Post by Andrei Kirilenko on Feb 9, 2019 15:34:53 GMT
D5 Analytics
#6 - Young Talent
Welcome back to D5 Analytics! It's been 8 months since the last installment, but we're back and kicking this year with a lot more data and a lot more capabilities. Join me over the next few weeks as I use data from the 2014 through 2018 D5 Redrafts for a mini-series of analytics!
As you all know, a select group of GMs participated in 5 years of a Lottery Redraft, meaning that we covered any player who is still on a rookie deal in D5! These past 5 drafts, consistently of players mainly still 25 years old and under, will be what I define as "young" talent for this analytic. This first segment of the Redraft Analytics Series will focus not yet focus on GM drafting ability, as I know we are all anxious to see, but rather will focus solely on the young talent levels currently on each D5 team. Which roster has the most young talent? Which one has the least? Let's find out!
Elite Level Talent
What is defined as elite level talent? Good question. I ran an analysis to see which teams have the most top 3 picks from the redrafts on their rosters. Here's the results:
The Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics jump out here, with each roster containing 3 top 3 redrafted picks. For Brooklyn, that means Devin Booker (2015-2), Kristaps Porzingis (2015-3), and John Collins (2017-3). For Ian Noble and the Boston Celtics, that means Joel Embiid (2014-1), Ben Simmons (2016-1), and Jamal Murray 2016-2).
The Celtics (unsurprisingly) perhaps hold the most elite level young talent, with two #1 overall picks and a #2 overall pick. The Memphis Grizzlies and Jeremiah Hill are the only other team with more than 1 top 3 pick, with Nikola Jokic (2014-2) and Karl Anthony Towns (2015-1) closely trailing the Celtics and Nets.
Great-Level Talent
Even if you aren't a top 3 pick, you can still be very close to elite. Redrafted players picked in the 4-5 range included Donovan Mitchell, Lauri Markkanen, and D'Angelo Russell.... pretty good players to say the least. But which team has the most top 5 redrafted picks?
Ok Ian, can you let someone else get some players? Sheesh. The Celtics add Brandon Ingram (2016-4) to this list, giving the team 4 total top 5 pick redrafted players. The Memphis Grizzlies add Donovan Mitchell as noted above, and a swarm of teams join in the fun with 2 top 5 picks. However, this is where the lottery-level talent ends for the Grizzlies. Did his players perhaps peak too early to fully complete the rebuild?
Perhaps the scariest statistic here is that Eastern Conference leading Glenn Robinson and the Milwaukee Bucks have two top 5 picked young talent on the roster (Myles Turner 2015-5 and Lauri Markkanen 2017-4). Bro... not cool.
Brian Scalabrine and the Pelicans join in, with no surprises here, as Brian did an excellent job in picking up young talent in the 2018 draft. The Pelicans have both Jaren Jackson (2018-2) and Trae Young (2018-4) but do not include any other lottery-level talent over the past 5 years. Brian has stockpiled some picks (courtesy of yours truly ) and will definitely be adding to this list next year.
The Phoenix Suns having 2 top 5 level talent might come as a surprise to some GMs, and with good reasons. Both of their supposed top 5 level talent guys of Caris LaVert (2016-3) and Mo Bamba (2018-5) were both selected in the redraft by... Jared Montini , the GM who currently owns the players! Were the LaVert and Bamba picks a stretch for top 5? Probably. But both would likely find themselves in the top 10 even if Jared hadn't drafted them, so can we really blame him for liking his own players?
Total Lottery Talent
Alright, enough playing around. Which team has the most TOTAL young talent on the roster? Here's who owns the most redrafted lottery picks of the past 5 seasons (plz dont be Ian plz dont be Ian):
Goddamit, its Ian. Our humble commissioner has stockpiled 7 redrafted lottery picks from the past 5 years. In case anyone is counting (I guess that's my job...), there are 70 total lottery picks (14 x 5) in this analysis, meaning that Ian owns a whopping 10% of all the young talent in the league. Bro.
Despite only owning 1 top 5 player, Kevin Hollis finds his Oklahoma City Thunder as the second most talented young team, with 6 lottery picks... which makes sense, considering he traded Kevin Durant and DeMarcus Cousins for those players. However, with the best haul from those trades apparently being Julius Randle (2014-5), those trades gotta earn a MAJOR yikes from me dawg.
I won't go into other teams specifically because they are mainly the usual suspects (AKA tanking teams). Some competitive teams, such as Alex English 's Nuggets and Chris Mullin 's Warriors gotta be happy that they find themselves with 2 lottery players while competing year-in and year-out.
Big Fat Zeroes
It's fun to see who has the most young talent, but who has the least? The graph above tells us that the following teams own ZERO lottery-level talent from the past 5 drafts. Utoh.
Charlotte Hornets
Chicago Bulls
Dallas Mavericks
Houston Rockets
Orlando Magic
Portland Trailblazers
I'll give a few of these teams a pass... the Hornets, Bulls, Rockets, Magic, and Trailblazers are at least competitive (or semi-competitive). I'm a bit surprised by the Magic considering Blake Bowman has been tanking for the good part of 10 years, but Danny Longley especially has to be cringing looking at the redrafts. Not only do the Mavericks not have any lottery level talent, but they don't even own their own pick in 2020! And they find themselves today as the second-worst record in the league. Danny, what are you doing!?
Hope you enjoyed the first installment of the redraft series! Stay tuned for more over the next few weeks.