Butler 18th best college player eligible for NBA draft

Based on the Value Add system, Jimmy Butler is the 18th best offensive college player eligible for the draft this year. Since high school players were ruled ineligible, the NBA has picked between 44 and 52 college players every draft, so hopefully there won't be too many international players this year and Jimmy's name is called.

I ran the best 2500 returning players based on the system in an earlier post, but there were almost 1000 players who did not return (seniors, transferred, declared for draft). Of these, only 17 were more valuable to their teams than Jimmy Butler was. Here is the list of the top 20 departing college players with where they rank among draft prospects according to Draft Express:

Fname	Lname	Team	College	Draft
Kemba	Walker	Connecticut	1	4
Jimmer	Fredette	Brigham Young	2	15
Charles	Jenkins	Hofstra	3	24
Noah	Dahlman	Wofford	4	ND
Reggie	Jackson	Boston College	5	16
Derrick	Williams	Arizona	6	2
Ben	Hansbrough	Notre Dame	7	36
Mickey	McConnell	St. Mary's	8	95
Jon	Leuer	Wisconsin	9	38
Talor	Battle	Penn St.	10	90
Jon	Diebler	Ohio St.	11	53
Marshon	Brooks	Providence	12	42
Nolan	Smith	Duke	13	23
Devon	Beitzel	N. Colorado	14	ND
Austin	Freeman	Georgetown	15	75
Chris	Warren	Mississippi	16	ND
Alec	Burks	Colorado	17	7
Jimmy	Butler	Marquette	18	31
JaJuan	Johnson	Purdue	19	28
Marcus	Morris	Kansas	20	5

NBA Potential vs. College Value Add
Now obviously NBA scouts are focused on the potential to play in the NBA, which often but not always coincides with how much a player has helped his college team. For example, Purdue obviously had a lot of great college players in the 1990s when they were the 8th best team of the decade (Sagarin) but they only had one 1st round draft pick. Alabama had 7 first rounders play in the 1990s, but were only the 36th best team.

AP Writers said Jerel McNeal was one of the 10 best college players in America his senior year, but NBA scouts picked 44 college players ahead of him in the draft.

Still, in 17 of 20 cases the top college players are also among the 10% of departing D1 players with a shot at being picked, which is a pretty good correlation, and the three exceptions are pretty easy to explain as great college players who just don't have the size or speed to play in the NBA.

Chris Warren of Mississippi is measured in at less than 5-10, Devon Beitzel of N. Colorado is a slow 6-foot-1 despite being dubbed as “Little Jimmer” en route to Big Sky MVP titles, and Wofford’s Noah Dahlman would have to join Lazar Hayward as the only frontline player in the NBA under 6-foot-6.

On the flip side, when we look at the 31 players Draft Express has solidly in the draft who were NOT in the Top 20 on the Value Add system, they break into 3 categories:
- 22 of these 31 were in the Top 100
- 7 of the 9 that weren't were a combination of great defensive players and/or underclassmen who would be great college players if they played another year
- only 2 of the 31 just seemed to be underperformers

Here is the list of the players who should go in the draft but were not one of the best 20 offensive college players last year:

Fname	Lname	Team	College	Draft	Notes
Kyrie	Irving	Du	190	1	Top 3 for the 10 games he played
Brandon	Knight	KY	61	3	Top 5% of defenders
Kawhi	Leonard	SDSt	67	6	#1 defender in country
Markieff	Morris	KS	62	8	Top 2% of defenders
Tobias	Harris	TN	86	9
Klay	Thompson	WASt	76	10	Top 10% of defenders
Tristan	Thompson	TX	136	11	Top 1% of defenders
Kenneth	Faried	MorSt	46	12	Top 10% of defenders
Jordan	Hamilton	TX	39	13	Top 1% of defenders
Chris	Singleton	FLSt	321	14	Top 1% of defenders
Kyle	Singler	Du	44	17	Top 2% of defenders
Travis	Leslie	GA	55	18
Tyler	Honeycutt	UCLA	446	19	Sophomore, Top 10% of defenders
Josh	Selby	KS	663	20	Freshman, Top 10% defenders
Justin	Harper	Rich	23	21
Darius	Morris	Mich	32	22	Top 10% of defenders
Iman	Shumpert	GATe	93	25	Top 5% of defenders
Jereme	Richmond	IL	359	26	Freshman, Top 10% defenders
Trey	Thompkins	GA	285	27	Athletic, Top 10% defenders
Nikola	Vucevic	USC	24	29	Top 3% of defenders
Keith	Benson	Oak	71	30
E'Twaun	Moore	Pur	31	32	Top 3% of defenders
Shelvin	Mack	But	97	33
Malcolm	Lee	UCLA	147	34	college underperformer?
Norris	Cole	ClSt	22	35
Jordan	Williams	MD	94	37	Top 3% of defenders
David	Lighty	OSU	50	39	Top 1% of defenders
Demetri	McCamey	IL	40	40	Top 10% of defenders
Isaiah	Thomas	WA	28	41
Andrew	Goudelock	CofC	27	43
Justin	Holiday	WA	107	44	college underperformer?

The easiest to explain is Kyrie Irving, who was in the top 3 in Value Add for the 10 games he played, but slips to 190th for all the games missed.

Note that 20 of 30 were among the Top 10% of all defenders in the Value Subtract defensive rating.

Hopefully Jimmy Butler’s standing as the 18th best college player in the draft and the 31st best college prospect according to Draft Express results in us being able to add him to this list next year:

Dwyane Wade $14.2 million
Wesley Mathews $5.8 million
Lazar Hayward $1.0 million
Steve Novak $0.7 million