Yes, just two weeks after I took the subway to the Barclays Center to watch the 2024 NBA Draft, I am back! Basketball nerds have enjoyed a good stretch, with Olympic qualifiers and scrimmages giving us key early summer insights into next year’s draft class. Despite this being a little early, I thought it would be nice to track my board this year.
What are the preliminary questions?
One thing we’re susceptible to, including draft people, is recency bias.
Has last year’s weak class made us overrate this one?
Off the top of my head, no. I do think this class is pretty strong, with a lot of high ceiling players at the very top. There are five players who I believe have All-NBA potential, and I haven’t even seen the tape on more than ten players.
If I had to describe this class with one word, what would it be?
Something that sticks out for this class is athleticism - my top five are all strong athletes at very young ages - so there are less questions about whether a player’s frame will fill out so much as whether some of the supplemental skills will start to fall into place.
Those clips of Edgecombe nearly murdering people near the rim or Flagg just swatting everything in sight are really impressive to watch - so this year’s biggest draft test will be more in assessing future skills than whether a player’s athleticism will translate easily.
That is a blanket statement, to be fair, but I think the test does vary year to year - in 2024 there were questions on my end about whether Reed Sheppard, Rob Dillingham, or even Alex Sarr would physically fit into the league. Comparatively, the prospects in this year’s class are all NBA ready athletes.
Which teams are going to tank?
This question is most important - the principle I emphasize most about re-evaluating a player is how situational it all is. Sam Vecenie and Coach Spins did a great podcast about this about a year ago, where they delved into recent draft busts - turns out a lot of them just went to the wrong developmental situation. So which teams could be the future homes of some of these projected stars?
Brooklyn has entered its name in the tank race, along with Washington, Detroit, and Chicago. Although Portland returns most of its bottom four team from last season - they made a key pickup in Deni Avdija, who I’ve been on the hype train on for a few years now. The team is actually sneakily deep, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they fell out of the bottom five. San Antonio, despite Wemby, has a sleeper chance to end up with a top five pick - they own Atlanta’s (unprotected) Chicago’s (1-10 protected, unlikely to convey) and Charlotte’s picks (1-14 protected, hmm), along with their own. I wouldn’t pick San Antonio to be remarkably good this season - likely out of the play-in unless Wemby is superhuman - so there is a chance they pick up 2 lottery picks and one outside - which, along with their other draft pieces they have, could be turned into something massive.
Given their passivity this offseason - I would expect that is part of the plan for them. This draft is pretty great to tank for - it’s not as boom or bust as 2023 or as pointless as 2024. It’s well-balanced, with prizes both at the top and deep into the lottery.
Am I speaking too soon?
I thought Cam Reddish was going to be really good coming out of high school, so probably. I just spent a year evaluating Cody Williams and Ron Holland though - can you blame me?
My Way-Too-Early Top Five Prospects:
Cooper Flagg (Forward, Duke)
If you don't know who Cooper Flagg is at this point, you've probably been living under a rock. He is a monstrous 6'10" athlete with terrifyingly long arms, and his main calling card is his defense. The player build is unique for sure - and watching his high school tape leads me to believe he’s the best high school prospect I’ve ever seen. His self-creation is a little limited at the moment and his handle is a bit unpolished, but he can shoot over anyone. Don’t believe me? He just pulled up over Anthony Davis.
Whether the shot goes in is more of a question - he shot poorly in the 2022 EYBL season, but this past season, he shot nearly 46% on 3s on 2.7 attempts a game, which is extraordinary growth.
An underrated part of his game is his passing chops, but I try to refrain from judging base playmaking in high school because of the way high schoolers are forced to play in the AAU circuit.
His defense, however, is ferocious. His likely 7’0”+ arms are crucial to his game-altering rim protection, and his instincts on that end are remarkable. He doesn’t gamble as much as one would think, even with his absurd statlines. I would be really surprised if he went lower than #1 next year, but I think #2 is his absolute floor barring injury. There’s too much to like frame-wise without even thinking about the other things, like good cutting and on-ball play.
Nolan Traoré (Guard, Saint-Quentin)
Would it even be a draft without a Frenchman? His 45/9/6 statline at ANGT stood out for obvious reasons - but even besides that, his craftiness around the rim and potential on defense really gives me confidence in him as a prospect.
The floater (as shown in the clip above) is a staple of his game. A lot of guard prospects from France (Killian Hayes, Frank Ntilikina) have caught flak in the past - but they were really raw compared to Traoré, who has elite rim pressure at such a young age.
We couldn’t talk about Traoré without mentioning his passing though - he is a confident and willing passer - despite being a bit reactionary. Honestly, he resembles Nikola Topić, a prospect who I was a huge fan of - although Traoré brings strong defense, which Topić lacked completely.
3. Ace Bailey (Forward, Rutgers)
Entering my senior year at Rutgers, this is a special year for athletics here. We haven’t ever had a top five prospect, much less two. Bailey is the better of the two in my opinion - although I do have some questions about his shot diet. I need to see more playmaking out of him rather than self-creation this season. As I said before though, it would be silly to judge high school prospects based on playmaking - they might feel validated as the first option.
Bailey has the most NBA ready measurables - 6’10” with long arms and remarkable vertical ability. Check out this explosion (first one).
It doesn’t even look like he runs - he glides with long strides. I can’t say Bailey is the most NBA ready from a pure skills perspective, but he definitely has the tools. If he puts it all together, we’re looking at one of the best players in the world.
Dylan Harper (Guard, Rutgers)
The other Rutgers recruit is not just a co-star, he’s a legitimate top three pick contender in his own right. The son of Ron Harper and younger brother of Ron Harper Jr., Dylan Harper enters as a polished big guard with a good shooting stroke and experience running the offense. If he can string together consistency at Rutgers, I can imagine an NBA team letting him run the show.
Harper projects to be pretty good at everything with a strong frame - his shot can get a little bit inconsistent at times, but I think him being 4th is more a sign of how strong the class is than anything.
VJ Edgecombe (Guard, Baylor)
VJ Edgecombe has, to say the least, burst onto the scene. I would’ve had the top four separate from him prior to the Olympic Qualifiers, where he went toe to toe with professional athletes, some of them NBA players, and contributed winning plays. More than the scoring, his rebounding stuck out to me. I’m not a fan of project players who boast ONLY potential skills. I don’t think JUST potential always has room in the NBA, but when you can add to winning along with developing your potential - you’re on the right track. Edgecombe is a late bloomer, having started basketball later than the other players in his class. He has developed rather quickly despite that though, showing some consistency from three point land even if he does not project to be a shot creator. I could see him becoming a strong two-way defensive guard. I’ve seen some people say Anthony Edwards as a comparison - I don’t like throwing such big names onto players just yet - so I think a more realistic high upside outcome is Victor Oladipo, who boasted a similar frame and athletic ability at the same age.
I’m excited to see him try to dunk on more people at Baylor though.
Some other prospects I need to watch more tape on: Hugo Gonzalez, Ian Jackson, Tre Johnson.
Final:
I will be posting more draft content this year as well as building some more analytics projects to predict some stuff (can’t get more specific than that), and this is the perfect draft class to test the models out on. Also, I’m excited to put together my Big Board in September, so stay tuned.
Coming soon: some writing on the Olympics and some more data science projects. If you enjoyed today’s double-header (for lack of a better term), then make sure to subscribe.