The NBA's Best Scorer: 2012 Edition

With the condensed 2011-2012 regular season finished (not too soon, from the perspective of a Bobcats fan), it's time to take a look at who the best scorers were from the past season. For those who missed last year's edition, a few ground rules:

• A player must have played 33 games with one team during the season
• A player must have ranked in the top 40 of shots per game

For those of you that think these rules were designed to exclude Jeremy Lin on purpose, you're partially right. To be among the best scorers in the league, it seems fair that a player should play most of the season, and take more shots than most of his peers. The going is almost always tougher when someone is a focal point of the opposing defense for most of a season. So without further ado...

1. Kevin Durant. Last year, I was basically obnoxious in pointing out the fact that while Durant won his 2nd straight scoring title, he wasn't quite the most efficient scorer. Well, that is no longer the case. Not only did Durant win his 3rd straight scoring title, he beat out Kobe Bryant despite taking 3+ fewer shots per game.

2. Joe Johnson. The easiest max deal in the world to make fun of, it seems like this year Joe may have lived up to his salary. Good sign of things to come for Hawks fans? Probably not. This was only his second season cracking 1.00 points per shot, the other coming in his first (and only) season with Steve Nash and the "7 Seconds or Less" Suns. So, congratulations... it took seven years and two contracts to get the Joe Johnson from 2005, but you (almost) got it this year.

3. Lebron James. Career high scoring efficiency, the best talent in the game for a few years running. If the MVP could be split into the "Michael Jordan Award" (best player in the game) and "Bill Russell Award" (most valuable cog to a team), Lebron would win the "Jordan" in a landslide every year, and we could focus our time on debating the "Russell" winner (Chris Paul or Ricky Rubio, in my opinion).

4. Kyrie Irving. In all honesty, as a Bobcats fan, I was more interested in the 2012 lottery than the 2011 lottery, because I wasn't sure Irving was all that great. Turns out, he's really crafty at both getting to the rim and finishing through contact. Now, while he may not be able to improve those skills that much, he doesn't need to - he's already elite at that. Great building block for Cleveland.

5. Chris Paul. Last year in New Orleans, Chris Paul was a one man crunch time offense. This year as a Clipper? He's a one man crunch time offense. It's obviously a work in progress, and it's not Paul's fault, but the Clippers have been a little disappointing to this point.

Other Notable Finds...

• Andrew Bynum (0.99 PPS on 7 more shots per game) didn't seem like fair compensation for Dwight Howard, but it's getting harder to argue. If this is what we'll get out of him for the next 5 years, the top 2 centers in the league are set in stone.
• Blake Griffin got a lot better on 2 point field goals in 2012, but his free throw percentage somehow got even worse than his rookie year. Until that gets above 70%, he'll have to remain a relative spectator in the last 5 minutes of close games on offense.
• If James Harden had taken about 1 more shot per game, he would have won the title of league's best scorer at 1.046 points per shot. After last year's Mavericks series, I tried to warn Thunder fans about expecting him to sustain that level of offensive production for a whole season. Well, he basically did, and everyone who thought Tyreke Evans and Stephen Curry were better fits should lay low for a while.
• For everyone who thinks that Kobe Bryant's inefficient shooting will doom the Lakers in the playoffs, a bit of history: this year, Kobe took 30.8 shots per game and scored .904 points per shot. In '97-98, Michael Jordan took 31.9 shots per game and scored .902 points per shot. In the playoffs that spring, MJ took 35.7 shots per game and scored .908 points per shot. Are any of those numbers good? Not really. But the Bulls still managed to win a title that year. So if by the end of June, we're watching shocked as the Lakers hang another banner despite Kobe's poor shooting, we should probably remember: it's been done before.

Are College All-Star Teams a Blind Spot for NBA GM's?

As this blog has noted several times, consistent success in the NBA is significantly influenced by success or failure in the draft. It remains the major source for franchise cornerstone talent for all organizations, and seeing the difference between getting it right and getting it wrong is sometimes as easy as looking at Dwight Howard and Emeka Okafor. However, for all the opportunity and optimism, it's still not that easy to land one of the best talents in the NBA via the draft.

Looking back at the NBA drafts from 1990 to 2009, there were 572 players drafted in the 1st round, and 54 of them made an All-NBA team at least once in their careers. As noted in the chart above, that's a 9% success rate overall. Now, the obvious point is that higher picks have been more successful over that time. But as GM's start to look over this year's potential picks, particularly from teams like Kentucky and UNC that boast multiple prospects, a very important question bears asking. Do GM's fall for players that play with other 1st round talents, even when history says it's a bad idea? To try and answer this, let's look at draft picks in three groups: draftees with no 1st round teammates, draftees with one 1st round teammate, and draftees with two or more 1st round teammates.

First, let's take a look at players who were the only players from their team drafted that year in the 1st round. This by far the largest of the three groups (471 players), and the success rates look largely similar to the generic group. There's honestly not that much interesting stuff in this group, other than remembering the #1 picks that haven't made an All-NBA team: Glenn Robinson, Joe Smith, Michael Olowokandi, Kenyon Martin, Kwame Brown, Andrea Bargnani, and Blake Griffin (for now).

Next up are draftees that had one teammate drafted in the 1st round in the same year. It's a smaller group (68 players), so not every number is meaningful (the only #1 pick in the group was Allen Iverson). It's probably worth noting that of the 8 All-NBA players drafted in this group, 5 of them were the 2nd guy drafted from a team (Latrell Sprewell after Robert Horry, Sam Cassell after Doug Edwards, Vince Carter after Antawn Jamison, Paul Pierce after Raef Lafrentz, Zach Randolph after Jason Richardson). And the 8th guy, Russell Westbrook, was drafted right before Kevin Love, but they'll both be All-NBA players after this season. So, really, out of all the 2 man classes drafted over this period, the All-NBA player was the 2nd guy picked 5 out of 7 times.

Finally, it's the members of the college super-teams, the guys who were drafted alongside at least 2 teammates in the 1st round. 33 players are in this group, and their respective college teams probably ring a bell:

Michigan '90, UNLV '91, Arkansas '92, Kentucky '96, Duke '99, North Carolina '05, Connecticut '06, Ohio State '07, Florida '07, North Carolina '09

While the overall number looks similar (9% hit rate versus all picks at 9%), the number seems deceptive. The three All-NBA players all came within the top 3 picks: Larry Johnson (#1 overall), Elton Brand (#1 overall), and Al Horford (#3 overall). The hit rate is literally nonexistent outside the top 5 picks. The other, hugely important observation: 3 of the 10 first picks off a team (Rumeal Robinson, Larry Johnson, Todd Day, Antoine Walker, Elton Brand, Marvin Williams, Rudy Gay, Greg Oden, Al Horford, Tyler Hansbrough) made an All-NBA team. That means none of the other 23 guys drafted from those super-teams (the 2nd and 3rd best guys on those college teams) hit that level of success.

What, if anything, should be drawn from all this? For me, it reinforces something we all probably know intuitively. College basketball can often involve teams and schedules of very different quality. That difference usually makes it very difficult to project a player's prospects, i.e. the small college star who plays against competition that probably won't make it to the NBA. But, that's most of college - there are over 300 D-1 teams, and 30 NBA teams. If a player's level of competition can make evaluators skeptical, history shows that a player's quality of teammates might require the same treatment.

Does this mean that the NBA draft world is looking at Anthony Davis and Harrison Barnes with rose-colored glasses? Based on the 20 drafts I looked at, no. Views of the best guy on these teams don't seem to get skewed. But should evaluators be careful with John Henson, Tyler Zeller, Kendall Marshall, Terrence Jones, Doron Lamb, and Marquis Teague? Yeah, I think they need to be very careful.

Oh, and maybe take another look at Jeremy Lamb, Tony Wroten, Mason Plumlee, Tyshawn Taylor, Fab Melo, John Jenkins, and Quincy Miller. As of right now, they're all the 2nd guy drafted from their respective college teams.

NBA Draft Classes

(Last Updated: 2011 NBA Draft)

2012 Early Entry Analysis: Deadline Decisions

It's a little earlier than last year's post, but if the NCAA can move up its deadlines out of convenience, then who can't? Just like last year, this is not an attempt to definitively say any single prospect should or should not leave school. It is merely a subjective view of what 3 popular draft websites think of their likely positions in the 2012 draft.

NEED TO GO NOW (Consensus 1st Rounder)

The highlighted players are consensus lottery selections, while the rest are rated as 1st round picks by all 3 referenced draft websites. It's interesting to look at the draft statuses of Harrison Barnes, Jared Sullinger, Perry Jones, and Terrence Jones. All 4 players were consensus lottery picks last year, with potential draft slots from 3-14. They all went back to school for a chance to win it all, and they got to the Elite 8, Final 4, Elite 8, and a national championship, respectively. It's also safe to say that all of them will be drafted lower than they were last year (Terrence Jones was a consensus lottery pick last year). For those who say you can't put a price on the college experience, consider the following:

• In the 2011 draft, the last 8 lottery picks (6-14) signed contracts worth an average $6 million in the 1st 3 years, guaranteed. Picks 15-20 signed contracts worth an average of $4 million (difference of $2 million).
• Based on last year, the average 3 year contract value by draft pick slot was: $11 million (1-5), $7mm (6-10), $5 million (11-15), $4 million (16-20), $3.2 million (21-25), $2.7 million (26-30)

The decision to go back to school gave all 4 players another year of scholarship benefits and college competition, but easily cost each of them at least $500,000 depending on where they get drafted this year.

SHOULD CONSIDER LEAVING

Relative to last year, it feels like there's a little less variety in where players are getting drafted. In particular, none of these 5 players looks like they could sneak into the lottery at this point.

TAKING A RISK

Again, not a lot of controversy here.

REAL THINKING NEEDS TO BE DONE: Cody Zeller, James McAdoo

The first two are consensus top 5 picks in next year's draft. It's hard to say what that means in terms of this year's draft, but there's a definite interest in both of these guys at the next level. Whether their potential is worth a top 10 pick this year is hopefully what their coaches are trying to figure out for them right now. Because, as last year proved for several top flight prospects, places in the NBA draft are fleeting, even for the best prospects.