Player Generation outside the lottery

[PascalsWager]

In the past two years every 2nd round pick for decades of simulations had merely D-League upside. In the real world, every all star game has multiple guys picked in the 2nd round and late first round. Has player generation gotten better?

[Gary Gorski]

We seem to have this discussion every year and probably will until Draymond Green is no longer in the league but its a total fallacy that the 2nd round is just a field of all these diamonds waiting to be unearthed. Lets look at the last few drafts

2017 - not a single 2nd round pick is of any consequence yet
2016 - Brogdon is the strongest player (nowhere near an all-star) and nobody else plays any kind of meaningful role
2015 - Josh Richardson is a solid player (not an all-star), Harrell is a good role player, Osman is just playing now, Willie Hernandez and Norman Powell have roles
2014 - Jokic is a legit player (but a foreign one so that contributed to him landing in round 2), Joe Harris, Clarkson, Jerami Grant, Dinwiddie, Dwight Powell and GRIII are all on a roster and play minutes still
2013 - Crabbe, Abrines, Canaan, Muscala and Ennis are on rosters - certainly nothing more than role players

So not counting this year's draft out of the past 150 2nd round picks you have ONE potential all-star and had he not been a foreign player he may have been a first round pick too. Like 10-15% of the past 5 years worth of picks are even on a roster.

If people want scouting to be more wild I can do that but the game is generating the proper number of "good" players and I would actually like to see some data from like a 10 year sim that NO players picked in the 2nd round ever amounted to anything.

[Gary Gorski]

I just want to follow that up with reiterating that I'm certainly willing at looking at increasing the scouting error or something but I just wanted to make the point that there just really aren't very many 2nd rounders at all that even become role players let alone expecting them to become all-stars except in freakishly rare cases

[PascalsWager]

I agree that the overwhelming majority of 2nd round picks will be out of the league quickly. But I still think that you get 1 all star level player every 5 years or so in the 2nd round. We're not getting anywhere near that in the game (2017 and 2018 are the ones I've played). I'm talking about 3 "star/ball" out of 5 players.

2014- Jokic
2012 - Draymond
2011 - Isiah Thomas
2010 - Deandre Jordan, Goran Dragic
2007 - Marc Gasol

That's 6 All-NBA players in the 2nd round in the last 10 year span. Even if I grant that you believe 6 to be an anomaly, let's quarter it. In a ten year span in PP2018 did anyone have TWO, 3 (at least) star players generated by the game in the 2nd round? I'm telling you that I've had ZERO in the last two versions of the game. I've simmed 10-15 years with 100% scouting accuracy and the ability to look at the "under the hood" player ratings. Its possible I got a weird roll of the dice the multiple times I've simmed it.

[PascalsWager]

And just for the record, I'd like to add that I bought the last two games (among others Draft Day titles), enjoy the games, and I think they're a great value. I appreciate both the work, and the engagement with the community.

It seems like I hit a nerve and I did not want this to be an attack on the creators of the game. I'm a supporter of the game and rooting for your continued success.

[Rizzo]

I just want to follow that up with reiterating that I'm certainly willing at looking at increasing the scouting error or something but I just wanted to make the point that there just really aren't very many 2nd rounders at all that even become role players let alone expecting them to become all-stars except in freakishly rare cases

I haven’t played single player extensively since PB3 but for any sports game I’ve always been partial to increased scouting error or even a greater range of accuracy for the scouts/coaches. But that’s just me and I don’t want that taken as data of any sort when it comes to this engine.

[Gary Gorski]

And just for the record, I'd like to add that I bought the last two games (among others Draft Day titles), enjoy the games, and I think they're a great value. I appreciate both the work, and the engagement with the community.

It seems like I hit a nerve and I did not want this to be an attack on the creators of the game. I'm a supporter of the game and rooting for your continued success.

Not at all - I've always been open to critiques of the game and honestly the user feedback is what has made the game become better over the years. I apologize if I came off overly sensitive - its just a topic that has come up year after year with people saying there's not enough Michael Redds (you can see how far back this goes), Manus, Draymonds etcs...I think on the whole people way overestimate what 2nd round picks are realistically going to be.

Again, that's not to say I can't make changes. If people want the draft to have even more randomness that's fine and I can work towards that goal here - I will do what I can and see if people like it in the final release build and if not we can go back to the old way or tweak it to a happy medium or whatever it takes for the community to be satisfied with it.

[Gabe778]

So I decided to do a little digging because I have actually thought before... hmm I wonder what people would consider to be "good" in 2nd round players.. All Stars would certainly be minimal, yes, but there have been certainly a lot of starting players who have been 2nd round picks. So I did some research of my own because when I first saw this thread I agreed that most of the players I drafted in the 2nd round of drafts were garbage, even the late first rounders I have never found anyone that special, usually the money is the lottery or the middle round where someone was poorly scouted and free agency. (In fact I dont think I have ever started a single second rounder in my lineups before and I have been playing since DDS:PB3) So if there needs to be statistical analysis I have it here.. every player that has started at least 40 games in a single season who was drafted round 2 since the 2009 NBA draft:


2009

2/39 overall Jonas Jerebko 73 game starter rookie season
2/41 overall Jodie Meeks had a 10 year career started 70 games for the Lakers in 2014
2/42 overall Patrick Beverly (Amazing story for Beverly, drafted by Lakers, cut, spent seasons overseas and got a chance for the rockers after) NBA starting PG to this day
2/43 overall Marcus Thornton started 51 games for sacremento in 2011 Played until 2017
2/46 overall Danny Green has been a FULL time starter for the Spurs in the NBA each of the last 7 seasons
2/55 overall Patty Mills 9 seasons in the NBA mostly with spurs, has not had a 40 start season, made 36 starts last year but has been a great bench player


2010

2/39 overall Landry Fields started 81 games for New York in 2010
2/40 overall Lance Stephenson started 78 games for Indiana in 2013, blew in Lebrons ear.

2011

2/31 overall Bojan Bogdonavic - started every game for Indiana in 2018
2/38 overall Chandler Parsons has started for multiple NBA teams
2/55 overall ETwuan Moore - Started 80 games for New Orleans in 2018
2/60 overall Isaiah Thomas - no comment


2012

2/34 overall Jae Crowder has started many games in his career including 2 seasons where he started 70 games each for the Celtics
2/35 overall Draymond Green no comment
2/37 overall Quincy Acy now this guy has not been a STARTER for many teams but he has held a long career and has been a great role player and has started 30 games
2/39 overall Kris Middleton is Milwaukee Bucks full time starter now and averages 20 points per game
2/40 overall Will Barton current starter on Denver Nuggets and around a 15 ppg guy now


2013

2/34 overall Isaiah Canaan already mentioned in post before


2014

2/38 overall Spencer Dinwiddie started 58 games for nets last year, full time starter now
2/41 overall Nikola Jokic stud
2/46 overall Jordan Clarkson started every game for LA a few years back

Every year after is just question marks and so you have roughly 21 players in a 6 year span. Now I am not saying these players are wrecking balls of terror but they are decent and starter caliber ( for the most part) players who were mostly just Seniors on their college team or overseas guys. Now I am not saying make 2 or 3 all star caliber guys in every draft but maybe add some [kind of] hidden (poor mans) gems in there.. maybe a guy with a 2.5 star potential with a 1.0 rating or something once in a while in a few drafts because the players are there.. if you want definitive stats I still have a DDS:PB 2017 game that is in it's 14th season I haven't played in a while and I can count for you how many 2nd round guys were "good". I can probably guess though from my run throughs that it is probably minimal and even substantially less than the results above.

[Gary Gorski]

This was addressed in this year's version of the game. I raised the scouting error so that there is a greater chance that a player like these could slip to the 2nd round while a player who doesn't amount to anything but looks better initially gets picked in the first round