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What happens to the McDonald's All-Americans?

0 HS
Ye's picture
February 24, 2015 at 3:46am
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Recent Amir related threads prompted me to do a search on the success rate of McDonald's All-Americans at the next level. Here are some numbers.

Part 1: http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=1669

Part 2: http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=1693

Excerpt from part 1:

Since the first McDonald's team was selected in 1977, 767 players have been chosen as the cream of the HS basketball crop for their senior season, and 363 (47.3%) have been picked in the NBA draft. Of course, that's a misleading rate -- obviously the class of 2008 (much less 2009) couldn't have been drafted yet because of the NBA's age restrictions, so let's limit the sample to McDAA's between 1977 and 2004, giving all players 4 years to get drafted (although, oddly enough, no one from the class of 2004 was drafted in 2008).

When we do that, the success rate changes to 332/647, or 51.3%; of that 647-player sample, 238 were drafted in the first round, which represents just 36.8% of the All-Americans. I don't know if that sounds particularly low to you, but the closest analogue I could think of in another sport was the MLB draft: similar to the NBA, the most talented players are identified at age 17/18, but have to make it through various checkpoints over the next handful of years before playing in the Show. 55% of MLB 1st- and 2nd-round draft choices (essentially the baseball equivalent of McDonald's All-Americans) eventually make it to the majors; likewise, 53% of McDAAs eventually play at least 1 NBA game. So basketball certainly isn't alone in its success rate.

Give the kid a break.

Go Bucks!

 

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