Originally Posted by
new city champ
Yet teams continue to make multiple first round picks and don’t show a strong aversion to doing so. Do you think the Spurs will opt out of any of their three first rounders in this draft? BTW, I believe I understand your second contract argument.
On pick valuations, there seems to be some flaw in your theory. Of course if you, say, trade down from 10 to 15 you are reducing the pool of talent you are selecting from by 5 prospects (or 12% in a 60-person draft), thus in theory reducing your opportunity to select a better player. However, if a sample size of 15 or 20 years of drafts shows that teams are routinely selecting the better player despite drawing from a slightly smaller set of possibilities, it strongly suggests that—in practice— the penalty for forfeiting a few selections is often relatively minor, at least in that part of the draft. I suspect that is because, outside of the top tier of choices, correctly differentiating the future value of prospects quickly becomes a much more random exercise, but you’ve probably looked into that more closely than I have.