How analytics turned Allen Graves from mid-major unknown into a potential first-round pick – The Athletic
For one NBA scout who saw Santa Clara this season, Allen Graves didn’t look like a prospect on the radar for the 2026 NBA Draft. He was aware of Graves, but the forward’s game didn’t excite him.
But the analytics staff for this scout’s team raved about Graves, which prompted the scout to take a second look.
“I came around to agree with our analytics people,” said the scout, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to publicly discuss team matters. “I don’t feel about it the way they do, but he’s better than I thought he was initially, and that’s a place where analytics and the intuitive eye work together.”
Graves started this season as an unknown big man coming off the bench at Santa Clara. He redshirted his first season in the program and was an unranked recruit despite being the Louisiana Player of the Year as a high school senior. He started only four games at Santa Clara, a mid-major program in the West Coast Conference. His primary stats didn’t stand out, either: 11.8 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game.
How the numbers helped Allen Graves become an NBA Draft prospect
Matthew Ho
But Graves is a projected first-round pick in Tuesday’s NBA Draft and could go as high as the top 20 — a rise that one NBA analytics staffer said is an example of analytics’ growing influence on decision-making.
“Maybe a few years ago, if Graves shows up, he likely wouldn’t have been getting the same push,” said the staffer, granted anonymity in exchange for their candor.
The deeper you looked into Graves’ numbers at Santa Clara, the more remarkable they became. Graves averaged 0.9 blocks and 1.9 steals in just 22 minutes per game. Of his 6.5 rebounds, 2.8 were offensive boards, and he had a 2.5 assist-to-turnover ratio. He also shot 41.3 percent from 3 on 2.6 attempts per game.
Per 40 minutes, Graves averaged 4.9 offensive rebounds, 3.4 steals, 1.7 blocks and just 1.3 turnovers.
Add in Graves’ age (19 years old), and his production was even more impressive.
“For a player of his position and age, he grades historically in disruption, steals, blocks,” said the analytics staffer. “He rebounds extremely well and passes the ball really well, all meeting pretty special thresholds. For someone of his age, it just has not really been seen outside players that go on to be really great in the league.”
Last season, Santa Clara emphasized winning the possession game, which meant forcing turnovers, getting offensive rebounds and limiting turnovers, all areas in which Graves thrived.
The team had an internal stat called “rat points,” which graded a player on how much they made an impact on the possession game, including box outs, deflections, steals and rebounds.
“I call him the GOAT of (rat points),” Santa Clara director of operations Alan Guillou said. “I think it’s going to be hard for anyone to come close.”
Allen Graves thrived at creating turnovers on defense. (Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
When he was on the floor, Graves gave his team more scoring chances by creating turnovers on defense and reducing them on offense.
“That’s a big deal. What we’ve seen with the top teams in the league is that they figure out ways to get more opportunities to score the basketball than the other team, and that’s a major reason for success,” the analytics staffer said.
Graves slowly gained attention throughout the season, as a handful of analytics-minded observers on social media discovered him.
Avinash Chauhan, the director of analytics for the NBA G League’s Mexico City Capitanes, was among the early voices pushing Graves as a prospect. Chauhan wrote about Graves on his Substack, making the case for him as a sleeper.
“Everyone’s tapped in with points per game, especially in a reasonably sized conference like the WCC,” Chauhan said. “It was really the fact that he did everything from a hustle standpoint and just from a cognition standpoint. … Those are two of the best indications for sleepers. Those are two things that people consistently find in (draft) models that have very high signal.”
Graves heard the buzz around his analytical profile.
“That’s how I play, so I didn’t really focus too much on it because the more I focused on it, that’s when it started going down,” Graves said. “I was just like, ‘Let me play my game and stop focusing on outside things’ because that’s how I played my whole life.”
When told about Graves’ approach to analytics, the analytics staffer agreed it should stay behind the scenes: “You don’t want players to be actively thinking about numbers and how to optimize themselves. You just want them to go out and play.”
Doing the dirty work has always come naturally to Graves. His dad instilled in him and his siblings that the most important thing was winning, not scoring.
“He was like, ‘If you can’t win, then you don’t need to be playing the sport,” Graves said. “So, it’s just whatever you have to do in order to win, whether you go score or whether you gotta create for your teammates or whether you make the hustle plays.”
Graves credited football — his first love — with helping him develop his overall floor game. He played quarterback and was a “very slow wide receiver.” He processed the game, understood angles to make up for his lack of speed and had great hands. He stopped playing in eighth grade after fracturing his elbow on a toe-tap catch on the sideline.
Stephon Martinez, Graves’ trainer in the predraft process, said Graves would rebound for his older brother, who played basketball at LSU, which also helped him develop a good feel for how the ball would come off the rim.
Lastly, Graves’ hand-eye coordination and his knack for problem-solving stem from his love of working on cars. His dad is a mechanic who runs a car shop, and Graves grew up working alongside him.
“I just like fixing problems,” Graves said. “It’s just very satisfying to me to figure out the problem and then fix it. It’s just kind of how my brain works.”
Opinions range widely on Graves’ draft prospects. He ranks No. 30 in Sam Vecenie’s NBA Draft Guide and No. 16 on John Hollinger’s top 75 prospects list. Graves ranks extremely high in teams’ internal draft models, while scouts generally have him lower.
“It’s easy to see the appeal of Graves in the modern NBA, given how much he helps you win the possession battle,” Vecenie writes. “He gets steals. He rebounds, creates second chances and doesn’t turn the ball over. By the time he’s 25 or so, the odds are good that Graves is going to be a useful rotation player.
“But I think he’s entering the draft a couple of years before he’s ready, and the first team that acquires him isn’t likely to get the most out of him. Graves still needs to improve his body and maximize whatever speed and agility he can. He needs to continue to find his offensive game, because I don’t think he’s there yet as a shooter.”
The scout was asked whether Graves would have been on draft radars if he’d had the same season 20 years ago.
“Because I see Santa Clara, he’d be on my radar, but would he be on the general NBA radar? I don’t think so,” the scout said. “And I’m not saying that’s because I’m smarter than people. It’s just because I seem to see the team more often.”
But Santa Clara associate head coach Ryan Madry believes Graves would’ve found his way to the NBA in any era.
“It’s changed so much, right?” Madry said. “What people value, especially with the rise of analytics. It’s hard for me to say. But being around Allen, he would have worked his way to the NBA at some point, whether or not that be this year or the following year. It was great that, because of analytics, you’re able to kind of project and identify what he can really become.”
— CJ Moore contributed to this story.
