Comments on "Comparison of GM drafting records"

Replies to replies on my prior post on LakersGround.net starting on 8/08/07.
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chazz wrote:
The fact that Sasha Vukivichmecalf got a positive 0.5 on being drafted in 2003 makes your whole chart fiction

Sasha was a #27 pick and has had a decent career for someone drafted so late. Some earlier Euro picks from that draft:
#21 - Pavel Podkolzin
Played 6 games for the Mavs

#22 - Viktor Khryapa
Played 231 minutes for Chicago last season

#23 - Sergei Monia
Played 26 games for two teams

Three NBA players drafted after Sasha put up a better Efficiency rating lst season than him: Anderson Varejao, Chris Duhon and Trevor Ariza.

Lots of posters thought Beno Udrih would have be a better pick than Sasha. Sasha had very comparable stats to him last season:
Sasha
4.3 ppg in 12.8 mpg, shooting 39.2%, 37.3% on 3's, 1.5 rpg, 0.9 apg, 0.56 spg, 0.01 bpg, 0.41 TO, 2.13 A-to-TO

Beno Udrih
4.7 ppg in 13.0 mpg, shooting 36.9%, 28.7% on 3's, 1.1 rpg, 1.7 apg, 0.37 spg, 0.01 bpg, 0.77 TO, 2.18 A-to-TO
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Ben0075 wrote:
I disagree with your assumption that because a player is traded or leave as a free agent then all of sudden that player doesnt count on the drafting record of the team. As you dont take into consideration why the team let a player go through trade or through free agency.

Mehmet Okur was an absolute steal at #38. However, Detroit didn't recognize that and let him go as a free agent. Does his stellar play in Utah redeem the pick? Some think yes, but I don't

Actually a Okur got a huge contract in Utah because of the skills that he showed in Detroit. He wasnt gonna get a good contract because the Pistons had both Wallaces.

I am focused on is the GM bringing talent onto the team that provides long-term benefits. Letting a player walk after two seasons isn't providing long-term benefit.

Okur was the 6th or 7th man on a NBA Champion that had a very low payroll (the starters and Corliss Willamson made less the $40M). Dumars let him go, the Pistons made one more trip to the NBA Finals and lost, and haven't made it out of the Eastern Conference since. Letting him go was a bad decision and IMHO nullified drafting him.

Ben0075 wrote:
Dumars drafted Okur and Prince to very good starting caliber players plus decent bench players like Maxiel and Delfino. Your ratings is saying he is a below average drafting GM. While a lot of the GMs u have ahead of him havent drafted players as good as Prince or Okur.

Dumars got a low score for drafting Rodney White and Darko Milicic. Both of those were wastes of early draft picks and the GM's ahead of him haven't done anything that bad.

Ben0075 wrote:
Actually Popovich was GM of the Spurs I believe when they drafted Duncan, Parker and Ginoboli. Correct me if I am wrong though but Buford was an assistant GM of the team. With Pop coaching someone had to be doing the majority of the scouting and the recommendations of the players as Pop was busy coaching. But, your right he didnt have the title but he was influential for sure in the drafting of Parker and Ginobili.

You are correct that Popovich was the one who drafted Parker and Ginobili. Popovich was an incredible GM and handed an absolutely stacked team to Buford. A Spurs fan posted here once that Popovich will retire after this season. The Spurs need him to go back to being GM.
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activeverb wrote:
It's a good start. I think it provides a good framework to discuss a GM's drafting success, though the actual ratings can be skewed too easily to provide much value. Because we're talking about a fairly low number of drafts for most GMs, one lucky pick can mean the difference between being great and mediocre. So in essence, we could say that a GM is a great drafter because in one draft the guy he wanted was taken in the spot right before him and he got lucky on the leftover.

I agree with a lot of what you say. There is a lot of luck to drafting. Chris Duhon was a stellar pick for Chicago. However, they should have picked him with the 31st pick and instead they traded that away. They were very lucky that Duhon was still available 7 picks later. Every year, there are good players who just don't look good during the evaluation process and vice versa. Dallas made only two first round picks during that time - one stunning success (Josh Howard) that they were lucky was still available at #29 and one flop.

activeverb wrote:
If possible, it would be good to factor in how good a pick a GM made based on the talent available when he made that choice.

I mentioned that alternative but I can't figure out how to make it work. Rodney White was the #9 pick in the 2001 draft, played only 16 games his rookie year and then was traded. How would you rate that pick? Would picking Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant get the same rating as they were both the best player available when drafted?

activeverb wrote:
It's a fun chart, though i wouldn't take the actual numbers and ratings too seriously.

I hope it beats reading about the merits of trading for JO for the zillionth time.
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Laker Lurker wrote:
[The] OP did do a lot of good work. However what sunk the Lakers is not a specificc draft but 3 straight drafts in which the Lakers got "zero" , "nada" in Rush, Cook, and Sasha- for now , consider Walton as nada.

What GM's had 3 straight drafts of "nada" is one of the standards when you really want to compare Kupchak to others.

What sunk the Lakers was 1997 to 2002.
1997 - No first round pick
1998 - Sam Jacobson with #26 pick
1999 - Devean George with #23 pick
2000 - Mark Madsen with #29 pick
2001 - No first round pick
2002 - Kareem Rush with #20 pick
Rick Fox was signed as a free agent in the 2007 off-season, but the free agent signings after that were busts or old. The '01-'02 Threepeat champion had Devean George as its best under-30 player acquired within the last 5 years.
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Laker Lurker wrote:
You have to pick your standards and don't quibble. If you want to talk "individuals" and "outstanding" career. -then next to whom?. Barbosa, J howard>>>>>>> Cook. and they were taken after Cook.- well, so much for the pick #24 argument.

Varejao , taken in the second rd>>>>>>>>>>>>Vuljacic , taken in the 1st rd

Walton was Picked before Steve Blake, Pachulia, ball hanling, inside presence- better deals than Walton offers.

Rush wasn't even playing in the NBA for a while and just returned recently from Europe

So in the end, 3 zeroes in a row + a non impact role player who is not better than players picked below him.

One bad pick- attributable to bad luck
two bad picks in a row= maybe abberration
three bad picks in a row= incompetent= Kupchak= Lakers R.I.P.

In 1986, Jerry West traded up to draft Billy Thompson. Thompson would only play 68 games for the Lakers over 2 seasons before being let go through the expansion draft. There were 3 future All-Stars drafted after Thompson - Mark Price, Dennis Rodman and Jeff Hornacek. The first 6 picks in the second round played in the NBA 12, 10, 14, 9, 16 and 12 seasons. In 1987, the Lakers didn't have a first round pick. They last two picks in that draft were future All-Star Reggie Lewis and 10 year vet Greg Anderson. In 1988, Jerry West drafted David Rivers, who played only 47 games with the Lakers. He passed over Andrew Lang (12 NBA seasons), Vinny Del Negro (12 NBA seasons), Grant Long (15 NBA seasons), Vernon Maxwell (13 NBA seasons), Steve Kerr (15 NBA seasons) and Anthony Mason (13 NBA seasons). By your logic, West was an awful, terrible GM.
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LHQ wrote:
I don`t think Dennis made this chart on a intentional way to try to shove us that Mitch is indeed a good GM.

He obviously put some work on the chart, but I do feel that he was a bit influenced from the Mitch performance point of view, and that he started his chart from that point of view...

Absolutely, totally wrong. The first time I did this, I had no idea where Mitch would wind up. I was just tired of posters going on and on about how Mitch was a complete failure at drafting based upon "woulda, coulda, shoulda". I thought if I could provide some perspective to Mitch's picks, perhaps I could stop some of the mindless negativity. Boy, was I wrong.

You must have missed the response I wrote later:

Dennis_D wrote:

ericp6387 wrote:
I think you gave Turiaf a .5 when he should have been given a 2.5 for being a solid rotation player.

Turiaf is a second round pick and he has to prove that this season is not a fluke before he gets the 2.5 rating. See the section that starts with "Second round picks that..." Mitch was tied with Thorn for the top rating before I added the rules for second round picks.

I had the post done with Mitch tied for #1, then I changed how I did the ratings and because of that change, Mitch went to seventh.

LHQ wrote:
For example, only in the Lakers can Walton be a starter. Put him on a deep team like the Spurs, and he is bench material.

Last season, Oberto and Elson started 74 games between them and they had a net PER of -4.5 and -8.2. Walton had a net PER of -0.3.

LHQ wrote:
Another question: Let`s imagine Ginobili was drafted along the years this chart is using, and that Buford was the actual GM who drafted him. Ginobili is on the bench, 6th Man of the Year candidate for sure. He could start in the Spurs and, because he can play 3 positions quite well, could start in 90% of the other NBA teams...

You credit him as a Bench player? Or as a Starter? Let`s be clear, and put him as a Bench player, because that`s how the Spurs play him. Ok, Fine. But Ginobili had been a Laker, he would have given West/Mitch 6 points to the Lakers, and not 2 points to Pop/Buford like he would do had his draft class been included on this draft.

I would have consider the following as starters last season for the Spurs: Duncan, Parker, Bowen, Elson and Ginobili, based upon games started and mpg.

LHQ wrote:
I still believe this kind of work is commendable, but futile:

You cannot assess a GM work with a mathematical formula and a nice looking chart, no matter how appealing may end up being for the Laker fan (mind you, I`m not a Laker fan)

It's a framework for evaluating the drafting record of GM's. Without something to put draft picks in perspective, it is really easy to base your opinion of the drafting ability of a GM on one or two picks taken out of context.
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