Introduction

August 21, 2016October 15, 2016

Typical NBA Draft Picks (#1 to #10)

When originally preparing my countdown of Top 10 Busts, I reviewed all NBA players drafted since 1970. Of note, I relied on basketball-reference.com in order to compile and analyze the career statistics of these players. By doing so, I was able to create thresholds above or below which they could be grouped. For example, I identified all-time greats, stars, average players, busts, and Top 10 Busts. In this post, I offer the representative NBA draft picks who help define the categories.

January 6, 2015August 21, 2016

NBA Draft Categories (Busts to Superstars)

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Dumb and Dumber (versus the new release of the far inferior Dumb and Dumber To), this post simplifies the previous one regarding the distribution of win shares for 1st round NBA draft picks. There still are a lot of numbers, but the takeaways should be easier to understand. Just to be sure, here they are. 1. Generally, draft order is a good predictor of future success in the NBA. As such, the higher the pick, the better the player should be to avoid being labeled a bust. 2. Starting with the 11th overall pick, the probability of being a flame-out exceeds the probability of becoming an All-Star by a margin of 2:1 (40% to 20%). For that reason, players taken outside of the first ten overall picks have been excluded as potential Top 10 Busts. 3. NBA legends are rare, but not as rare as you might think.

January 4, 2015November 24, 2015

Distribution of Win Shares

To be fair, the following post is geared towards "quant jocks" (ok, nerds) who have a reasonable knowledge of statistical distributions. In particular, I have used Weibull distributions to model different subsets of 1st round picks from over 40 NBA drafts. With different shape and scale parameters for each subset, the expected value of a draft pick can be estimated with statistical probability. Based on my analysis, I developed a methodology to define a bust objectively in order to overcome the bias which seems to be apparent in existing lists of all-time busts. If you work for an NBA team and came across this site, you should read this post.

December 25, 2014May 21, 2017

NBA RANKING (WIN SHARES VS. MVPs)

Like it or not, the nerds have changed how we look at sports. Thanks to sabermetricians, statistics like OPS and WAR are as recognizable as HR and RBI. Similar to WAR (wins above replacement) for baseball, WiSh (win shares) is an all-encompassing statistic for basketball. Ranked by WiSh, the Top 5 players in NBA history are: 1) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; 2) Wilt Chamberlain; 3) Karl Malone; 4) Michael Jordan; and 5) John Stockton. Without a doubt, each one of those players is a legend of the game. As an all-time NBA ranking, however, it's just doesn't work. Alternatively, the Top 5 players ranked by total MVPs are: 1) Michael Jordan; 2) Bill Russell; 3) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; 4) LeBron James; and 5) Wilt Chamberlain. Aaahhh, much better. Arguably, MVP awards provide a better proxy for all-time greatness than win shares. Regardless, WiSh still can be useful to establish a threshold above which a superstar can be defined. Similarly, it can determine a threshold below which a bust can be defined.

November 30, 2014June 22, 2017

1991 NBA Draft Night

With respect to popularity, the NBA Draft trails only the NFL Draft as a sporting event/spectacle. As such, it seems logical to focus on the NBA for my second compilation of Top 10 Busts. Regardless, the main reason for creating this particular countdown relates to the featured image. In particular, it shows my ticket stub to the 1991 NBA Draft. To date, that draft remains the only one I have ever attended in person. While I don't provide any insight about a specific bust in this post, I offer some foreshadowing for future posts. As an enticement, there's also a link to a classic Seinfeld clip regarding political incorrectness.