The 2003 draft

Forty-three men in the file have a 2003 pick. Four of them peak at 79 or better, and they were taken 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th. The 2nd pick is the one the rating refuses to rescue.

The first five, as the file has them

• LeBron James, pick 1, Cleveland, forward. Rookie rating 70. Peak 90 in 2011. The file has 23 rated seasons for him, which is long enough that almost any run you start in 2003 is still inside his career. A one-season run gets a 70, which is already a high rookie number. A ten-year run includes the 90. You do not need a secret to like the first name. You need a roster spot and a plan for everyone else.
• Darko Miličić, pick 2, Detroit, centre. Rookie rating 33. Peak 59 in 2006. A 33 is a poor season on this scale. The peak, 59, is a WEAK team number if it were a team, and it is the best year the file has for him. Nothing later in the data turns the second pick into a star. This is the opposite of Stockton in 1984. The low number is the truth, not a disguise.
• Carmelo Anthony, pick 3, Denver, forward. Rookie 70, the same rookie band as LeBron. Peak 80 in 2012. A five-year run ends in 2007-08, before that peak, with a player who was already a 70 on the way in.
• Chris Bosh, pick 4, Toronto. Rookie 59, peak 79 in 2009. The rookie year is ordinary-plus. The peak lands in year six, so a five-season run that starts in 2003 includes 2007-08 and stops short of 2009-10. Count the seasons before you draft the peak.
• Dwyane Wade, pick 5, Miami, guard. Rookie 66, peak 87 in 2008. Among players who were not taken first, that 87 is the highest peak in the class. It is not inside a five-year run. Five seasons from 2003 are 2003-04 through 2007-08, and the peak is the next year. A ten-year run includes it. Passing on him to repeat the real draft is passing on the best peak after LeBron, and you only bank that peak if the run is long enough.

After the names everyone knows

David West, pick 18, New Orleans, peaks at 70 in 2007. Chris Kaman, pick 6, is stored against LAC, the file's label for one of the two Los Angeles clubs, and peaks at 68 in 2007. T. J. Ford, pick 8 to Milwaukee, peaks at 68. Kirk Hinrich, pick 7 to Chicago, peaks at 67. Luke Ridnour, pick 14 to Seattle, peaks at 66 in 2009. These are useful players in the file. None of them is a reason to take the second pick.

Nick Collison, pick 12 to Seattle, has no 2003 rating. His first number is 54 in 2004, and his peak is 60 in 2007. He is on the 2003 board because of the draft-year exception, at that later 54, and then he is away until the file has a real season. Zaza Pachulia is in the class with a peak of 62, and the file does not store a drafting club for him. This page will not invent one.

What you should do with it

2003 is a kinder board than 1984 or 1996 if you only read rookie ratings, and a harsher one if you trust pick order. LeBron and Carmelo both enter at 70. Wade enters at 66 and has the higher peak of the three after LeBron. Bosh's case depends on the length. Miličić's case does not. A rival club can see the 33. It does not need the future to avoid him, and neither do you.

The grade is still against the club you took, not against a fantasy of collecting all four peaks. Cleveland's real record over a long run that includes the peak years is a high bar. Taking LeBron onto a different club does not copy Cleveland's real titles onto your grade. It copies the player onto your list, and then the simulation plays. Titles you actually win are what move the letter. The method is on the ratings page.

A run from 2003 can be five, ten, fifteen or twenty seasons. Twenty ends in 2022-23, inside the file. The roster limit flips from twelve to fifteen in 2005, two years in. From 2005 you can carry a deeper list, and you will be glad of it if the first summer already filled twelve spots with names you could not stand to cut. 2018 is the late version of this problem: a famous class, and not enough seasons left to play all of it.