Whether to apply for the NBA draft or continue one more year of college basketball eligibility is an important question. A move to stay in college is becoming less and less popular. I wish to further explore the decision of a player to continue their collegiate eligibility. I have collected multivariate data from all division-one players eligible for the 2001 NBA draft. This database includes potential draft predictors for all college seniors and any early entry candidates. Using logistic regression and principal components, I came up with ten different models, choosing three in the end. With these three models I performed cross-validation to calculate the probability a player is to be drafted (their "bling" number). These "bling" numbers will allow athletes a statistical evaluation of their draft likelihood.
I will show the results of this work on the 2001 NBA draft, comparing the accuracy of my models against the actual outcome. I case-study individual players, who might have improved their draft position by staying in school. Finally, I will look ahead to ranking current players based on my prediction of the 2002 draft using the 2001 model. We also predict the NFL.
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