If you're curious I posted a pretty detailed assessment of Ainge's draft performance a while back.
http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=65996.msg1502948#msg1502948
In the event that you don't feel like reading, I'll quote the general approach from that post here, because it has some humor value given the argument you're making:
My approach here is pretty simple. Because Danny's draft position has varied over time, I think the best benchmark of his performance is how the guys he's chosen have done vs. the guys who were chosen right after the guys he picked.
I've argued this out before, but this is a more reasonable thing to do than to ask whether *any* player drafted after Danny's pick turned out to be better. (I call this the "Chandler Parsons Fallacy"). If you evaluate any GM this way he will look awful, because hindsight is 20/20.
Your evaluation method is poor, which makes your analysis useless.
Well now, that is one convincing logical argument. Talk about backing up your position with facts and analysis. How ever could I have been so misguided?
The facts/analysis are obvious. By restricting yourself the way you do, you ignore a host of issues (bad GMs surrounding Ainge, different needs, etc...
For example, teams A,C, and D all need a point guard in a deep year for point guards. Team B needs a center in a bad year for centers, and reaches for a guy who fails. Using your method, Teams A and C will get rewarded for even middling players, because B missed. So, under your method, A's pick could be a borderline NBA player, B's could be a bust, C's could be another borderline NBA player, and D's could be an all star, and your system would miss all of that for A and half of that for C.
OK. I'm just going to point out that you follow "The facts and analysis are obvious" with a convoluted piece of speculative fiction that shows...nothing. There isn't a single actual fact in that post!
I'm laughing. And I'm out.
Actually, I gave a pretty straighforward example.
Of what? How your perspective is 100% correct when viewed through the lens of your own imagination?
Of a major problelm with your evaluation method. Are you really going to go on about this, now, after you said you were out?
Making a bad draft choice isn't lessened because the people immediately around you made mistakes as well, just as making a great choice isn't less impressive just because the people immediately around you chose well.
But you have to limit hindsight discussions to people we could have reasonably picked based on the information we had at the time. For example, Deandre Jordan undisputedly was a better pick at 35 than Michael Beasley at 2, but you can't really fault the Heat for not taking Deandre because no sane GM would have taken him with the 2 pick based on info available at the time. (Besides, it's so much easier to fault them for not taking Westbrook or Love)
Limiting the analysis to players picked immediately afterwards is a crude but reasonable way I'd doing that. Making it two players specifically is a bit arbitrary, but the concept itself is sound.
I don't agree, and here's a real life example of why:
Greg Oden
Kevin DurantAl Horford
Durant's a no-brainer pick there, yet Oden's injury plagued career means that, under the given system, we'd have to give all sorts of "Oh my God!" points to the GM for that #2 pick.
Here's another:
Renaldo Balkman
Rajon RondoMarcus Williams
Kyle Lowry
Shannon Brown
Jordan Farmar
Now, I'm not bashing the Rondo pick anymore than I'm bashing the Durant pick (which means not at all), but look just outside of the proposed range, and we see a run of 3 more legit players, but the Rondo pick will get all sorts of "Attaboy" scoring because NY/NJ were doing a p--- poor job of drafting.
There's no way to settle on a perfect system, but "Look left. Look right." has as many problems as "All the good players picked after you.".
