With the draft a day away there is a lot of run back and forth on this site about the Cavs trading up for Beal, staying pat and taking him if he falls or if he should be taken at all with the 4th pick. In general I'm against trading up for the #2 pick but I will also present my case against Beal below the jump.

There are two parts for the case against Beal.

Part 1: College Production

This has all been posted in the comments of various other posts but I would like to tie it all together. Beal's college production is really mediocre for a top 5 pick. While many laud his pure shooting form his results from college don't match. The top 5 3 pt shooters from last season (excepting Ilyasova who didn't play college ball in the US) in the NBA combined for 15 seasons of college ball. Only one of those seasons ended with a sub 35% 3 pt % and only 3 ended with a sub 40%. A comparison of FT% shows a similar pattern. 10 out of those 15 seasons were higher than Beal's 77% from the line. In terms of total college production (%s, rebounds, assists, total points) Beal looks a lot more similar to Mike Miller or Brandon Rush than to Ray Allen or Stephen Curry.

Part 2: Overall value of shooters.

Reggie Miller and Ray Allen are widely recognized as two of the best, if not the two best, perimeter shooters in NBA history. I have heard no one suggest that Beal's ceiling could be higher than Allen's, let alone Miller's, NBA production. In terms of attempts to rank the relative value of players while on the court I favor WS/48 as one of the best metrics available. In terms of career WS/48 Ray Allen shows up at #76 behind many lesser heralded players like Andre Kirienko (71) and Shawn Marion (67). This is not a function of Allen playing longer than them as Allen's production the past 4 years has been slightly higher than his career average in WS/48.

This is not an argument that AK47 or the Matrix are better/should be drafted over Allen (though they do both have better nicknames) but that the relative value of shooters who add little else in terms of Reb, Ast and Def are frequently a lot closer than they appear.

Reggie Miller clocks in on this all time list at number 46. Not to shabby at all and a clear cut 1st ballot HOFer. But this represents the absolute peak of pure shooters in the modern era in the NBA and a position I, and most, feel Beal has no real shot at attaining. The list of the most valuable players in the NBA is dominated by big men, two way players and players who attacked the rim with only a very few pure shooters mixed in and those guys don't end up that high.

I strongly prefer MKG as his ceiling as a Shawn Marion type of player is very close to that in value of Beal's ceiling of Ray Allen with both (imo) a larger chance of getting there and a higher floor to boot.