The NCAA Tournament and the NBA Draft: Why Tourney Participants Are Safe Bets

Editor's Note: This is the final installment of a three-part series examining how participation in the NCAA tournament affects the draft stock of NBA players. Here is part 1. Here is Part 2.

The first two articles in this series showed a contrast between undrafted players and second-round picks. Players from smaller colleges who didn’t play in the tournament fared better as undrafted players. With successful Round 2 draftees, this phenomenon flipped, as tournament participants were 33-percent more likely to succeed in the NBA.

A look at the first round showed the same results from Round 2. Tournament participants have had a higher success rate and a lower failure rate.

Here are some numbers that break down how tournament participants drafted in the first round of the draft fared in the NBA:

Tournament Participants

                                             Lottery               Late Round 1     

All-Star:                                  32%                      10%               

Rotation Regular:                    34%                      35%               

Bust:                                        33%                      55%               

Non-Tournament

All-Star:                                 15%                        5%

Rotation Regular:                   33%                      40%

Bust:                                       51%                       55%

Foreign

All-Star                                 15%                         6%

Rotation Regular:                 38%                         38%

Bust:                                      46%                        56%

This is for all NCAA Division I college players drafted from 1989-2007. I started in 1989, because that was the first year of the two-round draft. It includes 333 players who played in the tournament the year of their draft and 116 who did not.

I don’t want to focus on the foreign players here. I added their numbers because I found it interesting how similar their success rates were to the non-tournament college players.

I used different standards for lottery and non-lottery draftees. For All-Stars, the standard was simply whether or not they had made an All-Star team. While this does force me to include the likes of BJ Armstrong and Wally Szczerbiak in the same class as some all-timers, it does include all players who at least once in their career were considered among the best in the world at their positions.

Rotation regular status required 15,000 career minutes for lottery draftees and 7,500 for players drafted out of the lottery. In both cases, I included players who appear on pace for these levels.

I made the standard higher for lottery draftees because of the higher expectations attached to such players. Players below the 15,000 and 7,500 standards were considered busts. The lone exception to this rule was Brandon Roy, whom I included with the All-Stars despite his having retired with fewer than 15,000 career minutes.

The difference is especially stark with lottery draftees. Tournament participants are twice as likely to become All-Stars and 35 percent less likely to bust than non-tournament draftees.

Beyond the lottery, the two groups have a similar rate of failure, but the tournament participants were twice as likely to become All-Stars. This is similar to what I found with Round 2 draftees. Tournament participants are in general a much better bet for NBA success than players who missed the tourney.

As to why this is the case, I really have no idea without a deeper look. I suspect it has something to do with the intangibles that are more likely to be found in tournament players than players who experience less team success.

I also suspect that the fact that NBA personnel guys have such a hard time saying no to height, length and athleticism, regardless of college success, factors into this somehow.

I can look at some individual cases, though. Listed below are some memorable first-rounders whose NBA success/failure might have been predicted by what happened in the postseason of their draft years:

• Michael Olowokandi’s Pacific Tigers missed the tournament when they lost to Utah State in the 1998 Big West Championship game. This should have been a clue to the Clippers that they weren’t getting the dominant center they hoped for when they made him the top pick in 1998.
• Deron Williams led a solid, but moderately talented Illinois team to the National Championship game in 2005. Williams had stats so ordinary I had my doubts about him becoming an NBA starter, let alone a star. Williams is now at three All-Star games and counting and will be the most sought-after free agent in the league this summer.
• Cherokee Parks was the top player on the 1995 Duke team. This is the only Blue Devils squad since 1984 that didn’t make the tournament. Parks was drafted 12th by Dallas and busted. Solid NBA players like Theo Ratliff, Michael Finley and Brent Barry were still on the board.
• Sam Cassell and Ron Artest—Metta World Peace for you kids out there—led their third-seeded teams to regional finals. Both became post-lottery bargains.
• Steve Nash led an upstart Santa Clara team to a first-round upset of Maryland in 1996.  Nash has become one of the great post-lottery bargains of all time.

These are just a few examples. I’ll add that for every Steve Nash there is also a Bryce Drew.

There are also exceptions to the rule that should be noted. Shawn Marion’s 1999 UNLV team finished 16-13 and out of the tournament, yet he was a steal at No. 9 in 1999. Tyrus Thomas was arguably the best player on LSU’s Final Four team in 2006 and had the stats of an NBA star, but he has yet to blossom in the NBA.

What to take from this is that participation in the tournament should be considered a plus for any potential draftee. Prospects coming off a tournament appearance are much more likely than both non-tournament draftees and foreign players to have NBA success.

Tournament participants drafted in the lottery have had both a higher success rate and a lower bust rate than non-tournament and foreign players.

In the 2012 draft, the highest-rated non-tournament players are Damien Lillard, Tony Wroten, Terrence Ross, Arnett Moultrie, Moe Harkless, Tony Mitchell and Meyers Leonard. In 10 years, I can picture fans scratching their heads wondering why two players from a non-tournament team like Washington were drafted in Round 1.

Prospects who played in the tournament and deserve a little more respect than they’re getting include Jae Crowder, Scott Machado, Marcus Denmon and Will Barton.

Ed Weiland writes for HoopsAnalyst.com and was one of the few NBA draft analysts who predicted Jeremy Lin's success as a pro.