2024 NBA Draft: The Productive Sophomore Query

Around 70% of college basketball players who meet four specific criteria play five or more years in the NBA or are currently there. Who are the current players that qualify?

Purdue Boilermakers center Zach Edey (15) reaches in on Connecticut Huskies center Donovan Clingan / Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY

The 2024 NBA Draft is less than two months away. Everyone wants to find a diamond in the rough or feel more certain about the top players in the draft class.

In order to do this, it has become increasingly popular to design statistical queries to identify NBA talent. While I updated an article to review the players who are currently meeting the threshold for my Productive Young Athlete query last month, which has a "stick" rate of 78%, the Productive Sophomore Query applies similar criteria to sophomores instead of freshmen.

Introduction

Before we dive into the statistical analysis, it’s important to define what “stick” means in my study. In this case, I considered a prospect to “stick” if they played five-plus seasons in the NBA. Prospects who qualified during the 2019-20 NCAA season met the criteria of “sticking” if they are still in the league, due to the impossibility of them reaching five NBA seasons.

There were 47 sophomores throughout the 11 college basketball seasons from 2010-2020 who played at least 40% of their team's minutes, had a Box Plus-Minus of at least +9, and met the minimum athletic threshold of four total dunks. 70.21% (33/47) of those sophomores played five-plus years in the NBA or are currently in the NBA.

The purpose of this query is to find players who are still underclassmen (but not freshmen) that are being trusted to play almost a majority of their team's minutes, meet a certain production threshold, and also meet a minimum athletic threshold throughout the season.

Which Players Have "Stuck" in the Past?

Below are the players who met the Productive Sophomore Query from 2010-2020 and ended up "sticking" in the NBA:

2010: Draymond Green

2011: Derrick Williams

2012: Will Barton, Terrence Jones, Dion Waiters, and Jared Sullinger

2013: Cody Zeller, Trey Burke, Kenatvious Caldwell-Pope, and Otto Porter

2014: Gary Harris, Kyle Anderson, TJ Warren, Marcus Smart, and Willie Cauley-Stein

2015: Josh Hart and Kris Dunn

2016: Jakob Poeltl

2017: John Collins, Donovan Mitchell, and Mikal Bridges

2018: Armoni Brooks and Robert Williams

2019: Bruno Fernando, De'Andre Hunter, Ja Morant, PJ Washington, Chuma Okeke, and Xavier Tillman

2020: Devin Vassell, Tyrese Haliburton, Jalen Smith, and Obi Toppin

Who met the criteria from the 2021-2023 seasons that we should keep our eyes on?

Two players met the crtieria in 2021: Franz Wagner and Drew Timme. This past season, after a dominant college career, Timme played in 12 games for the Wisconsin Herd. Wagner is an up-and-coming star helping the Orlando Magic compete in a difficult first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

An incredible nine players qualified for the Productive Sophomore Query in 2022. Those players were Christian Koloko, Hunter Dickinson, Ryan Kalkbrenner, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Mark Williams, Zach Edey, Walker Kessler, Tari Eason, and Keegan Murray. Jackson-Davis, Williams, Kessler, Eason, and Murray have all solidified themselves as standout players on their respective rosters.

Koloko started 19 games and appeared in 58 games for the Raptors in the 2022-23 season. Sadly, back in January, it was reported that Koloko had been dealing with a career-threatening respiratory illness and blood clots.

Dickinson and Kalkbrenner, after both having productive college seasons, recently decided that they would be returning back to Kansas and Creighton, respectively. Lastly, Edey won the Naismith award for the second year in a row and led the Purdue Boilermakers to the championship game. He's currently in the middle of the second round on my unofficial big board for the 2024 NBA Draft.

Only one player hit the Productive Sophomore Query in 2023: Brandin Podziemski. The 6-foot-5 guard was a key part of the Warriors' rotation this season, starting 28 games and averaging 26.6 minutes per game.

Who qualified in the 2024 season?

Two players qualified in the 2024 season: Kyle Filipowski and Donovan Clingan.

Filipowski offers interesting versatility for his size, as he converted 36.4% of his catch-and-shoot threes (99 attempts) as a 7-footer. He can also put the ball on the floor and is a fluid driver, giving him a high probability of fulfilling the coveted dribble-pass-shoot archetype at the next level. While he wasn't utilized in this way many times at Duke, Filipowski could be an intriguing player in the short roll -- which would combine some of his passing, driving, and touch around the rim (when not bothered by length). Defensively, Filipowski could project to be a Mobile Big in the NBA. While he would likely need to continue improving his lateral quickness and foot speed to have the same impact at the NBA level as he does at Duke, he's shown potential containing drivers, switching, and executing show coverage at times. He's likely to end up in my middle-late first round of my big board.

Check out a full scouting report on Filipowski's offense here and a full scouting report on his defense here.

Clingan is a projected top-ten pick in the 2024 NBA Draft and helped lead the Connecticut Huskies to their second straight championship. The 7-foot-2, 265 pound big man averaged 13 points, seven rebounds, 1.5 assists (13.5 assist percentage), 0.5 steals (1.4 steal percentage), and 2.5 blocks (11.4 block percentage) per game this season. He showed potential in the pick-and-roll and as a dribble-handoff hub, as he's capable of setting solid screens, has some passing skills, and converted 70% of his attempts at the rim this season. Defensively, he's capable in drop coverage and as a rim protector -- showing enough foot speed to go along with his 7-foot-7 wingspan. Clingan is a projected top-ten pick, and rightfully so.

Players who hit the Productive Sophomore Query that are still in college: Hunter Dickinson and Ryan Kalkbrenner

Players in this draft class who have hit the Productive Sophomore Query in the past: Zach Edey, Kyle Filipowski, and Donovan Clingan

Conclusion: Why is this Useful?

The Productive Sophomore Query is best used when attempting to identify talent or when weighing the potential risks of drafting a player.

For example, if a college basketball player meets the four criteria during the season, then the player may be worth looking into. Similarly, if you're considering a player with a second round pick (or even a first round pick in Filipowski and Clingan's case) who's met the Productive Sophomore Query, it may be a sense of comfort that 70% of players to hit the same criteria play five-plus seasons in the NBA.

This is especially important to take into account when you realize only 27% of second round picks from the 1990-2017 NBA Drafts ended up playing at least five NBA seasons with a career 10-24 minutes per game or over 4000 career NBA minutes. Regardless, thePYA query should be used in conjunction with film, other key statistics, intangibles and medical information when evaluating a prospect.

Regardless, the PSQ query should be used in conjunction with film, other key statistics, intangibles and medical information when evaluating a prospect.

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