I have no data that is not anecdotal. At some point, I imagine, some data geek will do real data analytics and some real data mining to find out what the actual data is suggesting is the best path to success in the NBA. I imagine the top 10 picks there's nothing really interesting. But for draft picks 20 and above in the draft rankings there could be an interesting analysis. It's like 3-point shots versus 2-point shots. Until you do the analysis it's not really clear what works best.
A) there is zero guaranteed path from being a 20+ pick one year to top-10 the next. It doesn't happen enough to be something that is a viable plan. I follow baseball prospects a ton more than basketball. There a ton more baseball players drafted and sent to minor leagues. The number of players drafted top-10 who become bonafide stars far far far far outweighs the number drafted in the entire rest of the draft. There are occasional success stories, but they are few. It's pointless to evaluate it as a pick by pick basis (e.g. no 23 picks have done this ...) and better off evaluating them at tiers based on historical production.
I'd imagine it is very similar to the NBA. Here's my hypothesis that I'll test: The number of all star games played by the top -5 outweigh the rest of the draft combined.
Data collected from here. Let's limit it to the 1989 and after since that's when the drafted was limited to two rounds. It could additionally be limited when they removed high school players from the draft, but we'll stick with 1989.
Results. Since 1989, 1,620 players have been drafted. Just 138 players have been drafted and were selected to at least one all star game (8.5%), 47 were selected outside of the lottery picks (34.5%). There have been 471 total all-stars selections. 26 Top 2 draft picks (54 picks total) have played in a combined 130 of those 471 all-star games (27%). Of the 3, 4, and 5 picks, 40 have played in a combined 141 games (30%). 300 Players have been drafted in the top five and 66 have played an AS game (
22%). In total 66 players drafted in the top-5 have played 57% of the all-star games. The remainder of the draft is 3,300 players and just 81 made an all-star game (
2.5%). Where they played in the remaining 46% of games. Outside of the top-5, just six players really stand out and, by themselves, have played in more than half of those all-star games: Kobe (HS), Garnett (HS), Dirk (foreign), Dwayne Wade, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce.
It's readily apparent that the best way to have an excellent NBA career and get paid a lot of money is to get selected in the Top-5, preferably the Top-2. Had Kobe and Garnett gone to college for one year, IMO they would have been top-5 picks after their freshman years. Other than that, it's real long odds. So, outside of the top-5, it probably doesn't matter too much where you're drafted - there's probably the same low chance to be an All Star regardless of the draft position. 16 versus 28 doesn't mean a whole heckuva lot. Malachi isn't going in the top-5 this year or next year.
