The one-and-done plan works for elite recruits

Players who entered college with top-10 recruit hype usually go pro after one season. Those who don't end up losing their chance at the draft.

With the ability to share information so easily across the world, the best high school basketball players in the country are identified, ranked, and reshuffled constantly throughout their careers. With the advent of elite grassroots events like the Elite Youth Basketball League, the top players get more opportunities to measure themselves against other top players than ever before. If a player arrives on the college basketball scene as a consensus top-10 recruit, that means something: they have likely proven themselves against other players. What’s more, they likely have skills that are likely to translate into an eventual NBA career.

2 years ago I wrote an article about which college programs improve players’ chances of making the NBA. One of the interesting stats I found was how likely players were to make the NBA based on their recruiting ranking. 84% of top-10 recruits made the NBA, with 72% drafted in the first round. This falls off pretty quickly, with players ranked 11-25 in recruiting rankings making the NBA only 45% of the time, and getting drafted in the first round 28% of the time. A player who is a consensus top-10 recruit coming out of high school is a virtual lock to make the NBA, while players judged just a little worse have a less than 50/50 shot. It seems like the people who rank high school recruits and the people who draft NBA players agree a fair amount of the time!

This is especially relevant when discussing 2 Kentucky players who were freshmen this season, and their NBA draft decisions: Brandon Boston and Terrence Clarke. Both players were in the top 10 of the RSCI consensus recruiting rankings for their graduating class. Neither player especially distinguished themselves this season playing for Kentucky, and their draft stock has slipped a bit. There is a fair bit of the usual chatter that they (mostly Boston) should return to school and improve their falling draft stock.

I think that would be a huge mistake on their parts, and I’ll make the case why in this edition of Hoops Insight.

Top-10 recruits rarely come back for a sophomore year

From 2011-2019, there have been 91 players who were ranked in the top 10 of the RSCI in their class. Normally there would be 90 (10 spots x 9 years), but in 2018 Simi Shittu and EJ Montgomery tied for 10th, so I included both of them.

Of those 91 players, only 21 stayedthese in college for more than 1 season. One of those was Isaiah Austin, who stayed 2 years and was not drafted due to a genetic disorder that was discovered…I won’t include him in this analysis, so we’ll focus on the other 20 who returned. That’s 78% (70 of 90) of the top 10 recruits who left school after just one season.

The other 70 players mostly made good decisions. 69 of the 70 have played at least some time in the NBA since leaving college, with the aforementioned Simi Shittu the lone holdout. They’ve had varying levels of success, but the fact remains that they have been paid to play basketball in the NBA, and most of them are going to have multiyear careers and an opportunity at real wealth.

The 20 who chose to stay in college…well, that’s a different story.

The myth of staying in college to improve draft stock

Once upon a time, players stayed to play college basketball for multiple years. They used to be forbidden to be drafted before their senior year, but eventually “hardship cases” were allowed and these ridiculous standards were relaxed. Even so, it was rare to have players leave early; even in the mid to late 1990’s players like Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby, Ray Allen, and Vince Carter stayed multiple years in school. The idea was that players needed to “develop”, and apparently that can only be done by playing for free against players the same age as you.

When the NBA moved to bar high school players from entering the draft in 2006, it meant that elite players had to wait at least 1 year before being drafted. This led to a flood of freshmen populating the top of the draft each year, since that was the earliest a great player could get drafted. It also led to discussions of whether players were “ready for the NBA” or not, with some coaches even decrying their own players’ decisions to turn pro.

The simple fact is, players who are good enough to get drafted should 100% turn pro, get drafted, and use that opportunity to make life-changing money. The idea that a player who is a late first round pick is likely to improve his draft position with another year doesn’t have much evidence, especially when considering elite players.

Earlier I noted that 20 players were top-10 high school recruits from 2011-2019 and elected to stay in college past their freshman year. Of those 20:

• 8 were drafted by the NBA, 5 in the first round

• 9 were undrafted

• 3 are still in college (Quentin Grimes, Charles Bassey, Scottie Lewis); all 3 are projected to be drafted in 2021 or 2022 by NBADraft.net, but only Bassey is a projected first rounder

We have 17 players whose draft decision we can clearly evaluate at this point: 8 who were drafted and 9 who weren’t. Clearly the 9 who weren’t drafted did not improve their draft stock by returning, but what about the other 8? Let’s look at them one by one.

1. Miles Bridges, Michigan State (2016 RSCI #10, drafted #12 in 2018 NBA Draft): Bridges was a projected top-10 pick when he chose to return to school, so he did not improve his stock

2. Ivan Rabb, California (2015 RSCI #5, drafted #35 in 2017 NBA Draft): Rabb was noted as a possible lottery pick when returning to college, so he did not improve his stock.

3. Justin Jackson, North Carolina (2014 RSCI #9, drafted #15 in 2017 NBA Draft): Jackson stayed 3 years and showed outside shooting ability as a junior, vaulting him into the lottery after being projected as undrafted prior to his junior year. He improved his stock.

4. Andrew Harrison, Kentucky (2013 RSCI #5, drafted #44 in 2015 NBA Draft): Andrew was considered a borderline first round pick after his freshman year, so he did not improve his stock with another season.

5. Dakari Johnson, Kentucky (2013 RSCI #9, drafted #48 in 2015 NBA Draft): Johnson was projected 36th by Chad Ford when he decided to return to school, so he did not improve his draft stock.

6. Kyle Anderson, UCLA (2012 RSCI #3, drafted #30 in 2014 NBA Draft): Anderson does not fit typical position designations as a slow ballhandling forward, and was not in mock drafts as a freshman before sneaking into the first round as a sophomore. He improved his draft stock.

7. Marcus Smart, Oklahoma State (2012 RSCI #9, drafted #6 in 2014 NBA Draft): Smart declared prior to his sophomore year that he would be turning pro, and one wonders why he bothered to return at all. He was drafted 6th, but he was considered a top 5 pick as a freshman. He did not improve his stock.

8. Cody Zeller, Indiana (2011 RSCI #10, drafted #4 in 2013 NBA Draft): Zeller is about the best case scenario for a returning elite player. While he had a solid freshman year, he blossomed as a sophomore and has sustained a long NBA career. He improved his draft stock.

The other 7 who returned and were undrafted are Malik Newman (Mississippi State/Kansas), Aaron Harrison (Kentucky), Chris Walker (Florida), Kaleb Tarczewski (Arizona), Alex Poythress (Kentucky), James Michael McAdoo (UNC), Le’Bryan Nash (Oklahoma State), and Adonis Thomas (Memphis).

The clear takeaways is that if you’re an elite recruit and you have a good chance to be drafted, take it. More elite recruits are coming up behined you, and it’s unlikely that you’ll look much better to NBA scouts a year from now. Only 3 of the 17 top-10 recruits who returned to school ended up improving their draft stock.

But what about Brandon Boston specifically? Maybe it would work for him? Let’s take a look at his specific case.

An NBA prospect despite obvious struggles

The first thing we need to agree on is that Brandon Boston is a legitimate NBA Draft prospect right now. Here are his projections from various mock drafts updated in the last few weeks:

• NBADraft.net: 20

• The Game Haus: 14

• NBA Draft Room: 37

• SBNation: 20

Among paid sites, ESPN and the Athletic both have Boston 34th.

These aren’t exactly the types of draft positions an elite player dreams of, but they come with real money and a real opportunity to develop a career playing pro basketball.

Prior to the season, Boston was a consensus top-10 prospect and was even ranked as high as #2 in some early mocks. However, shooting 36% from the field will drive your draft stock down. So why is Boston still a potential first round pick despite this?

The answer is quite complex, but there are some key things in his favor:

1. Steal rate is an important predictor of college players succeeding as pros, and Boston had a good one: Kevin Pelton of ESPN was the first person I saw who talked about this relationship, but it’s legitimate. Successful NBA players are more likely to have had high steal rates (>2%) in college, per this article. Boston was at 2.5%, highest on Kentucky’s team this season

2. Freshmen with high usage rates but low turnover rates in a major role are rare: Boston played over 30 minutes per game, using 23% of UK’s possessions and turning the ball over on 10% of his possessions. Only 19 freshmen guards have done this in the last decade, and 5 of them from major conferences. 4 made the NBA (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Shabazz Muhammad, Jordan Adams, Tim Hardaway Jr.) and the 5th is LSU freshman Cam Thomas, a likely 2021 first rounder.

3. He has shown strong offensive skill against high level competition prior to this year: Boston will likely get the benefit of the doubt because of his prep accolades and achievements, which were largely due to his scoring. Per NBADraft.net, he was one of the leading scorers in EYBL and NBA Top 100 camps, with strog shooting percentages. He doesn’t have major form issues, so he’ll likely return to being a capable scorer.

There is also a precedent for highly touted recruits being drafted in the first round despite shaky freshman seasons. In the 2020 NBA Draft, Cole Anthony (15th) and Jaden McDaniels (28th) slipped from preseason top 10 expectations due to poor shooting (38% FG% for Anthony, 41% for McDaniels). In 2019, Cam Reddish slipped to 10th after hitting 36% of his field goals…the same mark Boston put up this season. In each case, their prep resume and some underlying advanced stats hinted that they offered more promise than their wayward shooting would indicate.

Given the track record of previous top recruits, it doesn’t seem like BJ Boston is likely to improve his draft stock much by returning to school. If NBA teams are still interested in drafting him despite a poor shooting year, he must have a lot of other things in his favor. I believe he is much better beginning his professional career, developing in an NBA system, and making millions of dollars over the next few years regardless of improvement.