WHO SHOULD THE LAKERS DRAFT?

Now that we know the Lakers have the 7th overall pick for sure, there's been a flurry of discontent in Laker Nation. Pretty much anything that was not a top three pick was met with comments such as "waste of a tank" and whatnot. Yeah, high expectations and all that.

NBA MOCK 7.0: WITH HISTORICAL PRECEDENCE

In previous mocks, say, 5.0 and before, we used predictive markers (steals, rebounds, two-point percentage, mutual exclusion properties, among many others) to paint the canvas and equate a player with a specific number. These predictive markers, drawn from established approaches, often can tell whether a player has the goods to translate their work to the NBA level. And, for the most part, it works. But there is something invisible--like the dark matter of the universe--that can't be seen through general stats. Namely, this affects athletic point guards and athletic centers, usually in a the proper range (say, 6'10" to 7'1"). So I've incorporated conditions where incorporating numbers where PGs or Cs have to meet a certain barometer in order to get the raise that's needed for the NBA. As you'll see, there are names in the third chart below where there is very little chance, statistically, you can construe, say, a Taj Gibson, a Russell Westbrook, a Lance Stephenson, a Taj Gibson, a DeAndre Jordan, an Andre Drummond or a Chandler Parsons as first round picks. It's just incredibly hard to find that medium. I've created enough conditions in my algorithm where all of them land as first round picks, although many of them become centralized in the mid-first round (or for Stephenson's and Westbrook's case, a very early 2nd rounder).

NBA MOCK DRAFT 6.0: NOW, WITH DUNKS

Okay, I'm going to freely admit that this next draft is going to be a little bit polarizing. But it gets the consensus about the players as far as scouting is concerned. I've found there to be a very tight correlation between the number of dunks a player gets and their overall draft rank (of course, provided the player is competent to be in the top 100 of most mocks).

NBA MOCK 5.0: OH, THE PAYNE

Yep. Found the combination that really helps Adreian Payne. Without further ado:

NBA MOCK DRAFT 4.0 (UPDATED: MORE NAMES ADDED)

Yep. Another update. Hopefully it's the last one (likely is in terms of algorithm changes). I feel very comfortable that I've addressed many of the key issues with NBA-translatable skills.

NBA MOCK DRAFT 3.0, AND AN EARLY LOOK AT THE 2015 DRAFT

Yeah, I know it's just a one-day turnaround from the previous post. But I got some twitter advice from well-informed stat geeks, and I've decided to add a potential rating to my previous algorithm--while my previous algorithm already emphasized this to some degree, this magnifies categories such as 2-point percentage, steals, blocks, rebounds, assist rate and age. This gets a more accurate reflection of where the prospects seemingly stand now; previously my algorithm hated guys like Elfrid Payton, Aaron Gordon, and a few others. Without further ado:

NBA MOCK DRAFT 2.0, 2014

Here's my latest update. Use this link as a primer.