With the Sonics slated to pick #5 in the draft, I thought I’d take a look at the last 20 #5 picks in the NBA Draft:
1. Shelden Williams (Inc.)
2. Raymond Felton (B)
3. Devin Harris (B)
4. Dwayne Wade (A+)
5. Nikoloz Tstchivilli (D)
6. Jason Richardson (B+)
7. Mike Miller (B)
8. Jonathan Bender (D)
9. Vince Carter (A)
10. Tony Battie (C+)
11. Ray Allen (A)
12. Kevin Garnett (A+)
13. Juwan Howard (B)
14. JR Rider (C)
15. LaPhonso Ellis (C+)
16. Steve Smith (B+)
17. Kendall Gill (B)
18. JR Reid (B-)
19. Mitch Richmond (A-)
20. Scottie Pippen (A+)
The grades in brackets are my own, non-scientific grading of each player. You can feel free to disagree with the rankings, and they’re not based on anything more than a cursory look at statistics and my own memory of the players.
It broke down like this:
A’s: 6
B’s: 8
C’s: 3
D’s: 2
Inc: 1
That’s pretty good, on the whole. It means in the past 20 drafts, the #5 pick has yielded a B or A type player 70% of the time. Plus, only two real duds fell to #5 (Nikoloz and Bender), meaning there was a 90% chance the player at least started some of the time and wasn’t a “what a f*&^ing waste!” kind of pick.
The next couple of months will bring more draft goodness, but I thought I’d start off by taking a look at the history. After all, when was the last time you thought about JR Reid?
Friday, April 20
Predict-o-Meter
I thought I’d take a look back at how Chris Wilcox’ season went, based on the predictions I made for him at the start of the year.
In my prediction, I figured Wilcox would play 33 minutes (he averaged 31.5), score 14 points (13.5), average 8 boards (7.7), 2.5 turnovers (1.6), and 3.5 fouls (3). All of that came according to plan, including:
“On the whole, Wilcox should be a plus for the Sonics this season. I expect him to commit too many fouls, enabling Collison to get more PT (fine with me), to be occasionally frustrated with his role in the offense, to put up as many 25/15s as he does 8/6s, and to be generally acceptable as the team’s starting power forward.”
I’d say generally acceptable would apply for Wilcox. Of course, all of that verbiage above didn’t mention his “defense,” which makes sense because his defense this year was unmentionable anyways.
As for other predictions, here’s one that turned out well:
“No, the real breakout guy should be Deron Williams of the Jazz, who’s already putting up solid numbers in the pre-season. If AK-47 is healthy, and Jerry Sloan doesn’t kill someone on the sidelines, the Jazz could be pretty tough this year.”
And one that, unfortunately, was even worse than I expected:
“Total Wins: 37”
It’s pretty sad when you’re pessimism about the team turns out to be optimism.
In my prediction, I figured Wilcox would play 33 minutes (he averaged 31.5), score 14 points (13.5), average 8 boards (7.7), 2.5 turnovers (1.6), and 3.5 fouls (3). All of that came according to plan, including:
“On the whole, Wilcox should be a plus for the Sonics this season. I expect him to commit too many fouls, enabling Collison to get more PT (fine with me), to be occasionally frustrated with his role in the offense, to put up as many 25/15s as he does 8/6s, and to be generally acceptable as the team’s starting power forward.”
I’d say generally acceptable would apply for Wilcox. Of course, all of that verbiage above didn’t mention his “defense,” which makes sense because his defense this year was unmentionable anyways.
As for other predictions, here’s one that turned out well:
“No, the real breakout guy should be Deron Williams of the Jazz, who’s already putting up solid numbers in the pre-season. If AK-47 is healthy, and Jerry Sloan doesn’t kill someone on the sidelines, the Jazz could be pretty tough this year.”
And one that, unfortunately, was even worse than I expected:
“Total Wins: 37”
It’s pretty sad when you’re pessimism about the team turns out to be optimism.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)