5 Player Evals I'm Struggling with the Most
5 Player Evals I'm Struggling with the Most
Plus a bonus few others who are keeping me up at night as the draft grows closer
This shit is tough, folks.
Pre-draft evaluation is somewhere between “unnecessarily over-complicated” and “impossible to do with certainty”, and that’s a really tough continuum for a perfectionist like myself to exist in. Yet here we are, weeks away from the 2023 NBA Draft, and I’m still picking apart the top of my board.
About one week before the draft, I go back through and watch a few games and clips of each of the prospects in draft tiers and try to sift through how to best order them. The draft board may change and fluctuate a tad during that late stage, but guys don’t move outside of the tiers upon that shallow of a re-watch.
That is, of course, if I feel confident that I’ve got them in the right tier to begin with. Over the last few years, I’ve kind of committed to this whole ‘draft tiers’ schtick. Instead of coming up with a binary ranking, I place guys into categories based on where I see their future outcome most likely to be and then leave myself wiggle room to play the ‘fit’ game if necessary.
If I don’t get guys into the right tier, that’s when the board tends to fall apart and my pre-draft rankings deviate sharply from consensus. But I’m still struggling with what tiers to put some guys in, even this close to draft night. I see obvious talent, upside, and a lot of reason to buy in. But I also have reservations or doubts in my own evaluation (or in the translatability/ size of the red flag for pro success) that are causing me to scratch the head the most with these five (or, really, six) potential first-rounders.
1. The Overtime Elite Players, particularly Ausar Thompson
Now in Year Three of the G-League Ignite experiment, I’m starting to feel a lot more comfortable with finding the context around the team and how (or where) that factors into the evaluation. It took almost three full years to get there, though.
The Overtime Elite (OTE) program is in its second year, although this is the first time they’ve sported legitimate high-end, first-round talent. We’re all struggling to figure out just how to contextualize what we see during OTE games. The physical tools, athleticism, and flashes are so tantalizing from both Amen and Ausar Thompson. But the structure of the games, style of play, level of talent, shot-making around everyone, reliability of the metrics, and even the off-court training program — they’re all wild cards.
I feel more comfortable with Amen Thompson because his top-end tools are just that damn good. He’s a freak athlete whose burst, separation, and length are so breathtaking that he’s easier to get a handle on.
Where I struggle most is with Ausar, still a high-caliber athlete and high-level processor of the game. Ausar is older, more athletic, and smarter than every player he went against in OTE sans his twin. I don’t feel comfortable in knowing the context of how much of his success is relative to his competition and how much is just him being a rare, elite combination of traits.
Add to it the shooting complexities and I’m not sure what to do with Ausar. I don’t quite see the lead guard stuff, nor do I get the feeling he’s going to consistently score with the ball in his hands. I’d be really scared of drafting him too high and into a role that isn’t well-suited for him. I definitely like him a lot more in the 8-14 range than the top seven. How he stacks up next to other guys in that 7-12 range is still going to be difficult for me, and that happens to be a really consequential range in terms of future projection.
2. The Injury-Riddled Freshmen Seasons: Dariq Whitehead & Nick Smith
This happens every year. Some highly-touted freshman either underperforms at the college level due to circumstances (poor team fit) or injury. Two players qualify for this designation in 2023.
Duke’s Dariq Whitehead just underwent his second foot surgery in the last twelve months. He looked notably slower at Duke than he did playing for Montverde, where Whitehead earned my preseason #1 ranking of college basketball prospects. Whitehead shifted to more of an off-ball role with the Blue Devils as a result, and actually showed a lot more promise as a catch-and-shoot guy than anticipated.
There’s a chance Whitehead recovers his athleticism, gets more on-ball reps at the NBA level, and continues to shoot the lights out. If he does that, he’s probably a top-ten player in this class. There’s also a chance he’s just too slow for primary reps, and the medical red flags that come from multiple surgeries on the same foot could be costly. He could really go anywhere from the lottery to the late 20s.
Arkansas combo guard Nick Smith is similarly a challenge. Smith’s knee injury kept him in and out of the lineup all season. He was out of it in the middle of the season, as it seemed to appear he’d be shutting it down and training to get healthy and prepare for the draft. But Smith came back and should be lauded for his competitive drive. By all accounts, he’s a great kid and the knee injury was a challenge in ways more than just physical.
Smith’s game meshed for a small sample — a six-game stretch where he averaged 19 PPG and shot 40% from deep. That’s the Smith that we saw in high school and expected at Arkansas. He’s also really rough on the defensive end and didn’t convert on a regular basis in meaningful ways at Arkansas.
Smith should have the same draft range as Whitehead. My concerns with Smith aren’t as related to the health of his knee long-term but the ability to defend and scale his game down in the NBA.
3. GG Jackson - F, South Carolina
Okay, look… I’ve been one of the more adamant GG Jackson defenders for a while. The argument was centered around just how insane his year-over-year development as a shot-maker and perimeter player has been. The kid has no idea how to play yet on either end within a team context — he plays like he’s only functioned in 1v1 training sessions — but the starting point he’s at talent-wise is literally top-five worthy.