Bored and thinking about the draft picks....

[HooverDam]

So I think in general in their history the Suns have done an above average job at selecting players in the NBA draft. There have been some obvious blunders, but some nice steals as well. That being said, having a possible Top 10 pick next year that could set up a potential future Suns dynasty makes me a bit nervous, but also excited. Anyway, I guess what Im getting to is that Wikipedia has lists of the NBA drafts, who selected whom, and where they were taken. I thought I'd take a look at who the Suns took, and who was taken below them that they should've taken- just for fun:

(The format is pick #, who the Suns took, then who was still on the board)

1981: 20. Larry Nance. Danny Ainge, Alton Lister, Eddie Johnson and Tony Gwynn were still on the board. Suns made the right choice (though I wonder how much they thought about going w/ hometown boy Lister).

1982: 15. David Thirdkill. Derek Smith who went on to score 5K career points was still on the board, but really there weren't many difference makers still on the board.

1983: No pick

1984: 13. Jay Humphries. John Stockton was taken 3 picks later (oops!), Jerome Kersey was also still on the board.

1985: 10. Ed Pinckney. 3 picks later, Karl Malone was taken (double oops!)Joe Dumars, AC Green, Terry Porter, Manute Bol, and future Suns Tyrone Corbin and John Hot Rod Williams were still on the board. Also chosen after the 2nd round that year were Mario Elie, Spud Webb, Sam Mitchell and Arvydas Sabonis.

1986: 6. William Bedford. Ron Harper, John Salley, Dell Curry, Scott Skiles, Mark Price, Nate McMillan, Dennis Rodman, and of course Jeff Hornaceck (who the Suns picked) were still available.

1987: 2. Armon Gilliam. Scottie Pippen, Kenny Smith, Kevin Johnson (who the Suns later traded for), Horace Grant, Olden Polynice, Reggie Miller, Mugsy Bogues, and Mark Jackson were still on the board. Not a terrible pick- but imagine a Pippen-KJ combo, could've been nice.

1988: 7. Tim Perry. Rony Seikaly, Rex Chapman, Dan Majerle (who the Suns picked), Rod Strickland, Vernon Maxwell, Steve Kerr (who the Suns picked), and Andrew Lang (Suns picked) were all on the board. Not a bad pick, Chapman would've been better though.

1989: 24. Anthony Cook who the Suns traded to Det for Kenny Battle (picked 27). Vlade Divac was available, as was Cliff Robinson.

1990: 21. Jayson Williams. Elden Campbell, Toni Kukoc, Tony Massenburg and Cedric Ceballos (Suns pick) were also available.

1991: no first round pick, 2nd rd, pick 32. Chad Gallagher. Elliot Perry, Richard Dumas (Suns pick), and Darrell Armstrong (went undrafted) were available.

1992: 22. Oliver Miller (oh what could've been). Latrell Sprewell, PJ Brown, Popeye Jones and David Wesley were also available. Suns made the right pick, too bad they couldn't keep Miller away from the buffet.

1993: 27. Malcom Mackey. Lucious Harris, Gheorghe Muresan (Billy Crystals friend) and Nick Van Exel were available.

1994: 23. Wesley Person. Charlie Ward and Howard Eisley were available. Suns probably made the right pick.

1995: 21. Michael Finley. Greg Ostertag and Eric Snow were picked later- this is one of the Suns best later draft picks.

1996: 15. Steve Nash (you never hear about him anymore). Tony Delk, Jermaine O'Neal, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Walter McCarty, and Othella Harrington, Jeff McGinnis were taken later. That draft was so deep its sick.

1997: 43. Stephen Jackson who the Suns eventually cut. Mark Blount was the only "name" player taken after him. Troy Hudson, Mikki Moore, Damon Jones and Ira Newble all went undrafted.

1998:No pick

1999: 9. Shawn Marion. Jason Terry (again, a bit surprised the Suns didn't take the hometown boy), Cory Maggette, Ron Artest, James Posey, Jeff Foster, AK47, Jumaine Jones, Scott Padgett, Michael Ruffin, Calvin Booth, & Manu Ginobli were taken later. Suns made the right pick.

2000: 25. "Jake" Tsakalidis. Mark Madesen, Marko Jaric, Eddie House, and Michael Redd (super oops) were taken later.

2001: 53. Jaron Collins. Carlos Arroyo went undrafted.

2002: 9. Amare Stoudemire. Caron Butler, Jarred Jeffries, Nenad Kristic, & Carlos Boozer were taken later. Suns obviously made a great pick.

2003: 17. Zarko Cabarkapa. Boris Diaw, Travis Outlaw, Leandro Barbosa (traded to Suns from SA), Josh Howard (oops!), Jason Kopono, Luke Walton, James Jones, Udonis Haslem, and Quentin Ross were available.

2004: 7. Loul Deng- traded to Chicago.Beno Udrih, Delonte West, JR Smith, Josh Smith, Trevor Ariza, & Andres Nocioni were also available. Suns made a good pick, just should've kept it.

2005: 21. Nate Robinson (traded to NY for KT). Jarrett Jack, Travis Diener, Ronny Turiaf, Monta Ellis, & Ryan Gomes were taken later. I don't mind trading this pick away since it brought us a nice piece in KT and moved Q's oversize contract.

2006: Rajon Rando- traded the pick. Too early to tell how badly they'll regret that trade though.

So anyway, I guess I just kind of found this interesting. I think if one thing can be learned from this is, DO NOT DRAFT FOR NEED. Looks how many forwards and centers the Suns picked who ended up being stiffs. Drafting the best player is the best way to go in my opinion.

 

[cly2tw]

2002, Casey Jacobson went to the Suns at 21(?). I wanted Boozer for that pick. What'd we have had!

2004, Iguodala went at #9 to Sixers.

Well, over the years, we did quite well though.

 

[Errntknght]

Just because the Suns didn't have a pick in a year, you can't give them a 'bye' - you need to compare who they could have drafted with what they got for the pick. In '99, for example, we kept the #9 but traded away the #14 - and everyone you listed except Maggette and Terry were still available. I don't remember what became of the pick but I do remember being ticked off about giving it up.

In general, I take the trading away of draft picks as votes of 'no confidence' in the scouting team - especially second round picks which the Suns toss away with both hands. Its true you don't have a high percentage of hits with 2nd rounders but if you've got some younger scouts, what better way to find out how good they are. Right now we have almost no idea how good our scouting team is.

In 2002 we picked Jacobson at #22 with Tayshun Prince, Boozer and Gadzurich still available. Thats right up there with William Bedford as a truly horrible choice.

Yes, the Suns did have a great stretch when Dick Percudani was the director of scouting, taking Finley, Nash, and Marion but outside that their drafting has been subpar - and in the 80's when they needed it most, it outright sucked.

Over the years my complaint with the Suns drafting is that they always undervalue defensive ability and muscular strength and overvalue shooting and finesse. With D'Antoni making the final decisions I don't expect that to do anything but get worse.

 

[Skkorpion]

Ugh. Nice research but this is waaay too soon to be talking about the draft.

 

[fordronken]

Just because the Suns didn't have a pick in a year, you can't give them a 'bye' - you need to compare who they could have drafted with what they got for the pick. In '99, for example, we kept the #9 but traded away the #14 - and everyone you listed except Maggette and Terry were still available. I don't remember what became of the pick but I do remember being ticked off about giving it up.

In general, I take the trading away of draft picks as votes of 'no confidence' in the scouting team - especially second round picks which the Suns toss away with both hands. Its true you don't have a high percentage of hits with 2nd rounders but if you've got some younger scouts, what better way to find out how good they are. Right now we have almost no idea how good our scouting team is.

In 2002 we picked Jacobson at #22 with Tayshun Prince, Boozer and Gadzurich still available. Thats right up there with William Bedford as a truly horrible choice.

Yes, the Suns did have a great stretch when Dick Percudani was the director of scouting, taking Finley, Nash, and Marion but outside that their drafting has been subpar - and in the 80's when they needed it most, it outright sucked.

Over the years my complaint with the Suns drafting is that they always undervalue defensive ability and muscular strength and overvalue shooting and finesse. With D'Antoni making the final decisions I don't expect that to do anything but get worse.

I can't stand it when people criticize their teams for passing on guys who went late in the first round or into the second round. It's not like passing on Michael Jordan with the second pick in the draft. These are guys that, literally, every single team in the league passed on. Even the Warriors passed on Gilbert Arenas the first time. Teams were wrong about Tayshaun Prince, Carlos Boozer, Gilbert Arenas, Ben Wallace, Leandro Barbosa and whoever else. Guess what? It happens. If you want to get mad at the Suns, get mad at them for doing things like trading a pick away because they assumed the player they wanted would be gone, or signing a player who ended up stinking. But blaming a team for passing on a guy who fell to the second round is just infantile.

 

[Errntknght]

If you want to get mad at the Suns, get mad at them for doing things like trading a pick away because they assumed the player they wanted would be gone, or signing a player who ended up stinking.

If you'd read the post you quoted you'd have seen that I did criticize them roundly for giving up picks though I thought Hoover had sufficiently covered the 2004 fiasco.

But blaming a team for passing on a guy who fell to the second round is just infantile.

I agree that it wouldn't be much a criticism to pick out one guy that all the teams passed on and get down on your team for not picking him. Which is why I didn't do that... Boozer, Prince and Gadzurich are three guys not one and the purpose of listing them is to demonstrate that there were some talented players still on board when Casey was selected. I'd like to think that a first rate draft organization would have recognized one of them. In the days leading up to the draft there was considerable talk here about the Suns drafting Prince/Gadzurich/Boozer et al at #22 and absolutely none about drafting CJ. I think that shows that the Suns drafters fell down quite badly on the job.

 

[Mainstreet]

In general, I take the trading away of draft picks as votes of 'no confidence' in the scouting team - especially second round picks which the Suns toss away with both hands. Its true you don't have a high percentage of hits with 2nd rounders but if you've got some younger scouts, what better way to find out how good they are. Right now we have almost no idea how good our scouting team is.

This is my take as well. I still remember when the the Suns were high on a late second round pick named Jeff Hornacek. IMO, the Suns last good draft pick that they kept was LB via San Antonio.

 

[Diawsome]

http://nbadraft.net/nichols006.asp

Recent NBA Draft Success
By Jon NicholsNBADraft.net 9/23/06

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]NBA drafts can be frustrating times for many fans. Some fans look forward every year to adding a new young talent to their roster, only to see the player fizzle out and not help the team. Even though general managers have their jobs for a reason and can do their jobs better than any of us armchair quarterbacks, sometimes it seems they’re clueless. I did this study to find out which teams have been the most successful in the draft and which haven’t been doing their homework. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The study was done based on drafts from 1990 to 2002. This time period was selected because anything pre-1990 seems outdated and because judging players who’ve been in the league for less than 3 years is unfair. The first statistic I used to measure success was average PER in the first round for each team. PER, or Player Efficiency Rating, was developed by ESPN’s John Hollinger. According to Hollinger, “Player Efficiency Rating is a rating of a player’s per-minute productivity.” The league average is set at 15. More information can be found here:[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://www.alleyoop.com/prates.shtm[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif].[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The second statistic used was standard deviation of PER in the first round. This is used to determine how unpredictable each team’s picks were. Teams with higher standard deviations had more unpredictable picks and vice versa. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The third statistic used was one I developed. I determine if each player selected was a success based not only on performance but also on draft position. For a #1 pick to be a success, he has to have a career PER of at least 16.8. For a #2 pick, 16.6. I subtracted .2 from each subsequent required PER, all the way down to pick #30 which needs a PER of 11 to be a success. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]As you may have noticed, up to this point I have only focused on the first round. But there are two rounds in the draft, and certainly both can produce great players. However, I felt it was unfair to use any of the first three statistics on the 2nd round. Because it is most common for a 2nd rounder to be nothing special, one great player can dramatically affect the overall rating of a team in one of the three categories. Thus, I took a look at each player drafted in the 2nd round to see if he played in at least 100 games in his career. For each team, I calculated the percentage of players that met this criterion. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Where does your team rank? See table in link. [/FONT]

The thing that often goes unnoticed is their scouting department and its ability to use the draft as a means to acquire better players either by trading away rookies (Nate Robinson - Kurt Thomas) or to trade for them (Rogers/Delk - JJ, 1st rounder - Barbosa, Nance - KJ/West/Corbin)

 

[Scot1]

Thanks for the link, Diawsome--I never would've guessed the Suns did so well with the draft. (And interesting run-down, HooverDam.) Admittedly, they've nearly always been good, rarely great--so they haven't had great position, which makes choices more ambiguous. Also, it's hard to give them full credit for Nash, great pick but traded away. One way to think of it is that, of our draft picks over the past 10 years, we have two AllStars on the team; everyone else is via trade (including Nash). I don't know how that matches up with the rest of the league. I'm glad we're good traders.

 

[Mainstreet]

Thanks for the link, Diawsome--I never would've guessed the Suns did so well with the draft. (And interesting run-down, HooverDam.) Admittedly, they've nearly always been good, rarely great--so they haven't had great position, which makes choices more ambiguous. Also, it's hard to give them full credit for Nash, great pick but traded away. One way to think of it is that, of our draft picks over the past 10 years, we have two AllStars on the team; everyone else is via trade (including Nash). I don't know how that matches up with the rest of the league. I'm glad we're good traders.

Actually I think the Suns deserve even more credit for having three All-Stars on their team. They not only drafted Nash, Marion and Amare but as I understand it, they traded Nash for a first round pick they used to draft Marion. Then they reacquired Nash. I call it having your cake and eating it too.

I hope I got it right.

 

[FArting]

is tony gwynn the same guy who is going into the hall of fame for baseball?

 

[CardNots]

is tony gwynn the same guy who is going into the hall of fame for baseball?

You are kidding right?

 

[Mulli]

is tony gwynn the same guy who is going into the hall of fame for baseball?

That is what I thought as well

 

[fordronken]

Nash was a great pick. Nobody knew who he was when he got drafted. The Suns had said the whole time he was on the team that they loved him and he wouldn't be traded. Then, Nash realized that he wasn't going to get to be a starter on a consistent basis with Kidd and KJ ahead of him. So the team agreed to trade him if the right deal came along. It did.

 

[CardNots]

Nash was a great pick. Nobody knew who he was when he got drafted. The Suns had said the whole time he was on the team that they loved him and he wouldn't be traded. Then, Nash realized that he wasn't going to get to be a starter on a consistent basis with Kidd and KJ ahead of him. So the team agreed to trade him if the right deal came along. It did.

I thought Nash was part of the trade to obtain Kidd or was that Finely?

 

[Skkorpion]

I thought Nash was part of the trade to obtain Kidd or was that Finely?

I thought all of them were. Finley was my favorite Sun.

Jerry Colangelo's biggest fault was that he never had the patience to keep and develop his young players. He always traded them away.

 

[msdundee]

In 98 the Suns had Kidd, KJ, and Nash all on the roster.

"As a member of the Suns from 1996-98, Nash ..... was traded to Dallas on July 25, 1998 in exchange for Pat Garrity, Bubba Wells, Martin Muursepp and a future first-round pick (Shawn Marion, ninth pick overall in the 1999 NBA Draft)."

 

[CardNots]

In 98 the Suns had Kidd, KJ, and Nash all on the roster.

"As a member of the Suns from 1996-98, Nash ..... was traded to Dallas on July 25, 1998 in exchange for Pat Garrity, Bubba Wells, Martin Muursepp and a future first-round pick (Shawn Marion, ninth pick overall in the 1999 NBA Draft)."

Thanks for clearing that issue up. By the way, Pat Garrity still with Orlando?

 

[asudevil83]

Thanks for clearing that issue up. By the way, Pat Garrity still with Orlando?

yes and not getting any minutes