How do you assess "upside" in a draftee?

[mef730]

One of the things that I love about the internet is that it gives the basketball-ignorant (like me) the ability to say and write pretty much anything we want.

And one of the things that I hate about the internet is that it gives the basketball-ignorant (like me) the ability to say and write pretty much anything we want.

Having said that, I'd like to know how people analyze "upside" in a player. Granted, there are people that watch far more basketball than I do, but it strikes me as odd that so many people come here and say "I like such-and-such a player because they have so much upside." What do you see, look at, etc. to determine the level of potential in a player? For instance, simply looking at the numbers of a Doug McDermott or Frank Kaminsky would say that they should be top-3 draft picks. Instead, the former was #11 and the latter may not be too much higher up the scale. Clearly, there are other things that people look at. I'm curious, just how do people assess the mysterious "upside?"

Thanks,
Mike

[Ilikesports17]

The big thing is the athletic and physical profile of the prospect. The other 2 big things would be youth/growth  rate and skillset.

for Wiggins and Embiid, they were young stud athletes with skillsets easy to be built upon.

Kaminsky and McBuckets are not great athletes, played college ball for years so they have less growing to do and their weaknesses at this point are pretty tough to seriously address (strength, quickness, etc)

[D.o.s.]

McDermott also played in an extraordinarily singular system designed to get him big numbers for a coach that gave him a lot of minutes and allowed him to ignore playing defense.

Incidentally, when this was brought up last year, there was a lot of resistance to the idea. People were totally convinced McDermott was going to be great because of his NCAA numbers, and ignored the fact that he would have to try and get his shot off against NBA caliber opponents. Instead we saw a guy who couldn't break the rotation behind E'Twuan Moore and Tony Snell.

[Donoghus]

I think a lot of it is just eyeball.  You look at a kid and you either seen the potential for growth or you don't (or simply see a lower ceiling/plateau).

Age, athleticism (which con a lot of people, especially on this board), and system also contribute.

[Smartacus]

Floor - Ceiling - Ladder

Floor -  Player's worst case scenario, At the very least they will be X.

Ceiling - Player's best case scenario. If everything were to go right, (drafted into the right situation, the right physical development, no injuries) the player could be X.

Ladder - This is the one that many aren't aware of and often overlook but it might be the most important when all is said and done. The ladder describes the likelihood a player reaches his Ceiling. Things that are factored in here are disciplinary history, support system around the player, injury history, likelihood of frame to realistically be able to put on muscle.
 
3 really simple concepts that I use every time I armchair GM a prospect.

In the cases you mentioned you point out the futility of using NCAA stats as anything more than a factor to consider. The NCAA is not only a smaller, less skilled league but it's also populated entirely by young people. This mean's that you can stick a slightly older big player like Frank Kaminski in the middle and let your offense run around him. Stick Kaminski in the same role on an NBA team and suddenly he goes from being the biggest guy on the court to a player that will struggle to effectively operate in the post over the size and length of NBA centers.

Now you then go to start thinking about what he could be... down the road Big Frank will probably be slightly bigger but possibly slower Frank. He doesn't project to have much that he can add to what he already does(I.E. if this guy could only develop a 3 ball he'd be an all star) and his frame looks like it's pretty much tapped out for all that he can put on.

This means that for Frank to succeed at the NBA level he needs to first find an effective role that is far and away reduced from what he did in college(Floor) and then find ways to build and improve upon that new platform(Ceiling). He should be able to do without needing too much to fall into place for things to go right(Ladder) but what he's projected to be in the NBA isn't all that exciting hence the 11 pick range.

[hwangjini_1]

how to assess the upside of a draftee? good question.

for me, i use the same tried and true tools i do  that i do in making most of my more important life-changing decisions:

- denial,
- self-delusion,
- fantasy,
- pre-existing emotional preferences,
- delusions,
- personal bias,
- selective perceptions,
- cherry picking evidence,
- questionable assumptions...

you know, the type of analysis that's got to me where i am today. 

[Evantime34]

For me upside is how good a player could be if everything went perfect for that player development-wise.

The biggest indicators in upside are, athleticism, age and effort on the court (I find that guys that play with maximum effort bring that effort to improving their game and are more likely to reach their ceiling)

[loco_91]

Some skills and some flaws are improvable, others aren't so much. 19-year-olds will develop their shooting, ball-handling, defensive fundamentals, etc, but they won't get much more athletic. When you say that someone has upside it means that they have the unimprovable things, especially athleticism.

[Celtics18]

Obviously these things can't be assessed with anything approaching complete accuracy.  Largely, the draft involves a whole lot of guesswork about how these very talented youngsters (and make no mistake--every single player who has his name in the NBA draft is ridiculously talented) will pan out as NBA pros.

Every once in a while you get a player that is head and shoulders above the rest of the players in his draft class (Lebron James, Kevin Durant, Shaquille O'Neal) that it's almost certain he'll become an NBA star (barring injury--see Greg Oden). 

After that, it's probably somewhere in between a complete crapshoot and an exact science.  I'd say it leans considerably heavier towards the crapshoot end of the spectrum than the exact science end.

These are after all young human beings who are still developing physically, emotionally, and mentally.  Nobody really knows who they will end up becoming or how much they will be affected by the given circumstances that are going to surround them as they grow. 

People like to think these things are written in stone when these kids are only nineteen to twenty-one years old.  To me, this seems completely unreasonable. 

[D.o.s.]

If you're good enough to play in the NBA, you're good enough to get drafted in the NBA. The process isn't complicated in that regard, what causes wrinkles are everything else -- Jonny Flynn is a good example of someone who wasn't injured or couldn't deal with it: There's no reason why that dude really deserved to be out of the league as early as he was, except that he was a player who earned his lottery cred as a pick and roll player and got thrown into the Triangle. In many ways he's been punished for the sins of David Kahn more than any knock on his basketball abilities.

[Csfan1984]

For me its when a player lacks in multiple areas but is young/inexperienced and outstanding in a few areas. Sometimes it is physical measurables over skills. Other times it's skills but a growing body. Like examples people gave in Embid and Wiggins, both physically special. One is young other inexperienced both showed excellent early skill thus both have upside. Parker as an example had youth skills but physically he was still working on conditioning so he had some upside. Now when a guy has been playing the same each year and isn't growing more or adding to his game he can be looked at as low upside.