SETTLING THE SCORE: PICKING APART THE DRAFT MYTH

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Renaldo Balkman: the man, the myth, the legend?

We're back with another question (and keep 'em coming, because you guys are driving this little project). This one comes from Daniel in New York, who asks, "How important is the NBA draft, really? Every year, guys get hyped, but it seems like a lot of them fail. How much help should teams really expect to get?"

You booed. You laughed. You chanted, "Fire Isiah." I know. I was at last year's NBA draft, making the same "He must have meant Rolando Blackman" joke after Isiah Thomas pulled the trigger on some dude named Renaldo Balkman with the 20th pick. Soon, we learned that Balkman—hopefully—might develop into an energy player off the bench, that he could have been available in the second round and that Balkman's own college coach, Dave Odom, described him as "a work in progress."

A year later, we learned something else. Isiah was right all along.

For a Knicks team short on energy, Balkman was a rare sparkplug, demonstrating more than enough of a knack for rebounding and tough D to become, at worst, a career eighth man. "So what?" you're asking. "Who uses the 20th pick on an average player?"

A (surprisingly) smart GM, that's who or at least one with realistic expectations.

The dirty little secret of the NBA draft is that its impact is vastly overrated. Don't get me wrong -- the Blazers might as well start printing playoff tickets for the next decade as soon as Greg Oden shakes David Stern's hand. Kevin Durant will be pumping in 20-plus from now until the Sonics have moved to both Oklahoma City and Vegas. Corey Brewer might become Josh Howard with a better handle. But it's not just the good citizens of Portland and Seattle who are expecting an impact player. Every fan with a first-round pick assumes they, too, will find immediate or long-term help in the draft.

And they're wrong—very, very wrong.

To uncover what we really should expect from draft picks, I examined the 1999-2003 classes, under the logic that those players are either in the prime of their careers or about to enter that stage. I broke the top 30 picks into groups of five (not all were first-rounders, because the Bobcats didn't exist and the Wolves lost picks because of the Joe Smith fiasco). Then, I ranked every player in one of five categories: Stud; Above-Average; Average; Below-Average; Out of League.

The rankings are somewhat subjective, (we can quibble over whether Rip Hamilton is a "Stud" or "Above-Average") but an undeniable fact emerged: Of those 150 players, nearly one-third (48) are already out of the league. And when you add the 35 "Below-Average" guys, you get a total of 83. In other words, more than half the first-round picks from that period aren't even solid NBA players.

Maybe you're not a numbers guy, though. So how about some names instead? The 15th should offer some indication of the value of a mid-range selection, right? Well, over those five drafts, here's who went 15th: Frederic Weis; Jason Collier; Steven Hunter; Bostjan Nachbar and Reece Gaines. This is just a guess, but the Pistons will probably be aiming a bit higher on Thursday night.

Of course, all drafts aren't equal, and there's every indication that the star quality at the top of this year's group and the depth below is closer to the banner 2003 class (LeBron, Melo, Bosh and D-Wade in the top five; David West, Boris Diaw, Leandro Barbosa and Josh Howard after the 18th pick) than, say, the disaster that was 2000 (first four picks: Kenyon Martin, Stromile Swift, Darius Miles and Marcus Fizer). But half of that 2003 class is either below average or already out of the league after four seasons. So, even the best of times aren't all that great.

Then why are expectations so far removed from reality? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe people still hold antiquated, pre-expansion values, when the NBA only had 23 teams and the lottery had just seven participants. Now, the number of non-playoff has doubled to 14, but has anyone adjusted the definition of a lottery pick? Maybe not.

Maybe fans get thrown by football, where first-round picks are crucial. After all, there are 22 starting spots to fill in the NFL. But if NBA teams expected their first-round picks to end up as starters, what would happen after five seasons? Clearly, the competition is immense for a finite amount of playing time. So, often the 15th-best player in a given draft just isn't good enough to crack anyone's starting lineup.

Which brings us back to Renaldo Balkman. Maybe he'll never be a starter, but he's already proven that he belongs in a team's rotation, and is thus an average player. That's more than 14 of the 25 guys chosen in his range (16-20) from the five drafts I studied can say. So, if your favorite team grabs a guaranteed role player on Thursday night, hold back the jeers. In fact, you might as well stand up and applaud for a dose of common sense.

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