Top Ten Overrated Prospects According to The Wages of Win

[Yoki_IsTheName]

I'm down for Will Barton.  The weird thing is he has athleticism and some volume scoring ability.

I'm so down with him as well. Only problem is his strength. But it'll eventually learn to deal with it. The guy is a pure scorer with tools to be a better defender, which he's good at right now.

And I seriously hope Zeller falls to us, longshot really. He will fit a perfect role here. A guy who would crash boards, run play defense.

[indeedproceed]

I wonder what this list looked like last year.

I can't imagine Kyrie Irving placed too high.

[Galeto]

I like me some Will Barton myself.  I hated his game during his freshman season; he was so out of control and selfish most of the time, a McDonald's All-American and top 5 ESPN recruit who wasn't ready to dominate college ball like he maybe expected to and forced things to much.  He was so much better his sophomore season.  People talk about Barnes having a high skill level, this is the guy who actually has a high skill level.

I'm wary about his extreme lack of strength but he did look stronger at the combine so I'm a little more confident he can get bigger.  Between the end of his college season and the combine, it looked like he improved his strength more than Corey Brewer did in 5 years in the NBA.  I believe.

His defense is pretty bad though.

[LooseCannon]

These guys were probably high on Jimmer Fredette, because he was "proven."

Actually, their opinion of him was:

While Fredette did post an above average PAWS40, by my measures he is also the 4th most overrated draft prospect this year, only behind Jon Leuer, Gary Flowers and Troy Gillenwater. Flowers and Gillenwater went undrafted. Kings’ fans are probably going to be disappointed when Fredette turns out to be J.J. Redick 2.0. He’s not a terrible pick, but there were certainly plenty of better options available. Tyler Honeycutt (8.32 PAWS40, 49th) and Isaiah Thomas (9.77 PAWS40, 32nd) were selected 35th and 60th, respectively. Honeycutt probably won’t amount to much, but Thomas is just a hair under average and should surprise a lot of people if he gets the court time.

Last season, they had Kenneth Faried as the top draft prospect by a mile.  He was followed by Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard, Alec Burks, Derrick Williams, and Markieff Morris.  For those to lazy to read the link, some names of note that they ranked were Marshon Brooks 9th, E'Twuan Moore 25th, Isaiah Thomas 27th, Jimmer Fredette 32nd, and JaJuan Johnson 33rd.

[indeedproceed]

Well I was wrong about that. They had Irving #2, huh? Smart guys.

[arambone]

These guys were probably high on Jimmer Fredette, because he was "proven."

Actually, their opinion of him was:

While Fredette did post an above average PAWS40, by my measures he is also the 4th most overrated draft prospect this year, only behind Jon Leuer, Gary Flowers and Troy Gillenwater. Flowers and Gillenwater went undrafted. Kings’ fans are probably going to be disappointed when Fredette turns out to be J.J. Redick 2.0. He’s not a terrible pick, but there were certainly plenty of better options available. Tyler Honeycutt (8.32 PAWS40, 49th) and Isaiah Thomas (9.77 PAWS40, 32nd) were selected 35th and 60th, respectively. Honeycutt probably won’t amount to much, but Thomas is just a hair under average and should surprise a lot of people if he gets the court time.

Last season, they had Kenneth Faried as the top draft prospect by a mile.  He was followed by Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard, Alec Burks, Derrick Williams, and Markieff Morris.  For those to lazy to read the link, some names of note that they ranked were Marshon Brooks 9th, E'Twuan Moore 25th, Isaiah Thomas 27th, Jimmer Fredette 32nd, and JaJuan Johnson 33rd.

Thanks for the link.

[StarzNBarz]

I hope Sullinger falls to the Celtics.

[TheFlex]

Jeremy Lamb will be a force IMO. Has all the tools except for strength but other forms of athleticism including length and touch will compensate for that.

No way Quincy Miller is overrated no matter how you slice it. Even if you don't think that he's underrated, a kid with that much potential that's projected to be picked in the 20s is not overrated.

[mctyson]

Austin Rivers is not overrated. 

[goCeltics]

miller has sample size issues, lots of these guys are projections, you can draft on projection but it's a bigger risk cos I guess your betting on the prospect makeup, which determines how hard they work in making their physical gifts count in the pros

[clover]

miller has sample size issues, lots of these guys are projections, you can draft on projection but it's a bigger risk cos I guess your betting on the prospect makeup, which determines how hard they work in making their physical gifts count in the pros

Miller was also a 19yo freshman who was both coming back from injury and had been out with injury for the year prior.

As WoW admits, their WS approach works for draft projections only about 70% of the time.  That means that if conventional wisdom is correct, about 30% of prospects will wrongly appear over- or underrated by their approach.

These are the guys who had Nick Fazekas projected way ahead of Durant (and Oden), were big on Yi, down on Rose and Westbrook, and so forth.

As far as I can tell, their method doesn't control for first-year teenagers playing and being measured against 23yo seniors.

[LooseCannon]

As WoW admits, their WS approach works for draft projections only about 70% of the time.  That means that if conventional wisdom is correct, about 30% of prospects will wrongly appear over- or underrated by their approach.

I'm willing to believe that 70% of the time is a better success rate than conventional wisdom.

[Chris]

And since this is from Wages of Wins, I will take this list as "top ten best prospects". 

[clover]

As WoW admits, their WS approach works for draft projections only about 70% of the time.  That means that if conventional wisdom is correct, about 30% of prospects will wrongly appear over- or underrated by their approach.

I'm willing to believe that 70% of the time is a better success rate than conventional wisdom.

That may well be, and that's their own assessment of their success.  I'm merely saying they're wrong on a number of prospects as well, and those misses are likely to end up on their over/underrated lists.

After all, a lot of what they capture with their stats-based approach is consistent with conventional wisdom as it is.

[Celts Fan 92]

Jeremy Lamb is straight up insane. Freak of nature athleticism, terrific shooting, pretty good defense. I don't know how many of you watched a lot of UConn games last year, but I did. Lamb is a BEAST. Drummond, on the other hand (same team if you didn't know), is a project.

Lamb was exposed nd his stock dropped during last years big east tourney dude was terrified to shoot nd had absolutely NO killer instinct Shabazz Napier took all their big shots he'll be a decent player not a star tho, drummond is gonna be trash a reach for anyone who picks him