NBA Draft Case Study - Tayshaun Prince By Zach

In keeping with the spirit of our recent draft coverage, I figured I'd take a bit of a look at one of the most glaring examples of the fallacy in taking inexperienced or foreign players over proven college stars. In the 2002 NBA draft, Tayshaun Prince was the 23rd player taken. If we were to redo the draft, he'd be the third player taken (behind Yao Ming and Amare Stoudemire).

So how did this happen? First, there was the consensus scouting report on Prince, which read something like "very skinny, lacks strength, mediocre jump shot, average ball handler, fantastic length, good defender, might crack eight-man rotation." Well, sometimes the scouts flat get it wrong. Prince shot 50%, then 47% from the field his final two years in college. His FG% jumped even as his role in the offense expanded greatly as he was required to carry Kentucky his junior and senior year.

Then, there's the eternal lure of the unknown. Scouts and GMs said "well, Prince is almost certain to be a solid rotation guy if only because he'll be a good perimeter defender. But these other guys, they could be stars." Who were those other guys? Nikoloz Tskitishvili, quite possibly the worst player in NBA history. At the time, Tskitishvili was playing limited minutes in Europe. But since he was 7-0, and could shoot (at least allegedly, since we never saw evidence of it here in the US), he was "the next Dirk Nowitski!" Or Qyntel Woods, who never played college ball beyond a year at community college, but because he could run fast and jump high, his utter lack of basketball skills and questionable attitude became moot points.

Even worse, there were guys taken ahead of Prince who had also spent several years in college and yet were not nearly as good in the NCAA as Tayshaun: Mike Dunleavy, Dajuan Wagner, Chris Wilcox, Jared Jeffries, Melvin Ely, Marcus Haislip, Fred Jones, Curtis Borchart, Ryan Humphrey, Kareem Rush, Casey Jacobsen. The only college guys you could say were as good or better than Prince were Jay Williams, Drew Gooden, Juan Dixon, and maybe, maybe Caron Butler.

So which guys in the 2006 draft fit the Prince profile? Guys who were great players in college, but because they either lack the ideal physical features of a draft pick or are otherwise unexciting? My candidates are:

1) Shelden Williams. Teams are going to regret passing on him: you're not this good a college player without being at least a solid pro. He'll rebound and defend better than any other post player in the draft, especially in year one. He might not add a lot on offense, but he'll more than make up for it, and the offensive game could grow as he adjusts to the pro level.

2) Leon Powe. Another guy who dominated at the pro level, I see him as a poor man's Elton Brand: he's capable of giving 16 and 8 every night out. The history of knee problems will scare some teams away, but there's no way he deserves to be drafted behind the likes of Josh Boone.

3) Dee Brown. Sure, he's barely 6-0. And his offensive game regressed quite a bit this past season. But he was also ask to shoulder a massive burden both running the Illinois offense and being their go-to scorer. He'll provide an immediate spark off the bench for a team, and should turn into a solid starter at the point. I can't believe he's projected for the bottom of the second round.

4) Gerry McNamara. Another guy who's projected way down in the draft, he carried a weak Syracuse team into the tournament. People forget how crucial he was to their 2003 championship run: in fact, if he'd come out after that season, he'd probably have been a first-round pick. Sure, he's a bit short, but he's a better ballhandler than he gets credit for and his shooting range easily will adjust to the NBA three-point line. He, like Brown, will help right away off the bench and could become a dangerous point guard with his shooting ability.