Draft Position Values, According to VORP

This chart plots a point for every NBA draft pick from 12 recent years, showing the pick number on the X axis, and approximate player value on the Y axis, based on an imperfect all-in-one metric. See notes below the table.

Notes

The scatterplot shows a point for each player drafted in years 2007-2018 (the last year for which 4 years of pro data are known). Pick number is on the X axis, and 4-year total VORP is on the Y axis. The analysis uses a 4-year window because that is the approximate length of most rookie-scale contracts. Darker dots mean that more than 1 player had the same X and Y values.

The purple curve represents a cubic polynomial fitted to the values of 4-year VORP vs pick number. This gives a rough idea of how expected value decreases over the course of a draft.

In the table, the vorp1-4 column shows a mini bar graph showing the player's year-to-year progression. The player's total VORP and each year VORP are shown in separate columns (which you may need to scroll right to see).

The pos column shows an estimate of player position, in the range of 1-5, based on statistics like rebounds, steals, fouls, assists and blocks. This may differ from officially listed positions. It is computed as part pf the VORP algorithm.

Clicking on a dot on the scatterplot causes a row to be selected in the table. Selecting or deselecting a row, in the table, causes a callout to be shown or hidden in the plot. Double-clicking on a player name, in the table, opens the player's basketball-reference page in a new tab. A little toolbar on the scatterplot enables zooming and panning within the plot. The little home button in that toolbar resets the plot.

VORP stands for “Value Over Replacement Player” which provides “an estimate of each player's overall contribution to the team, measured vs. what a theoretical "replacement player" would provide, where the "replacement player" is defined as a player on minimum salary or not a normal member of a team's rotation.” The computation of VORP is based on traditional box score metrics, and is described at basketball-reference.

A VORP less than or equal to zero implies that the player is not producing more than you would expect from an end-of-bench player. As you can see, negative VORP is not uncommon for players on rookie contracts. That is parly because there is a shortage of available great players in any given draft, and partly because it is hard to evaluate players before they have played in the league. At the other end of the scale, the highest yearly VORP in our sample is 7.5 for Kevin Durant's third season.

As any basketball geek might tell you, all-in-one metrics like this are imperfect. They are not always great for predicting future performance, especially for defense. Still, it seems to give some sense of how much basketball value was produced in each player's early years.