NBA

2017 NBA Mock Draft: Who Each Lottery Team Should Pick

Brett Oswalt  —  @bRo14thekid May 18th, 2017
Many NBA Draft experts believe Lonzo Ball should end up with the Los Angeles Lakers. The numbers disagree.

Regardless of the sport in question, all mock drafts take into account team need, player skill set, and the personal bias of the mock drafter.

Our mock draft? Not so much.

In our first mock NBA draft of the season, we're going to let advanced statistics and analytics make the majority of the decisions for the winners (and losers) of the NBA Draft Lottery. That way, if such-and-such a franchise drafts a stiff similar to LaRue Martin based on our suggestion, we can say, "Not our fault, man. Blame the digits."

The digits in question are coming from 82games' positional production, net differences according to player efficiency rating (PER), and our very own nERD metric -- a player ranking that measures a player's total contributions, based on efficiency, and provides an estimate of how many games a team would be above or below .500 with that player as one of its starters. Finally, we'll bring in a sprinkle of the human scouting element, loosely referencing DraftExpress' top 100 prospects when necessary.

And now, let's mock!

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