Nylon Calculus: Offering Danny Ainge advice on the No. 3 pick, again
When the Celtics won the NBA draft lottery in May, I expected the draft, or at least the process of the draft, to be a relatively boring one for Celtics fans. Maybe some minor disagreement over Markelle Fultz vs. Lonzo Ball, the two general consensus best and second-best prospects in the draft. But, it seemed likely the Celtics would go for Fultz.
I had no angle to reprise my piece from last year’s draft, “Wherein I Give Danny Ainge Some Free Advice on the Third Pick.” Little did I know.
After a trade down to the No. 3 in exchange for a Byzantine future pick, the Celtics are right back in the same position they were last year, holding the third pick in a draft with no consensus after the first two prospects.
Last year, I noted that there was some reputation risk in that spot, given that the Celtics’ front office gets to pick first knowing that there is a good likelihood that at least one of the players taken shortly afterwards will develop into a better player. But Danny Ainge and Co.put to bed any notion that they care about risking their reputations by trading away the chance to take the general consensus number one pick.
If the front office holds the number one and takes Fultz, there’s little risk to your reputation given the long digital trail of commentators and anonymous NBA exec’s saying they would do the same thing. But, according to his conference call, Ainge and the front office unanimously weren’t sold on Fultz, or at least not enough to take him at number one. It is possible the Celtics front office is under the spell of group think, or maybe it’s the NBA Twitter-sphere and commentariat that is under the hive-mind sway.
My draft model, which has a decent record vis a vis the actual NBA draft, tends to agree with the general consensus here, at least as far as the value of Fultz compared to the options at number three. In nearly all versions of my draft models Lonzo Ball is slightly ahead of Fultz. However, those two are a tier above the other prospects most likely to be available at the third pick according to the model.
The most likely candidates for the Celtics at the three, based on the Celtics workouts and rumors, appear to be Josh Jackson, Jayson Tatum, Dennis Smith Jr, or Jonathan Isaac. All of them are rated less highly than Fultz, even if I don’t include information from the scouting consensus ratings. But to help quantify that I created a Monte Carlo simulation of 1,000 runs that adjusts each player’s score based on the past error rate of the model. Below I have results with the percent of simulations that the player scored higher than Fultz.
The quick takeaway from this is that if we view this as simply a swap of players, my models project that it’s more likely that the Sixers got the better player out of the deal, even without considering the consensus outside of Waltham, MA. Of course, that consensus is why the Celtics got an extra pick back in the deal, though given the protections and possible delay of two years, it’s very difficult to give a confident estimate of what that pick’s value will be. The second is that my model likes Smith at No. 3, a player generating a minimum of buzz for this draft slot. With the draft ratings added, Smith falls just below Josh Jackson, though the estimated gap with Fultz also grows.
If on the other hand, if we apply a theoretical Waltham Big Board to Fultz and company, with Fultz as say the fourth-best prospect, that raises the probability 10 percent that players possible at No. 3 will end up better than Fultz. In that case, Dennis Smith Jr. would approach a fifty shot at being the better player with Josh Jackson and Jonathan Isaac at around a 40 percent probability. Still lower than Fultz, slightly at least.
Next: FanSided 2017 NBA Draft Tracker
In the case of the credible three picks, in contrast to Fultz, the model results suggest that a difference in the big board rating could easily tip the scales in favor one or the other. The closeness of the rating between multiple guys, actually recommends another move back to the No. 5 spot if Sacramento is willing to include the No. 10 pick as well, and if Ainge thinks the Celt fans hearts can stand it. I wouldn’t have started here, but if he keeps the No. 3 pick Ainge should just go with his choice. It’s what he is going to do anyway.