Richard__Lee said:
Usually, 5 star recruits work out well and have an immediate-to-eventual positive impact. Not always. But I'll always take a 5 star talent who is a virtual guarantee to be a star over a marginal talent who one hopes to maybe one day develop into a contributor.
Respectfully, I disagree that 5-star recruits "usually work out well and have an immediate-to-eventual positive impact." About two years ago in this Bear Insider Forum, I published a spreadsheet which tracked the careers of the top ranked 100 players of the 2009 recruiting class, through college and professional leagues. I posted it here again a year or so later. What I tracked was their individual performance in college, and whether they helped their teams to any successful seasons.
You wrote about positive impact, and I assume you meant an impact on his team, that is helped his team to some team success. At least that is what positive impact would mean to me. A player can come in as a freshman and make a big splash in the media with his athleticism and individual statistics and talents, but if it doesn't translate into his team being successful then, I don't consider that a positive impact. Landing Ivan Rabb and Jaylen Brown did very little to add enough prestige to the Cal Basketball program to translate into continued sustained recruiting success in the following two years, IMHO.
My criteria for a player's contribution, and for a team's success were minimal. To be a contributor to team success, I said the player had to be in the rotation. To be a successful team, I said the team would have to achieve one of the following: win their conference championship, or reach the 3rd round of the NCAA tournament, or reach the NIT Final.
For 2009, what I found was only 10 of the 20 top ranked players helped their teams to become successful over their full college careers, and 17 of the top 30 ranked players helped their teams. That should include most or all of your 5-star recruits. For the top 100 ranked players, only 40 helped their teams to the success I described above. The spreadsheet shows that recruit rankings were only about 50% accurate for the top 50 players of 2009, and only 30% accurate for players ranked 51-100.
In 2009, there were 11 one-and-done players, and only 4 helped their teams to success: John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and Eric Bledsoe who helped Kentucky to the SEC title and the Elite 8, and Xavier Henry who helped Kansas to the Big 12 championship. Other years might have been better (or worse) for the experts who rank recruits, but that was it for 2009. They say if you can predict winners 51% of the time you will win your bets, and if this spreadsheet is correct, that would indicate that recruiting 5-star recruits to your program is a winning proposition for you just over 50% of the time. As to them predicting your team with a 5-star OAD getting to the Final Four or winning the NCAA, the accuracy would be much lower. With supposedly the very best recruits, the OADs, your chance of winning your bets would be only 36%.
I don't believe in recruiting players who are thinking of when they will leave Cal even before they sign with Cal. Such a player if he becomes a focus of the team's offense or defense will completely disrupt the team when he leaves, just as though he is a senior starter, with the exception that you usually can't fully prepare for replacing him. And he might very well disrupt your team while he is on it, by hogging the ball or immature behavior. Ivan Rabb did neither and was an ideal OAD, but his Cal teams had no success. These possible OADs are not going to help you for more than a season or two. They will do their maturing and reach what would have been their college peak year in the D-League or on the bench of an NBA team. Haven't we seen enough of them at Cal? Yes, they have individual talents, but their teams have accomplished next to nothing. Not to mention the time and the risk that some coaches and programs will take to land a star player. In 2009, Kentucky had to land three of them to be successful. Cuonzo landed two of them and had no success even as defined by my minimal standards. Why do any of this for a player who has only a 50% chance at best of helping your team?