Every year, the NBA gets a fresh injection of new and exciting talents from the latest class of rookies. Top draft picks, such as Ja Morant and Zion Williamson, have been a joy to watch this year.
And from the draft classes of recent years, many players have already become All Star level contributors. The league just would not be the same without the likes of Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum, or Luka Doncic.
But has it been profitable to invest in these rookies early on in their careers?
For this piece of research here at the ScoreMetrics Lab, we wanted to test out whether or not the following hypothesis was true:
“The best rookies have a transformative effect on teams, and this is undervalued by bookmakers. This should cause the teams of the top 3 picks of a draft to be profitable investments against the spread.”
Could such a simple hypothesis prove to be valuable? Read on to find out what we discovered.
Top picks from the last five NBA drafts
Since the current season is not finished yet, we decided to start from the 2018 draft and go through the last five seasons in our sample for this research, starting from the 2018-2019 NBA season.
Let’s begin by looking at the players that qualified – the top three draft picks from those five drafts:
PLAYER | TEAM | YEAR | PICK |
Deandre Ayton | Phoenix Suns | 2018 | 1 |
Marvin Bagley III | Sacramento Kings | 2018 | 2 |
Luka Doncic | Dallas Mavericks (via Atlanta Hawks) | 2018 | 3 |
PLAYER | TEAM | YEAR | PICK |
Markelle Fultz | Philadelphia 76ers | 2017 | 1 |
Lonzo Ball | Los Angeles Lakers | 2017 | 2 |
Jayson Tatum | Boston Celtics | 2017 | 3 |
PLAYER | TEAM | YEAR | PICK |
Ben Simmons | Philadelphia 76ers | 2016 | 1 |
Brandon Ingram | Los Angeles Lakers | 2016 | 2 |
Jaylen Brown | Boston Celtics | 2016 | 3 |
PLAYER | TEAM | YEAR | PICK |
Karl-Anthony Towns | Minnesota Timberwolves | 2015 | 1 |
D’Angelo Russell | Los Angeles Lakers | 2015 | 2 |
Jahlil Okafor | Philadelphia 76ers | 2015 | 3 |
PLAYER | TEAM | YEAR | PICK |
Andrew Wiggins | Cleveland Cavaliers | 2014 | 1 |
Jabari Parker | Milwaukee Bucks | 2014 | 2 |
Joel Embiid | Philadelphia 76ers | 2014 | 3 |
How did the top draft picks’ teams fare as ATS investments?
Below, we have compiled the overall ATS records of each of top three rookies’ teams from the last five seasons:
2018-2019 | |||
Team | Player | ATS Record | Cover % |
Dallas | Luka Doncic | 46-35-1 | 56.8% |
Sacramento | Marvin Bagley III | 45-35-2 | 56.2% |
Phoenix | Deandre Ayton | 36-46-0 | 43.9% |
2017-2018 | |||
Team | Player | ATS Record | Cover % |
Boston | Jayson Tatum | 62-37-2 | 62.6% |
Philadelphia | Markelle Fultz | 52-38-2 | 57.8% |
LA Lakers | Lonzo Ball | 43-39-0 | 52.4% |
2016-2017 | |||
Team | Player | ATS Record | Cover % |
Philadelphia | Ben Simmons | 49-33-0 | 59.8% |
Boston | Jaylen Brown | 51-47-2 | 52.0% |
LA Lakers | Brandon Ingram | 37-43-2 | 46.2% |
2015-2016 | |||
Team | Player | ATS Record | Cover % |
Minnesota | Karl-Anthony Towns | 39-42-1 | 48.1% |
Philadelphia | Jahlil Okafor | 37-44-1 | 45.7% |
LA Lakers | D’Angelo Russell | 36-46-0 | 43.9% |
2014-2015 | |||
Team | Player | ATS Record | Cover % |
Milwaukee | Jabari Parker | 48-39-1 | 55.2% |
Philadelphia | Joel Embiid | 40-40-2 | 50.0% |
Cleveland | Andrew Wiggins | 49-52-1 | 48.5% |
For the first two seasons in the table, our research shows promise – Dallas, Sacramento, Boston and Philadelphia covered the spread at a nice rate.
But things start to look worse when we go further back in seasons, and we end up with an average cover rate of 51.9% when we take all of the qualified rookies and their teams into account.
For reference, the breakeven point for ATS investments with the rather standard -110 odds is at around 52.5%. We are not looking at a winning investment strategy here.
Conclusion
So, why didn’t this hypothesis end up producing gains? For NBA fans, it’s easy to spot some obvious flaws in our original hypothesis.
Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz missed all (Embiid, Simmons) or most (Fultz) of their rookie seasons with Philadelphia. Jahlil Okafor (also for Philadelphia – yikes!), Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker also definitely did not end up performing up to the high expectations that were placed on them by teams and bookmakers alike.
Some of the rookies on the list also ended up having rather limited responsibilities. Did Marvin Bagley’s contributions really cause Sacramento’s good ATS season, or was this more due to De’Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield catching fire?
Draft picks can be hit or miss, and this causes a lot of variance in ATS performance as well. The difference that rookies are able to make is hard for bookmakers to predict as well.
One thing that we keep coming back to is the fact that such simple hypotheses rarely end up making successful sports trading systems.
But if we start looking deeper into the data, we might find something interesting. What if we include minutes per game and usage rates of the rookies in the sample and start filtering the data? How about looking at the records of each team from the previous year and see if there is a correlation there? Or what about extending the research to include the top 10 draft picks from each year?
Maybe we shall get back to this at a later point.
In the meanwhile, to prepare for the return of sports and to learn everything you need to know about smart investing in the sports betting market, check out our head trader John Todora’s new book – “Zero Correlation Investing – The Score Metrics Secret”. It’s currently on sale for a limited time, so go get yours now!
The ScoreMetrics Lab is the engine that runs the Sports Trading System operation, consisting of a team of researchers and writers who are constantly testing and retesting algorithms. They work hand in hand with our Head Trader and Creator of ScoreMetrics, John Todora to help find new breakthroughs and develop new systems.
