True to my word I am working on my 2009 NBA Genesis Draft. Currently I am midway through the 3rd round of what will eventually be a 10 round draft. To give you a taste of the draft I am going to post the first five picks of the draft. But before you delve into the sweet, buttery goodness that is my 2009 NBA Genesis Draft I should tell you what this draft is...
1. This draft is simply my simulation of how a draft would unfold if all of the NBA teams were starting from scratch and all of the players were free to be drafted.
2. I do take into account fit. So this is not a fantasy draft where you draft players solely based on there statistical accumulation potential (SAP) regardless of how well the team would do in real life. This also is not just a simple ranking of how good I think each of these players are. When I am doing this draft I am trying to build teams that I think would perform well in real life. I am drafting players based not only on how good they are in a vaccuum (you know what I mean), but also on how they would fit with the other players I have already drafted to that particular team.
3. I do take into account age. What I mean by this is that while Ray Allen may be a better player than O.J. Mayo right now, I may draft Mayo higher because he is younger and has more potential for the future while Allen probably only has a couple of effective years left. In other words, I am not just drafting for this year. I am drafting as if I am building a franchise with these players that will continue year after year.
4. For this draft I do not take into account anything involving salaries. So for example, the fact that one player has really good value because of his cheap contract in real life does not affect where I draft him in this draft.
5. This is a snake draft. This means that the draft order is reversed in the even rounds. For example this means that the team that picks last in the first round picks first in the second round. I have found that this results in the most even teams.
3. I do take into account age. What I mean by this is that while Ray Allen may be a better player than O.J. Mayo right now, I may draft Mayo higher because he is younger and has more potential for the future while Allen probably only has a couple of effective years left. In other words, I am not just drafting for this year. I am drafting as if I am building a franchise with these players that will continue year after year.
4. For this draft I do not take into account anything involving salaries. So for example, the fact that one player has really good value because of his cheap contract in real life does not affect where I draft him in this draft.
5. This is a snake draft. This means that the draft order is reversed in the even rounds. For example this means that the team that picks last in the first round picks first in the second round. I have found that this results in the most even teams.
Now that you know what this draft is, let me tell you why I am doing this draft...
1. The first reason that I do this draft is simply that I like doing things like this. I wouldn't do this if I didn't.
3. The third reason I do this draft is that it forces me to learn more about all of the players, especially the ones I rarely if ever get to watch. I am very busy during basketball season so there is no way that I can watch the amount of basketball that I would need to watch in order to know a lot about 300+ players. So in the summer when I am not as busy, I do this draft and in doing so I look up almost every player to see (at least statistically and through second hand accounts) how they performed last season.
4. Lastly, doing this draft gives me an avenue through which I can practice trying to put players together that would play well together. Now, there is no way (at least not yet) to accurately simulate how these combinations of players would play together in real life, so there is no way of actually knowing whether I did a good job or not, but at least it is a good exercise to go through to practice thinking about what kinds of players fit well together.
2. The second reason is that this draft provides a way for me to kind of quantify how players' stocks have risen and fallen over the past year. For example, I drafted Tracy McGrady 18th overall last year. He then proceeded to have a bad, injury marred season. Well this year he will probably get drafted in the third or fourth round because of doubts about whether he will ever be healthy enough to be really good again. So in this way I can track how my perceived value of players has fluctuated from year to year.
3. The third reason I do this draft is that it forces me to learn more about all of the players, especially the ones I rarely if ever get to watch. I am very busy during basketball season so there is no way that I can watch the amount of basketball that I would need to watch in order to know a lot about 300+ players. So in the summer when I am not as busy, I do this draft and in doing so I look up almost every player to see (at least statistically and through second hand accounts) how they performed last season.
4. Lastly, doing this draft gives me an avenue through which I can practice trying to put players together that would play well together. Now, there is no way (at least not yet) to accurately simulate how these combinations of players would play together in real life, so there is no way of actually knowing whether I did a good job or not, but at least it is a good exercise to go through to practice thinking about what kinds of players fit well together.
Also, I can guarantee that you will probably disagree with quite a few of the picks so feel free to comment on how idiotic (or brilliant) you think they were. Just keep in mind that I realize that there is a lot I don't know about these players and that the main reason I am doing this is for my own fun and entertainment.
So without further ado here is the link to the top five draft picks of the 2009 NBA Genesis Draft:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tDbvaKQF0sMYb_dUadRukIg&single=true&gid=1&output=html
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