Can the NBA Summer League predict surprise stars?



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A year ago, Los Angeles Lakers rookie Kyle Kuzma was named MVP of the NBA championship while Lonzo Ball, second overall, led the Lakers to victory in Las Vegas Vegas

I stay in Vegas. He will become the least drafted player of the first All-Rookie team (27th overall), joining four other players in the lottery.

So, does studying the results of the summer league help us to discover Kuzma next? Or are we more likely to be misled by outliers like Josh Selby, who shared the MVP honors of the 2012 NBA Summer League with Damian Lillard?

Let's take a closer look at how summer performance is translated into NBA competition. surprises

Thanks to the database of RealGM.com, I've been collecting summer league statistics on all players since 2004. I've also got projections of players from my SCHOENE projection system since the 2009-10 season, which allows us to see the players exceeded expectations in the summer. By setting the minimum at 150 minutes of play, here are the biggest surprises of the summer league in terms of winning percentage (the per minute version of my wins over the replacement metric):

] Player Year SCHOENE SL Rookie Season Brandon Jennings 2009 .355 .803 .518 Tony Snell ] 2014 .375 .821 .412 Kyle Anderson 2015 .384 .766 .452 Austin Rivers 2013 .304 .676 .385 Harrison Barnes 2012 .321 .689 .376 Ian Clark ] 2013 ] .404 .766 .387 Wayne Selden 2017 .384 .744 .407 Armon Johnson 2010 . 286 .638 .317 Stanley Johnson 2016 [1] 9659014] .379 .731 .358 C.J. McCollum 2014 .381 .728 .434 Medium .357 .736 [1965] .405 Since 2009; minimum 150 minutes

You will notice that Kuzma does not quite crack the list. He ranks 12th in this measure, although we have a larger sample to judge by: He played 224 minutes, more than anyone in the top 10.

Although none of these players n & # 39; 39, still evolved into All-Stars, the short-term results were impressive. Eight of the ten teams, with the exception of Ian Clark and Stanley Johnson, beat their SCHOENE projections during the regular season and, on average, their winning percentages were about 50 points higher than the initial forecasts.

. the end of the spectrum, we see similar results. Nine of the 10 players who fell short of their SCHOENE projection during the summer season were also underperforming in the regular season:

Most Underachievement Winning Percentage

Year SCHOENE SL Rookie
Dragan Bender 2016 .460 .328 .356
Terrence Williams 2009 [19659012] .489 . 370 .391
From Angelo Russell 2015 .485 .383 .438
Ivica Zubac 2017 .523 ]. 433 .463
Skal Labissary 2017 .527 .456 .436
Allen Crabbe 2013 .399 .342 [19659014] .330
Robert Covington 2014 .574 .520 .533
Tony Wroten 2013 .422 .385 .399
Ben McLemore 2013 .400 .373 [1 9659014] .342
Noah Vonleh 2014 .429 .404 .471
Medium .471 . 399 .416
Since 2009; minimum 150 minutes

It is clear that the summer league does not tell us everything. After all, the underperformers scored even higher in the regular season than the outperformers despite a relatively poor summer game. SCHOENE's projections are based on three seasons of data, so it's not surprising that they have more predictive power than a few games.

At the same time, SCHOENE predicted that the last group would get 114 points better than the old one. during the regular season, and the actual gap in their performance was only 11 points. It is therefore clear that the performance of the summer league tells us something meaningful about how the players will go from the front.


Looking for Kuzmas this year

could exceed expectations? Slightly lowering the bar to 100 minutes, because 45 players played a total of 150 minutes in the quarter-finals on Sunday, here are the biggest outperformers compared to their projection SCHOENE 2018-19:

It is possible that the Lakers found another piece of jewelery late in the first round with the center of Michigan Moritz Wagner, who only shot 28% of 3 in six games before being ruled out with a left knee bruise, but dominated the glbad and had 12 steals and 10 blocks in 130 minutes of action . Given that these statistics tend to be better in the regular season than shooting, the Lakers should feel good about Wagner's chances of contributing right away. Josh Hart was also great this summer

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It should not be surprising that Wendell Carter Jr. and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who were both among the choices for the best summer league rookie in the our 5-on-5 Monday, crack the rankings. But when it comes to exceeding expectations, they can not quite match the second-round pick of Mitchell Knicks of New York Knicks.

Despite a relatively strong showing based on his effective play in the 2016 Nike EYBL, Robinson still leads all rookies. list under the best percentage of victory per minute for any player in summer league this year. Robinson made 67% of his two-point attempts, reduced more than a quarter of all available offensive rebounds and beat a two-out-seven attempt. In addition, if you're wondering about Robinson's teammate, Kevin Knox, his advanced statistics did not quite match the hype that he generated in Las Vegas. Because he shot only 17 out of 49 (35 percent) on 2-point attempts, Knox's improvement on his showing ranked only 54th out of 93 players qualified.

Underachievement in the summer league

Player Team SCHOOL SL Diff
Kenrich Williams DEN 0.466 0.329 -0.137
Alfonzo McKinnie TOR 0.392 [19659014] 0.296 -0.095
Caleb Swanigan * POR 0.467 0.385 -0.083
Terrance Ferguson OKC 0.401 0.344 -0.057
Jock Landing ATL 0.421 0.366 -0.055 [19659016] Jalen Brunson DAL 0.404 0.355 -0.049
Dragan Bender PHX 0.394 0.353 -0.042
Daniel Hamilton ] OKC 0.464 0.423 -0.041
Marvin Bagley III SAC 0.397 [19659014] 0.359 -0.038
Rashad Vaughn MIA 0 408 0.370 -0.037
Min. 100 minutes; by Sunday Matches
* The rating is subject to change after the inclusion of Monday's statistics

While some veterans have obtained Results worse than expected round choice came from the overall selection No. 2 Marvin Bagley III. Bagley played three games in front of home fans with the Sacramento Kings but only one in Las Vegas before being diagnosed with a bruise. In that period, he shot 1 in 10 out of 3 and 13 out of 32 (41 percent) inside the bow while getting only 11 percent of the rebounds available.

Four games is a far too small sample to draw any conclusions about Bagley's career, but it seems more likely now that he will fall short of what was already a pessimistic projection for his rookie season.

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