Superdraft Thread

[ChrisE]

Well, it's been days since there was a new post here. I think there's a lot of interesting possibilities to research from the superdraft; unfortunately, nothing I've done has really seemed interesting enough to put up here. So I'm going to start by simply trying to compile a list of the P-40's drafted, but will try to use this thread for a number of things.



2004 Club Number Round Age Min.
Adu, Freddy F P-40 D.C. 1 1 14.62
Marshall, Chad D Stanford Columbus 2 1 19.40
Cochrane, Ryan D S. Clara San Jose 5 1 20.44
Nunez, Ramon M SMU Dallas 6 1 18.17
Goodson, Clarence D Maryland Dallas 7 1 21.66
Dempsey, Clint M Furman New Eng. 8 1 20.85
Cronin, Steve GK S. Clara San Jose 10 1 20.63
Gardner, Josh M Cincinnati L.A. 13 2 21.34
Grabavoy, Ned M Indiana L.A. 14 2 20.54
Bradley, Michael M P-40 Metrostars 36 4 16.46

2003
Eskandarian, Alecko F Virginia D.C. 1 1 20.52 728
Clark, Ricardo M Furman Metrostars 2 1 19.93 2590
Jaqua, Nate F Portland Chicago 3 1 21.22 712
Magee, Mike F P-40 Metrostars 4 1 18.37 1709
Stokes, David D UNC D.C. 5 1 20.63 0
Gonzalez, Guillermo M P-40 L.A. 8 1 17.03 129
Carroll, Brian M Wake D.C. 11 2 21.49 0
Gaven, Eddie M P-40 Metrostars 12 2 16.23 691
Alvarez, Arturo M P-40 San Jose 13 2 17.55 655
Thompson, Jason F E. Ill. Dallas 15 2 21.15 0
Lewis, Ricky D Clemson L.A. 20 2 20.63 798
Pause, Logan M UNC Chicago 24 3 21.40 1354
LeBlanc, Jacob M Virginia Metrostars 42 5 21.96 225

2002
Davis, Brad M St. Louis Metrostars 3 1 20.19 1246
Mapp, Justin M P-40 D.C. 4 1 17.24 28
Gray, Kelly M Portland Chicago 5 1 20.77 1780
Martino, Kyle M Virginia Columbus 8 1 20.91 1455
Stone, Jordan M P-40 Dallas 15 2 17.83 91
Capano, Craig M P-40 Chicago 17 2 16.52 92

2001
Carrieri, Chris F UNC San Jose 1 1 20.72 1081
Quaranta, Santino F P-40 D.C. 8 1 16.26 949
Bardales, Isaias F S.J. St. L.A. 11 1 21.41 270
Burciaga, Jose D P-40 K.C. 12 1 19.17 93
Barclay, Devin F P-40 Tampa Bay 14 2 17.77 1324
Johnson, Edward F P-40 Dallas 19 2 16.79 263
Downing, Nick D Maryland New Eng. 21 2 20.98 279
Buddle, Edson F L. Island Columbus 27 3 19.65 556
Saavedra, Miguel M P-40 Dallas 67 6 17.54 0

2000
Garcia, Nick D Indiana K.C. 2 1 20.77 2916
Bocanegra, Carlos D UCLA Chicago 4 1 20.64 2402
Califf, Danny D Maryland L.A. 6 1 19.83 1518
Convey, Bobby M P-40 D.C. 12 1 16.64 1614
Pierce, Rusty D UNC-G'b. New Eng. 14 2 20.48 2600
Salas, Sergio F P-40 D.C. 27 3 18.82 18
Asad, Shaker M N.C. State New Eng. 31 3 20.41 246
Cooks, Micah M P-40 D.C. 60 5 18.54 165


(Age refers to their age as of 1/16, whatever year they were drafted; minutes refers to minutes played as a rookie)

(P.S. Is this chart legible to everyone? I did my best to line up the rows, but I'm always suspicious.)

[beineke]

Originally posted by ChrisE
P.S. Is this chart legible to everyone? I did my best to line up the rows, but I'm always suspicious.

Chart looks good to me.

By the way, do you have a list of P-40's by year of birth handy? There seem to have been few born in 1980, and I'm wondering how pronounced that pattern is.

Thx.

[beineke]

Here's what I came up with. From 2000 on, there really were very few P-40's born in 1980. I don't think there were many '80s who came into the league before 2000, either ... maybe one from Trinidad?


Year Drafted Name
89 1-04 Adu, Freddy

87 36-04 Bradley, Michael

86 8-03 Gonzalez, Memo
12-03 Gaven, Eddie

85 6-04 Nunez, Ramon
13-03 Alvarez, Arturo
17-02 Capano, Craig

84 2-04 Marshall, Chad
4-03 Magee, Mike
4-02 Mapp, Justin
15-02 Stone, Jordan
8-01 Quaranta, Santino
19-01 Johnson, Eddie

83 5-04 Cochrane, Ryan
8-04 Dempsey, Clint
10-04 Cronin, Steve
14-04 Grabavoy, Ned
2-03 Clark, Ricardo
ND-03 Baumstark, Clint?
14-01 Barclay, Devin
67-01 Saavedra, Miguel
12-00 Convey, Bobby

82 7-04 Goodson, Clarence
13-04 Gardner, Josh
1-03 Eskandarian, Alecko
5-03 Stokes, David
20-03 Lewis, Ricky
ND-02 Akwari, Nelson
ND-01 Countess, D.J.
ND-99 Trembly, Seth
ND-99 Beckerman, Kyle
ND-99 Beasley, Damarcus

81 3-03 Jaqua, Nate
11-03 Carroll, Brian
15-03 Thompson, Jason
24-03 Pause, Logan
42-03 LeBlanc, Jacob
3-02 Davis, Brad
5-02 Gray, Kelly
8-02 Martino, Kyle
12-01 Burciaga, Jose
27-01 Buddle, Edson
27-01 Salas, Sergio
60-00 Cooks, Micah

80 1-01 Carrieri, Chris
21-01 Downing, Nick
6-00 Califf, Dan

79 11-01 Bardales, Isaias
2-00 Garcia, Nick
4-00 Bocanegra, Carlos
14-00 Pierce, Rusty
31-00 Asad, Shaker

[beineke]

With some help from ussoccer.com, this should be a full list. Prior to Bradenton, there wasn't much even-year P-40 talent ... this is probably because the U-20 and U-23 youth events both have odd-year cut-off dates.


Year Drafted Name
89 1-04 Adu, Freddy

87 36-04 Bradley, Michael

86 8-03 Gonzalez, Memo
12-03 Gaven, Eddie

85 6-04 Nunez, Ramon
13-03 Alvarez, Arturo
17-02 Capano, Craig

84 2-04 Marshall, Chad
4-03 Magee, Mike
4-02 Mapp, Justin
15-02 Stone, Jordan
8-01 Quaranta, Santino
19-01 Johnson, Eddie

83 5-04 Cochrane, Ryan
8-04 Dempsey, Clint
10-04 Cronin, Steve
14-04 Grabavoy, Ned
2-03 Clark, Ricardo
ND-03 Baumstark, Clint?
14-01 Barclay, Devin
67-01 Saavedra, Miguel
12-00 Convey, Bobby

82 7-04 Goodson, Clarence
13-04 Gardner, Josh
1-03 Eskandarian, Alecko
5-03 Stokes, David
20-03 Lewis, Ricky
ND-02 Akwari, Nelson
ND-01 Countess, D.J.
ND-99 Trembly, Seth
ND-99 Beckerman, Kyle
ND-99 Beasley, Damarcus

81 3-03 Jaqua, Nate
11-03 Carroll, Brian
15-03 Thompson, Jason
24-03 Pause, Logan
42-03 LeBlanc, Jacob
3-02 Davis, Brad
5-02 Gray, Kelly
8-02 Martino, Kyle
12-01 Burciaga, Jose
27-01 Buddle, Edson
27-01 Salas, Sergio
60-00 Cooks, Micah

80 1-01 Carrieri, Chris
21-01 Downing, Nick
6-00 Califf, Dan
ND Klinger, Martin
ND Longo, Mario

79 11-01 Bardales, Isaias
2-00 Garcia, Nick
4-00 Bocanegra, Carlos
14-00 Pierce, Rusty
31-00 Asad, Shaker
ND Albright, Chris
ND Beasley, Jamar
ND Da Silva, Nino
ND Gomez, Francisco
ND Howard, Tim
ND Quijano, Marvin
ND Rimando, Nick

78 ND Bower, Scott
Green, Michael
Quill, Eric
West, Brian

77 ND Abukusumo, Ubusuku
DiGiamarino, Joey
Dunseth, Brian
Kirk, Andy
Kovalenko, Dema
McCarty, Chad
Napoleon, Matt
Olsen, Ben
Otero, Antonio
Parra, Carlos
Rodriguez, Esmundo
Sahaydak, Tim
Sastoque, Juan
Vallow, Scott
Wolff, Josh

76 ND Botello, Jose
ND Cooks, Judah
ND Kozic, Alen
ND Nyman, Matt
ND Rocha, Maurizio
ND Swift, Barry
ND Vermillion, Scott

75 ND Daniv, Sergi

[ChrisE]

Great job, beineke, thanks a lot. What would be interesting to look at, I think, would be the players that could potentially have been P-40's but were overlooked because of this odd year bias (if possible).

On a different note, I'm interested in where and how different positions get drafted in the Superdraft. To begin with, here is how the various positions broke down, by year:


2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total Average
F 18 22 15 17 9 81 0.25
M 24 26 25 22 27 124 0.38
D 22 16 20 13 19 90 0.28
GK 6 7 4 6 5 28 0.09
Total 70 71 64 58 60 323


I don't think the various years are particularly important. Most interesting, here, is that forwards seem to be a little bit overrepresented, and defenders a little bit underrepresented (if you assume most teams play a 4-4-2 or a 3-5-2).

This may, however, simply be a result of the players being listed by their college positions, which would presumably be more offensively-oriented...

[ChrisE]

Now, positions broken down by round:


1 2 3 4 5 6
F 15 10 18 17 12 9
M 20 25 19 18 26 16
D 19 15 13 17 12 14
GK 2 6 6 4 2 8
Total 56 56 56 56 52 47


And broken down proportionally:


Round 1 2 3 4 5 6
F 0.27 0.18 0.32 0.30 0.23 0.19
M 0.36 0.45 0.34 0.32 0.50 0.34
D 0.34 0.27 0.23 0.30 0.23 0.30
GK 0.04 0.11 0.11 0.07 0.04 0.17



What I found most surprising here is the fact that there doesn't seem to be much of a bias by position. I would have suspected that the 'glamour' players, forwards and midfielders, would have been picked more often in early rounds, while defenders went heavily in the later rounds. This doesn't seem to be the case, though; forwards are picked slightly more often in later rounds than in earlier, defenders slightly more early than late, and midfielders very much constant. The only hard and fast rule seems to be don't pick goalies in the first round.

[ChrisE]

Unfortunately, any sort of analysis of the superdraft is seriously hampered by the fact that it's only existed for five years now, and we've only got four years worth of information from it. Nevertheless, I tried to come up with a little bit of an analysis based on what we've seen.

First, a lit of rookie minutes by position by round, from 2000 to 2003:


R. Minutes 1 2 3 4 5 6 Total
F 13028 5760 2219 1304 2323 0 24634
M 18245 10156 1711 2368 513 1719 34712
D 17540 8742 5921 4207 149 0 36559
GK 1146 1640 2561 90 0 0 5437


And Sophomore minutes, 2000-2002:


S minutes 1 2 3 4 5 6 Total
F 7458 2932 3258 422 3034 0 17104
M 15391 10818 2917 1948 28 0 31102
D 12787 6832 7090 2902 0 729 30340
GK 2018 2194 2480 938 0 0 7630


More useful are the minutes per draftee numbers, so first, rookie minutes/draftee, through 2003:


R m/ind. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Average
F 1086 576 139 82 211 0 342
M 1073 484 132 182 26 132 358
D 1096 795 493 324 17 0 515
GK 1146 410 512 23 0 0 236


And sophomore minutes per draftee:


S m/ind. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Average
F 932 367 272 35 303 0 311
M 1099 636 265 195 2 0 415
D 984 854 709 264 0 81 523
GK 2018 731 827 313 0 0 449


Not much to say here, really. Regardless of what position you play, you seem to get about the same amount of minutes if you're drafted in the first round. However, as you get further into the draft, especially into the 3rd and 4th rounds, defenders (and, to a lesser extent, goalkeepers) are getting a much larger proportion of minutes than are forwards and midfielders. So it seems, although my feelings about where players are getting drafted may have been wrong, they may have been informed by the fact that late-round defenders tend to do a good deal better than late-round attacking players.

[ChrisE]

Beineke brought up the fact that not a lot of P-40's in the early years were from even year numbers; the other side of this argument is that players born early in the year, particularly January and February, are advantaged in the P-40 setup and talent identification, etc. I thought I'd take a look to see how this bled over into college; I broke things down by month, but since those are extremely small samples, I'm just going to present this in quarters, by year:


2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total
1Q 0.333 0.279 0.381 0.224 0.183 0.282
2Q 0.242 0.230 0.190 0.276 0.300 0.247
3Q 0.227 0.246 0.222 0.276 0.250 0.244
4Q 0.197 0.246 0.206 0.224 0.267 0.227


And the totals, by month are:

1 0.107
2 0.084
3 0.091
4 0.078
5 0.075
6 0.094
7 0.094
8 0.084
9 0.065
10 0.104
11 0.062
12 0.062


Where expected would have been .0825. So, clearly, we're seeing a little bit of a bias here towards the first quarter, and a little bit of a disadvantage toward the last; I was a little bit surprised, because I thought that the fact that college runs on a fall to spring schedule would (thus breaking up previous age groups, e.g. 82's) get rid of the advantage. Nevertheless, this doesn't seem to be a serious problem when it comes to college age players.

Equally surprisingly, the P-40's drafted didn't exhibit any kind of earlier-birthdate trend. Dividided into quarters, they were:


Q # %
1 10 0.217
2 13 0.283
3 15 0.326
4 8 0.174

[beineke]

If we break the P-40's down by Bradenton alumni and others, we get:

Bradenton
Q1-6
Q2-5
Q3-5
Q4-2

Other
Q1-4
Q2-8
Q3-10
Q4-6

The Bradenton kids do seem to exhibit a bit of a trend. BTW, at least in some regions, club soccer uses an August 1 cutoff date. That may help to favor Q3 players. (I'd also be interested in seeing data split out for the players who join P-40 after their junior year in college.)

[ChrisE]

Dredging up another old thread, I thought, with the season approaching, it was time for some predictions. I don't purport to know how well any individual rookie is going to do, but I think it should be possible to discern some trends. There are some pretty clear trends that arise from the first four years of the superdraft. Among the simplest, first round picks play about twice as many minutes as second round picks, who play about twice as much as third round picks, down on the line.

In the four years of the draft, rookies have always accounted for under 10% of available league minutes, but above 5%. By year:


Year Av. Min Min. Proportion
2000 387215 36483 9.4
2001 318993 26098 8.2
2002 282540 17089 6.0
2003 306758 21672 7.1


The drop between 2001 and 2002 was almost certainly caused by contraction, but several sophomores got their first meaningful minutes in 2003, so I think we can expect a bit more recovery and rookies to play somewhere between 7 and 8% of available minutes this year. Since MLS has eliminated overtime, we can say that they'll play 7-8% of 30*90*10*11, or somewhere between 20790 and 23760 minutes.

Here's how minutes have been distributed by round (I readjusted 2002's rounds into groups of 10):


Round 2000 2001 2002 2003 Total
1 3.92 4.34 2.82 3.96 3.76
2 2.45 2.32 1.05 1.83 1.91
3 1.51 1.07 1.20 0.47 1.06
4 0.97 0.44 0.08 0.52 0.50
5 0.53 0.02 0.38 0.21 0.29
6 0.05 0.00 0.52 0.07 0.16
Total 9.42 8.18 6.05 7.06 7.68


If we take expect them to play 7.5% of minutes, using those distributions, that means we're looking at about 10903 minutes for 1st rounders, 5542 for 2nds, 3075 for 3rds, 1452 for 4ths, 834 for 5ths, and 466 for 6ths.

You obviously can't just average out those numbers to get individual expectations, but I'm going to do that anyway. In reverse order:

2 6th rounders, Jeff Parke and Chris Aloisi, made the opening day rosters.
4 5th rounders (Dombrowski, Pilarski, Detter, Sullivan) made it.
5 4th rounders (Clanton, Bradley, Gros, Sutton, Wagenfuhr)
3 3rd rounders (Maurin, Ara, Wells; White and Occean poached)
9 2nd rounders (Gregorio to Wigan)
10 1st rounders

I guess that's about it. I'd expect the high expectations for Wagenfuhr, Gros, Sutton, Dombrowski, Detter, and Parke are going to be at least largely unsatisfied, as in the last three years, all players from the 4th round onwards have totalled 6724 minutes, 2241 per season, although there should be more room than usual since the third round crop was terrible. If any of the late round picks are to succeed, I'd bet on Parke and Wagenfuhr continuing the tradition of late-round defenders doing disproportionately well.

[numerista]

Year Av. Min Min. Proportion
2000 387215 36483 9.4
2001 318993 26098 8.2
2002 282540 17089 6.0
2003 306758 21672 7.1


The drop between 2001 and 2002 was almost certainly caused by contraction, but several sophomores got their first meaningful minutes in 2003, so I think we can expect a bit more recovery and rookies to play somewhere between 7 and 8% of available minutes this year.

I think that both the drop in 2002 and the recovery in 2003 were caused by the large disparity in talent between the two classes. Both groups of players were entering a ten-team league, and IMO, the quality of established talent rose from 2002 to 2003, so it was even harder for a rookie to get minutes.

As for this season's draftees, I'm betting that they'll be well under 7% again. The number of openings in this league continues to get smaller.

Last season's draftees who debuted on opening day:
Starters (7): Clark, Magee, LeBlanc, Dunivant, Crawford, Schmidt, Pause
Sub appearances (3): Noonan, Ralph, Jaqua

Will any 2004 draftees start tomorrow? (Marshall would, but I think he's hurt.)

[ChrisE]

I think that both the drop in 2002 and the recovery in 2003 were caused by the large disparity in talent between the two classes. Both groups of players were entering a ten-team league, and IMO, the quality of established talent rose from 2002 to 2003, so it was even harder for a rookie to get minutes.

As for this season's draftees, I'm betting that they'll be well under 7% again. The number of openings in this league continues to get smaller.

Last season's draftees who debuted on opening day:
Starters (7): Clark, Magee, LeBlanc, Dunivant, Crawford, Schmidt, Pause
Sub appearances (3): Noonan, Ralph, Jaqua

Will any 2004 draftees start tomorrow? (Marshall would, but I think he's hurt.)

You make good points, beineke, you can't ignore the difference in talent between years (like I did), and looking at opening-day players is about the best way to do it we have. 8% is probably too ambitious, I admit (even when trying to be smart and statistical, I can't resist being overly optimistic about all the new talent). However, I think your point, that (possibly) no rookies will start doesn't really hold up. Last year's first and second best rookies didn't start. The starters you listed ended up ranked 2nd, 4th, 1st, 9th, 19th, and 6th in minutes; the subs were 5th, 3rd, and 12th (averages of 6.8 and 6.7, respectively). I'd say what's more important than playing on opening day is having the opportunity to get on the field at all.


I don't know who's starting Saturday, but I think you're a little pessimistic. Marshall will be starting when he gets back (which is really the point), Jeff Parke looks like a possibility for the Metrostars, some guy on the Metrostars board says Gary Sullivan (I believe) will be starting for Colorado, and a lot of D.C. fans think Josh Gros will be starting.

Likely subs include: Adu, Ngwenya, Taylor, and Dempsey, with others certainly as possibilities.

It's clearly not as good as last year (none of the starters are as promising as Clark was), but it's not a whole lot worse either.

[numerista]

I'd say what's more important than playing on opening day is having the opportunity to get on the field at all.

Thx for all the info ... something tells me you're going to have some powerhouse fantasy teams this year.

Anyway, I agree with the point above, though I'll be (pleasantly) surprised if close to 10 rookies do get onto the field tomorrow.

[ChrisE]

Thx for all the info ... something tells me you're going to have some powerhouse fantasy teams this year.

If Denny Clanton, Jamal Sutton, and Ty Maurin pull through for me, absolutely.

[ChrisE]

Last season's draftees who debuted on opening day:
Starters (7): Clark, Magee, LeBlanc, Dunivant, Crawford, Schmidt, Pause
Sub appearances (3): Noonan, Ralph, Jaqua

Will any 2004 draftees start tomorrow? (Marshall would, but I think he's hurt.)

Just for reference, numerista, I looked up who played on opening day in 2002; just six guys.


Gray, Kelly sub 15
Martino, Kyle sub 3
Twellman, T. sub 33
Forko, Sam start 90
Glinton, Gavin sub 2
Stewart, Jeff start 100


Using rookie minutes played for 2003 and 2002, there was a .46 correlation between minutes played total and minutes played opening day. I also tried a different tack: guys got a 1 if they played, a 0 if they didn't, and got a correlation of .62. I also tried giving players a 2 for starting, a 1 for coming on as a sub, and a 0 for not playing; correlation .55. You'll have to tell me if that means anything or not.

[numerista]

The 2004 draft doesn't look as thin on talent as the lacklustre 2002 crop, but the opening day presence was very similar...
Starters: Parke, Sullivan (both due to injury)
Subs: Dempsey, Gros, Sutton, and Adu

On the positive side, the class of 2003 continues to impress ...

-- High-quality goals from Noonan, Magee, and Eskandarian
-- Assists from Arturo Torres and Eddie Gaven (who looks ready for the national team)
-- MLS debuts for Carroll (started to good reviews), Stokes, and Ritch

In addition, David Testo started for Columbus, and his shot created Hejduk's rebound goal. Like Colorado starter Nat Borchers, he was undrafted last season.

There's a cliche that the new players get better every year, but in practice, it's very sporadic. (This holds true with NBA drafts, as well.)

[ChrisE]

The 2004 draft doesn't look as thin on talent as the lacklustre 2002 crop, but the opening day presence was very similar...
Starters: Parke, Sullivan (both due to injury)
Subs: Dempsey, Gros, Sutton, and Adu

On the positive side, the class of 2003 continues to impress ...

-- High-quality goals from Noonan, Magee, and Eskandarian
-- Assists from Arturo Torres and Eddie Gaven (who looks ready for the national team)
-- MLS debuts for Carroll (started to good reviews), Stokes, and Ritch

In addition, David Testo started for Columbus, and his shot created Hejduk's rebound goal. Like Colorado starter Nat Borchers, he was undrafted last season.

There's a cliche that the new players get better every year, but in practice, it's very sporadic. (This holds true with NBA drafts, as well.)

Yeah, last year's draft looked particularly good. Of the top 20 players selected, 10 started, and 4 others came on as subs.

As for this year's class, I don't think you can make that 'due to injury' caveat unless you want to count Chad Marshall (and possibly Ryan Cochrane or others). A little bit disappointing, but certainly not terrible (although I'll harbor a grudge against Bob Gansler for a while for not substituting a forward in a 0-0 tie). I think what's encouraging for this class is that of the six guys who played, only two were from the first two rounds. That at least implies to me that the problem may be guys not being able to break into the lineup, not a simple lack of talent.

(I think a significant factor in the difference in talent between last year and this might be the fact that MLS signed 13 P-40's last year, vs. 9 this year; specifically, in 2003 there were 8 juniors in the draft [in 2002 there was 1 sophomore], who would have been in 2004's draft otherwise.)

[numerista]

I think a significant factor in the difference in talent between last year and this might be the fact that MLS signed 13 P-40's last year, vs. 9 this year; specifically, in 2003 there were 8 juniors in the draft [in 2002 there was 1 sophomore], who would have been in 2004's draft otherwise.

Agreed. In addition, there were only 6 P-40's in 2002, because players like Dunivant, Noonan, and Walsh all turned MLS down. That trio added to the 2003 group. (Also turning down MLS in 2002 were Akwari, Countess, Yi, and Onyewu; although the first two joined the league later that season.)

Incidentally, I was surprised to count that the 2002 draft actually had 12 starters on Saturday, more than the 2003 crop. That list includes...
4 P-40's (Gray, Martino, Davis, and Mapp)
3 Players who went to Germany prior to MLS (Twellman, Gibbs, Joseph)
1 A-Leaguer (Jon Busch)
1 Player who had gone back to college for a year (Kante)
3 Development Players (Leitch, Arnaud, and Behncke)

That's a complete starting line-up of 2002 draftees, plus a sub, and none of them went through four years of college, then straight into an MLS playing rotation.

[ChrisE]

[QUOTE=numerista]
Incidentally, I was surprised to count that the 2002 draft actually had 12 starters on Saturday, more than the 2003 crop...QUOTE]

(That's a damned good team, actually.)

Yeah, that is surprising, but perhaps it shouldn't be. Here's minutes played (as a percent of total available minutes) by Superdraft year:


Filler 2000 2001 2002 2003
2000 9.422 10.819 11.355 10.548
2001 0.287 8.181 9.146 10.606
2002 0.000 0.000 6.048 8.418
2003 0.000 0.000 0.000 7.069


Although we don't exactly have a ton of data points, minutes have increased from year one to year two by an average of 22% . Meanwhile, minutes have increased from year 2 to year 3 by an average of 10%. That gives very rough predictions of 9.26 and 8.62. Those may be meaningless, but I think we probably ought to expect similar minutes from the classes of 2002 and 2003.

[ChrisE]

Update:


2002
Gray, Kelly sta
Mapp, Justin sub
Selolwane, Dipsy sub

2003
Jaqua, Nate sta
Ralph, Damani sta
Carroll, Brian sta
Eskandarian, Alecko sta
Torres, Arturo sta

2004
Griffin, Leonard sta
Gros, Josh sta
Adu, Freddy sub
Ngwenya, Joseph sub


Quite good for 2004.