With the NCAA tournament over, college basketball players and other NBA draft hopefuls have little time to make a life-altering decision. Despite several sources of "information", it's difficult to find any reliable data. With that in mind, I've tried to look at this from the perspective of the best, publicly available information: the mock drafts of DraftExpress and NBADraft.net as of today.
The past three years (2011-2013 NBA Drafts), I've written this post using the mock drafts available at the time (post-tournament, pre-deadline), not at the beginning of the season or the week before the draft. This way, it's a true(r) representation of the imperfect information that's out there. What have the past three years shown about how useful my typical tiers are?
1. PROJECTED LOTTERY PICKS ARE VERY LIKELY TO BE DRAFTED IN THE 1ST ROUND.
In the last three years of NBA drafts, 33-40 players have chosen to enter the draft that were projected as a lottery pick by one or two of the mock drafts. All of those players ended up being drafted in the 1st round, and at least 80% of them ended up lottery picks. They may not have signed for as much money as they hoped, but they were signing guaranteed rookie contracts.
2. PROJECTED 1ST ROUND PICKS OUTSIDE THE LOTTERY ARE MEANINGFULLY LESS LIKELY TO BE DRAFTED IN THE 1ST ROUND.
For the players that went into the draft as projected 1st round picks outside the lottery, the chances of falling out of the 1st round are much higher. While this idea is easily accepted without digging into data, consider the magnitude: for every three players that thought they were a mid-teens to late 1st round pick based on a mock draft, one of them fell to the 2nd round. That is a very real risk to consider.
3. BEING IN BOTH MOCK DRAFTS MATTERS, ESPECIALLY OUTSIDE THE LOTTERY.
Again, this seems like an intuitive point, but the magnitude is significant. Being a lottery pick on both mock drafts means seven out of eight guys will go in the lottery, versus four out of five going with only one site. Outside the lottery, being in both mock 1st rounds meant that a player significantly reduced the chance of falling out of the 1st round altogether.
Now, the sample size (three years) isn't nearly big enough to point to anything as a definitive trend, but at a minimum, it should indicate that the concept of this post is at least pointed in the right direction. Unless you're the type of person that says mock drafts have no value whatsoever, in which case, there's nothing I can say to change your mind. Now, without further ado, on to the (new and improved) tiers...
TIER 1. LOTTERY PICKS (LIKELY 1ST ROUNDERS)
Despite all the hand-wringing over the top prospects, the consensus lottery picks (shaded in blue) are pretty familiar names to most people that look at potential draftees throughout the college basketball season. The non-consensus guys are the typical mix of international prospects that may or may not come out, and prospects with diverging opinions. Based on the last three years, these guys have a good shot of going in the lottery, and a very good shot of going in the 1st round if they enter the draft. It's also of note that despite the roller-coaster season Marcus Smart had as sophomore relative to his breakout freshman year, his standing as a mid-to-high lottery pick does not appear to be affected at this point.
TIER 2. POSSIBLE 1ST ROUND PICKS.
For guys in this group, the potential for falling out of the 1st round is real. As a result, they are probably considering a few factors with regard to coming out this year: 1) the quality of their individual prospects next year; 2) the quality of their team prospects next year; 3) remaining work towards graduation; and 4) any personal situations that prioritize a professional career sooner rather than later. For some guys, the decision to come out is already made, but for others, this is a very difficult call. I would simply echo the following: seven guys on this list are projected as "consensus" 1st round draft picks. If recent history holds, then it's likely that one (or more) of those seven players falls out of the 1st round. And, including both tiers, there are 35 projected 1st round picks, and only 30 actual 1st round picks.
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