GR3 isn’t still in the league, though being picked 40th and being a fringe rotation player for six years is pretty well aligned.
Overall Beilein players did end up fulfilling that reputation of excellent college players who were mediocre pros. I think that’s a fair thing to be mindful of when ranking draft prospects. I also think it is because Beilein maximized the offensive talent of his players and put them in a system to showcase that. In addition to your list of Beilein “under achievers” you could also consider Darius Morris and Moe Wagner. To me, Iggy was pretty much “correctly drafted” in that he was a 2nd round pick who’s still hanging around the league 4 years later but isn’t a rotation player. Levert, however, has played to his draft position better than most.
As Schmitz would be the first to tell you, the NBA Draft is awfully good at making everyone who tries to say anything about it look maximally terrible. Consensus at the time even among the statistically inclined was that Poole was a bad pick in the first round. Warriors bloggers were not enthusiastic. And they looked extremely correct when he was one of the absolute worst players in the league. C’est la draft.
Any draft that focuses so much on young, unproven players with “potential” is going to have a really spotty record of accurate projections. The NFL is probably better overall even though I wouldn’t call them “good” - mostly because they draft older players and have much larger rosters. The MLB and NHL have much more robust minor league systems and there’s no expectation of their draft picks making an immediate impact.
The NBA has short rosters and only two rounds of a draft, combined with a minor league system that has only been remotely competent for a few years. Thus their “bust” rate was higher and probably still is. Poole is essentially an outlier given his unique pathway from college to stardom over the past 3 years.
I’m surprised there isn’t more interest or push toward a draft-and-follow system that would seem to benefit all parties and has proven to be pretty successful in two other sports.
You think THJ has only “played up to his billing” in the NBA. Me, I think that making $150 million for playing in the NBA by one’s early 30s, with perhaps time left to make more, is well above the likely expected result for a 24th pick in the draft.
Yeah, my totally non-scientific comparison between draft pick and expectations (met, above, below) is listed here:
Morris (41) - below
THJ (24) - above
Burke (9) - below
Levert (20) - met
Stauskas (8) - below
McGary (21) - below
GR3 (40) - met
DJ (17) - below
Moe (25) - met?
Livers (42) - INC
Poole (28) - uh…below…then above…then way above
Iggy (47) - met
Franz (8) - INC
Moe was the hardest one for me. He hasn’t been good and has bounced around, but he’s still a fringe rotation player in the league as a late first rounder after his first deal so maybe he met expectations?
Especially when there was a real question about whether his body would cooperate. When a guy missed big chunks of his last two years of college, it’s a roll of the dice.
