Hello and welcome to the brand new BusterDucks.com, where I will be posting all of my draft articles going forward (and all of my draft articles from the past two years are now on here as well). You can also now find me @BusterDucks, because I finally gave in and got a twitter handle. Anyway, we’re about ten weeks from the draft, and my goal is to get up an article every weekend leading up to the draft. We’ll see if that actually happens. Anyway, enough with the introduction, on to the action!
2015 EP Series – 2015 Big Board
That’s right, it’s the DuckyNinja Big Board! You will disagree with most of these rankings! All I can do is explain them to the best of my ability. Remember, it’s basically impossible to project these guys anyway, so declaring with any kind of certainty where a player should be ranked is a fool’s exercise. These rankings are how I feel, and nothing more. They’re based on a number of statistical formulas I put together, then subjectively ranked based on my personal scouting and feelings. Statements here are all my opinions. This is not a mock draft, I am aware that many of these players will not be taken anywhere near where I have them ranked. Just a note, other than Porzingis, Hezonja, and Mudiay, I did not evaluate any non-D-1 college players. And without further ado!
2015 EP Series – A Look at 2015
Sorry for skipping out on last week, I actually wrote about 2/3 of an article before deciding it was utter garbage and unsalvageable and rather than post something that wasn’t quality, I decided to just scrap it altogether. But have no fear, I’m back and ready for action! We’re less than two weeks from the 2015 NBA draft, so now seems like a good time to start talking about the prospects in this draft. When reading this, keep in mind just how hard it is to evaluate prospects. Given that, I want to talk about a few prospects and prospect groups who I have been looking at a little bit more closely lately. Let’s jump to it.
2015 EP Series – The Challenges
“Consensus is a group discussion where everyone’s opinions are heard and understood, and a solution is created that respects those opinions. Consensus is not what everyone agrees to, nor is it the preference of the majority. Consensus results in the best solution that the group can achieve at the time.” – Wikipedia
2015 EP Series – The Basics
As we get into the home stretch of draft season, I figured now would be a good time to start getting some of my draft analysis out. For those of you unfamiliar with me, much like Rubes, I take a stat-based approach, but we don’t take identical approaches to valuing prospects. However, before I start discussing individual prospects or give my big board or anything like that, I wanted to discuss three factors everybody would do well to keep in mind when evaluating prospects. There are no advanced stats here. Regardless of how you personally like to approach prospect evaluation, these factors should always be kept in mind.
2014 Big Board
Last week I posted my draft projection system. This week brings the current version of my big board. I am still making small changes every day. You will disagree with the placement of many players. This draft has a lot of players with a lot of varying opinions. This draft also has a lot of players with boom or bust potential, and depending on how you value those types of players, your order may be drastically different than mine. Feel free to ask for more clarification on placement or why X doesn’t appear on my list or anything else in the comments.
2014 Draft Projection System Introduction
I make a lot of posts referencing my projection system. I’ve explained it in various places in bits and pieces. I wrote this up for the Kings’ Draft Challenge this year but was not selected, so I’m just going to post what I wrote for that, which should explain things pretty well. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments.