Creating An NBA Future Value Grading System (+ ARKBOARD NBA 2026 V1)

Creation Of An NBA Future Value Grading System#

In this article, I wanted to introduce my conversion of baseball’s Future Value system to basketball scouting in order to more accurately depict expected prospect outcomes, tiers, and value.

Future Value grades evaluate prospects on a 20-80 scale, with a bell curve distribution centered at 50 FV, and with each whole grade/10 FV representing a standard deviation away from the center of the scale. Higher end FV grades are for prospects that showcase a combination of traits that project them to return above-average value at the professional level, and lower end FV grades are for prospects that have a combination of traits indicative of below-average projection to the professional level.

Deviations by half grades/5 FV are also used to further differentiate prospects betweew tiers and to reflect potential upside or downside. For example, a 55 FV represents a half grade deviation away from the center of the scale, evaluating a prospect as one that doesn’t quite meet the criteria of a 60 FV grade, but has more upside or positive traits than a 50 FV grade player.

“+” indicators can be used to indicate high prospect upside. For example, a 40+ FV grade corresponds to a player one whole grade under the center of the scale that has significant upside despite their flaws.

In baseball, Future Value grades correspond to MLB outcomes as such:
20 FV - Organizational player
30 FV - “AAAA” player, up & down between minors and majors
40 FV - Low End Regular / Platoon Player
50 FV - Average Everyday Player
55 FV - Above Average Everyday Player
60 FV - All Star
70 FV - Top 10 Overall
80 FV - Top 5 Overall

For more on this, please read this FanGraphs article.

In order to adapt this to basketball scouting, we will adjust the Future Value grades to correspond as:

In addition to the translation of the 20-80 scale and Future Value grading system, I also wanted to add important contextualization and further analysis into my draft process and analysis methods.

On average, about ~20 drafted players per year in the NBA end up having NBA roles. This is an important guideline to keep in mind when evaluating prospects and draft classes as a whole. When referring to a prospect that is “NBA-caliber”, you can use the 40 FV line as a barometer, as all prospects that receive a 40 FV grade or higher are prospects that are being projected to have, at the minimum, a bench role on an NBA team. Drafts that contain >20 NBA-caliber players should be considered deeper, and drafts with less than 20 NBA-caliber players should be considered shallower.

Draft classes aren’t just about depth. Due to the distribution curve of the 20-80 scale, FV grades allow for us to better describe not just the talent pool of each draft class, but to also accurately portray the level of top end talent and upside that exists within each draft class. Generally, you’ll want to look for grades of 60 FV or higher that represent projected star-level outcomes, and you’ll want to look for “+” indicators to represent grades that acknowledge some potential upside or “boom-bust” element to lower graded prospects.

My draft process is based around mixed-methods analysis, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative factors to create prospect profiles and identify potential indicators/flags for prospects in order to clearly evaluate them as a prospect and identify what level of projectability I think they have in the NBA.
-Qualitative indicators/flags I prioritize include age, frame, age-relative performance, feel, motor, tendencies, injury risk, opponent-relative performances, form, shot diet, and court identity, among other factors
-Quantitative indicators/flags I prioritize are PORPAGTU!, Box +/-, TS%, O/D-REB%, AST/TO ratio, Blk%, Stl%, FC/40, shooting percentages, and statistic-based comparisons to prospects in past years. I highly recommend using the site Barttorvik as a tool for quantitative evaluations.
-I weight certain indicators/flags differently based on the role I see in the NBA for each prospect. A good example of this is in positional value. For example, I weight center defense more importantly than I would evaluate guard defense, because being an NBA-caliber center is nearly impossible if they’re bad defensively or foul too often. This principle extends to other aspects of a prospect’s projected role and profile as well.

ARKBOARD NBA 2026 V1: TOP 30 DRAFT PROSPECTS#

Placements can (and will) change as the season continues to develop and we get more statistics, tape, and context for this class of prospects. The goal is to “flatten the curve” over the course of the season, as players will progress/regress towards their true ratings that I’ll publish before the draft. I expect that by the time my final board is published, the ratings will be more “pronounced”, with a lot of players towards the middle of the curve (45/50 FVs) being squeezed out with lower grades. Regardless, here is my first official big board for the 2026 NBA Draft Class.

Players below 45 FV will be left unranked until my final board. All players I evaluated with a “+” indicator are attached at the bottom, but are left unranked and unsorted within their FV tiers.

Closing Thoughts#

A big part of my desire to adapt this scouting scale to basketball scouting is based around the applied statistical brilliance of sabermetrics and baseball prospect scouting that I feel could be incredibly valuable for NBA Draft analysis. I feel that proper prospect grades should reflect both the scarcity-based economic structure of the star-driven NBA and properly portray the value of each prospect based on their projection and deviation from the 50 FV curve center that represents the average NBA starter. I think that FV grades are the next step in developing the NBA Draft community and its ability to evaluate prospects as they project to the NBA, in identifying NBA-caliber players and illustrating a graded, deviation-based curve to reflect prospect upside and overall talent level. The Future Value system allows for easily translatable and comparable evaluations of players, proper analysis of draft class depth and high-end talent, and, if widely adopted, will allow for more accuracy and communicability for NBA Draft scouts and enthusiasts to compare their boards and evaluate prospects. Someday, I plan to try creating a translatable Future Value system that translates prospect value between all sports, but that won’t be for a while.

Generally, I think this is a pretty great draft class. There’s some real high-end talent and some terrific depth, and although I expect a lot of that depth to “shake out” over the course of the season, I still think this draft class will end up producing >20 NBA-caliber players with some true high-end talent.

Thank you so much for reading this article, please let me know if you enjoyed and your thoughts on the adapted NBA Future Value grading system, either on Twitter @ARKNDJL (replies or DMs always open) or email me: arkndjl@gmail.com. I am very open to collaboration and/or discussion.