Ranking All 2662 Summer-League Performances since 2008

[LarBrd33]

Amusing as this is, I don't really see what it achieves as a 'predictive' tool.

From what I've seen, summer league performance seems to have had little bearing on real world talent. 

If there was a correlation there, then we should all jump for joy while we wait for Jordan Mickey to develop into an All-Star, since he was one of the best players in all of summer league this year.

Also while we wait for Dionte Christmas to finally reach his star talent level. 

It also doesn't bode well for Jahlil Okafor, Karl-Anthony Towns, D'Angelo Russell or Justise Winslow - all of whom had pretty mediocre Summer League stats this year.

Kwhit10 summed it up pretty well when he told me, "SL only tells you who is bad.  Not who is good."

I agree.  If a drafted player struggles, it's cause for concern.  If a drafted player plays well, it's pretty meaningless since they were obviously good enough as amatuers to be drafted high in the first place...  it shouldn't surprise anyone that guys who were superior on the College level would be superior on the summerleague level.  That doesn't mean they can hang in with pros on the NBA level.

Some mildly interesting stuff here though.  Marcus Smart went from averaging 13.2EFF in 2014 to 14.2EFF in 2015.   Whoopy.  Roughly the same amount of progress Lorenzo Brown made between 2014 and 2015 (11.4 to 14.2).

So according to what you're saying here, we should be VERY worried about the top 3 picks from this year - since you could make a legit argument that none of them performed convincingly better than Hunter this year in SL.

Likewise we should be glad Danny didn't trade our three picks for Winslow since Rozier, Hunter and Mickey combined produced a LOT more in SL than Winslow did.

That also indicates that any team who tanked for a top pick this year should very strongly question their approach, since everybody in the top 3 has mediocre written all over them.

Fair conclusion?

P.s.

There are examples of players who struggled in summer league, but went on to be pretty nice players.  DeAndre Jordan, Patrick Beverly, Marcin Gortat, Nicholas Batum and David West, Greivis Vasquez and Wesley Matthews are a few examples.  Tim Duncan (shock) was another.

My conclusion is that you can't draw any significant conclusions from summer league performances.  They play 3-5 games usually against inferior talent and the style of the games usually benefit a certain style of player.  I'm not telling you Hunter will suck.  I'm not telling you Kyle Anderson will dominate.  It's summer league. 

You are right in pointing out that the rookies this year (Towns, Okafor and Russell) didn't particularly dominate.  Towns performance this year had an EFF equal to Marcus Smart last year.  Again, you can't take much from summer league.  But fwiw, here's what a panel of ESPN "experts" had to say about Summer league this year:

5. Which player in Vegas will ultimately be the best pro?

Arnovitz: Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota. Basketball is played on the court, but listening to the 19-year-old chat postgame with an unusual combo of confidence and humility, it's hard not to see a winner. When suited up, Towns was always the most intuitive player on the floor -- an impressive passer out of double-teams, a defensive presence who will excel at that end, and an unselfish, communicative teammate. There's very little here not to like.

Elhassan: Towns. Don't overthink this one kids, he was drafted No. 1 for a reason.

Foster: Towns. In the absence of sustained dominance, you're looking for flashes. Towns gave us that in a variety of different settings, both as a passer and a finisher, and it's just hard to identify any real significant weaknesses in his game at such a young age. He's easily the safest bet for high-level production in this draft.

Pelton: Towns. The No. 1 overall pick has justified that selection by showing polish at both ends of the court. Of the top picks in Las Vegas, he's been the most productive.

Verrier: Towns. The numbers (12.8 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 2.0 APG) may elicit only tepid takes, but seeing him up close is a whole other experience. He's the biggest guy on the court ... and also the most fluid, the smartest, the most skilled; he's like a Gasol bro in a DeAndre Jordan body. Towns also has a bobbleheaded alter ego. SIGN ME UP.

Now some could take these comments and spin it in a favorable review of Hunter this year... "See... all you're looking for is flashes!... Hunter showed flashes!"... Maybe so... but I'd still temper your enthusiasm.  He was taken 28th for a reason.  He might develop into a player some day, but averaging 12 points on 34% shooting against weak competition isn't a sign he's a future starter.  Did he look confident and display above average intelligence?... maybe so... but he came off 3 very productive college years and was apparently believed to be one of the 30 best amateurs in the draft... it'd be weird if he didn't show some of that against primarily undrafted players. 

[jpotter33]

Gee willikers... People sure did rip into me for my "Undrafted Players who put up similar/better SL stats to RJ Hunter" thread.

Some folks made the suggestion that it would be more constructive to compare his performance vs other drafted shooting guards.    I took it a step further and sorted all 2662 SL performances since 2008:

HTML Version:  http://publish.smartsheet.com/f272f19cae1c43a9ae617c06be77e20e
Interactive Version:  https://app.smartsheet.com/b/publish?EQBCT=8a9b068134c6487cb8d970be0af95424

Important Notes: 
- I am sorting the players by their EFF rating in Summer-league (points + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks ... subtract missed shots and turnovers)
- For comparison sake, I also included "NBA EFF" which shows their EFF rating in the 2014-15 NBA season (if the played)
-In the Interactive version you can right click on any column header to filter or sort

Feel free to filter and sort however you see fit.

Examples: 

- Try filtering the NBA EFF column to only show players who put up an EFF at higher than 14 last season in the NBA.   From that, you can come to the conclusion that DeMarr Carroll is the best-case scenario for a player who was disastrous in SL (in 2012 he put up dreadful stats over 3 games) and developed into an impactful player.  Here's hoping James Young (#1379) was just slumping. 

- Try filtering "Draft Data" so that it contains "blank"... You'll see the top undrafted summerleague performers of the past 8 years...   Looks like Malcolm Thomas is the King of undrafted Summerleague players:



... Let me know if have any other ideas based on this.  You guys can interpret this however you want.   SummerLeague is such a small sample size in general.  I'm not sure you can make any meaningful predictions based on a handful of games, but if there's some kind of equation based on this data that you think might help predict how a rookie's SL performance will translate into the real NBA, I'm open to hearing it.   Is there some way, for instance, that you can say "Well based on this data, power forwards taken in the top 15 who put up an EFF of at least 12 had an X% chance of averaging X in the NBA?   I doubt it.

Rapid-fire random observations:   Anthony Randolph was the greatest SL performer of the past 8 years and yet he isn't even in the NBA at this point.  Take that for what it's worth.   Kelly Olynyk was a SL beast (top 25).  MIght want to keep an eye on Myles Turner in your fantasy league this year...   Marcus Smart's big performance was 262nd on the list.   Not surprisingly, the guys taken in the 1st round tend to outperform the undrafted or 2nd round talent.  Go figure!

Also, for those curious, RJ Hunter's big 12 point 34% shooting performance can be found at #806 between Terrico White and Glen Robinson III (both taken in roughly the same draft range)... fwiw.

[chambers]

At the end of the day, we all want to get excited about our rookies lately because of Marcus Smart's progression and the excitement it brings us as a slightly suffering fan base during this rebuild.
I am still very high on Hunter and Rozier, I think they were excellent picks and just as good as any team in the draft given our draft slots- you can't necessarily see 'feel' in stats, and these numbers are skewed both positively and negatively by the fact that summer league play is poorer, and thus (as we've seen) make good players look great. We've also seen that nerves and lack of preparation playing as a team, with a different coach can really throw a player off amidst the whirlwind of media calls, endless workouts, enormous financial decisions that come with being drafted etc.
Brd just likes to keep the wet blanket nearby in case a needless fire breaks out at the TD Garden during the offseason.

Good post, TP.
Can we get a shots made/missed/% chart too?
 

[crimson_stallion]

My conclusion is that you can't draw any significant conclusions from summer league performances.  They play 3-5 games usually against inferior talent and the style of the games usually benefit a certain style of player.  I'm not telling you Hunter will suck.  I'm not telling you Kyle Anderson will dominate.  It's summer league. 

That is a fair call. 

[GetLucky]

This is like a huge scientific discovery that wins multiple awards in many scholarly fields. You just found a way to mathematically prove something that everyone figured was true but nobody bothered to research or figured out how to prove. The phrase, "Eh, it's only Summer League," will never be the same again. 

TP for this fantastic post.

Maybe you should improve the Wagner-Fischer algorithm and show everyone how to quadratically solve edit distance. People say it's impossible (it was recently "proven), but I thought proving this was impossible before you did it! Then you could make CB famous!

[tarheelsxxiii]

This is like a huge scientific discovery that wins multiple awards in many scholarly fields. You just found a way to mathematically prove something that everyone figured was true but nobody bothered to research or figured out how to prove. The phrase, "Eh, it's only Summer League," will never be the same again. 

TP for this fantastic post.

Maybe you should improve the Wagner-Fischer algorithm and show everyone how to quadratically solve edit distance. People say it's impossible (it was recently "proven), but I thought proving this was impossible before you did it! Then you could make CB famous!

I've never done it, seen any one do it, nor advocate for it, but I think pretty much anything is possible with LSD.

But how bout a column for happiness? How happy were these men on a 1 to 10 scale? These are men, not numbers. And some are [dang] fine, at that

[LarBrd33]

Anyone else have any interesting dumb observations from the sheet?    I made one... 

I sorted all players by NBA Eff last season to try to determine who was the most productive player in the NBA last year to have a dismal summer league career.  Here's some nominees:

Serge Ibaka:  17.64 EFF in the NBA last season.   Participated in SL twice:  7.67 in 2009 and 9.0 in 2010... but in Ibaka's defense, he was limited to under 20mpg in both summer league performances.

Joakim Noah:  16.94EFF in the NBA last season.   Participated in SL once:  8.0 in 2008... but once again, in Noah's defense he was limited to under 20mpg during that SL performance.

Mike Conley:  15.91EFF in the NBA last season.   Participated in SL once:  8.0 in 2008... he put up 11 points, 3 assists, 1.7 rebounds in 26mpg.   Not horrible.  Missed shots and turnovers knocked his EFF down to a mere 8.0.

Michael Carter-Williams:  15.24EFF in the NBA last season.   Participated in SL once:  8.6 in 2013.  He put up stats of 13.6 points, 4.2 rebounds, 6.8 assists and 2 steals in 31mpg.  Huge knocks on his EFF for turnovers (4.9) and FG% (averaged 17 FG attempts and made only 4.6 per night... oof)  But again, I certainly wouldn't say he was unproductive...

Nicolas Batum: 14.56 EFF in the NBA last season.  Back in 2008 he put up an EFF in the summer league of 3.6.  That's rough.  6.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1 assist, 0.2 steals, 0.4 blocks with with poor shooting and 3.4 turnovers in 27mpg.  Perhaps he's the true poster-boy of guys who were crap in summer league and ended up having a real career.

... a few more

Wes Matthews:  14.52 EFF in the NBA last year.  Put up an EFF of 5.0 in the 2012 SL, but he only played 14.7mpg

Khris Middleton:  14.16 EFF in the NBA last year.  Participated in SL twice:  4.4 in 2012 and 6.0 in 2013. 

Derrick Rose:  13.24 EFF in the NBA last year.  Looks like he was pretty mediocre in the 2008 SL... 8.5EFF.  Put up averages of 9.5 points, 5.5 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals with weak shooting and lots of turnovers.  Just played 2 games, though.  Not much of sample size at all.

Semi-interesting.  Besides these outliers, it seems pretty much every major NBA participant this year had at least one summer league performance where the had an EFF above 10.   Does that mean it's highly unlikely that guys like RJ Hunter and James Young will develop into quality NBA players?  Of course not... It means nothing.  It's summerleague.  Besides, there were multiple guys (DeAndre Jordan, Hassan Whiteside, Eric Bledsoe, Draymond Green, Jrue Holiday, Darren Collison, Gorgui Dieng, etc) who had a SL performance where they had an EFF below 10, but it was negated by another SL performance (in a different year) where they were better.   So for all we know, RJ Hunter will show up in SL next year beasting after a strong season developing on the Red Claws.