Some Statistics on High School Players Who Go Pro

[Gamebreaker]

I've been doing a research paper on this very topic, and I just wanted to show some of you some of the statistics that I came out with. These are percentages of how high school players have performed once being drafted in the league.

Out of 33 drafted high school players from 2004 to 1995:
30% immediately became solid players

21% are out of the league

15% are poor to mediocre players

12% slowly became all-stars

10% slowly became solid players

6% immediately became all-stars

6% slow development has yet to be determined

I was actually surprised that a large number of them actually contribute to the team as rookies. Yet the second largest group is already out of the league. The majority of those players didn't even last in the league beyond 3-4 years.

Just thought this was interesting information, discuss if you like.

[Sebowski]

Nice research. What did you use to decide whether a player was "solid", "medicore", or "slowly devolping".

[Gamebreaker]

I used their career stats mostly, for some players I needed to delve deeper into their career and see what the roster was like. For instance, who were they playing behind, was that player an all-star or a bum, etc,.

Let's say for instance, a power forward straight out of high school averages 12 ppg and 10 rpg in his rookie season. I called him an immediate impact, solid player. Yet if he doesn't achieve this until his 3rd or 4th season, I called him a slowly developing solid player.

Here are the breakdowns:

Immediate Impact All-Stars- Lebron James, Amare Stoudemire

Immediate Impact Solid Players - Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston, Sebastian Telfair, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Ndudi Edi, Darius Miles, Al Harrington, and Rashard Lewis

Slowly developed All-Star - Jermaine O'Neal, Tracy McGrady, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett

Slowly developed solid player - Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, Deshawn Stevenson

Slowly developed and still unknown - Dorell Wright and Robert Swift

Bad to Mediocre Players - Travis Outlaw, Kendrick Perkins, Kwame Brown, Desgana Diop, and Jonathan Bender

Out of the league - Shawn Kemp, James Lang, Ousmane Cisse, Ernst Brown, Cory Hightower, Leon Smith, and Korlene Young

[Johnny_Blaze]

It is not really fair to Shawn Kemp, who had some very solid years with Seattle and a few good ones with Cleveland (as I remember he made five straight all-star appearences) and had a 14 year career; but it is not fair to put him as out of the league and then count Sebastin Telfar (6.5 ppg, 3.0 apg) and Al Harrington, who failed to actually contribute until his fourth year, as impact solid contributers.

Other than that, the results are pretty much what I would have expected, must have been fun to do research on that for a class. I am taking a History of Sports class next year in college, maybe I will be able to use that as a paper topic or something.

blaze

[Leonard Washington]

i think that's probably better with players who went to college. HS players may be around longer since they teams spend a higher draft pick on them.

[TheSteve]

Can I see the stats for College players to compare?

[Skins11]

Shawn Kemp shouldn't be considered "out of the league" since he is an old man now. He had a huge impact just in his second year in the league, and was an all-star caliber / solid player for a good 10 years or so.

[Gamebreaker]

Originally posted by Johnny_Blaze
It is not really fair to Shawn Kemp, who had some very solid years with Seattle and a few good ones with Cleveland (as I remember he made five straight all-star appearences) and had a 14 year career; but it is not fair to put him as out of the league and then count Sebastin Telfar (6.5 ppg, 3.0 apg) and Al Harrington, who failed to actually contribute until his fourth year, as impact solid contributers.

Other than that, the results are pretty much what I would have expected, must have been fun to do research on that for a class. I am taking a History of Sports class next year in college, maybe I will be able to use that as a paper topic or something.

blaze

Thanks, and your probably right about Kemp and Harrington. I counted Telfair as a immediate contributor because of his play recently, he started off slow, but I usually only considered the player a slow contributor if it took them a couple of years to develop. Telfair seems to moving along quicker than those other slow developers.

And yeah, it was great fun. The only downside was researching all of those drafts and looking at all the great players that were picked after our pick. :(

[Gamebreaker]

Originally posted by TheSteve
Can I see the stats for College players to compare?

I decided not to compare both for this reason: As there are many more college players who've been drafted compared to high school players, the HS players are guaranteed to have the higher percentage. Only 33 players came out of high school in the last 10 drafts. Considering the larger number of college players, comparing the statistics may not give an accurate representation of which group performs better.

Yet I do feel the majority of those high school players, with a few exceptions, would've benefitted from at least a year or two of college basketball before deciding to go pro.

[TheSteve]

Originally posted by Gamebreaker


I decided not to compare both for this reason: As there are many more college players who've been drafted compared to high school players, the HS players are guaranteed to have the higher percentage. Only 33 players came out of high school in the last 10 drafts. Considering the larger number of college players, comparing the statistics may not give an accurate representation of which group performs better.

Yet I do feel the majority of those high school players, with a few exceptions, would've benefitted from at least a year or two of college basketball before deciding to go pro.

Actually, I doubt that. I think the stats would be closer and not the skewed proportions that the media makes it out to be. Anyway, even if its not used as the sole barometer you still need to compare, or atleast I would, to see how High Schoolers stack up to College players.

[Gamebreaker]

Originally posted by TheSteve


Actually, I doubt that. I think the stats would be closer and not the skewed proportions that the media makes it out to be. Anyway, even if its not used as the sole barometer you still need to compare, or atleast I would, to see how High Schoolers stack up to College players.

Cool, you can do the research on it if you'd like. I didn't feel the college players would have nearly as high a percentage of immediate contributors as the high school players because of the large disparity when it comes to how many have been drafted.

But if it's relevant to you, take a shot at it.

[thebac]

Originally posted by Gamebreaker

Immediate Impact All-Stars- Lebron James, Amare Stoudemire

Immediate Impact Solid Players - Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston, Sebastian Telfair, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Ndudi Edi, Darius Miles, Al Harrington, and Rashard Lewis

Slowly developed All-Star - Jermaine O'Neal, Tracy McGrady, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett

Slowly developed solid player - Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, Deshawn Stevenson

Slowly developed and still unknown - Dorell Wright and Robert Swift

Bad to Mediocre Players - Travis Outlaw, Kendrick Perkins, Kwame Brown, Desgana Diop, and Jonathan Bender

Out of the league - Shawn Kemp, James Lang, Ousmane Cisse, Ernst Brown, Cory Hightower, Leon Smith, and Korlene Young

First, props for the cool idea.

However, I have to disagree with the groupings. LeBron and Amare both were solid right out of HS, but LeBron put up 21, 5.5, and 6, whereas Amare put up the more pedestrian 13.5 and 9.

For the second group, Miles put up solid numbers his rookie year, but both AH and RL didn't--even their soph numbers were just on Miles' rookie level.

Howard is on another level in this group, he belongs with Amare--barring an injury, he should be in next year's all-star game, not just the rookie challenge. Ebi has barely played, so I don't think he should be in this group (dude has scored a total of 22 points in his career!). Telfair looks like he'll come around, but both he and Livingston (injuries!) are not immediate contributors. The two Smiths and AJ seem on a similar level to Miles.

For the next group, JO took MUCH longer to be a contributor than the rest. KG was a contributor his first season, and an all-star the next (as was Kobe). T-Mac took slightly longer than KG and Kobe.

I think TC and EC (if he returns) belong together (and not just because they're both Bulls), as they both should be solid starters, maybe even sometime all-stars (even though TC comes off the bench). Stevenson is a rotation player, but not really a solid starter or anything.

I agree with Swift and Wright (heck, they're both rookies).

Disagree with the next group, though. Kwame and Bender have talent and have shown flashes of it, just for whatever reason (injuries) haven't put it together (might never do). Perkins and Outlaw are both still too early to tell (with Swift and Wright), Diop is the only "real" bust as of now.

As for the last group, obviously Kemp shouldn't be here as mentioned by others. As for the rest, they're out of the league and never made a dent, so they probably all belong together.

Great idea for a thread, just some friendly disagreement here!

:cheers: