Today was a big day for recruit signing. The biggest prize was Harrison Barnes, the 6'8" player with guard talent, rated by many to be the top recruit in the nation. The biggest winner of the day was North Carolina. No surprise then that Barnes was one of the UNC signings.
Personally, I find these signing days and the recruiting rankings overrated. And it's not just because the ceremonies are ridiculous (that Harrison Barnes announcement was one of the most ridiculous anyone can remember), but just because nobody really knows anything.
First of all, in general, these recruiting rankings are notoriously inaccurate. And for obvious reasons: it's hard enough for NBA teams, with gigantic scouting staffs and huge budgets, to scout just the few dozen players that they are considering in the NBA Draft. And we all know about the Darko Millicic and Michael Olowokandi picks that still come out. Yet we all believe that companies like Scouts, Inc, with much smaller budgets, can somehow accurately rate thousands of players from around the nation, on thousands of different teams, with very few games on television?
As an example, I went and pulled up the 2002 rankings from Rivals.com, the oldest rankings that I could pull up. I'm not picking on Rivals.com - they're no less or more accurate than the other services. Anyway, the list is here. Lebron James is #1, so that was a good pick... but considering that he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the title "The Chosen One" as a High School junior, I think my mother could have picked that one. Chris Paul? He's 14th. Aaron Brooks? 34th. Renaldo Balkman? 92nd. Paul Millsap? 130th.
So who were the excellent players that were rated ahead of NBA stars like Paul and Brooks? Ndubi Ebi was 4th (don't know who that is? Click here). James Lang was 8th, Olu Famutimi was 16th... I can go on.
More importantly, coaches need to pick players that fit their system. If you run a zone defense, you need to recruit kids who can play a zone. If you run an up-tempo offense, there's no point in signing a 7-foot plodding center, no matter how good he is. If your school has strong academics, you can't take kids with horrendous grades. If you think a kid will mess up the team chemistry, you can't recruit him either.
So while recruiting is the lifeblood of a team, and cannot be underrated, the recruiting ratings tell us almost nothing. A lot of ink will be wasted on whether UNC has a better recruiting class than Ohio State, another school with a really good 2010 class. But the reality is that it doesn't matter - in the end we'll learn on the court whether the kids that UNC is bringing in will contribute more than the kids that Ohio State is bringing in.
As time goes on I'll spend time analyzing these recruiting classes to try to make a judgment on how much each team's recruiting class will contribute next season, thinking about how the new kids will mesh with whatever talent will be back. But for the time being, I care more about the 126 games being played today involving at least one Division I team, which actually mean something tangible.
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1 comment:
Spoken like a true hater. Don't try to act like if your team had signed Mr. Barnes that you wouldn't have been overwhelmed with happiness.
I do agree, lets wait and see just how good the young man turns out to be, but where your wrong is with recruiting. Basketball unlike football gives us an oppurtunity to see these kids play a lot and against other kids that are just as good. The scouts that tout these kids for Rivals and the other recruiting gurus know what they're talking about because they have seen them play. Sure some kids are a bust, but lets remember that they are just youngsters and we all know what that's like.
More to the point is that I believe in coach Williams' ability to evaluate and recruit talent. You have to get the right kids for your team and I believe that he did and does every year. Go Heels!
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