anyone else feel like there's a ton of good, young nba players who nobody predicted would be this good?

[shadow_operative 15932]

just from these playoffs alone (and off the top of my head) you've got austin reaves, jalen brunson, christian braun, grant williams, donte divencenzo, malcolm brogdon, and i'm sure there's more. it's especially true of younger players, players in years 1-3. it did not used to be this way. it used to be that the lottery was hit-and-miss, while anything after the first 15-20 picks just probably wasn't going to make it. now it feels like we've had a smattering of later/second round picks who've made it big, followed by a sudden influx of guys from college who nobody predicted would be important players on playoff teams. 

i think this is just the beginning. i think this is the new norm. kids grow up specializing in sports as if they were professionals, essentially from the time they can walk. naturally these guys aren't finished products at 19-20 years old, but that's when they're entering the nba, and many of these guys just continue to grow into really solid pros. it's very strange, having watched the nba my entire life, to suddenly look up and go, "Austin Reaves- the Austin Reaves who was at OU yesterday- is now an important piece for the title contending Lakers? whaaa???"

Edited May 9, 2023 by shadow_operative

[huge 3793]

Agree on this but Divencenzo isn't one of them.

Reaves went undrafted!  Now he has an NBA triple double...

[shadow_operative 15932]

jalen brunson with 38 pts, 9 reb, 7 ast on 12-22 shooting. seriously, who saw this coming?

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

28 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

jalen brunson with 38 pts, 9 reb, 7 ast on 12-22 shooting. seriously, who saw this coming?

He did pretty much the same thing during last year's playoff run with the Mavericks. Cuban and the Mavs front office did a bang up job in letting him go. 

[shadow_operative 15932]

check out the value in the 2018 and 2019 drafts:

 

[billfromlaketravis 11445]

On 5/9/2023 at 11:07 AM, huge said:

Agree on this but Divencenzo isn't one of them.

Reaves went undrafted!  Now he has an NBA triple double...

Yeah Divencenzo was a damn good player on a Nova national championship team, and was drafted 17th. 
 

I guess add Lonnie Walker to the list. Drafted 18th. 

Kenyon Martin Jr is one of the better players on the Rockets and he was drafted 52nd. 

[billfromlaketravis 11445]

I think OP has a point though. Players go from limited practice hours, being forced to go to class and study hall to full time hooping as professionals. 
 

We all love college basketball, but I think the G League is better at developing NBA players. Granted, it takes a very mature young man to go pro at 18.

[shadow_operative 15932]

if you look at the nba drafts from 10+ years ago, there are a ton of BLEAK draft classes, and you can forget about finding real deal talent in the late first and beyond. post-lottery draft picks are going to become way more valuable going forward, especially for the organizations that know how to scout and develop talent.

[huge 3793]

8 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

if you look at the nba drafts from 10+ years ago, there are a ton of BLEAK draft classes, and you can forget about finding real deal talent in the late first and beyond. post-lottery draft picks are going to become way more valuable going forward, especially for the organizations that know how to scout and develop talent.

And that will result in a better NBA product for fans.  And also allow teams to get better without engaging 100% tank mode.

[closetohumping 17432]

Players are faster and stronger.  But the pace is faster so I often look at the 28 ppg scorer as a 22 ppg scorer.  

[SilasCoade 2622]

Small sample size leading to poor conclusion. The players today in general are much more skilled than years past, but I don't think the draft outcomes are that different. Just for grins, 1986 picks 25-50 had Mark Price, Dennis Rodman, and Jeff Hornacek. Kevin Duckworth was a reasonably successful player as well. Hell, Arvydas Sabonis was the 24th pick.

[shadow_operative 15932]

19 minutes ago, SilasCoade said:

Small sample size leading to poor conclusion. The players today in general are much more skilled than years past, but I don't think the draft outcomes are that different. Just for grins, 1986 picks 25-50 had Mark Price, Dennis Rodman, and Jeff Hornacek. Kevin Duckworth was a reasonably successful player as well. Hell, Arvydas Sabonis was the 24th pick.

couldn't possibly disagree more. go look up the drafts from 2000-2015. i've already covered everything about them, but to repeat, many of them were straight up bleak, and you simply were not finding this much legit talent this late in the draft. not even remotely close. there's more talent from picks 19 and on in those '18 and '19 drafts than probably every single draft from 2000-2015 combined from picks 19 and on. there's been a paradigm shift in how much talent is available later on in the draft. 

Edited May 11, 2023 by shadow_operative

[ztejas 43411]

The talent in the NBA is crazy right now. Here's a laugh. That salty 2016 OKC team that almost beat the 73 win Ws - and did beat a 67 win Spurs team that went 40-1 at home - had a playoff rotation of:

Kevin Durant

Russell Westbrook

Serge Ibaka

Steven Adams

Andre Roberson

Dion Waiters

Enes Kanter

Randy Foye

That was 7 years ago - Roberson, Waiters and Kanter were all 24 or younger. All three of those guys have been out of the league for multiple seasons now (unless you count Kanter playing 400 minutes last year and playing his last game on February 8th). And that was the 3rd best team in the league that could have won a championship. 

Edited May 11, 2023 by ztejas

[closetohumping 17432]

19 minutes ago, ztejas said:

The talent in the NBA is crazy right now. Here's a laugh. That salty 2016 OKC team that almost beat the 73 win Ws - and did beat a 67 win Spurs team that went 40-1 at home - had a playoff rotation of:

Kevin Durant

Russell Westbrook

Serge Ibaka

Steven Adams

Andre Roberson

Dion Waiters

Enes Kanter

Randy Foye

That was 7 years ago - Roberson, Waiters and Kanter were all 24 or younger. All three of those guys have been out of the league for multiple seasons now (unless you count Kanter playing 400 minutes last year and playing his last game on February 8th). And that was the 3rd best team in the league that could have won a championship. 

This tells me how great KD was.  That's not an impressive list imo. 

[ztejas 43411]

10 minutes ago, closetohumping said:

This tells me how great KD was.  That's not an impressive list imo. 

Especially because Ibaka was already falling off by that point. 

Westbrook was a fucking monster that season, too. 

[goatsaag 279]

13 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

check out the value in the 2018 and 2019 drafts:

 

Pretty sure you can find a similar list for just about any draft. Just looking at the 20th pick and later starting 10 years before you:

2008 had Ryan Anderson (21), Serge Ibaka (24), Batum (25), George Hill (26), Chalmers (34), Deandre Jordan (35), Dragic (45)
2009 had Darren Collison (21), Taj Gibson (26), Patrick Beverley (42), Danny Green (46), Patty Mills (55) and a handful of longtime role players
2010 is dogshit. Hassan Whiteside (33), Landry Fields (39), Lance Stephenson (40)?
2011 had Faried (22), Reggie Jackson (24), Jimmy Butler (30), Bojan Bogdanovic (31), Chandler Parsons (38), Isaiah Thomas (60)
2012 had Evan Fournier (20), Jae Crowder (34), Draymond Green (35), Kris Middleton (39), Will Barton (40)

I'll stop there but I'm not seeing a massive increase in valuable players coming later in the draft.

[Mitch Cumsteen 18547]

I agree that there is more talent than ever, and you're seeing more guys drafted late be surprisingly good. That said, the draft is obviously an imperfect science. We're still seeing busts at the top.

Look at 2020: #2 James Wiseman, #4 Patrick Williams, #5 Isaac Okoro, #6 Onyeka Okongwu (who I still like btw), #7 Killian Hayes, #9 Deni Avidja, #10 Jalen Smith. That's a 70% bust rate in the top 10. I don't know if you count #8 Obi Toppen in there, but if you do that would make it 80%. Granted it might be too early to call some of those guys busts, but a re-draft looks drastically different. Devin Vassell and Tyrese Halliburton were #11 and #12, respectively. At #18 you have Josh Smith, #19 you have Saddiq Bey, #21 Tyrese Maxey, #25 Immanuel Quickley, #26 Payton Pritchard, #28 Jaden McDaniels, #30 Desmond Bane, #35 Xavier Tillman, and #52 Kenyon Martin Jr.

I think there is more talent than ever, especially at the bottom half of the league. The floor for every team has never been higher. I don't think that the superstar championship model is going away anytime soon, but with the way the new CBA is structured it is going to be more difficult than ever to build and sustain a super team. It's not just monetary penalties now, once you hit that second apron you are severely handcuffed in how you build out your roster. And I don't know if this year's playoff is an anomaly, but I can't recall a time since maybe the 1970s when there has been this much parity in the league. And I think it's fantastic for the sport. It used to be only 2-4 teams had  a legitimate shot at the championship in any given year. We're on the cusp of an 8 seed (who was minutes away from being eliminated in a play in game) and a 7 seed being in the conference finals. 

You really want to fix tanking? Maybe more parity is the answer and maybe this influx of talent across the board gives more teams a chance to truly compete. I honestly doubt it, but it sounds good in theory.

[ztejas 43411]

35 minutes ago, goatsaag said:

Pretty sure you can find a similar list for just about any draft. Just looking at the 20th pick and later starting 10 years before you:

2008 had Ryan Anderson (21), Serge Ibaka (24), Batum (25), George Hill (26), Chalmers (34), Deandre Jordan (35), Dragic (45)
2009 had Darren Collison (21), Taj Gibson (26), Patrick Beverley (42), Danny Green (46), Patty Mills (55) and a handful of longtime role players
2010 is dogshit. Hassan Whiteside (33), Landry Fields (39), Lance Stephenson (40)?
2011 had Faried (22), Reggie Jackson (24), Jimmy Butler (30), Bojan Bogdanovic (31), Chandler Parsons (38), Isaiah Thomas (60)
2012 had Evan Fournier (20), Jae Crowder (34), Draymond Green (35), Kris Middleton (39), Will Barton (40)

I'll stop there but I'm not seeing a massive increase in valuable players coming later in the draft.

Yeah - the main difference we've seen in recent years is that there aren't nearly as many misses in the top 10 (maybe outside of 2020 as Mitch just pointed out). The top 9 in 2021 is all guys that have almost immediately panned out - plus Suggs and Kuminga who will likely stick around the league for awhile. 

2022 you have Paolo, Mathurin, Murray, Sharpe and Sochan all in the top 9. Plus Ivey who started to piece it together towards the end of the season. That isn't including Chet.

Edited May 11, 2023 by ztejas

[SilasCoade 2622]

On 5/11/2023 at 7:32 AM, shadow_operative said:

i've already covered everything about them, but to repeat, many of them were straight up bleak, and you simply were not finding this much legit talent this late in the draft. not even remotely close

If you say so then it must be true.

From a statistics standpoint even that stretch of time is a shallow data pool from which to draw the hard conclusions you're jumping to. And you're not defining quality, which makes it hard to have a reasonable discussion. If it's just anybody who has ever started an NBA game well okay, but it is the 16 players you listed from 2018-19, Brunson is the only "star" and the rest aren't really out performing their draft position by much. Let me ask it this way, if you were choosing the best player taken at every position of the draft in history, how many of those positions are filled from the past 2015 time frame?

Edited May 12, 2023 by SilasCoade

[closetohumping 17432]

Agree there’s more players that can play but tell me the olds wouldn’t beat the newbs here:

 

[Aqua Buddha 14581]

On 5/11/2023 at 9:13 AM, SilasCoade said:

Small sample size leading to poor conclusion. The players today in general are much more skilled than years past, but I don't think the draft outcomes are that different. Just for grins, 1986 picks 25-50 had Mark Price, Dennis Rodman, and Jeff Hornacek. Kevin Duckworth was a reasonably successful player as well. Hell, Arvydas Sabonis was the 24th pick.

This is generally true.  Almost everyone can shoot now so the likelihood of a complete bust is small.  Worst case scenario now is you get a smallish guy who can shoot and can't play defense.  Back in the day, a smallish guy who can't play defense or shoot is a total bust.  

Even the G League guys can shoot.  It's why you see more bad teams beat good teams on a given night.

[Michael Knight 12976]

2018 had absolute dogshit Ayton and Bagley go 1-2 and 2019 for different reasons had future busts Zion and Ja Morant and did someone actually claim Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green were good?

Edited May 14, 2023 by Michael Knight

[shadow_operative 15932]

On 5/12/2023 at 9:25 AM, closetohumping said:

Agree there’s more players that can play but tell me the olds wouldn’t beat the newbs here:

 

LOL @ tatum and luka being first team all-nba while jokic is second team. and yes, the 2003 all nba team would crush the souls of the 2023 edition.

[cmontexas 3270]

Remember until like an hour before last years draft everyone thought Jabari Smith was the #1 prospect?

[cmontexas 3270]

I think a lot of these good players are obviously good players but get passed over in the draft because GMs have a very specific type of player they can dream about that they draft instead

[closetohumping 17432]

[Beau Vine 54203]

On 5/8/2023 at 11:32 PM, shadow_operative said:

just from these playoffs alone (and off the top of my head) you've got austin reaves, jalen brunson, christian braun, grant williams, donte divencenzo, malcolm brogdon, and i'm sure there's more.

These are all guys who played multiple years of college, which earns a demerit in today's draft grading.   I seriously think you have GMs who are so enamored by "potential" from foreign player and 1-and-dones that they waste high draft picks on them and guys like Brogdon who can really play (1st team AA and All-ACC) get pushed down in the draft order.

[MotownHorn 1759]

Gonna add Brock to this list in 2026 😁😘

[Michael Knight 12976]

On 5/16/2023 at 6:51 PM, Beau Vine said:

These are all guys who played multiple years of college, which earns a demerit in today's draft grading.   I seriously think you have GMs who are so enamored by "potential" from foreign player and 1-and-dones that they waste high draft picks on them and guys like Brogdon who can really play (1st team AA and All-ACC) get pushed down in the draft order.

Brogdon is not a starting caliber player on a contender, he's a good bench player who probably should have gone 10 picks earlier but it was a dogshit draft

[cmontexas 3270]

On 5/16/2023 at 6:48 PM, closetohumping said:

Why is Garland X'd out? Id also still take Zion or Ja ahead of RJ knowing everything we know