Sunday before Christmas edition of M.e's early draft ranking and analysis
#1 - Cooper Flagg: He's going to go #1, and I would probably take him #1 if I was running our draft table and the ping pong balls bouced right. But...I don't know if dude is going to be more than a secondary offensive player on a winning team. He's not talentless offensively, but it's very meat and potatoes without freak physical tools. Open 3's, mid range face up to a one dribble pull up type stuff. Will stat stuff though as he's a plus rebounder, average or better passing IQ, defends extremely well. He's not what we need, but he would still make us better. You're buying the very high floor here. He's a NBA starter, maybe immediately.
NBA Comps: A better version of Andrei Kirilenko, Scottie Barnes with better D but less passing vision, 17-20 ppg Draymond.
#2 - Dylan Harper: The only other guy to really consider at the #1 pick. The best offensive player in this draft. Great size for a lead guard, does everything a lead guard is supposed to do and does it pretty well. Good playmaker, rebounds and defends. No real weaknesses. Elite when he gets downhill, my only reservation right now is that I don't see the 3pt shooting bag most elite NBA guards have (step backs, pull ups, etc).
NBA Comps: College/Early career James Harden, 6'6 Jalen Brunson, SGA
#3 - Tre Johnson: Best 3 level scorer in the class. This is a very aggressive ranking of him, but the ceiling is as a legit #1 offensive option. Plus athlete without being elite, great handle, great shot maker. Posted about him a page or two ago with a video.
NBA Comps: Demar with 25+ foot range, a 6'6 version of Cam Thomas
#4 - Egor Demin: Huge euro shooting guard at 6'9. Might have the athleticism to stick at the position and not be moved to SF, at least for a few years. Does everything pretty well but I don't see a standout skill other than his size mismatch potential at SG. Russian but played pro in Spain and has that same kind of thing about his game that we're seeing from most of these long international perimeter players coming over the last few years (Rischarer, Buzelis, Salaun, Giddey, Avdija). Well coached and 'looks' professional, but they tend to struggle with the length and athleticism of NBA defences and become system players. High floor, moderate ceiling.
NBA Comps: Giddey with better dating habits and a jumper.
#5 - Airious 'Ace' Bailey: I'll be at least moderately surprised if he stays this high on my board by the time the draft rolls around. I can't remember being this disappointed in an elite high school prospect. The highlight reels look impressive because he takes and makes really difficult looking shots. Then you watch some more and you realize it's because his shot selection is atrocious and he has the worst tunnel vision I've seen out of a top of the lottery prospect, maybe ever. It's super easy to squint and see a KD clone but it doesn't hold up. The handle is sloppy and most times he touches the ball the possession ends with him tossing up a low % shot, a complete black hole where offensive efficiency goes to die. Now, he makes more of them than he has a right to because there's obvious physical gifts at work here. But he's going to have to be super, super coachable to learn how to play the NBA game if he's not going to be an outright bust imo. Keeping him ranked this high because the physical gifts are so fucking obvious and you can't learn those.
NBA Comps: 5% chance he's a poor man's KD. 15% chance he works hard, listens to his coaches and turns into something like Rashard Lewis or Harrison Barnes. 80% cooked and out of the league after his rookie deal finishes or bounces around for a bit like Cam Reddish.
#6 - Kasparas Jakucionis: High IQ modern Euro combo guard with good size but limited athleticism. Just to keep it lithuanian for a second, what if you gave Domantas Sabonis a deadly jumper but made him 6'6? There's always a question with guards who can do everything at the NCAA level but have limited athleticism. He might, might be able to stick as a big PG though which changes that math a bit. If Bailey doesn't show signs of figuring his shit out in the next month, KJ moves up to the 5.
Edgecombe is currently my #7, but without a jumper I don't care how athletic someone is anymore. Traore is interesting as well at that slot.
The 100 ft view of the draft is this. This is a pretty good but just pretty good draft. Not as good as 2023 at the top (Wemby), not as deep through the lottery as 2022 or 2021 either most likely. Probably something similar to 2020 where there's a few all stars near the top (Ant and Lamelo) and a bag of okay rotation players. I think any of the top 3 have a chance to be perennial fringe all stars or better (and in that order of likelihood), after that it gets a lot dicier. There's always some weirdo surprise all stars sprinkled through out the 1st round, but that doesn't really help us if we're picking top 5.
Wanted to update this because a lot has happened since early season:
#1: Flagg - Flagg is still #1 and is going to be consensus #1 the rest of the way. Has been pretty much the best he could possibly be without answering the questions about his ability to be a #1 scoring option in the NBA. The 3 point shooting is a concern but the form is projectable.
The comps remain the same, but maybe even a better version of them. Superior versions of AK, Scottie, Draymond, etc.
#2: Harper - This is where shit starts to get spicy....Harper is still the #2 pick in my eyes, but Airious has esssploded recently with a bunch of much improved performances while Harper has been dealing with injuries that have slowed him down.
Comps again remain the same. Still maybe a franchise level offensive talent in there, but he's going to have to do it with shooting and manipulating the game like Brunson, SGA, etc. The physical profile doesn't jump off the page at you.
#3: Airious Bailey - Tough to not take Bailey at the #3. That his season started so poorly is a maybe red flag regarding motivation, coachability, etc, it's really hard to ignore 6'10+ with that level of shot making. Looks more explosive than he did earlier in the season as well. Has gone 2 games in a row without a single assist, so that's probably another red flag.
My comps for him have changed a bit because of how much the performance has improved...we were 10+ games into the season and he had a negative BPM, which is mental for a 5 star prospect. That the last ~10 games have pushed his full season BPM to 5.7 (elite prospects are in the 10-12+ range usually) makes a re evaluation necessary. I still never loved the KD comparisons despite the physical profiles matching. I remember watching KD at Texas and he just got to wherever he wanted and took good shots wherever he wanted to take them. Bailey is way less controlled, way less methodical. We're probably look at a Brandon Ingram level prospect here imo with the raw tools to be more.
#4: Edgecomb: It gets weird here because Demin has fallen off of a truck, Jakucionis has developed a turnover problem which kind of throws some questions into his PG projection in the NBA...if he's not a true PG in the league his size matters less and his lack of athleticism becomes more important. Tre Johnson has done Tre Johnson things, so that's my first instinct here....but VJ Edgecomb has started crushing 3's. He's mostly a spot up guy, but that's all you really needed him to be. Just hit open shots. He's an incredible athlete, great defender along with it. The only physical profile concern is wingspan, he's 6'5 with a 6'6 wingspan.
My comps are a poor man's D Wade. Maybe a better shooter, but Wade's 6'11 wingspan is part of what made him special and VJ just doesn't have that. Pretty similar to Dejounte Murray if Murray was more towards the SG side of his skill set.
#5: Tre Johnson - Nothing changed here. Smooth offensive game, pure shooter, good size for SG but not a jump off the page at you athlete.
Comps: Same
#6: Jakucionis - Still a really good prospect, just with a bit less projection on the PG side of that "combo". But plays a very modern offensive game with his spacing, shooting, and passing. Is plug and play into just about every offensive system in the league.
Hon: Demin's shooting has fallen through the floor but he's still a long Euro gazelle who can pass the ball as well as 19 yr old in the draft. Kneuppel and Maluach look like your classic NCAA dominant Duke players who end up having decent NBA careers as high level role players.