I'm always amused at this time of year about how this kid is a star and some of the comments about draft pick values. Out of curiosity I did a little bit of analysis on the 2011 - 2014 drafts as I'm a pretty data driven person. Below are my conclusions.
I looked at each draft range and classified players as "great" (think Lachie Neale), "good" (think Blakely), "OK" (think Sutcliffe) and Numpty (thick Foster).
Disclaimer - there is some subjectivity in the analysis and I'm not a PhD fellow or list manager being paid to do this. At best you could take this as indicative. You would probably disagree with some of my classifications but look at rough trends. I've also probably made some addition or classification errors as I spent a total of about 1/2hr on this. Ideally I would have done this over more years and a tighter draft range however I can't be bothered.
Notes:
- If your nana smoked all her life and lived to a ripe old age of 90, that doesn't prove that smoking isn't detrimental to your health. You are not seeing the other 50 nanas that died prematurely of emphasima at 60.
- If your financial planner is achieving a return of 15%, but the general stockmarket is achieving 20%, chances are your guy is doing a bad job.
(Upgrades / trades excluded)
Picks 1 - 10
Total 40 picks
6 great players, 19 good, 10 OK and 6 Numptys
Chances of getting a good or great player are better than 50/50. Chance of getting a great player is about 15%.
Chances of getting a numpty are fairly low at about 15%
Picks 11-20
Total 40 picks
3 great players, 4 good, 11 OK 21 numpties
Channce of getting a numpty is now 50/50
Chance of getting a great player is halved
Chance of getting a good or great player is MUCH lower. I.e. closer to 15% than 50%
Most probably you will get an OK player
Piks 21 - 30
Total 40 picks
1 great player, 4 good, 4 OK, 30 numptys
Chance of getting a great player is very low here. Even to get someone that is either OK, good or great as a combined is about 1 in 4.
Most probably you are picking a numpty for this pick.
Out of interest, for each draft range beneath this, the odds don't really change. This indicates to me that a pick in the 21-30 range is just as valuable as one beneath it
Picks 31 - 40
0 great, 4 good, 3 OK, 32 numptys
Picks 41 - 50
1 great, 4 good, 3 OK, 33 numpties
Picks 51 - 60
1 great, 4 good, 3 OK, 33 numpties
Picks 61-70
1 great, 2 good, 1 OK, 35 numpties
Some basic conclusions:
- Picks in the top 20 are critical, moreso in the top 10.
- Outside of the top 20, the odds are pretty close as to getting a good or OK player, about 20% across all ranges.
- Trading from say 24 to 34 probably doesn't really impact the type of player you get. However trading from say 24 to 14 does markedly increase this. I.e. if you are stressing about us trading away future second or third round picks I wouldn't worry much about it.
- On a limited data set, picks after about 60 aren't worth much and probability drops off even more.
