Feel like Sam is pretty plugged in with Illinois staff...
Him getting into the weeds on Ethan Brown and Ivisic shooting is not what i expect from just general national guys.
NBA Draft 2027
- Status
Feel like Sam is pretty plugged in with Illinois staff...
Him getting into the weeds on Ethan Brown and Ivisic shooting is not what i expect from just general national guys.
Illini in Italy
- Illini HQ, Florida Panhandle
Does anyone else see lunacy in forecasting a player into the NBA draft that hasn't even played their first college game? I understand the media's requirement for content, but I just can't buy into this . . .
NBA used to draft players straight from high school. If NBA scouts were able to evaluate players based on pre-college performance back then, don't see why they wouldn't be able to now.
Illini in Italy
- Illini HQ, Florida Panhandle
I forgot the NBA instituted a rule restricting teams from drafting high school graduates until they were 19 and a year out of high school . . . Still kinda see it as just fodder to fill the "pages" of media . . . I'll just scroll past in the future, screaming "Get off my Lawn!"
The standouts, sure. This day and age, SamV is spitballing for content sake - the man is in Australia.
As mentioned last years draft had a high predictability index with multiple slam dunks. Wasserman only had 10 players right in his preseason
This years draft, outside of the top 4 kids (and Stokes is the only truly sure bet), is highly variable. There are 50-60 players that can shuffle into the other 26 spots.
A kid like Braylon Mullins could go 5th or could go 30t. All these kids have to play their way into the draft with a good year. No one is taking them on their HS eval.
If the argument is that a mock draft this far away from the draft is going to have very little predictive value, I agree.
I was more responding to the idea that incoming freshmen particularly should not be considered. Everyone's stock value is variable at this point. Based on what we know about Mirk, he could end up a lottery pick. He could also end up being a 5-year player who never gets drafted. That's still a pretty wide range of possibilities for a guy who does have a full year of college ball to analyze.
Indeed - outside exceptional standout talent (ADJ, DP, Boozer, Flagg, Harper,) that have obvious traits, players have to play their way in. Last years freshman class was loaded with about 10 blue chip kids that everyone knew was going first round (Acuff, Ament, Wilson, Brown, Cenac, Peat). This year there is Stokes, Smith and Holt.
A Coleman, Vaaks and Mirk all have a chance of playing deep into this draft with a good year. I think most of the top teams have multiple players that can. Duke is obvious. UConn has Hines, Mullins, Landrew. Arizona has Holt, Krivas, the Russian.
Here's one from SBNation from November of last year, it actually does OK, seems to have 2/3 of the first rounders in there.
NBA mock draft 2026: Updated projection as ‘Big 3’ tank race heats up
Here’s an updated 2026 NBA mock draft.
www.sbnation.com
Joel Goodson
- 9th man conundrum
You mean that 20 year old freshman is thicker and stronger than the kid who turned 18 years old over the summer? You have to give Quentin two more years to make any comparison there. Burries was the same age as Kylan but somehow Kylan was a senior when Burries was a freshman
Wild if so.
Much more of a complete player than Holt or Smith TBH, those two just have more athletic upside. Smith just came off an exhibition against Gonzaga were he was 0-9 from the floor.
High Knees was awful in that Baylor game.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Analogies are a funny thing.
Because they played the same position for the same school in consecutive years no one is going to be able to resist the comparison of Wagler to Coleman.
But it's so ridiculous to compare such an odd and unique player whose skillset it took a number of months and games to really wrap our heads around to this like head-slappingly obvious Cal at Kentucky style five-star NBA guard.
They stopped doing that because some of the scouting weren't very good.
Sure, the evals weren't as accurate. Agree 100%. But do you genuinely think NBA scouts are not paying any attention to HS players? That they don't start evaluations of a player until they step foot on a college court?
In many cases, HS evaluation matters more than college evaluation.
There’s been numerous 5 stars who were complete no-shows in college, but got drafted in the 1st round.
Payton Watson would be one example (he’s turned out pretty good).
If the NBA thought they would make more money drafting straight out of HS, I'm sure they would do it. The NBA realized that they get much better evaluations after seeing players in college for a year. Let the colleges handle the psychological shift of living away from home the first time, and the start of the serious weight training and diet. (Less so now with the HS BB academies.)
** Most HS players just are not ready to transition to the NBA. 51% of the NBA starters in 2025 had spent some time in the G-league. That is the starters, and after they had played in college or in overseas leagues. The percentage for bench players (the majority of the players) is much higher.
This legitimately just does not respond to my point even a little bit.
The point is that NBA scouts have HS player on their draft boards before they play a single college game. They do. It's a fact. Do those evals change as that player goes through a college season? Of course. But that doesn't mean the NBA doesn't start evaluating a player before he plays in college. Which is why those players are on mock drafts before they play a single NCAA game which is where this convo started.
Something got misinterpreted. I fully believe that the NBA scouts do track HS kids very closely. I did not mean to imply otherwise (and I still don't see it when re-reading my post).
My intended point was that the NBA is all about the money. They seem to think that the quality of the evals, and the physical/mental maturity of the players improves enough in that extra year to be worth not getting that rare HS grad who is ready immediately. In crude terms, the one year delay avoids a draft bust for "every" top 25 kid who didn't show enough in college to eventually be drafted. It also saved money on all those who took 2-4 years to mature.
- Status