Hoop Teens: From High School to NBA riches?

This is the third in a five-part series reviewing the NBA draft since 2005.

The 2007 NBA draft saw eight freshmen get selected, all in the first round. Six of the youngsters went in the lottery. Had the NBA not changed its age limit, most of these players could have been taken a year earlier, assuming they chose to turn pro directly from high school.

Greg Oden and Kevin Durant were certainly ready for the 2006 draft, let alone ’07 where they went 1-2 respectively. Oden fought through injuries to lead a young Ohio State team all the way to the NCAA championship game. Meanwhile at Texas, Durant terrorized Big 12 defenses  with scoring prowess  and maturity rarely seen in freshmen.

Greg Oden, left, and Kevin Durant went 1-2 in the 2007 NBA draft.

Joining Oden and Durant (AP photo) as one-and-dones in the ’07 draft were: No. 4 Mike Conley, No. 8 Brandan Wright, No. 10 Spencer Hawes, No. 12 Thaddeus Young, No. 19 Javaris Crittenton, and No. 21 Daequan Cook. Oden missed his entire rookie season with injury and battled knocks and inconsistency this past season. He still averaged close to 9 points and 7 rebounds a contest in just over 21 minutes a game. If he can avoid injuries, Oden will easily be a double-double machine and defensive enforcer in the NBA.

Meanwhile Durant has continued his prolific scoring at the pro level, averaging 25.3 this past season. Conley, Wright, Hawes, and Young are regular starters for their respective teams. Young has enjoyed the most success of that bunch with Conley and Hawes making strides and Wright dealing with injuries. Crittenton and Cook have been role players. Among sophomores taken in ’07, Rodney Stuckey (No. 15) and Wilson Chandler (No. 23) have had decent success.

Here are the number of selections in the ‘07 draft based on experience (first-round total in parenthesis):

- Freshmen: 8 (8)
- Sophomores: 5 (3)
- Juniors: 14 (8)
- Seniors: 20 (6)
- Foreigners: 13 (5)

Nearly 22% of the 2007 draft was comprised of underclassmen, which are sophomores or lower under my classification purposes. This means the percentage of underclassmen taken in both ’06 (18%) and ’07 was lower than the 28% taken in ’05, the last year high school players were allowed in. However, eight of the 30 first-round picks in ’07 were one-and-dones as opposed to ’05 which saw three preps and just one freshman go in the first round. This either means there was more young talent in ’07 or a lesser-talented pool of players.