Summary of NBA Draft Prospect Data Analysis

This data analysis merges NCAA, International and NBA data pulled from several sources to create a big board of draft prospects by a machine-learning process called K-Nearest-Neighbours to find the closest statistical neighbours for each prospect. Before a prospect enters the NBA, they can develop into several outcomes and the neighbours’ NCAA, International and NBA production and statistical nearness to the prospect will be used to forecast each prospect’s projection as NBA star, starter, rotation or fringe players.

1. Data Sources

This data analysis of NCAA prospects will utilize and merge data from the following sources:

1. Barttorvik data: https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?year=all

2. NBA combine data: https://www.nba.com/stats/draft/combine-anthro

3. Basketball Reference data: https://www.basketball-reference.com

4. Tankathon data: https://www.tankathon.com/

5. RealGM data: https://basketball.realgm.com/international/stats

2. Data Inputs

From this data, the prospects will be analyzed in several areas:

1. Draft Age

   1. Rookie players will be at a large age and experience disadvantage in the NBA. Young NCAA prospects experience this on a smaller level in the NCAA.

   2025 Draft Class Age Percentiles

   Drafted Player Age Data

2. Physical Tools

   1. Standardized measurement at the NBA combine such as: height without shoes and wingspan. Unfortunately most of the top prospects in previous years did not participate in combine testing, but starting from 2024, draft prospects are required to participate. The upcoming draft prospects’ physical tools will be compared with previous draft prospects in the NBA.com database.

   2. These are the guard, wing and big combine measurements star players that prospects will be expected to emulate on offence and stop on defence.

      Notable Draft Player Combine Data

3. Historical Draft Class Starter and Rotation Players analysis

   1. The number of expected starters and rotation players within a draft class is about 14 starters and 26 rotation players. This will be taken into account when analyzing prospects and their potential NBA role.

      Draft Class Starters and Rotation Players

4. NCAA Statistical Production

   1. how the draft prospects and previously drafted players produced in their final NCAA year

      2025 Draft Class bpm Percentiles

      Drafted Players' NCAA stats

   2. separate analysis for production vs top100 opponents as NCAA schedules differ amongst teams. This filters for the highest NCAA competition as a closer analogue to NBA competition the prospect will experience once drafted.

   2025 Draft Class Difference of Top100 vs All Opp

5. NBA Statistical Production

   1. how previously drafted NCAA prospects produced in the NBA and how it compares to their NCAA production

      Drafted Players' NBA Stats

   2. the correlation of NCAA stat to NBA stat can be found at:

      Correlation of NCAA to NBA Statistics

6. Nearest Statistical Neighbours

   1. The nearest statistical neighbours to each NCAA draft prospect will be identified and their NBA statistical production used to project how well their NCAA production will translate to the NBA. The differences between the draft prospect and their statistical neighbours will be analyzed to infer why a draft prospect may have better or worse NBA production than their neighbours.

   Prospect 10 Nearest Neighbour Ranks

3. Data Output

1. Prospect Statistical Profile and Analysis

   1. Before a prospect is drafted into the NBA, there is a range of potential outcomes depending on their development. This analysis will use the data inputs mentioned to attempt to project their NBA outcomes based on the NBA production of their statistical nearest neighbours.

   2. Link to: 2025 NBA Draft Prospect Statistical Profiles

2. Prospect Big Board

   1. Prospects will be ranked in order in terms of NBA potential and role as star, starter, rotation, or fringe players.