Reverse Enigma

Wrote a brief substack article explaining how my NBA draft model functions link - open.substack.com/pub/fplmou/p/n…

Here's the table amongst this year's playoff teams ATL/NYK stands out - Atlanta gets into their stuff relatively quickly after a made bucket, the Knicks do not

@GabeLeftBrain one caveat worth stating: defense is fairly process-light in public data. on offense we can see what you chose to do, PnR, iso, post up, etc.on defense we mostly see outcomes (deflections, contests, blocks) without the process behind them: pressing, switching, tagging, stunting.

@GabeLeftBrain the stats tab shows where a player separates within their archetype. Queta grades out as an elite screener and contester among his cluster, but he has drawn no charges this year. someone tell him. play around with it and lmk which comps surprise you.

Built a player archetype map with @GabeLeftBrain. clusters all 437 NBA players by playstyle, shows everyone's closest comps. first takeaway: nobody really plays like Giannis. closest is Jokić, Embiid, Wemby, Sengun and Zion, and he's still miles from them. courtsketch.com/cluster-dashbo…

@GabeLeftBrain SGA pulls a Giannis and sits way out on the edge of his own cluster. nearest comps: Luka, Jaylen Brown, Cade, Kawhi, Booker.

@draymottishaw Gonna be a reason why him and Krivas are gonna be lower on my board. Think bigs are just being asked more and more to be quick decision makers and be able to pass.

I don't think I'll be able to look past the blatant stain on Morez Johnson Jr.'s profile; Morez has a sub 1 a:to and sub 10 ast% while having a substantial amount of usage (>20%) and in a very friendly/connective ecosystem under Dusty May. He has the lowest A:TO on the team out of players who played. While he does have some additive skills that help contribute to winning games, I think this, along with his track record of low feel at Illinois last year (2.7 ast% & 0.3 ato), is an alarming characteristic and flaw in his game that will ultimately cap his potential impact once he gets to the league.

@Ary_Report Your report is copying @FearTheBrown tweets, who had this first. Here is Shamit's reporting: open.substack.com/pub/intheno/p/…

i wrote about skill singularity, a framework to strategically hunt for outliers. it forms the foundation for my future series on select 2026 draft prospects. link below, thoughts welcome.

@realLatifLove He’s one of the guys that’s made me start considering “bend” in prospects, especially bigs. Ayton doesn’t play with much bend and can get outleveraged fairly easily.

Ayton’s NBA outcome and the fact that he went ahead of Luka really do overshadow how great a prospect he was. 7’0 with a 7’6 wingspan, 80% ATR, 63% from two, 87 Dunks, 28 DREB% + 13.5 OREB% (at the four) is ridiculous. 42.2% far two + 73.3% FT also pointed to shooting upside. At the time, I was skeptical about him playing the five, and he presented lineup constraints at the four if shooting didn’t materialize. I don’t like when people say this, but he’s truly a prospect that I feel would have turned out much better in a different era (or if his motor wasn’t so poor lol).

@spacebarNBA The Ayton special

My least favorite archetype in basketball is prob the 4/5 that can’t functionally lower their hips. Not in that they don’t have value, but they get too easily mistaken for something they’re not. “Skilled upside” for creating no separation and shooting contested 15 footers…

The wheels are off the road! Stoked to have written about one of my favorite watches in the NBA (as part of a brief series of rookie evals) in Dylan Harper. The link to my piece is below, any of your thoughts, feedback, and time & attention are much appreciated

@draftballr @TrellInterlude Jayden Quaintance #1

1.5% of people have Caleb Wilson #1 Is there a case?

Sportradar is accused of violating antitrust law by controlling the market for live sports data and allegedly expanding that control by refusing to deal. The company is armed with a number of key defenses. Details and analysis: sportico.com/law/analysis/2….

@KirkSeriousFace @MichaelVPina Think saying it’s a marginal difference isn’t going Kon enough credit. Kon is having one of the best shotmkaing seasons in the entire nba. Even accounting for the shots he takes. He’s so much better on it than everyone else that he’s adding shotmaking value at a star level

@MichaelVPina Flagg’s been marginally less efficient in a much bigger role. If folks want to decide to award team success because CHA is a cool story, ok! But if the award is given to Kon, years from now it will look silly and the explanation will be “voters were really into efficiency”

i know i can't get you to care about the gargantuan efficiency gap, but please know, generally, that counting stats are an antiquated way to decide who is and isn't good

(1/4) The college basketball transfer portal is about to open. Most college coaches and GMs still don't know how to answer: how much is a player worth? When Flory Bidunga reportedly asks for $5M, is that great value or crazy?

@draftballr Go for it. Sounds like a great idea

I have this idea -- Let me know what you think: Shortly before the NBA Draft, me/a few friends/the community will choose the best written profile for each of the top 30 prospects. Draftballr will publish and sell a 'Community Prospect Guide' shortly before the draft. Writers will receive a percentage of the profits proportional to how many articles of there's that have been selected, with a cut going to the site. Your written profile does not need to be exclusive to Draftballr, it's perfectly fine to cross publish it elsewhere as well. The benefit of this approach is: 1) The quality of the community guide will be sky high. I've already seen quite a few great profiles. I already have a generational prospect guide UI that i haven't released that I can improve before launch. 2) 20-30 writers will have a vested interest in marketing the guide when we sell it, increasing the impact and marketability of it. Ideally, we include some international writers as well to expand reach. 3) Lots of people already write draft guides for fun. This gives people a chance to make some money doing it too. Now I have no idea what the potential sales are for a prospect guide like this, so I don't know how much we will end up selling, but I think it's a fun experiment. 4) A related idea is I could also allow people to sell their own prospect guides before the NBA draft. Thoughts? Feedback? Would anyone be interested?

@terqtakeover @CanyonDriver Brother wtf

Happy Easter! Tomorrow is the last day of this College Basketball season, so I figured I would release my end of season board, including returners Enjoy, Like, Subscribe and hit that Bell for Notifications!