest potential.

You’re trying to have it both ways.

Your thread question is not whether Boston is taking the players with the highest potential, and it’s beside the point whether LeVert is better, or even if he had a higher ceiling - or even if Yabusele had any success with Boston.

YOUR question is whether Danny Ainge is avoiding taking players with a low floor, and now you’ve moved the goalposts.

 What are you talking about?

 Danny Ainge is a bad drafter. He's not great at assembling a proper team either.

 He got Lucky that the Twolves gifted Garnett instead of the Lakers. McHale's decision Ha.

That must be why we've been consistently good for essentially a decade, and when we weren't we were undergoing what was effectively a 24 month rebuild Give me a break. Celtic fan entitlement at its worst.

[Celtics4ever]

Celtic fan entitlement at its worst.

Well said, TP

[KG Living Legend]

 I feel like he may be to cautious when drafting. Not many swing for the fences picks I can remember. Avery Bradley fits that mold and a little bit of Romeo Langford although I don't think he was the highest upside pick available.

You’re saying that Avery Bradley was a high-upside pick??

Smart#6 overall. Who doesn't love Smart. His shooting is finally coming around, although he's still not a complete offensive weapon.

 It was a sure thing he was going to be able to help right away with NBA Defense. And that was true.  9ppg 4apg 3rpg is underwhelming if we are being honest for the #6 overall.

 For me Julius Randle was the easy pick.
 Highest ceiling but you were gonna have to tolerate bad defense early on.

And, apparently, later on as well.

Now it's hard to argue that Smart is a better player.

I’d argue it all day long. If ‘better’ means ‘helps your team win basketball games’, then Smart is better.  I like what Brad Stevens said, with his gift for getting to the essential: Marcus does the hard things.

I’m not diminishing Randle, either; I’d question his choice of the Knicks as a destination, though. He got paid, it’s true, but - apart from the likelihood that NY is not going to make the playoffs this year, or for that matter next year - he’s competing for minutes with Marcus Morris, Bobby Portis, Kevin Knox, Taj Gibson, and Mitchell Robinson, all of whom are going to get minutes. I predict discontent.

The other high upside pick lots of people were talking about that I would not sign off on was Zach Lavine.

  That's a tough call but look Lavine is reaching that high upside now. Probably has higher trade value than Smart.

It’s not a tough call for the Celtics - not that we will EVER have to evaluate who won a LaVine/Smart swap.

Basketball, thank God, is still a team game.

 

Let's go to the #16 pick in 2016. Not gonna pretend I knew about Pascal Siakam that year.

 High upside guys that year for me were

 #1 Caris Levert. Absolutely loved him but he was a huge injury risk.
 #2 Skal Labissiere former too prospect. He sucked.
#3 Dejounte Murray

 Who did we take? Yabu. Enough said.

You’ve turned your argument on its head.

Yabusele is a great example of a high-risk/high-reward pick. A guy with his handles and touch, at his size, would be a matchup nightmare; and 16 was significantly higher than the conventional wisdom.

Danny likes solid over sky high upside IMHO.

Brown and Tatum have sky-high upside.

But that just points to the real problem here - it’s never a choice between ‘solid’ and ‘sky-high upside’, because those aren’t opposites at all.

I think that your real argument is that Ainge is risk-averse, but your examples don’t persuade me of that.

To the contrary, the consensus pick in 2017 was Fultz, and #2 was Lonzo. But Danny made it crystal clear that they would have taken Tatum #1. Now, Tatum was inarguably a “solid“ pick, but clearly his upside is All-NBA.

Likewise, Jaylen, Rozier, and even Robert Williams were picked higher than the consensus.

And though they got Carsen in the second round, they had him rated as first-round talent. I don’t know about you, but I am confident that he will outperform his draft status, probably by a long ways.

 In no way was Yabu ever a higher upside pick than Levert. Yabu was sold to Boston fans as a high upside pick.

 Drafting him at 16 was asinine. Guy was a second round prospect. The biggest reach I can recall Danny making in the first round.

 Where is Yabu now and where is Levert now. There is your answer as to who had the highest potential.

You’re trying to have it both ways.

Your thread question is not whether Boston is taking the players with the highest potential, and it’s beside the point whether LeVert is better, or even if he had a higher ceiling - or even if Yabusele had any success with Boston.

YOUR question is whether Danny Ainge is avoiding taking players with a low floor, and now you’ve moved the goalposts.

 What are you talking about?

 Danny Ainge is a bad drafter. He's not great at assembling a proper team either.

 He got Lucky that the Twolves gifted Garnett instead of the Lakers. McHale's decision Ha.

That must be why we've been consistently good for essentially a decade, and when we weren't we were undergoing what was effectively a 24 month rebuild Give me a break. Celtic fan entitlement at its worst.

  Is that your goal, to be solid? With Scrappy teams. This is the Boston Celtics we are gunning for banners. LeBron has a real team now and the title banner is at stake.

 Danny pulled off the biggest ripoff heist trade ever. And where are we now? No title in sight, no big man at all. Two top three picks that play the same position.
 Hayward and Top pick Romeo almost the same height, length.

 Four of our top assets spent on the same position essentially.
 

[InhaletotheChief00]

Tacko Fall in concussion protocol because of low ceiling.   

[Walker Wiggle]

Tacko Fall in concussion protocol because of low ceiling.

WELL DONE

[NKY fan]

So I was going back and forth with others in another thread about Danny's drafting. I claimed he has done a terrible job in the middle of the draft since drafting Rondo. Danny may have drafted his second All Star in the likes of JBrown but we don't know yet and he was drafted at #3.

I wanted to analyze how has Danny performed in the middle of the draft positions 10-39 since drafting Rondo but excluding the current class (Langford , GW and Carsen)
here is what I got as pic of my spreadsheet:


You can see that 7 of his picks rank at the very bottom of the 348 players drafted between 10-39 in the period 2007-18. especially if you look at Minutes per Game / total games or total minutes (the last 2 may be affected by injuries / contending teams but you cant be out of the league after one season)

There is still a ton of uncertainty on where the "greenest" draft classes will end up... like who will become an all star .. who will become just a star for a season and who will be a borderline all star....


However those 7 are out of the league so they aren't climbing the rankings. All those 7 rank in the bottom quin-tile (even the bottom of the quin-tile itself) and this is real bad. The distribution is a little skewed by the few good players and real stars like Kawhi and Giannis and big concentration of players performing below average in that cohort of players...

there is one good pick - Bradley but he was below borderline all star at his best (right outside top 50 of the sample 348 players). All others have been average or way below average like Zizic who is on his way out of the league.

The reason I was focusing on the middle of the draft is because DA has been historically very stingy when it comes to trading those picks. Other teams managers have commented that he overvalues his assets. You can argue that he doesn't overvalues said assets however I think he is overconfident in his drafting which led to the dreadful results in the middle of the draft.

One can argue that some of the best players are already taken before he drafts but that is debatable ... as the obvious miss is Giannis - someone he scouted in person in Europe and had traded up from 16 to 13 to get in a position to draft him yet somehow he thought Kelly Olynic was a better pick than GA.


My conclusion is that Danny has done a very poor job drafting in the middle:
-He misses a lot more than he hits.
-When he makes a bad pick the pick is really bad ( magnificent seven)
-He may have been better of just randomly drafting names without any scouting or other considerations than using his drafting skills.

Just for the record I am not a Danny hater and would acknowledge that he has done pretty well in the tail end of the draft and ok in the top of the lottery....

He should be trading his picks in the middle to get help now rather than wasting them like the IT trade. 

I am ready to get roasted lol
 

[DefenseWinsChamps]

He's not drafted well, but the GM's picks versus the field over a 10-15 year period will always result in the field winning.

[Donoghus]

How have other GMs, who qualify, drafting in the same pick range in the same date range faired? 

I guess how does Ainge stack up against the likes of Pop/Buford, Riley, Paxson/Forman,  Nelson,  Morey,  Presti, etc.... done?

[NKY fan]

How have other GMs, who qualify, drafting in the same pick range in the same date range faired? 

I guess how does Ainge stack up against the likes of Pop/Buford, Riley, Paxson/Forman,  Nelson,  Morey,  Presti, etc.... done?

I’ve got the database in an excel file.. just need to figure out which picks were made by those GMs... it’s a little tricky with draft day trades but not impossible

[bdm860]

How have other GMs, who qualify, drafting in the same pick range in the same date range faired? 

I guess how does Ainge stack up against the likes of Pop/Buford, Riley, Paxson/Forman,  Nelson,  Morey,  Presti, etc.... done?

Ya this is the question.  It sounds like you're only comparing Ainge to himself.  What's the hit % of a good drafter?  What's the hit % of an average drafter?

Also just really hard to define hit.  I feel like you alluded to your this flaw in your metrics, but then still look right passed it.  You look at games/minutes/mpg, but team situation affects this hugely.

especially if you look at Minutes per Game / total games or total minutes (the last 2 may be affected by injuries / contending teams but you cant be out of the league after one season)

Is Craig Brackens (drafted #21 in 2010, played 17 games, 121 minutes, 7.1mpg) more of a hit than Fab Melo?  I feel like your method would say yes. 

And because of this, I feel like using quintiles/percentiles is the wrong method here.  How much difference is there in a player at different percentiles?  Is a player at the bottom 1 percentile that different than a player at the bottom 20th percentile or the bottom 30th percentile?

Kyle Weaver (#38 in '08, 73 games, 18.9 mpg)
Jeff Taylor (#31 in '12, 132 games, 19.4mpg)
Chris Singleton (#18 in '11, 148 games, 17.6mpg)

I think your method would have these guys all ranked much higher than those bottom 7 Celtics.  But are they really any better or less of a bust?  They're all out of the league, and as far as I know never contributed anything to winning basketball or were used as an asset.

In fact looked at your bottom 7 guys vs the other 7, is the only difference between Yabusele and Zizic right now is that Zizic played on a bad team last year?