Quote:
Originally Posted by Underdog
Last year was the first time we've had a pick higher than #24 going into the draft since 2000... It's hard to get an impact player in that range, but that's the "downside" of winning 50+ games and making the playoffs every season for over a decade straight.
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2000 is a nice cut-off because it marks the beginning of this current squad with Cuban. Since then we've had extremely poor draft position. In 11 years we only had 5 first rounders at an average draft position of 25th overall. Considering that at that position, only 5% players ever make it to an allstar game and 10% are even starters in the league, I feel pretty good about getting guys like Josh Howard (who made an allstar game before falling apart) and Crowder who has already started a few games.
Odds of success at the 25th overall
5% of getting a star
5% chance of getting a starter
25% of getting a 6-10 bench player
50% of getting an 11-15 bench warmer
15% chance of getting a bust/DNP
Our actual draft - it's to early to tell on Cunningham, so I did not include him
0% stars
33% starters (Howard, Crowder)
33% solid backups (Roddy, James)
0% low bench
17% bust/DNP (Ager)
You can argue that Howard was a star as he made it to an allstar game and put up fine numbers for a couple of years. We've beaten the odds with starters and backups with out low first-rounders. We've also beaten the odds in the second round and with undrafted players, albeit with a small sample size as well.
Zeller (17th) - Crowder, James, Cunningham
Hamilton (26th) - nothing
Josh Howard (29th)
Mullens (24th) - Roddy
Ager (28th)
Go back two more years and you see a better picture
2000 - 12th pick - Etan Thomas - 8--year journeyman
1998 - 6th pick - Traylor for Dirk - Hall of Famer, 11 time allstar, regular season MVP, Finals MVP, 4 time NBA first team, Sports Illustrated all-decade team