The genesis of the prospect grade and model was that I wanted to know if a player's odds of professional success could be determined before they ever stepped foot on an NBA court. To do this, I looked at all first-round picks since the 2003 Draft that had some sort of collegiate or professional experience (so no players straight out of high school) and used factors such as age, draft capital, and on-court metrics to give each player a score based on their prospect profile. From there the prospect scores were grouped into six Prospect Grades: Generational, Superstar, Elite, Upside, Coinflip, and Bust. To test the extent that a player's Prospect Grade influenced fantasy basketball and NBA success I needed to find and compare each group's likelihood of reaching specific milestones. The milestones chosen were if they made an All-NBA team, were selected for an All-Star game, or had ever had a top-25, 50, or 100 fantasy season on a per-game basis using 9-category scoring. Below are the odds that players in each of the six Prospect Grades will reach those milestones:
Top-25 Fantasy Season
Generational: 38.5%
Superstar: 54.4%
Elite: 21.7%
Upside: 13.2%
Coinflip: 9.1%
Bust: 4.1%
Top-50 Fantasy Season
Generational: 69.2%
Superstar: 63.6%
Elite: 43.3%
Upside: 25.0%
Coinflip: 20.3%
Bust: 10.7%
Top-100 Fantasy Season
Generational: 84.6%
Superstar: 78.9%
Elite: 66.7%
Upside: 46.8%
Coinflip: 46.8%
Bust: 24.6%
All-NBA Selection
Generational: 46.2%
Superstar: 39.4%
Elite: 13.3%
Upside: 8.8%
Coinflip: 4.2%
Bust: 3.3%
All-Star Game Selection
Generational: 53.8%
Superstar: 48.5%
Elite: 26.7%
Upside: 15.4%
Coinflip: 8.4%
Bust: 5.7%
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