LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- When I ask which former University of Louisville basketball player has been the biggest hit as well as the biggest miss in the NBA Draft over my run as a local sports columnist, two names dominate the conversation:
- Pervis Ellison, the overall top pick in 1989, as the biggest miss
- Donovan Mitchell, the 13th pick in 2017, as the biggest hit
Predictable answers.
Wrong answers.
It's Draft Night in the NBA. The first round will unfold beginning at 8 p.m. at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The second round is Thursday evening.
Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Bozich & Crawford
As I wrote earlier this week, this will be the first time since 2006 (the Kevin Durant draft) that not a single player from Louisville, Kentucky or Indiana will be taken in round one.
But when the subject is high-level basketball, there is always another local story angle.
I began writing columns in this market in 1981. I attended multiple NBA Drafts in New York City (when Ellison and then Felton Spencer were taken in the first round in back-to-back seasons), Newark and Indianapolis. I don't love draft night as much as John Calipari does but I enjoy the show.
What pushed me into the numbers was an attempt to determine which local players did the best jobs of out-performing their draft status — and which players left their original teams wishing they selected somebody else.
As I mentioned, most fans start with Ellison as the biggest whiff. Not true. At least not by the measurement I chose.
The career performance evaluator I used to analyze the players was WinShares at BasketballReference.com. It is an analytics formula that estimates how many wins a player contributes both offensively and defensively to a team's performance. It's a cousin to WAR (wins above replacement value) that baseball addicts use to compare major league baseball players.
What I did was basic. I started with the draft position of every Louisville player since 1981, the year I began my column writing career. I compared that number to how the player ranked in WinShares against other members of his draft class. I only tossed one guy — Roger Burkman, who played one more college season after contributing to Louisville's 1980 NCAA championship team.
Why?
Two reasons. The first is the draft stretched over 10 rounds then. Burkman was the 130th player selected. The NBA cut the draft to two rounds in 1989.
The second reason is Burkman played in only six games in 1981-82, his only NBA season. Give Burkman credit. In six games with the Bulls, he earned 0.1 WinShares. That bumped him to No 53 in his draft class, a plus-77 for his career.
Hat tip to Roger. That's making the most of your opportunity.
On to my top three in each category.
Overachievers
1. Montrezl Harrell, 2015
- Draft Spot: Pick 32, Second round
- Win Shares Ranking: No. 5
- Rating: Plus-27
This one surprised me. Not because I questioned Harrell achieved solid things. He was and still is a productive player.
But injuries knocked him out of the last two NBA seasons. He played in Australia last season, perhaps because his skill set of defending and rebounding didn't fit in the current NBA world obsessed with three-point shooting.
Either way, the only four players to earn more WinShares in the 2015 draft are Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Myles Turner and Kristaps Porzingis. Those four guys were lottery selections. Harrell was not.
Well done.
2. Jerry Eaves, 1982
- Draft Spot: No 55, third round
- Win Shares Ranking: No. 35
- Rating: Plus-20
I'll never hear the end of this one. Eaves has never let me forget that I ranked Jeff Hall ahead of him in a comparison of starters from the Cards' 1980 and 1986 NCAA title teams.
He's right. I was wrong. (Clip and save this, Jerry.)
Eaves only played 168 games over four seasons in the NBA. Injuries, especially one knee injury, stopped him from being at least a valuable long-term role player and perhaps even a starter. He would have enjoyed a long NBA career.
Yes, it is true that on March 16, 1983, Eaves dropped 35 points on Isiah Thomas and the Detroit Pistons, making 11 of 19 shots and 13 of 14 free throws.
I once looked it up while riding in the car with Eaves from the NBA Draft Combine.
3. Derek Smith, 1982
- Draft Spot: No. 35, second round
- Win Shares Ranking: No. 17
- Rating: Plus-18
This is the guy who should have been the winner. Smith was on his way to becoming a perennial all-star and possible scoring champion before he suffered a devastating knee injury nine games into the 1985-86 season, his fourth year in the NBA.
After averaging 22.1 points in his third season, Smith averaged 23.5 in year four with the Clippers. He became a regular on late-night SportsCenter shows, back when ESPN's focused on performance, not screaming. Smith was special.
Underachievers
3. Earl Clark, 2009
- Draft Spot: No. 14
- Win Shares Ranking: No. 39
- Rating: Minus-25
Clark stretched his NBA career over six seasons. But his career never reached liftoff stage, even though Basketball Reference noted that he earned more than $10 million.
Clark failed to average more than 7.3 points for the Suns, Magic, Lakers, Cavaliers, Knicks or Nets, the six teams that gave him a look.
Clark was a lottery pick, but Jrue Holiday, Jeff Teague, Patrick Beverley and Jodie Meeks are only a few of the guys drafted behind him who generated more WinShares.
2. Terrence Williams, 2009
- Draft Spot: No. 11, 1984
- Win Shares Ranking: No. 48
- Rating: Minus-37
This is a sad story in many ways. One, Williams failed to come close to reaching his immense potential. As a rookie in New Jersey, he clashed with Nets head coach Avery Johnson and managed to play 153 games after elevating himself to a lottery pick in his fourth and final season under Rick Pitino at Louisville.
But that is insignificant considering Williams is currently 2 years into the 10-year sentence in federal prison that he was given in 2023 for his role in defrauding the NBA Players' Association Health and Welfare Benefit plan.
That is truly sad.
1. Lancaster Gordon, 1984
- Draft Spot: No. 8
- Win Shares Ranking: No. 58
- Rating: Minus-50.
I've never understood why Gordon didn't enjoy a career similar to the long and productive runs enjoyed by Alvin Robertson and Vern Fleming, two guards drafted in the first round with him in 1984.
He was an elite defender. He was competitive. He was smart. He was determined.
It simply never clicked for Gordon over parts of four seasons with the Clippers. He shot less than 40% from the field, less than 28% from the three-point line. He scored 33 points off the bench against Portland late in his third season with the Clippers but played only eight games, scoring a total of 28 points, in 1987-88, his final run through the league.
That was it for him in the NBA.
As for Ellison. He was drafted first but ended his career ranked 17th in his class in WinShares. Critics forget Ellison averaged a double double during his third NBA season while playing in Washington. A serious knee injury stopped him from greater things.
As for Mitchell, he ranks fourth in the 2017 draft class in WinShares, trailing only Jerrett Allen, Jayson Tatum and Bam Adebayo. He was taken 13th. He a plus-9.
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