Lakers Draft Prospects: Brandon Ingram Tops ESPN’s Boom or Bust Projection
By Eric Yee
ESPN recently ranked the boom or bust potential of the top prospects in the upcoming NBA Draft and Lakers’ hopeful, Brandon Ingram ranked atop the list
Last year, ESPN introduced an NBA Draft Prediction model in attempts at “projecting a player’s statistical plus/minus (SPM) in years two through five in the league.” Though the system has been slightly tweaked, the Lakers are no stranger to this ranking as D’Angelo Russell outranked even Karl-Anthony Towns with a 15.2 percent versus 13.5 percent chance of becoming a superstar prior to last season.
Hindsight being 20-20, it’s undeniable that Towns was the right choice at first overall. That said, despite struggling in his first season, Russell could still actualize this potential seeing how the rankings exclude players’ rookie seasons. It’s almost like they knew who D’Lo’s coach was…
"That time frame was chosen because it reflects the number of years a first-round pick is under team control, and does not penalize players for poor rookie season, which are often outliers for a variety of reasons (drafted to a bad team, needs time to develop, etc.)"
Now, however, eerily similar to last season in which the Lakers also got the second overall draft pick, the player they are likely to end up drafting is in the top five of the rankings, actually sitting atop ESPN’s Draft Prediction Model.
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Ben Simmons, the player projected to go first overall, tied for fourth place in the projected SPM rankings with relatively unknown forward, Marquese Chriss, behind the likes of Jakob Poeltl and Kris Dunn.
In terms of boom or bust, the ranking predicts that Ingram has a 25 percent chance of becoming an All-Star and a 26 percent chance of being a bust. Similarly, Simmons sits at 25 percent and 35 percent respectively. For reference, KAT was 13.5 percent star, 27.5 percent bust and D’Loading was 15.2 percent star, 40.9 percent bust.
Some things to consider as to why this happened include Ingram’s age, as he is one of the youngest players in this draft.
"Not surprisingly, younger prospects generally achieved higher SPM (Statistical Plus/Minus) in their first five seasons, but that is largely a function of the draft; players usually enter the draft when they believe they will be drafted, so the top players will generally enter at a young age."
However, this obviously didn’t play a huge factor as Providence product, Kris Dunn, who ranked second overall, is already 22 years old.
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Though the model is obviously not 100 percent reliable, it is yet another interesting resource for teams to use when considering who to draft. You can read the whole article here and see last year’s rankings here.