The NBA draft is just around the corner. The league's scouts and general managers have more hours of tape and more measurements of standing vertical leaps than they know what to do with. Mock drafts are coalescing around consensus themes. Players are rising (Will Barton) and falling (Jared Sullinger) faster than ever. The word "potential" -- the holy grail to NBA GMs' Pythonian Knights -- is beginning to lose all meaning. And we college basketball fans are sitting around wondering why Meyers Leonard is a projected lottery pick and Draymond Green is not.
You know what that means: It's time for the third annual edition of the College Basketball Production-Only Mock Draft, or CBPOMD or, as I've stubbornly taken to calling it, "the Seebpomd." Three years on, that horrific nickname still doesn't roll off the tongue. But it's too late to rebrand now.
What is the Seebpomd? It's this college basketball writer's look at the NBA draft from an entirely potential-free perspective. Don't get the Seebpomd wrong: I understand why NBA scouts value potential. Production at the college level doesn't automatically translate to the pros; height, leaping ability and length often do. So this feature is less a criticism of the NBA than a look back at the college careers of this current NBA draft class, and where those players would rank if we were drafting based purely on how well those players produced during their time in the college ranks. Consider it a final farewell to the players who have defined our sport, before they move on to bigger, better, significantly more difficult careers.
We've established a few rules since we started this thing, which are as follows:
1. Production-only means production-only. Potential doesn't matter here. This is about the past, not the future.
2. To simplify the parameters, players are judged based on 2011-12 production first, with an emphasis on individual production as measured by Ken Pomeroy's efficiency metrics. That said, particularly impressive long-term careers are considered, as are team success, national titles and the like. One-and-dones are rare on this list, but some are so good in their one season they can't possibly be left off the list.
3. This includes only players currently in the 2012 draft pool. Players who stayed in school another year put their NBA dreams on hold, and with them, their chances of inclusion in the CBPOMD. I'm sure they're devastated.
4. Try not to take this too seriously. Cool? Cool.
The top player in the 2012 College Basketball Production-Only Mock Draft couldn't be more obvious. The rest of the rankings -- and some omissions -- may surprise you. Without further ado ...
Click for the rest of this story breaking down the NBA draft.