John Hollinger's numberific draft board

[jonathanlambert33]

It's possible that mere moments after David Stern hands off the Larry O'Brien Trophy to Micky Arison or Clay Bennett that he will be in Newark, N.J., announcing that the New Orleans Hornets are on the clock. The Finals are slated to end June 26 (or really, the morning of June 27 if you factor in the ceremony, the interviews, the analysis and all the responsibilities of the players and the league), and the NBA draft is on June 28.

This is why we need to interrupt this riveting NBA Finals for a moment to talk about a bunch of 19-year-olds who have never played a professional game before.

That's right: It's Draft Rater time. I've developed a tool that analyzes college stats to predict NBA performance and have refined it over the past several years. It's something we can use to help identify draft steals and busts.

To review, last season was a pretty good one for the Rater. The 2011 pick with the top chance of success (Kyrie Irving) won Rookie of the Year, three other players it rated highly (Kawhi Leonard, Jon Leuer and Nikola Vucevic) provided great value for their draft position, and long-time favorite Daniel Green emerged as a starter on the West's best regular-season team.

Meanwhile, the Rater was down on Jan Vesely, Josh Selby and Jimmer Fredette. The biggest whiff was on MarShon Brooks, whom it rated as a late second-rounder but was a solid late first-round pick by the Nets. The others were players nobody else rated highly either; Isaiah Thomas, for instance, was No. 57 on my board. It was probably too optimistic about Tristan Thompson as well; he had the highest raw rating of any player but struggled at times as a rookie.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft2012/story/_/page/PERDiem-120618/nba-2012-nba-draft-rater

His entire list:

1. Anthony Davis
2. Thomas Robinson
3. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
4. Dion Waiters
5. Andre Drummond


6. Quincy Miller
7. Jared Sullinger
8. Terrence Jones
9. John Henson
10. Royce White


11. Bradley Beal
12. Harrison Barnes
13. Tony Wroten
14. Kendall Marshall
15. Marquis Teague


16. Draymond Green
17. Jeremy Lamb
18. Damian Lillard
19. Austin Rivers
20. Doron Lamb


21. Furkan Aldemir
22. Will Barton
23. Tyler Zeller
24. Evan Fournier
25. Tyshawn Taylor


26. Meyers Leonard
27. Terrence Ross
28. Perry Jones
29. Festus Ezeli
30. Fab Melo


31. Kostas Sloukas
32. Henry Sims
33. Terrell Stoglin
34. Kostas Papanikolaou
35. Moe Harkless


36. Leon Radosevic
37. JaMychal Green
38. Andrew Nicholson
39. Drew Gordon
40. Garrett Stutz


41. Robert Sacre
42. Arnett Moultrie
43. William Buford
44. Jae Crowder
45. Jared Cunningham


46. Jordan Taylor
47. John Jenkins
48. Orlando Johnson
49. Jeffrey Taylor
50. Tomas Satoransky


51. Quincy Acy
52. Maalik Wayns
53. Tornike Shengelia
54. Scott Machado
55. Mike Scott


56. J'Covan Brown
57. Reggie Hamilton
58. Khris Middleton
59. Tony Mitchell
60. Miles Plumlee