Re-Drafting the 2011 NBA Draft Using Advanced Analytics
What Should've Happened
Now, if we sort the draft by players with the highest VORP over their first five NBA seasons, the results are almost completely different.
| Pick | Team | Player | VORP | nERD | WS/48 | WS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cleveland | Kawhi Leonard | 19.2 | 49.2 | 0.207 | 41.8 |
| 2 | Minnesota | Kyrie Irving | 13.3 | 18.6 | 0.144 | 31.4 |
| 3 | Utah | Jimmy Butler | 13.0 | 32.9 | 0.169 | 35.5 |
| 4 | Cleveland | Chandler Parsons | 12.5 | 9.6 | 0.118 | 27.7 |
| 5 | Toronto | Kemba Walker | 11.9 | -5.4 | 0.096 | 24.5 |
| 6 | Washington | Isaiah Thomas | 10.1 | 23.4 | 0.148 | 32.9 |
| 7 | Sacramento | Kenneth Faried | 8.2 | 24.7 | 0.156 | 30.1 |
| 8 | Detroit | Klay Thompson | 8.1 | 8.0 | 0.113 | 29.5 |
| 9 | Charlotte | Nikola Vucevic | 6.3 | 7.9 | 0.119 | 24.1 |
| 10 | Milwaukee | Reggie Jackson | 5.2 | 1.2 | 0.110 | 19.4 |
Turns out, when taking into account their advanced numbers, only two of the 10 picks would still be re-drafted in the top 10.
While Kyrie wouldn't go number-one overall, he would come in a close second behind fellow NBA champion Kawhi Leonard. The only other player to return to the top 10 is Kemba Walker, whose career averages of 17.3 points, 5.3 assists, and 1.6 steals per game justify a move from ninth to fifth in the draft order.
To nobody's surprise, draft-day underdogs Jimmy Butler and Isaiah Thomas and NBA champion Klay Thompson are among the top eight in our hindsight draft.
As a matter of fact, Thompson makes it three NBA champions among the players on this list. And if that wasn't impressive enough, Irving, Butler and Thompson all took home gold from the Rio games. It's safe to say that they are rightfully among the elite NBA players of recent drafts.
The back end of Kenneth Faried, Nikola Vucevic and Reggie Jackson share common traits: promising talent, inconsistent play, and questionable fits. This might suggest that if they're able to build some consistency in the right situation they could rise to the level of the other names above.
