You are championing KPJ as your burn down analytical case still? It is not even worth talking through that. He was 47th in the draft in VORP this season. I typically wait to see how it shakes out after a few years but he has proven nothing at this point. He had a low probability of being a top VORP player from his draft.....and from what I see, he still does. Anyway. I don't want to get distracted by this KPJ thing.
Brown no, Kawhi yes. Kawhi was a really weird one. He profiled as a top 5 pick in that 2011 draft. All the analytical markers were there to take him and no one did. But it was 2011 and we have certainly come a long way since then from a data analysis standpoint. It is possible too many teams relied on out dated scouting measures still.
Brown was an exceptionally rare case. He had one of the worst analytical draft profiles, relative to his position, in the possession era. When you look at that list of guys, the bottom list Brown landed in......he is the only player out of the 22 (6% of the database) who landed in that tier and went on to be a VORP or better player. Exceptions tell you it is possible but the data still says it is really unlikely.
If you extend it further, there are 60 possession era players in the below average tier Okoro landed in. Only 4 have been VORP or better players (7%). In the tier Okongwu landed in, there were 32 players in the possession era. 21 of the 32 have already emerged as VORP or better players (66%). A third of the time, guys in that group are all-stars.
That is my big hangup here. I just think there was far more certainty in OO succeeding. Okoro may be good.....but all the data says he's in a low success rate group. Does that mean the Cavs front office won't look smart a few years from now? No.....it is just tough to understand what the rational was internally when two players at a position of need produced at such vastly different levels.
I'm not saying Okoro is doomed but it is definitely a case where I have trouble squaring why he would be the selection, relative to how OO graded out. I'll be curious to see what happens in this draft. In the lottery, there we 3 guys flagged as higher than average bust candidates: Okoro, Williams and Anthony. I'm curious to see how those guys do in their first few years.