** Official NBA Thread 2017-18 **

[MDC 5,890]

Ben Simmns rookie card will be worth a ton when hes a Hall of Famer.

[KSB2424 3,082]

Eric Bledsoe to Bucks for Greg Monroe and a first round pick.

 

Bledsoe

Brogdon

Middleton

Parker

Greek Freak

 

Delly

Snell

Maker

Henson

 

Dayum.

[WhiteWonder 2,171]

 

This year was my first year in the rookie card market. We have a friend who was drafted by the Spurs. Panini holds the contract for rookie cards. I went to the site on the first day they were available. There were 3 different cards available. Black is 1 of 1. Green there was 10 (same picture, just different colored background), and then there were like 25 or 50 blues. The Lonzo black card went for $499. Derrick's (pick #29 or 30) went for $149. The greens are less expensive, and the blues less than the greens. They show up in a sealed card holder with Panini tape as the seal. If you want it autographed authentically, Panini sends it to the players they have contracts with, or something like that, then they have it signed and resealed and sent to you. I think there's an additional fee for that service. So, to answer your speculation, there is only 1 rookie card that is black. It is the one that will carry the value. Then, the other companies begin to make versions of their own.

Sounded more like panini was the only game in town. Either way a 1 of 1 card is going to be massively expensive.

 

The discussion I was having with Gepetto was which cards to target to buy a few of, specutively, before the player starts putting up all star numbers and then flip for a profit. Buy for 100 or less, sell for 500+. Porzingas Rookie card his rookie year would be a good example of one that has to have appreciated 10 fold right now.

 

So you're saying there are black, green blue. Gepetty mentioned reds and silvers.

 

Very confusing.

[Gepetto 982]

Budbro is talking about 2017-18 cards and I'm not sure what Panini product line he's talking about.

 

I was talking about Panini Prizm 2016-17. Each year can be a little different and obviously Prizm vs. whatever product he's talking about would be different too.

[WhiteWonder 2,171]

Budbro is talking about 2017-18 cards and I'm not sure what Panini product line he's talking about.

 

I was talking about Panini Prizm 2016-17. Each year can be a little different and obviously Prizm vs. whatever product he's talking about would be different too.

I did visit the website and they do have "black cards" thay are 1 of 1 so I was aware of that

[edjr 5,556]

I did visit the website and they do have "black cards" thay are 1 of 1 so I was aware of that

 

It's the NBA, what color did you expect?

[WhiteWonder 2,171]

 

It's the NBA, what color did you expect?

 

winnah

[Cruzer 1,992]

Dennis Smith Jr., saying 'Get da fuq out of my way!' 2nite.

 

https://www.facebook.com/dallasmavs/videos/10159452035230461/

[Patriotsfatboy1 1,432]

Celts win 13th straight with GS coming to town on Thursday night. Interesting team right now. Stevens is a very good coach

[KSB2424 3,082]

Dennis Smith Jr., saying 'Get da fuq out of my way!' 2nite.

 

https://www.facebook.com/dallasmavs/videos/10159452035230461/

I tried to tell yall before the draft. Hes dirty.

[KSB2424 3,082]

How is Ben Simmons eligible for Rookie if the Year? I know he was hurt last year....his rookie season.

 

Are we really pretending last year didnt happen?

[MDC 5,890]

How is Ben Simmons eligible for Rookie if the Year? I know he was hurt last year....his rookie season.

 

Are we really pretending last year didnt happen?

[KSB2424 3,082]

What? He was drafted in 2016 right? He was paid last year right?

 

Was he not on the bench watching games up close? He was at NBA practices. He was in NBA film rooms. He was classified as a NBA player last year? No?

 

Nothing against him, I love his game, sorta like the 76er resurrection.

 

But hes not a rookie is all. I dont like that rule. Nothing personal against the player.

[WhiteWonder 2,171]

 

But hes not a rookie is all. I dont like that rule. Nothing personal against the player.

 

 

anyting you say regarding Philly is personal for MDChinkie

[Cruzer 1,992]

I tried to tell yall before the draft. Hes dirty.

The kid d is a bona fide badass.. Best of both worlds here - we are losing left and right, Smith, Jr. playing and learning.

[MDC 5,890]

What? He was drafted in 2016 right? He was paid last year right?

 

Was he not on the bench watching games up close? He was at NBA practices. He was in NBA film rooms. He was classified as a NBA player last year? No?

 

Nothing against him, I love his game, sorta like the 76er resurrection.

 

But hes not a rookie is all. I dont like that rule. Nothing personal against the player.

Thats been the rule forever though. Its his first season olayeing ergo hes a rookie.

 

Barring injury hes virtually a lock for OROY too. Also plays pretty good D.

[edjr 5,556]

Trader Danny totally fleeced the poor 76ers

 

Fultz is going to go down as one of the top 5 busts of all time

[Reality 2,710]

What? He was drafted in 2016 right? He was paid last year right?

 

Was he not on the bench watching games up close? He was at NBA practices. He was in NBA film rooms. He was classified as a NBA player last year? No?

 

Nothing against him, I love his game, sorta like the 76er resurrection.

 

But hes not a rookie is all. I dont like that rule. Nothing personal against the player.

 

It wouldn't really be fair for him to never be eligible for the award either. it's not like he was a 4 year college player and sat out a year.

 

You have a good point though, him being with the team for an entire year already, regardless of playing in an actual game or not.

[edjr 5,556]

Who gives a sh1t about a silly award anyway? who the fock cares? people who cheer for teams that blow.

 

Much bigger fish to fry.

 

Fultz is a bust

[MDC 5,890]

Who gives a sh1t about a silly award anyway? who the fock cares? people who cheer for teams that blow.

 

Much bigger fish to fry.

 

Fultz is a bust

Im going to reserve judgment til he plays more than 4 games while injured.

[mobb_deep 917]

Good game between Sixers and Lakers last night. Future of the NBA.

[DankNuggs 305]

Rather have Tatum, guy is going to be a star

[edjr 5,556]

Im going to reserve judgment til he plays more than 4 games while injured.

 

Same was said about Greg Oden

[MDC 5,890]

 

Same was said about Greg Oden

And Ben Simmons. Hes a bust too.

[edjr 5,556]

And Ben Simmons. Hes a bust too.

 

 

It’s not too early for Sixers fans to panic about Markelle Fultz. And not just because 2017’s no. 1 pick now shoots free throws like he’s scared to hold the ball or because he was most recently spotted on a basketball court hoisting off-handed 3s.

It’s not too early for Sixers fans to panic about Markelle Fultz because draft busts can reveal themselves incredibly early in their rookie seasons. NBA players are tremendous athletes and, like any young entrant into any professional field, spend years honing their craft, cultivating new talents, and gaining valuable experience in the workplace. But even accounting for all that development, clues for how a given draftee’s career will evolve appear surprisingly quickly in his rookie autumn: Within just 10 games, highly touted, otherwise-equal draft picks begin to sort themselves by future potential, meaning it’s almost never too soon to identify a bust.

That notion might seem controversial, but it’s supported by decades’ worth of data. If a top-10 draft pick starts slow, he is likely to continue lagging behind his peers for years. Ten games is practically nothing in the grand scheme of an NBA season, let alone a career, but that tiny sliver of a sample still speaks volumes about a young player’s bona fides.

Before diving into these conclusions and their underlying data, let’s outline some parameters. First, this analysis examines top-10 picks based on the thought that anyone picked outside the top 10 doesn’t generate the same “bust” smears. Second, it generally examines their play during their first four seasons in the NBA (the standard length of a first-rounder’s contract) because a failed prospect who bounces back as a veteran still engenders the “bust” label. And third, it uses two advanced statistics designed to encompass a player’s overall performance. Basketball doesn’t break down so neatly into single numbers as, say, baseball does with WAR, but these metrics work on a macro level. To encapsulate career value, the analysis will rely on win shares, which estimate how many wins a player added or subtracted to his team’s total. Win shares cohere with the eye test, too: By this metric, the half-dozen best top-10 picks in the lottery era (from 1985’s draft onward) are LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Shaquille O’Neal, and David Robinson; the half-dozen worst (not counting players still on their rookie contracts) are Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Adam Morrison, Bobby Hurley, Jonny Flynn, Chris Washburn, and Rafael Araujo. That’ll do.

But win shares don’t vary much on a game-to-game basis, so game score will fit for shorter spans of games. This metric, which was created by John Hollinger, condenses a box score line into one number and, according to Basketball-Reference’s glossary, is supposed to “give a rough measure of a player’s productivity for a single game.” An obvious caveat is that because game score considers only numbers that appear in a box score, it doesn’t account for a player’s entire impact on the court, but it works as the best proxy for short-term player value.

Let’s jump into the numbers and start with an illustrative example of how powerful a predictor a rookie’s first set of games can be. Here are the worst top-10 picks from 1985 through 2013 (the last draft class whose picks have played four full seasons) by cumulative game score through 10 career games, with the absolute worst at the bottom:

9. (tie) Tyrus Thomas

9. (tie) Joel Przybilla

9. (tie) Jonathan Bender

8. Rafael Araujo

7. Anthony Bennett

6. George McCloud

5. DeSagana Diop

2. (tie) Mike Sweetney

2. (tie) Doug Smith

2. (tie) Darko Milicic

1. Mouhamed Sene

That’s also a list of draft busts, without exception. More than half were traded by their initial teams before their rookie contracts were up, and while the likes of Przybilla and McCloud recouped some value later in their careers—Przybilla on his third team, the unwanted McCloud after a stint in Italy—they still qualify as busts. McCloud is the only one of those 11 players ever to average even 11 points per game in a season.

Other players who barely missed appearing on that game score anti-leaderboard include Shawn Respert, Patrick O’Bryant, Chris Washburn, Jan Vesely, Hasheem Thabeet, Luke Jackson, Rodney White, and Nikoloz Tskitishvili. Bust, bust, bust, bust, bust, bust, bust, and super-bust.

For the whole group of rookies from 1985 to 2013—not just top-10 picks—the correlation between a player’s cumulative first-10 game score and his total win shares after four years is .63, on a scale in which zero represents no connection and 1 a perfect relationship. But we would expect that relationship to be pretty strong, because widening the player pool past top-10 picks accounts for fringe second-rounders and undrafted rookies who paired a silent first 10 games with a quiet career.

What is unexpected is that the relationship remains nearly as strong when restricting the sample to just top-10 picks, who are theoretically all on equal footing in their team’s future plans and in a similar place based on talent. For just top-10 picks, the correlation between game score after 10 games and win shares after four years is .58. There are exceptions, but the basic trend generally holds: The worse a player’s first 10 games, the less chance he has of becoming even a productive player, let alone the star his draft position would suggest.

For a point of comparison, a movie’s production budget and first-weekend box office earnings also have a .58 correlation. While the likes of Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson—both no. 1 picks who have the best first-10 game scores in the sample—are in Marvel’s stratosphere, having secured both strong starts and overall careers, the latest no. 1 pick is approaching unseen indie territory.

Fultz isn’t quite as low as Milicic or Bennett, or even the Vesely-Thabeet “more fouls than made shots” level. But his 2.4 cumulative game score thus far—albeit through just four career games rather than 10 due to an injured shoulder—is in the range of only three other top draft picks in the lottery era; it’s equal to Andrea Bargnani’s first-10 score and within reaching distance of Kwame Brown’s and Pervis Ellison’s on either side. Expanding beyond top picks, Fultz’s neighbors in first-10 score include Kirk Hinrich (good! If not nearly as great as a no. 1 pick should promise), plus Randy White, Mark Macon, and Joe Alexander (bad! Very bad!).

Fultz’s company—particularly of fellow no. 1 picks—is damning. Brown, Bargnani, Ellison, and the aforementioned Bennett posted by far the worst first-10 scores among no. 1 draft picks selected from 1985 through 2013. Those four also rate among the worst top picks ever; among those 29 no. 1 selections, the surprise top-pick Bennett has recorded the fewest career win shares, and Brown, Bargnani, and Ellison rank fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-worst, respectively. (Second- and third-worst are Michael Olowokandi and Greg Oden, who also turned in lackluster, though not disastrous, sets of 10 games.)

If win shares aren’t convincing enough, this group also lags by the simplest basketball statistic: Bennett, Brown, and Ellison rank worst, second-worst, and fifth-worst, respectively, in the sample of top picks in career points per game. Bargnani jumps to “only” 10th-worst by this metric, but also has sufficient deficiencies elsewhere in his profile to confirm his bust status.

Beyond Fultz, this pattern is discouraging for a handful of other young players. Since the 2013 draft class, the worst first-10 game scores among top-10 picks belong to 2014’s Nik Stauskas and Noah Vonleh, 2015’s Mario Hezonja, 2016’s Dragan Bender and Thon Maker, and 2017’s Zach Collins, who has made just one shot through four games played. Stauskas and Vonleh both continue the trend, as they’re already on their second teams and averaging fewer than four points per game this year, while Hezonja’s scoring average has decreased in every season so far. Bender, Maker, and Collins still have time to turn their careers around, but their forebears with disastrous debut stretches don’t provide any optimism that they’ll be able to manage.

(As an aside, many of these listed names suggest that the first-10 method discriminates against international, “project”-type players like Bender and Maker, or Milicic and Sene further back. But Kristaps Porzingis did just fine in his first 10 games, as did Pau Gasol before him. Even for international players, it behooves to show at least some flashes early on.)

 

 

 

 

 

Just one mans opinion, but he sure did the legwork

[MDC 5,890]

 

 

 

 

Just one mans opinion, but he sure did the legwork

I skimmed it. He seemed to miss the part about Fultz being injured. Unless you think he forgot how to shoot a basketball since summer league.

 

He may or may not be a bust but its all guessing right now. At least he has the luxury of not rushing back and being a 3rd banana at best when he does. We will see.

[edjr 5,556]

I skimmed it. He seemed to miss the part about Fultz being injured. Unless you think he forgot how to shoot a basketball since summer league.

 

He may or may not be a bust but its all guessing right now. At least he has the luxury of not rushing back and being a 3rd banana at best when he does. We will see.

 

[KSB2424 3,082]

The NBA is the best basketball players in the world. Have you seen these dudes shoot the basketball? Its sick. Handles? Please.

 

I know some people dont like it, but its odd. Its hugely entertaining.

[Patriotsfatboy1 1,432]

Big win for the Celtics over the Warriors. Down by 17 and they came back. Sloppy game.

[Patriotsfatboy1 1,432]

Ben Simmns rookie card will be worth a ton when hes a Hall of Famer.

Which rookie card?

[MDC 5,890]

The NBA is the best basketball players in the world. Have you seen these dudes shoot the basketball? Its sick. Handles? Please.

 

I know some people dont like it, but its odd. Its hugely entertaining.

I agree. The level of play is so much higher than the NCAA. I like college basketball too but why would any basketball fan not like the best league in the world? Sad!

[fandandy 3,311]

Houston 90 Phoenix 65 at the half. Wow.

[drobeski 3,061]

14

[MDC 5,890]

This might be the year Boston loses in Gane 7 to the Cavs rather than 5-6.

[edjr 5,556]

DVR'd the game. Didn't see the score this morning.

 

Watched the 4th quarter when I got to work.

 

My biggest take away.

 

All those racists cheering for those black fellas on the court.

 

so confusing.

[edjr 5,556]

someone not named the Celtics is going to give Marcus Smart a max deal

[MDC 5,890]

someone not named the Celtics is going to give Marcus Smart a max deal

I like Marcus Smart but he is not a max player. Hes not even as valuable as Covington, who is signing for $15-$16m per.

[edjr 5,556]

I like Marcus Smart but he is not a max player. Hes not even as valuable as Covington, who is signing for $15-$16m per.

 

The NBA is insane now.

 

Teams are forced to use X amount of the cap so they overpay guys

 

Smart will get a max deal. May not get max years, but will get max per year

[MDC 5,890]

 

The NBA is insane now.

 

Teams are forced to use X amount of the cap so they overpay guys

 

Smart will get a max deal

I could not justify giving that coin to a guard who cant shoot at all, even with Smarts other skills and D.

[edjr 5,556]

I could not justify giving that coin to a guard who cant shoot at all, even with Smarts other skills and D.

 

Your own team paid JJ Redick 23 million for ONE year