Sooooo…we’re back at it again! Another year of data, another year to see if the value of first-round picks changed dramatically. I won’t spend time rehashing the methodology or the finer points of each graph I’ll display. I’ll reference last year’s article here if you want a refresher on the entire process.

I do want to note some additional items. First, since I am examining just the first three seasons of players’ fantasy production, the additional data in this data set is from the 2021 NBA Draft class. That means a certain San Antonio Spurs center is not included (Victor Wembanyama for those asking). This in turn increases the overall research sample from 900 data points to 990 data points.

Second, I want to emphasize the below, straight copy and pasted from last year’s article:

My last decision was how many years I should gather data. I landed on using the first three years of each draft class. I want to stress that this does ignore these players’ prime fantasy years and is not indicative of a player’s future fantasy value. This should not be treated as “young players are bad; therefore I will not roster any youth.” But I would expect most managers cannot go more than two or three seasons of bottoming out, whether due to lack of competing or wanting to place in the money spots. Additionally, if a contending team is wondering about the value proposition of trading a prospect for a win-now player, I would only be looking at a two- or three-year horizon.

Many of these younger players’ values are tied into their future peak production. That tends to be found in their prime fantasy years, typically around ages 27-31. In the years I am analyzing, the ages of the players are almost always well below that range. It’s understandable that prospects’ early years should not result in outstanding fantasy production; rather, a prospect’s peak production is normally baked into a ranking well above their current production level.

Results

Alright enough with the boring mumbo-jumbo stuff. Onto the actual data!

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