Wagner NBA Draft Comparables
Today in his UV post Brian mentioned that Wagner's draft stock is still middling at best. The same topic was discussed during last week's WTKA podcast. While I acknowledge that it is still very early in the season and that I would LOVE for Mo to return next year.....this NBA stuff seems insane.
I intended to make this a Diary with more detail behind it, but I just don't have the time this week. So you get the short version. I looked at four players who I consider to be comparable to Wagner based on their size and skill set. Below in the table you'll see their stats and measurables then their draft position. Someone tell me how Wagner isn't a first round pick when you look at this table. Heck, the infamous "his arms aren't freakishly long like Mo Bamba" argument doesn't even work based on this data!
| Name | Ht | WgSpn | Wt | PPG | RPG | APG | FG% | 3P% | eFG% | PER | NBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mo Wagner ('17) | 6'11" | 7'0" | 240 | 15.6 | 7.6 | 0.9 | 44.6 | 38.3 | 62.4 | 27.1 | ??? |
| Lauri Markkanen | 7'0" | 7'0" | 230 | 15.6 | 7.2 | 0.9 | 49.2 | 42.3 | 58.4 | 25.0 | R-1, #7 |
| Domantas Sabonis | 6'11" | 6'10.5" | 240 | 13.5 | 9.4 | 1.3 | 63.2 | 35.7 | 63.6 | 27.4 | R-1, #11 |
| TJ Leaf | 6'10" | 6'11" | 225 | 16.3 | 8.2 | 2.4 | 61.7 | 46.6 | 65.2 | 26.6 | R-1, #18 |
| Dragan Bender | 7'1" | 7'0" | 225 | R-1, #4 |
Some caveats:
- Stats in that table are from college careers, which Bender didn't attend.
- Wagner's stats are just for this year because including his freshman year knocks them down a ton compared to guys who spent less time in college. Yes, this is not entirely fair but I'm using stats to make my point.
- I tried to pull height/weight/arm data from the NBA combine for consistency, but not all of the players attended. So I pieced together some of that.
- Please sanity check my data since I rushed to post this after Brian's UV today.
December 19th, 2017 at 4:43 PM ^
Simpson's Paradox
I couldn't find (in a minute or less) any videos about this pertaining to basketball statistics, but I think both of these do a good job of explaining the phenomenon, albeit with some overlap between them.
There are a decent amount of articles about Simpsons' paradox and shooting stats, but I figured it was more valuable to deliver a name and let anyone choose to hunt more information down equipped with that at their leisure.
December 19th, 2017 at 11:56 PM ^
Wagner is shooting 55.6% FGs this year. Not sure where the OP got his number but it's way off.
Your explanation is correct in terms of how a guy can have higher 2pt % and higher 3pt %, yet a lower FG% compared to another guy if the one with the higher percentages shoots a high enough ratio of 3s:2s. That's the Simpson's paradox (which is a very simple result of mis-applying weights to percentages).
eFG% is a little more complex because there's already a 50% weight applied to three point percent in addition to weighting by number of trials so there's two different effects of weighting, instead of Simpson's which generally only refers to the misapplication of trial weighting.
December 19th, 2017 at 4:18 PM ^
December 19th, 2017 at 5:42 PM ^
This is a great point. At some point the lack of productive NBA players who played under JB will hurt current players during the draft. Hopefully that doesn't translate into recruiting. It only takes 1 to break out to change that thought, hopefully it's Mo.
December 20th, 2017 at 2:55 AM ^
that THJ has broken out, at least, enough to get a big second contract. And Caris has been ok, but yeah, rough going for the former Beilein players.
The unfortunate thing is, their failures in the NBA should be an argument for playing for Beilein. In reality, he turned two solid-but-unspectacular recruits who were middling athletes into lottery picks (Burke and Stauskas) and then they faded in the NBA. So the argument could be made that if they didn't play for Beilein, they may never have even been drafted.
Of course, that doesn't work for five stars who are likely going to get drafted no matter where they go (and almost no matter what they do their first year), but it should be gold for the 50-150 range guys that need to make moves. Of course, it's probably not the best selling tactic to say, hey, you're not that good, and you won't have a long NBA career, but I can at least get you drafted.
December 19th, 2017 at 5:45 PM ^
Maybe the Mavericks will draft him to join his mentor Dirk, and potentially replace him later
December 19th, 2017 at 7:29 PM ^
if Moe comes back next year and Matthews does, too, there will only be 3 available scholarships (or four, if one of them leaves) for the 5 incoming players next year. Who would get their scholarships pulled or be forced out?
December 20th, 2017 at 1:31 AM ^
currently (Donnal's didn't get filled, I'm 99% sure).
So we have 4 spots already. Only one of Wagner or Matthews needs to leave for us to have enough spots for the five incoming freshmen. If for some reason, they both stay (highly, HIGHLY unlikely), not sure what they'd do.
December 19th, 2017 at 11:57 PM ^
I think most of Wagner's deficiencies have been well documented in this thread. One that I haven't seen as much is his struggles when being guarded by an athletic big with length. Which is essentially every player who will guard him in the NBA. His post game just doesn't work when an athletic big man is on him. If he can't get his 3 pointers to drop he tends to disappear on the court when a plus athlete is guarding him.
I don't think there is anything he can really do to boost his stock into a lottery pick. I think he is pretty locked in as a fringe 1st rounder/early 2nd rounder. That is why I wouldnt be surprised to see him jump to the NBA; his stock probably isn't ever going up and he is just getting older.