Ranking the NBA Draft by Tiers

I was first introduced to the tier drafting system around this time last year by ESPN’s Chad Ford. As an avid follower of the draft since I was a child, I couldn’t believe that I had never read about this or even come up with something similar myself.

The tier system is the perfect marriage of drafting for need and drafting the best value available. Using the tier system, teams can avoid making emotional picks and can use the system to maximize the value of their selection and ultimately make sense of the mayhem that is the NBA draft.

Here is how it works: players are ranked in different tiers based on how they grade as a prospect and how that grade compares to other prospects available in the draft. In this draft, for instance, Blake Griffin is the only player rated in the 1st tier. When a team is drafting they select the player that most fits a positional need from the highest available tier and never select a player from a lower tier if a player is still available in a higher tier. So, even though the Clippers are relatively clogged in the front court and could probably use a backcourt player, they cannot draft a player from a lower tier because they wouldn’t be getting the maximum value for their pick.

Tier rankings as of 5/25/09
1st Tier
Blake Griffin PF
Explanation: Regardless of team need, Griffin looks to be the best combination of production and potential in the draft. In other words, he may be the safest pick in the draft while also having the highest ceiling.

2nd Tier
Ricky Rubio PG
Rubio has a unique skill set that isn’t matched by any other available prospects.

3rd Tier
James Harden SG
Hasheem Thabeet C
Harden and Thabeet both had productive careers to go with their highly ranked skill sets, making them less risky picks than 4th tier prospects.

4th Tier
Stephen Curry PG
Demar Derozan G/F
Tyreke Evans SG
Jordan Hill PF
Brandon Jennings PG
The 4th tier consists of prospects that have the tools and the potential to be great players but they aren’t as complete as the prospects rated in the higher tiers.

5th Tier
DeJuan Blair PF
Earl Clark SF
Jonny Flynn PG
Gerald Henderson SG
Jrue Holiday PG
James Johnson F
Ty Lawson PG
Eric Maynor PG
The 5th tier consists of players rated as late lottery picks in the 2009 draft.

6th Tier:
Jeff Teague PG
Terrence Williams G/F
While Teague and Williams don’t rate quite as high as 5th tier prospects, they still rate higher overall than the late 1st round prospects.

7th Tier:
Chase Budinger SG
Nick Calathes G
Darren Collison PG
Austin Daye SF
Wayne Ellington SG
Danny Green G/F
Tyler Hansbrough PF
Gani Lawal PF
Patrick Mills PG
B.J. Mullens C
DeJuan Summers SF
Sam Young SF

The rest of the players can be grouped together as there’s no such a thing as a reach this late in the first round and in the second round. Teams will select players that they have rated highest which differs immensely from team to team this late in the draft.

I will be updating these tiers as I see fit from now until the day of the draft. I will also have two mock drafts that will be updated frequently. One of them is a true mock, which will show what I think teams WILL do. The other is what I think teams SHOULD do, which will employ my tier system.