2024 Draft Preview

It’s early to do a full big board, as at this stage it is impossible to be confident in even 10 guys being worth a first round pick. The info is so thin right now compared to what will be there by draft time.

So let’s just run through the most interesting options, and then everyone else on the fringes.

#1 overall candidates:

Ron Holland

Holland offers good wing tools as he is 6’8 with excellent athleticism. He was easily best player in the Nike Hoop Summit, with 15 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, 6 steals, and 2 blocks. He is also young for his class, as he will only be 18 next draft night with a July 2005 birthday.

The question for him is how well he can shoot, and if he is a high volume shot creator as much as a quality role player. The non-shot creator flag is trivial because athletic role playing wings with good positional size are in high demand and low supply. As long as his shot is not busted, he can be tremendously useful.

Even if he never creates, he could be an elite Shawn Marion type role player. And to some extent it is a feature that he is not expected to shoulder a heavy offensive load, as Andrew Wiggins did not provide a positive impact until he was reduced to a role player in Golden State.

And sometimes athletes who do not project as creators can become one in the NBA (Giannis, Kawhi, Donovan Mitchell), so it is not something that can be ruled out.

Really the most important things Holland need to show for G-League ignite are non-busted shooting along with good passing, defense, and feel for the game.

If he is nearly as good as he seemed in the Hoop Summit, he should have the clear inside track on #1 overall.

Aday Mara

Mara is a slow 7’3 big who may not have the most upside at first glance, but he is coming off an incredibly productive season as a bench player in ACB, the 3rd best basketball league in the world behind NBA and EuroLeague. Let’s take a quick look how that compares to other past elite Euro Big man prospects at a similar age, pace adjusted per 40:

Wemby is a blend of 60% Jeep Elite and 40% EuroLeague. Sengun is from Turkish BSL which is next best league after ACB. Jokic is 122 minutes from baby Serbian league and 42 minutes of Serbian KLS— and is the weakest competition of the group by a massive margin.

These are all small samples, but they give a glimpse into the playing styles of each big man. Wemby did not having the passing and feel as these other guys, but offered the most shooting and defensive playmaking which makes him so uniquely valuable.

Mara has the most scant 3PA rate of the group, but has excellent potential as an interior and elite upside as a passer. The sales pitch for him is that he could be a Sengun level passer and scorer with center size and rim protection to boot.

Granted, this is all just a 259 minute sample for Mara. But he also played u17 last summer, and in the finals against USA he had a monster 16 pts 7 rebs 3 ast 0 tov 5 block on 7/9 FG. The full game is on youtube, and if you sort comments by most recent I timestamped all of Mara’s plays several weeks ago.

He is definitely slow on defense, but that may not be a big deal if he has enough size, feel, and shot blocking to atone for it. He will likely not be a Jokic level passer or shooter, although he could come reasonably close in both regards with more rim protection as his advantage over the Joker.

Right now Mara is a dark horse candidate for #1 overall prospect on my board. Jokic’s success may help him build a case to go at the top of 2024 draft, but the general lack of appeal of slow bigs still could lead to him being underrated.

Matas Buzelis

Buzelis is the potential #1 prospect who relatively boring at a glance. He is a skilled 6’10 guy, but it’s not clear what his major selling point is that makes him a #1 overall candidate. He isn’t particularly strong or athletic, he is not an elite shooter, and his feel for the game seems decent but not elite.

No strong opinion at the moment, but based on descriptions he reminisces of Keith Van Horn who went #2 overall in 1997, and went on to have approximately a median career for #2.

We’ll see what he has to offer for G-League ignite, but for now let’s file him under fine but probably boring.

Tier 2 of Interesting Guys

Kyle Filipowski

I was going to rate Flip as a top 10 pick in 2023 before he decided to return to school, now we get to see how he develops as a sophomore.

He is a weird 7’ big who does not protect the rim and can be a bit oafy on the perimeter. But his moves his feet alright for his size, and generates an excellent steal rate for a big. He is also a very good rebounder, and a capable shooter making 76.5% FT as a freshman while taking 3.4 3PA per game. He only made 28.2% 3P, but that number should spike up as a sophomore.

He did have struggles to finish at the rim for his size, making just 50.5% 2P. He’s somewhat goofy and does not have the best body control at finishing off the dribble.

Flip is a super unique prospect with an odd distribution of strengths and weaknesses. It’s not clear exactly how high his upside goes, but he can at least be a solid role player like Kelly Olynyk.

While he may not be the sexiest prospect, he will be worth looking into once the scant traditional high upside guys are off the board.

Donovan Clingan

Clingan only averaging 13 mins/game for champion UConn as a freshman, but posted monster numbers in his time on the court as a 7’2 big.

He is an elite rebounder and shotblocker, and was also able to score with moderately high volume making 66% 2P on 24% usg.

His downside is that he is not particularly skilled, making 52% FT and averaging slightly < 0.5 A:TO rate. He also is not particularly athletic, although he does move reasonably well for a jumbo big.

He may end up underrated due to general lack of enthusiasm for bigs, but good bigs are still good and it beats drafting a mediocre guard or wing.

Izan Almansa

Almansa is a dreaded mold of a 6’9 power forward, but he led Spain to a pistol whipping of the competition in FIBA u19. They beat Canada by 27, Argentina by 38, France twice (who beat USA) by 19 and 4, Turkey (who also beat USA) by 32. They also beat Lebanon 102-20. Lebanon is a weak team but they were more competitive vs USA in a 122-70 loss.

The only matchup that Spain did not savagely dominate was a 9 point win vs China, where Almansa was +35 in 27 minutes which means his team was -26 in his 13 bench minutes.

They essentially delivered a performance on par with what you would expect from team USA, so you would think they must be stacked with prospects. But Almansa had the best statistical output by a gargantuan margin, and next best was Baba Miller who is not a serious prospect and had a lukewarm statistical output that did not sniff the production of Almansa.

Almansa provided a hyperefficient 16.9 pts, 7.1 rebs, 1.6 ast, 0.9 tov, 1.7 stl, 1.1 blk in 26 minutes on 65.3% TS. And he did so at a young age, having just turned 18 in June.

The trouble is projecting his NBA role. Where does he fit on defense at 6’9? Can he shoot? He was only 1/3 on 3PA the whole tournament, and while he shot an encouraging 17/19 FT, he made just 48% (54/113) the prior season). And while he had a decent assist:TOV ratio, it would be nice to see more passing from him as 7 assists came in the Lebanon blowout. He had just 4 assists in the other 6 games.

Almansa’s performance and team dominance at FIBA was enough to pique interest, now let’s see how he can perform as a team player in a more NBA like setting for G-League Ignite next season.

DJ Wagner

Wagner is a quick 6’3 PG who can create a high volume of offense with his speed. He also is young for the class with May 05 birthday and has an NBA dad in DaJuan, which is just enough to give him more intrigue than the rest of the committed NCAA freshmen.

But this is a fairly cursed mold, as he is not elite at any one of shooting, passing, or scoring with efficiency. It’s difficult to get too excited for the small PG’s who are not overpowered offensively, so Wagner only qualifies as slightly interesting at this stage.

Other Returning NCAA Players

Adem Bona

Bona is an undersized energy big who only measured 6’8.25” in shoes at the combine. That is 0.5” less than Bam, which caps his upside, especially as a no skill big.

But he plays his role so well. He is exceptionally mobile for a big, and plays hard and has reasonably good feel for the game. Offensively he is a pure garbage man and lob finisher, although he occasionally makes a decent pass.

The main theme of this draft is that most of the interesting players are bigs, and it is going to be difficult to rank them vs. guys who are worse players in better molds. Bona is a highly limited archetype but he is good at his role, could that be enough to make him a lottery value in a weak draft?

Tyrese Proctor

Proctor’s main selling point is that he made 85% FT’s (61/70) as a freshman for Duke. His priors from the line were not nearly as good, and he only shot 32% 3P, and his draft value heavily leans on his ability on how well he shoots as a sophomore.

This is largely because he does create much at the rim, and he is mostly a pull-up shooter. He had a meager 50.4% TS on 19 usg as a relatively young freshman, and now he need to bulk up and be a much better scorer as a sophomore to stay interesting as a draft prospect.

If he can make a major leap, he does have appeal as a 6’5 PG who had more than twice as many assists than turnovers as a freshman. If not, he loses most of his appeal.

Mark Mitchell

It’s tough to say whether Mitchell is a coveted wing who gives you a bit of everything or not enough of anything.

At 6’8 he played mostly SF for Duke this past season, and at times seemed like neither his shooting nor defense were good enough for the NBA.

But he had a strong close to the season, and finished with 35% 3P (albeit on 1.5 3PA/game) 76% FT and almost as many assists (1.2/game) as turnovers (1.3).

He’s a bland “OK at everything” type of prospect, but he is in the right mold. If he makes a nice sophomore leap he can start to look appetizing in a draft full of weak players in weaker molds.

Kylan Boswell

Boswell had a good freshman year in Arizona for a guy who did not turn 18 until after the season ended in April. Now as a sophomore, he will be still be younger than most freshmen.

He was in a simple role, as a 6’2 guy who moved the ball and made open shots. But being so young and being a competent role player is impressive, as massive leaps from age 17 to 18 are common.

But then he played for USA FIBA U19 team and laid a giant, stinky egg. He was hands down the biggest disappointment on the team. He was 3rd in minutes played, with 18.9 per game. But he averaged a meager 6.4 points, 0.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 2.4 turnovers.

It’s hard to overstate how terrible his production was, and how bad he looked. He is essentially a small PG who played small, could not score, and was insanely turnover prone.

For perspective, 3 players on Team USA averaged more assists: Dylan Harper (3.0), Tre Johnson (2.6), and Mark Armstrong (2.6), and they averaged fewer turnovers COMBINED (2.1) than Boswell’s 2.4. And they each scored 1.5 to 2x more points than Boswell.

And this was for a highly disappointing USA team that lost to France and Turkey (both of whom got crushed by Spain) and barely beat Slovenia by 5 with a late comeback.

It’s almost impressive how much he turned it over in such a meager offensive role. It’s difficult to reconcile how bad he was, and even if he comes back and has a good sophomore season it will be difficult to forget this performance. He already is in a boring mold, having a 7 game stinker like this is close to unforgivable.

Kel’el Ware

Ware belongs in the top 5 conversation based strictly on his freshman box score production. He is a 7’ shot blocker with athletic finishing and passable outside shooting, and did not turn 19 until after the season ended in April.

But he fell out of his coach’s favor down the stretch, getting a DNP-CD in conference play along with another stretch where he played 9 total minutes in 3 games.

Even with 3 starters out for the NIT and a paper thin bench, he still only averaged 16.7 over 3 NIT games as the 7th man behind scarcely used upperclassmen Lok Wur and Tyrone Williams.

This is all highly atypical treatment of a 5* recruit that should be considered a glaring red flag. Ware had dreadfully bad pick and roll defense, but even then he was still showing enough potential such that he should be ahead of guys of the end of the bench upperclassmen on the depth chart.

Mostly likely coach Dana Altman did not believe Ware deserved more than scant minutes based on whatever was going on behind the scenes.

It’s tough to completely throw in the towel on somebody this young and this talented, but based on his freshman arc it is looking fairly unlikely that Ware has what it takes to make it in the NBA. Perhaps he can show substantial improvements as a sophomore for Indiana, but if not he may be undraftable.

Judah Mintz

Mintz had a reasonably productive freshman year, and now head coach Jim Boeheim retired with new coach Adrian Autry planning to transition from zone defense to primarily man to man. This will be helpful for getting a better grasp on Mintz as a prospect.

Zach Edey

Edey is such a bad NBA mold because he is too slow to fit in NBA defenses and most of his value comes as an archaic post up scorer.

He is ridiculously good at what he does, but he may require an entirely re-tooled offense and defense to maximize his NBA value. More commonly he may play a Boban role of limited bench minutes in the right situations.

It’s difficult to peg Edey’s value because he is so high friction, but the idea of drafting him in late round 1 or round 2 and then building a G-League team around him to experiment with different schemes around him is fairly interesting.

Reece Beekman

Beekman is somewhat of a boring defensive minded guard, but that may be good enough for a round 1 selection in a draft this weak.

Other Incoming Freshmen

Justin Edwards

Edwards is a sophomore aged freshman who turns 20 in December, much like Brandon Miller. But Brandon Miller is an incredibly rare example of a guy who overachieved his hype as an NCAA freshman to raise his stock. Most of the time these super old freshmen disappoint, and Edwards did not look particularly impressive in the Nike Hoop Summit.

He does have good positional size for a wing at 6’8 so he still can be worth a lottery pick if he performs decently enough for Kentucky. But I have low expectations for him at this stage.

Stephon Castle

Castle has the ultimate tease dimensions of 6’6 with 6’9 wingspan, where it seems like maybe he is big enough to play wing and really he is a SG.

Without knowing anything else about him that makes him incredibly boring to me. Who knows, maybe he grows by the combine and/or showcases PG skills as an NCAA freshman.

Isaiah Collier

Collier has good size for a PG at 6’4 and is allegedly a good passer. But he looked really bad in the Nike Hoop Summit. He is sloppy, uncoordinated, and had a bad shot selection.

We’ll see what he does as a freshman at USC, but he may not be good at all.

Cody Williams

Cody Williams was the highest rated 2024 prospect on USA’s FIBA u19 team, but he certainly did not play like the best player. In 16.4 minutes off the bench he averaged 7.9 pts, 3.6 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.9 turnovers, 1 stl, 0.6 blocks.

He is not particularly athletic or skilled or have good feel, and it’s not clear what his selling point is supposed to be. He was matched up with Slovenia’s star scorer Jan Vide for a decent portion of the game, so perhaps he is supposed to be some sort of PoA defensive stopper. Maybe there is some chance of him being a DeAndre Hunter type, but honestly that even seems optimistic for him.

Team USA flopped pretty badly as it lost to France and Turkey and was clearly not the best team in the tournament. Given that Cody was one of the weaker players on the roster as well as one of the older ones, that does not bode well for his NBA future. Neither does being able to get on the floor for just 3 minutes in the Hoop Summit.

The most likely outcome is that he is just not good enough for the NBA.

Bronny James

Bronny is a 6’3 guard who is a scrappy defender without much offensive skill. He airballed two 3’s in a row in the Hoop Summit and isn’t much of a ball handler. Frankly he does not seem like much of a prospect and his value is mostly going to be tied to his ability to attract his dad as a free agent.

Also it remains to be seen how he recovers from his recent cardiac arrest. Hopefully he is OK and able to play this season.

Omaha Biliew

I have seen Biliew try to dribble 4 times between FIBA and Hoop Summit, and he turned it over all 4 times. He has good positional size for a wing at 6’8, but he seems to have the skills of a big man.

Mackenzie Mgbako

Mgbako had a volatile Hoop Summit, where he scored 22 points with 8 rebounds for the World team, but was often wild and out of control and ended up with 1 assist vs. 5 turnovers.

That said, he is 6’8 with good positional size for a wing, and he was at least able to make some good things happen on the court. He may not be great, but he fits a nice mold and it was surprising to see him ranked #31 on ESPN’s initial mock with so many weak prospects ahead of him.

It’s not clear he will necessarily be worth a first round pick, but if he has a good freshman season he can easily vault into the lottery.

Jared McCain

McCain was one of the more impressive players in the Nike Hoop Summit as a heady defensive guard, but he is 6’3 and turns 20 in February as an older freshman.

It wouldn’t be a shock to see him find an NBA niche as a defensive role player, but does not seem to have enough offensive juice for his size and age to be an exciting prospect.

The Frenchtastic Four

After France’s silver medal run in FIBA u19, they have 3 prospects getting first round hype in Melvin Ajinca, Zacharie Risacher, and Alexandre Sarr.

But the best player on the team was hands down Zacharie Perrin, who was a statistical monster with 27.7 mins, 15.4 pts, 10.9 rebs, 2.7 asts, 1.7 tov, 1.7 stls, 1 blk on 66.4% TS. But he is a 6’9 PF who is not an outside shooter (0/1 2P, 18/28 FT) or shot blocker, so he is not an ideal mold. He appears to be a lite version of Alperen Sengun. With an emphasis on “lite” because at this age Sengun had already won Turkish League MVP and been drafted by the Rockets.

Thus Perrin is not on prospect radar, although there is a nontrivial chance he actually is their best prospect in spite of his poor mold because he is so much better at basketball than his peers. We need to see a full season of performance to get a better feel for exactly where he stands.

After all, France was clearly inferior to Spain as they lost twice by a total of 23 points. If Perrin was doing all of this work for the team and they still were not close to the best team, does there really need to be another prospect in the group, let alone THREE?

Zacharie Risacher

Risacher entered FIBA U19 ranked #3 on ESPN’s 2024 mock, and then proceeded to try to his hardest to tank his stock into the dirt.

In 7 games, he averaged 18.7 minutes, 7.4 pts, 2.9 rebs, 1.6 ast, 2.4 tovs, 2 stls, 0.1 blks. France was +3 with him on the court, and +111 with him off the floor.

Granted, the traces of a useful prospect are there. He only turned 18 in April, and he is 6’8 with capable shooting and showed some potential on defense, as he has quick hands and led France in steals.

But he is rail thin, unathletic, and cannot create offense to save his life. He barely averaged more 2P (1.4) and assists (1.6) combined than turnovers (2.4).

He very badly needs to show some offensive juice this season. If not, he may not be worth a 1st round selection.

Melvin Ajinca

Ajinca boosted his stock the most, as he led France in scoring with 19.3 points per game on well timed hot shooting of 49% 3P on 6.4 attempts per game with 83% FT to back it up.

Unfortunately, he offers very little outside of shooting, as he averaged just 2.9 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.1 blocks in 27.7 minutes. At 6’7 he is bare minimum size to play wing, but he has underwhelming feel and athleticism which makes him probably not an NBA player.

This is especially so when you consider that he was draft eligible this past season, as he turned 19 several days after the draft. Yet he did not even play in France’s Jeep Elite league, he played in their B League where he posted a lukewarm 14.2 PER in spite of shooting 39% 3P on decent volume.

He showed the same issues as he did in FIBA: low rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. And most concerning is that it is difficult to find any past examples of prospects who did not play in a higher league at a draft eligible age.

If you want to take a 6’7 guy who can shoot and not do much else, why not look in NCAA mid-majors and take Tucker DeVries instead? NCAA mid-majors are not typically loaded with NBA prospects, but they have had more success cases than second tier overseas leagues. And DeVries offers a more well rounded profile statistically, and is in all likelihood a better player and prospect.

And this is not to say that DeVries is an incredible sleeper, as it is not clear that he is worth a round 1 pick himself. But it is ridiculous to consider Ajinca in round 1 with DeVries being at least equal and likely better completely under the radar as a round 2/UDFA type.

Alexandre Sarr

Sarr has some traces of interesting for a 7’ guy, as he had decent steals (1.6) and blocks (2.0) with more assists (1.6) than turnovers (1.1) and attempted 1 3PA per game.

But he averaged just 7.4 points and 5.9 rebounds in 22.5 minutes, which is weak production in both regards for an alleged first round prospect. Having some OK role player features is nice, but it cannot take a player far if he cannot perform the core aspects of the game.

He is young, having turned just 18 in April, but he seems fringey at this stage.

Fake Prospects

Bobi Klintman

This is one of the strangest hype trains I can recall. As a sophomore aged freshman, Bobi averaged a whopping 5.3 pts 4.5 rebs 0.8 assists 0.5 stls 0.6 blks in 20.5 minutes for a mediocre Wake Forest team that did not even make the NIT.

It’s hard to know what his selling point is intended to be. He is a decent shooter for his size, but even then he is nothing special as he made 74.3% FT and 36.8% 3P on middling volume.

Other than that he has no position on defense and does basically nothing on offense, and there is no special youth or physical tools on his size. He’s just a random 6’10 guy who is a decent shooter but is obviously not good enough to ever play in the NBA.

It’s crazy that he is getting round 1 hype. He shouldn’t be sniffing top 100 radar as he is a subpar player in a bad mold.

Baba Miller

If you squint hard enough, you can vaguely see a case for Miller being a prospect. He was hyped entering the season, and then had a terrible performance for a bad FSU team where he started playing midseason. He was arguably Spain’s 2nd best player in their dominant FIBA U19 performance (although he was barely young enough to be eligible to play).

But he was super bad as a freshman for FSU, and it’s difficult to see what his intended NBA role is meant to be. He is 6’11 who cannot block shots, but lacks the skill for the perimeter. Even if he makes massive improvement as a sophomore it will be difficult to get too excited for him as a prospect.

If Noah Clowney and Leonard Miller were statistically productive in the same mold and went late 1st and early 2nd respectively, how can you project a statistically terrible version of the same player to get drafted at all?

JJ Starling

JJ Starling is a terrible mold of 6’4 SG who had one of the worst freshman seasons known to mankind for Notre Dame.

He was a one dimensional inefficient chucker, who in 29.7 minutes averaged just 11.2 points on 48.2% TS and that was his strength. He averaged 2.8 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.7 steals, 0.3 blocks for a Notre Dame team that horribly defensive and one of the biggest underachievers in D1.

This was by far the worst Notre Dame in Mike Brey’s 23 years of coaching, and Starling was easily their worst player.

ESPN mocked him #35 in their 2024 mock and frankly he should not even be in the top 350.