Are We Misinterpreting the Mid-First Round Landscape?

If the NBA values wings, what does that mean for the glut of scoring combo guards and undersized wings often mocked in the middle of the first round?

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been having a lot of discussions and writing articles about the lessons learned from the playoffs and overall roster-building philosophy. I’ll talk to scouts about their preferred methods for finding winning players, what it means to be a winning player, and more. I’ll send out Twitter prompts referencing philosophical trends in the draft space, including asking about what type of player helps a team early in their career.

The major theme and consistency amongst those polls and the feedback I’ve received seems to focus on bigger wings who are versatile defensively. Those are seen as winning players in a lot of respects, especially if they buy into their role offensively and can execute it flawlessly.

I think these are takeaways we’ve known for a while: bigger, versatile, long-armed wings are a formula for success. Nothing about those responses is revelatory or reinventing the wheel. But when thinking about this draft class in 2023, I cannot help but believe it’s a launching pad for an interesting discussion:

Are we under-valuing the multitude of wings as draft prospects and overvaluing the smaller combo guards?

I feel like I’ve got (and many of us do) a firm grasp on how the top ten or top eleven will go on draft night. Perhaps there’s one player who plays his way into that range, but otherwise, I feel comfortable with where the draft class is cemented at the top.

What happens next is turning into more of a mystery — with a really wide range of potential outcomes. I’ve probably heard of 30 guys total who have been linked in some regard to being taken in the top 20. Things could get pretty weird outside that top tier.

For months, my mocks and mainstream mocks have featured several 6’6” or smaller combo guards/ small wings listed in the middle chunk of the first round. Currently, my last Big Board entry featured guys standing 6’5” or under (with under a +4 wingspan) outside of the top ten in prominent places: Cason Wallace (9), Keyonte George (12), Kobe Bufkin (13), Dariq Whitehead (19), Nick Smith (20), Brice Sensabaugh (22), and Jordan Hawkins (24).

ESPN has done the same, if not to more of an extent. Jeremy Woo and Jonathan Givony placed those guys in spots much higher than on my board: Smith at 12, Hawkins at 13, George at 15, Bufkin at 16, and Wallace at 17 — making five of the first six picks outside that somewhat-solidified top-11 undersized wings/ combos. At Bleacher-Report, the great Jonathan Wasserman places Wallace 13, Smith 14, George 15, Hawkins 17, and Bufkin 19, continuing that trend.

I believe firmly in some of these players enough that I, too, still see them as legitimate lottery talents. But if I’m placing all of them above the long wings available (and who currently mocked in the late first), I think that indicates something about my process is off. It would feel really hypocritical to talk about how valuable so many big wings and guys who can defend are, and then turn around and rank them all behind a bunch of smaller players on a big board.

I started to trend toward this point a week ago, seeing the conversation about Bilal Coulibaly run rampant draft Twitter and much of the online space. Coulibaly has exploded over the last month in terms of draft stock. He’s raw, has a ton of upside, and athletically looks the part with over a 7’0” wingspan. While he’s a project for sure, the idea of Coulibaly is that, in theory, he’s the type of player you should swing on. If he fails to reach his ceiling on offense, he can still find a way to stick as a multi-positional defender.

That’s when it hit me a bit: the other players with those 6’10”+ wingspans and positional versatility on defense can fall into the same category as Coulibaly. Just maybe the guys like Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Sidy Cissoko, Kris Murray, Kobe Brown… maybe these are the guys who should be getting the looks in the mid-to-late teens. They are great “fits” with almost any roster and all can play at different spots within the lineup.

Perhaps Jordan Walsh, Julian Phillips, Andre Jackson, and Rayan Rupert are worth late-first looks and shouldn’t all be pushed to the second due to their lack of offensive ceiling. Perhaps they are the right guys to pick because, if the offense does come around, they are incredibly valuable pieces. From a process perspective, it might be more beneficial to swing on one of those guys becoming a shooter or positive offensive force than it is to try to get the next combo guard with feel or defensive fit questions that pop up in the playoffs.

While I see the talent and the upside on offense so much more clearly in the combo guard category, the upside is felt more clearly when you’re actually on the floor. Length and defensive acumen is a difference-maker, and while we can’t always see the ways that length shows up, its presence was felt during the NBA Finals with Denver’s immense reach advantage.

I’m not 100% sure where I weigh in on the idea of “always draft the longer wing over the scoring combo guard”. Like anything else, evaluation is a lot about the eye test, and blanket statements or categories like that can lead to criminally devaluing good basketball players.

But as I’m trying to put together mock drafts and predict what teams will do, I keep thinking we’re in for a wide range of outcomes from 12-40. If there’s something that causes a disruption in the mock draft community we’ve seen out there of late, it could be a sudden rise for more positional size and the ascent of several wings into the teens on draft night.

As I’m putting together the final iteration of my Big Board, I’d expect something like this to be reflected in how several of the rankings come out — especially outside of the top 15. I’ll probably have Julian Phillips ahead of Brandin Podziemski. I’ll value Kobe Brown more than Jordan Hawkins. I’ll elevate Kris Murray over Dariq Whitehead. I’ll take Olivier-Maxence Prosper ahead of Keyonte George.

On talent alone, those decisions don’t always seem to be the most sensible. But if the Denver Nuggets have taught us anything, it’s that fit and positional length is more important than talent and scoring upside. We’ll see if there are NBA teams who subscribe to this theory and disrupt the status quo of public-facing mock drafts by grabbing a long wing a little earlier than advertised.