[Hman]

Zion is the best college draft prospect since ...

ESPN PLUS ($ MATERIAL)


When was the last time we saw a college prospect as good as Zion Williamson?


It took Williamson just a handful of games at Duke to establish himself as the top player potentially available in the 2019 draft and the best college freshman in recent memory. Taking out the more difficult comparison with international prospects (specifically Rookie of the Year front-runner Luka Doncic), how far back do we have to go to find a college player as promising as Williamson? And what makes him so effective from a statistical perspective?


With the help of my draft projections, let's examine those key questions.

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How Zion compares to recent top prospects

Unsurprisingly, Williamson has the best projection in my model of any 2019 prospect. That's true both in terms of my stats-only projections (4.8 wins above replacement player) and the consensus version that also factors in Williamson's ranking atop the ESPN top 100 rankings (5.3 WARP). But you already knew that, right?


The real question is how Williamson stacks up compared to the best college prospects in my database, which includes all college prospects since 2006 and most from the three drafts prior to that. The answer is quite favorably.
Best Stats-Only NCAA Projections

NAME	YEAR	COLLEGE	PICK	STATS ONLY
Anthony Davis	2012	Kentucky	1	5.5
Kenneth Faried	2011	Morehead State	22	5.1
DeJuan Blair	2009	Pittsburgh	37	5.0
Zion Williamson	2019	Duke	??	4.8
Kevin Love	2008	UCLA	5	4.6
James Harden	2009	Arizona State	3	4.2
Kyrie Irving	2011	Duke	1	4.2
Blake Griffin	2009	Oklahoma	1	4.2
Since 2003

Already, Williamson's stats-only projection ranks in the top four on record among NCAA prospects. That's notable because projections for the best players tend to improve over time. My system factors in the average performance of players at the same position so as to weed out fluky performances. The more playing time and shot attempts a prospect accumulates, the smaller a portion of his projection this factor becomes. That means better projections for elite prospects who are better than the average rookie at their positions.


The ability of prospects to distinguish themselves over time helps explain the presence on the list of two non-All-Stars, DeJuan Blair and Kenneth Faried, both of whom played multiple years in college. (Faried played four seasons at Morehead State, though only his last three factor into the projection.) They had more time to improve their projections than some of the more touted one-and-done players slightly lower on the list. (Griffin and Harden, though taken among the top three picks, also returned for a second year in college.)


The consensus projections help account for the flaws scouts saw from Blair and Faried that helped keep them from being highly drafted, one-and-done prospects, and therefore tend to be more accurate. As the No. 1 prospect in my colleague Jonathan Givony's rankings, Williamson moves up the list only when this is considered.


Best Consensus NCAA Projections

NAME	YEAR	COLLEGE	PICK	STATS ONLY	CONSENSUS
Anthony Davis	2012	Kentucky	1	5.5	5.8
Zion Williamson	2019	Duke	??	4.8	5.3
Kyrie Irving	2011	Duke	1	4.2	4.9
Blake Griffin	2009	Oklahoma	1	4.2	4.9

Because No. 1 picks have historically been much better than No. 2 picks, the top prospect gets a huge boost in the consensus projections, leaving a list of the top overall selections from the previous stats-only rankings. And that means only Davis is currently ahead of Zion in my database.


Given Duke still has six games left in conference play remaining, plus the ACC and NCAA tournaments, Williamson could play an additional 15 games on top of the 25 he has already played, meaning he has the opportunity to continue to improve his projection. Could Williamson surpass Davis as the best college prospect in my database?


That outcome is possible. If Williamson were to maintain the same relative level of play accounting for schedule strength, projecting his performance to 40 games would put him just behind Davis with 5.4 projected WARP by the stats-only model and 5.7 in the consensus model. So there's a chance if Williamson can lift his play even higher over the next month and a half, he could emerge as my best college draft prospect on record.

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What makes Zion so great statistically?

Williamson's statistical dominance starts with his high-percentage 2-point shooting. He's making more than three-quarters of his attempts inside the 3-point line, and while such accuracy is occasionally seen among role players like Kansas center Udoka Azubuike (who shot 77 percent on 2s as a sophomore in 2017-18), there's no recent precedent for maintaining it as a high-usage player. Per Sports-Reference.com's database, which goes back to 2009-10, no other player has made even 70 percent of his 2s in that span with a usage rate of 25 percent of his team's plays or higher.



Even adjusted for regression, Williamson's projected 58 percent accuracy on 2s as an NBA rookie next season would be the highest in my college projection database.


At the other end of the court, Williamson's combination of steals and blocks is tantalizing. He has generated 4.2 steals per 100 opponent possessions this season while blocking 6.3 percent of opponent 2-point attempts. According to Sports-Reference.com, just nine other players since 2009-10 have surpassed both a 4 percent steal rate and a 6 percent block rate. Seven of the nine played in mid-major conferences, leaving Williamson, Washington's Matisse Thybulle this season and Minnesota's Damian Johnson in 2009-10 as the three players to do so against power-conference opposition.


If we take the geometric mean of projected NBA steal and block rate (the square root of their product) to reward players who excel in both categories, Williamson ranks among the leaders in my database.


Best Projected Steal And Block Rates

NAME	YEAR	SCHOOL	STEAL	BLOCK	GEOMETRIC
Nerlens Noel	2013	Kentucky	.021	.056	.035
Anthony Davis	2012	Kentucky	.017	.057	.031
Zion Williamson	2019	Duke	.027	.031	.029
Kenneth Faried	2011	Morehead State	.024	.035	.029
Jordan Bell	2017	Oregon	.016	.048	.028

Beyond those specific strengths, Williamson's versatility is itself a strength. Of the 10 skill-based projections I rate as strengths and weaknesses for prospects, Williamson has the most strengths (seven) of any 2019 player because his projection for them ranks in the top 25 percent of NBA-bound power forwards. And Williamson has just one weakness for his position by this measure: rebounding, particularly on the defensive glass.


Though NBA teams might not be able to improve their chances of landing Zion much by losing games because of this year's changes to the lottery process, it's understandable that there's so much urgency to land the No. 1 pick. Williamson looks like the best college prospect we've seen in at least seven years -- and maybe within the entire advanced-stats era.

[play4win]

these clown analytics are frauds.