Last year, I Introduced the "Never Heard of Him" theory for NBA Draft Early Entrants. Here are last year's results. I know it's far too small a sample set, but I'm going to draw some premature conclusions from that data. As you can see, players taken in the first round on average were familiar to just over 50% of the people participating. Players in the second round were familiar to 25% of the people participating.
Last year we had four people participate. This year it's seven. Now I'll draw on two of my favorite sources - fuzzy math and a sportswriter's ability to make predictions based on far too little input data - to make these bold predictions for the 2006 NBA Draft.
Full coverage of this year's "Never Heard of Him" results will come some time after Tuesday's draft.
"With the first pick in the 2006 NBA draft, the Toronto Raptors select..." 7/7
Adam Morrison Gonzaga
Lottery Picks 6/7
Josh Boone UConn
Rudy Gay UConn
Aaron Gray* Pitt
Kyle Lowry Villanova
Mustafa Shakur* Arizona
PJ Tucker Texas
Marcus Williams UConn
First Rounders 5/7
LaMarcus Aldridge Texas
Quicy Douby Rutgers
Jordan Farmar UCLA
Shawne Williams Memphis
Late First/Early Second Round 4/7
Arron Afflalo* UCLA
Nick Fazekas* Nevada
Thomas Gardner Missouri
Rajon Rondo Kentucky
Tyrus Thomas LSU
Second Rounders 3/7
Shannon Brown Michigan St
Cem Dinc* Indiana
Daniel Gibson Texas
Ekene Ibekwe* Maryland
Patrick O'Bryant Bradley
Curtis Stinson Iowa St
Contenders for Mr. Irrelevant 2/7
Will Blalock Iowa St
Guillermo Diaz U of Miami
Mike Efevberha Cal St Northridge
Marcus Slaughter San Diego St
Ian Vouyoukas* St Louis
Darius Washington, Jr. Memphis
Mr. Agent, the NBDL is on Line 1 1/7
Renaldo Balkman South Carolina
Ronnie Brewer Arkansas
Carl Elliot* George Washington
Brandon Heath* San Diego St
Trey Johnson* Jackson St
Danilo (JR) Pinnock George Washington
Black Schilb* Loyola (IL)
Cedric Simmons NC St
Andrea Bargnani Benetton Treviso (Italy)
Sun Yue* Beijing Aoshen Olympians (ABA)
Everyone else should have taken a hint from these guys, who went 0/7 and withdrew.
Akbar Abdul-Ahad Idaho St
Morris Almond Rice
Larry Blair Liberty
Jahsha Bluntt Delaware St
Bobby Brown Cal State Fullerton
Derek Burditt Blinn College (TX)
LeRoy Dawson Emporia State (KS)
Travis DeGroot Delta St
Reggie George Robert Morris College (IL)
LeShawn Hammett St. Francis (PA)
Tedric Hill Gulf Coast CC (FL)
Clarence Holloway IMG Academy (FL)
Donald Jeffes Roxbury CC (MA)
Alexander Johnson Florida St
David Johnson Clinton JC (SC)
Coby Karl Boise St
Mark Konecny Lambuth University (TN)
Aleks Maric Nebraska
Japhet McNeil East Carolina
Paul Millsap La Tech
Matt Mitchell Southern University-New Orleans
Evan Patterson Texas Wesleyan
Leon Powe Cal
Richard Roby Colorado
Jontae Vinson Cal St Los Angeles
Albert Weber Connors St
Andriy Agafonov Khimik (Ukraine)
Nemanja Aleksandrov FMP Zeleznik (Serb. & Mont.)
Pape-Philippe Amagou Le Mans (France)
Yannick Bokolo Le Mans (France)
Carlos Cedeno Guaiqueries (Venezuela)
Tadija Dragicevic Crvena Zvezda (Serb. & Mont.)
Lior Eliyahu Hapoel Galil Elyon (Israel)
Rudy Fernandez DKV Joventut (Spain)
Kyrylo Fesenko Mariupol (Ukraine)
Rafael Hettsheimeier Akasvayu Vic (Spain)
Marko Lekic Atlas (Serbia-Montenegro)
Damir Markota Cibona (Croatia)
Mickael Mokongo Chalon (France)
Brad Newley Townsville (Australia)
Oleksiy Pecherov Paris Basket Racing
Hrvoje Peric Split (Croatia)
Kosta Perovic Partizan (Serbia & Mont.)
Giorgos Printezis Olympiacos (Greece)
Milovan Rakovic Atlas (Serbia-Montenegro)
Aleksandar Rindin Gala Baku (Azerbaijan)
Sergio Rodriguez Adecco Estudiantes (Spain)
Dusan Sakota Panathinaikos (Greece)
Renaldas Seibutis Olympiacos (Greece)
Saer Sene Verviers-Pepinster (Belgium)
Sidiki Sidibe Levallois (France)
Tiago Splitter Tau Ceramica (Spain)
Ali Traore Roanne (France)
Ejike Ugboaja Union Bank Lagos (Nigeria)
