Is a 25th pick a useful tool for the Lakers to upgrade over former top overall pick DeAndre Ayton? Ayton just had an awful season, for him, with an EPM of −0.58, producing 3.3 Earned Wins. Over his seven-year career, he has averaged about five Earned Wins a season. He’s at an age where he should be peaking, but instead he’s had two of his worst years. Who knows what he’ll be like next year.
But is there any reason to believe a center picked late in the first-round will do better? Not soon. Only ten percent of late first-round centers perform better, as rookies, than this-season Ayton. A quarter of those centers never get as good as Ayton in his worst season. The good news is that three-quarters of centers picked between 20th and 30th eventually surpass Ayton at his worst, but there are so many ways things can go wrong between here and there.
TrueHoop
