When to Give Up on a Player in Dynasty Basketball: Introducing the Sophomore Profile

Whenever a young player struggles early on in their career they are often given the benefit of the doubt and an array of excuses are usually offered by their supporters, along with proclamations of "insane upside" or "untapped potential". I have always viewed these sorts of claims as a cop-out to justify their or their team's investment in a struggling young player. To me, if a player is going to make a major impact in the NBA, they will show you in their early years. I wanted a way to test this, particularly through a fantasy basketball context, and thus, the Sophomore Profile was born.

The premise is simple: if a player does not finish within the top 200 of per-game fantasy basketball rankings in either of their first two NBA seasons, then they are labeled with a 'Flop' sophomore profile. If they have finished within the top 200 in either their freshman or sophomore season, they will have the 'Progressing Well' profile tag. Now to put the Sophomore Profile to the test, I wanted to look to compare the two group's outcomes, in terms of fantasy and NBA success, to see if there was a noticeable difference between those who started slowly in their career and those who didn't. For this, I chose five metrics: All-Star Game appearances, All-NBA Team selections, top 100 fantasy seasons, top 50 fantasy seasons, and top 25 fantasy seasons. The sample of players I decided to use was first-round picks since the 2003 NBA Draft, which is the same sample I use for my Prospect Model. Let's get into what I found.

To get started I wanted to look at the total sample and see how likely the sample as a whole, regardless of their sophomore profile, was to reach the five metrics. Here are the odds that the average first-round pick taken in the last 20 years will be an All-Star, All-NBA player, or top 25/50/100 fantasy player on a per-game basis:

All-NBA: 8.0%

All-Star: 12.7%

Top 25 Fantasy Season: 12.2%

Top 50 Fantasy Season: 23.4%

Top 100 Fantasy Season: 41.3%

And now the percentages for players that fall in the 'Progressing Well' profile:

All-NBA: 19.0%

All-Star: 29.2%

Top 25 Fantasy Season: 26.9%

Top 50 Fantasy Season: 49.8%

Top 100 Fantasy Season: 77.1%

And finally, the 'Flop' profile:

All-NBA: 0.0%

All-Star: 0.7%

Top 25 Fantasy Season: 1.7%

Top 50 Fantasy Season: 4.8%

Top 100 Fantasy Season: 17.9%

Upon first look, the theory that early player performance matters for long-term success looks like it holds water. Players that have had a top 200 fantasy finish in at least one of their first two seasons end up becoming players with a top 25 fantasy season at a rate 15.8 times greater than those who 'Flop'. And it doesn't stop there, across all five metrics the difference in outcomes for the two profiles is stark.

While the Sophomore Profile appears to do a good job at showing the importance of a player's play in their first two years, there are a few outliers that the profile missed out on that I feel deserve to be discussed. Of the players that missed out on top 200 finishes in each of their first two years and were subsequently given the 'Flop' profile, only David West and Jeff Teague were ever selected to play in an All-Star game. West is joined by Otto Porter, Dorell Wright, Jusuf Nurkic, and Eric Bledsoe as the only 'Flops' to finish inside the top 25 for 9-category fantasy basketball rankings in a given season, with Porter being the only member of the group to have multiple such seasons (he did it twice). I admit it's not ideal that someone who uses the Sophomore Profile as a tool likely missed out on the likes of West, Bledsoe, and company, but, in my opinion, that lost value is more than made up for by the fact that that same person would have been able to avoid buying into the abundance of highly regarded 'Flops' that include Derrick Williams, Evan Turner, Josh Jackson, and many others that never bounced back after slow starts to their careers.

And now for the most actionable part of this piece, here are 15 heavily-rostered players taken in the last 5 years that have the 'Flop' profile:

- OG Anunoby

- Jordan Poole

- Kevin Porter Jr.

- Markelle Fultz

- Mo Bamba

- Aleksej Pokusevski

- Cam Reddish

- Deni Avdija

- Immanuel Quickley

- Killian Hayes

- Obi Toppin

- Jaxon Hayes

- Goga Bitaze

I am not suggesting to all-out avoid these players (in fact, if I had to guess I'd say that OG makes his way onto the list of outliers this time next year) but betting that your favorite player on this list will be an exception feels like a bad process, and because of that, I personally will not have many shares of these players in dynasty leagues. I have added the Sophomore Profile to my Prospect Model, which has the profiles for all 500+ players and can be found under the "Prospect Model" tab above. Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings, feel free to reach out and leave a comment!