Seeing a lot of discourse on the timeline about Summer League stats, particularly Darryn Peterson’s turnovers and plus minus. @owenlhjphillips wrote a great article on The F5 a while back breaking down the stickiness of Summer League stats and how they translate to rookie campaigns. It’s important to note that behavioral stats, like 3PT rate, which show how a player plays rather than how good they are tend to be the most sticky. This largely matches our own analysis. Things like plus-minus (+/-) have almost no correlation to regular season performance. Turnovers fall somewhere in the middle with a weak to modest R² (0.24) and that correlation is even weaker when accounting for players who are top 5 picks (0.163). That said, Peterson put together an incredible Summer League debut that should have every Jazz fan excited about the future. If anything, he proved that he can get to the rim and score in a variety of ways. I’d actually like to see his 3-point rate rise and see him play a little more outside-in where he uses his gravity to open up driving lanes and pull defenders away from the basket.

Dallas picking Morez Johnson Jr. at No. 9 was one of the most interesting wrinkles in Round 1. I might be in the minority here but I liked the pick and the fit alongside Flagg. I also think it says a lot about how Dusty May valued Johnson compared to Lendeborg and Mara. Johnson sacrificed offensively but still found ways to contribute to winning for Michigan. That’s a rare skill in and of itself, especially at Johnson’s age. May witnessed those sacrifices first hand and the Mavericks front office is betting on his continued development under the very coach that unlocked his potential. Johnson also showed growth in the shooting department, evidenced by his willingness to take shots from beyond the arc. He attempted just six 3-pointers through the first 12 games but averaged over 1.0 3PA over the final 28 games of the season (10/29, 34.5%). Johnson is only 20 years old with the skills and athletic tools to be a difference maker at the next level on both ends. He placed in the 100th percentile in our Athletic Score model and scored highly in our NBA Combine Translation model. I’ve seen a lot of mixed grades for the pick, but to me, this is a big swing on a proven winner and team-first player with a ceiling as high anyone drafted after him.

To my earlier point about giving out generous NBA Draft grades, we looked at the pick grades from four high profile publications. @KevinOConnor was by far the most generous grader giving 24/30 picks in the first round an A- grade or better, including each of the first 19 selections. But he wasn’t alone. In the first 20 picks ~89% graded B- or better. When it came to consensus scores, only two picks — Zuby Ejifor (No. 23) and Joshua Jefferson (No. 28) — finished with aggregate grades lower than a B-. Was this more a result of this being a great class or is there some bias being baked into these grades?

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