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Any update on Sharife?
2024 NBA Draft Thread
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by addict4sneakers,
- Start date
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Jaylen or Jalen Green?
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My man DJ Hogg COOKIN from deep.
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If Scottie Barnes keeps being the primary ball handler all season then top 3 looking great for him
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You're telling me DraftExpress got a chance to see Scottie Barnes over the last couple of weeks and thought LESS of him? He's incredible. He's already the leader of that team, he's legitimately their lead ball handler and creator, his compete level is off the charts and his feel for the game is way better than anyone gave him credit for. And a rock solid 6'9 225+ that just looks like a game wrecker physically.
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With a prospect of this size, this shouldn't be too surprising.
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Haven't seen that name in a minute 
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These G league Ignite scrimmages aren't televised??
tbh this ignite thing should be a HBO 24/7 all access style documentary/reality show.
otherwise what is the NBA doing this for?
tbh this ignite thing should be a HBO 24/7 all access style documentary/reality show.
otherwise what is the NBA doing this for?
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Protecting stock. Doesn’t make much sense to me but if these kids look bad it could hurt the program in the long run. Just my guess
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That's definitely part of what it is. Remember this is basically their trial run. Need to make sure they don't look overwhelmed against the G League guys. If they do, it's unlikely that more kids will try to go that route. If they look good, they'll get more.
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pretty sure they are handpicking the opponents too.
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I mean...aren't they playing in front of NBA personnel? Who exactly are they being hidden from?
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good point.
i don't get it. at least do an edited reality show after, otherwise what exactly is the benefit of all this?
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If there was no COVID, I'm sure the league would have cameras following the kids around for a tv special.
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I saw they partnered with Overtime for something but I don't know exactly what.
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Cade had a one track mind on that last possession. Double came as soon as tried to get to his spot and he wasn't anticipating it at all.
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Yeah he had got froze out of the last couple possessions too so I kinda get it. He'll learn. Definitely his worst game thus far though.
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Yeah looked like some funny business was going on. After TCU made the go ahead...whoever that was inbounding the ball flat out looked Cade off and passed to someone else but the coach called a TO
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2021 NBA Draft prospects: Ron Harper Jr. and early-risers who caught my eye
This college basketball season is weird and unlike any other. We’re in the middle of a pandemic that is ravaging the United States, and it’s led to little eccentricities in the process that teams are still trying to navigate. Chief among those evaluation difficulties? How to actually evaluate the freshmen who have played thus far.
Because of the stop-start nature of the season due to COVID-19 pauses, and the abbreviated preseason and summer players got with their new collegiate programs, it’s hard to get a handle on what is and isn’t fair to say regarding the freshman class across college basketball. Remember: The 2020 recruiting class is regarded as one of the better ones to come across college hoops in the last decade. It’s deep at the top, and it’s strong throughout in terms of depth. And frankly, as scouts, we just haven’t seen quite the level of production we anticipated from those players coming into the year. Is that because they’re just not very good and were overrated at lower levels? Or is it because they haven’t been placed into a high-level situation to succeed? After all, freshmen have gotten less practice time to assimilate with their teammates and less developmental time in the summer than they typically get with coaching staffs or trainers.
I’m holding off on making too many sweeping judgments on the young players in this class because of that. Guys such as B.J. Boston, Greg Brown and Caleb Love (among others) haven’t been very good so far, but I think it’s worth playing out the string a little bit longer to see if we see improvement throughout the season. It’s worth maybe just being patient before writing guys off this year.
Having said that, there are some older players who have really stood out this season and didn’t really have the high-level publicity in the preseason that their play thus far has shown them to be worth. On some level at least, all of these guys have pushed themselves into legitimate draft consideration early and are worth diving a bit deeper into as we start to enter conference play. (Statistics are through Monday’s games.)
Kessler Edwards | Pepperdine | 6-8 wing/forward | 21 years old
Early season stats: 6 games played, 20.7 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 1.5 APG, 1.0 SPG, 1.3 BPG, 2.5 3PM, 45.5 3P%
I’m just going to call my shot on this one. I haven’t ironed out the entirety of my 2021 NBA Draft Big Board (it’s very early), but I’d have Edwards as a top-40 guy right now. Everything he does looks extremely translatable looking toward the NBA, starting with the jumper.
At 6-foot-8 with a 7-foot wingspan, he has actual NBA range, and he can take shots on the hop to get into rhythm directly off the catch without slowing down. He’s great at aligning himself in mid-air toward the bucket, and it’s a quick release. And this isn’t just small sample size theatre, either. Edwards hit 43.7 percent of his 124 3-point attempts last season. Pepperdine loves running little slip-screen actions where Edwards will come up and set a screen for Colbey Ross (another sneaky under-the-radar prospect), then just fly out beyond the break and can 3s.
And this isn’t just a case of a small-school player putting up big numbers against other small-school players. Edwards went out and dropped 17 points and five rebounds against UCLA in a matchup against potential top-40 pick Chris Smith. He scored 22 points, grabbed five rebounds and had two blocks and two steals against another potential draft pick in Matt Mitchell and top-20 San Diego State. He then scored 26 points and grabbed nine rebounds in a win against Cal.
He’s also a really smart team defender and is great on the help side and terrific at getting his hands into places that disrupt what opposing offensive players can do. Edwards actually led the West Coast Conference in blocks last season due to his intelligence rotating over from the weak side and his length. He’s great at scrambling and has good enough lateral quickness to where you can pretty easily portend real switchability long-term given his size and length.
What improvement areas are holding Edwards back? Right now, he doesn’t really process things particularly well as a passer. It’s not his role with Pepperdine, as he’s largely just a play finisher either off the deep shot or out of the post. But I’d like to see him recognize where the help is coming from a bit more quickly. Additionally, his on-ball defense can leave something to be desired on occasion. Guys who are stronger than him can bowl through his 215-pound frame.
But it’s really hard to find guys who are this good at shooting the basketball and are also this smart rotationally on defense. Edwards is a legitimate prospect who should get real conversation for teams with first-round picks. It also doesn’t hurt that NBA scouts would love the ability to potentially go out to Malibu to check him out again at some point.
Kai Jones | Texas | 6-11 center | 19 years old
Early season stats: 6 GP, 9.7 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 4-6 from 3
Every year, scouts flock to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational because, logistically, it’s one of the best tournaments to see a large number of teams in one location over three days (the weather typically doesn’t hurt, either, in regard to choosing where to spend one’s time). And every year, someone drastically raises his profile through standout performances. Obviously, this season was different due to the event being held in Asheville, N.C., but the same held true because the event remained the highest-profile early-season tournament on the calendar.
Jones is the guy who really helped himself this season, showcasing drastically improved perimeter skills as a 6-foot-11 big man, skills that could portend him turning into the kind of center every team is looking for these days.
Everything with Jones right now is “flashes” as opposed to actual consistent production. But the flashes are as intriguing as any other big man’s in this class outside of Evan Mobley. Jones has shown some ability to knock down shots from 3, hitting nearly one per game so far this year. But more than that, he’s actually started to put the ball on the deck.
Against North Carolina in the Maui Invitational final, Texas gave him the ball at the top of the key with two minutes left out of a slipped ball screen. He pump-faked Garrison Brooks to freeze his momentum from going backward, took a pound dribble into the midrange, then shot a 16-foot pull-up that looked as fluid and dextrous as anything you’d see a college wing take off an advantage like that.
Against Indiana, he isolated Trayce Jackson-Davis at the top of the key, froze him with two jab steps, then drove right past him, pump-faked him out of the play as Jackson-Davis attempted to recover and went up for a thunderous dunk. Against Davidson, he had multiple baseline drives either coming out of pump-fakes or involving Euro steps to get to the rim.
Basically, it’s stuff you rarely see out of near-7-footers. And on top of that, Jones was pretty good at doing the stuff offensively that bigs are supposed to do, like running the floor, finishing above the rim and being an option for little dump-offs.
The key moving forward for Jones will be consistency. He goes through swaths of games being invisible on both ends of the floor. The reason Jericho Sims is currently starting over him is that Jones is still learning where he needs to be consistently on defense. So far, with Jones on the floor, Texas has been about 9.6 points worse per 100 possessions defensively, according to Pivot Analysis. And while that is a small sample, it does line up with the tape where Jones will push himself out of position a bit too often.
With Jones as the center and Sims off the floor, Texas gives up about 95.2 points per 100 possessions. With Sims on and Jones off, Texas gives up only 82.2. Having said that, Jones showed enough defensive upside at prep levels to where I wouldn’t write him off on that end. He’s still just 19 and clearly learning.
Originally from the Bahamas, Jones didn’t start playing organized basketball until he was 15, and he’s reputed to have a strong work ethic. I think he’s probably worth a bet late in the first round right now from a team that can afford to let him learn slowly and matriculate through at his own pace. He needs to find somewhere he can be nurtured, though, because he’s still not a sure thing to even be a consistent NBA player. And frankly, it might behoove him to stay in college for an additional year, depending on how the rest of this season goes. Still, the consensus coming out of the Maui for evaluators is that Jones is Texas’ best long-term prospect, not five-star freshman Greg Brown.
Ron Harper Jr. | Rutgers | 6-6 wing/forward | 20 years old
Early season stats: 5 GP, 23.2 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 2.8 APG, 0.6 SPG, 0.8 BPG, 3.1 3PM, 50.0 3P%
Harper was a sneaky interesting guy last season at Rutgers, averaging 12.1 points per game for a likely NCAA Tournament team in the Big Ten as a 19-year-old. But NBA scouts had concerns about him getting into better shape and his overall athleticism on both the offensive and defensive ends. This year, Harper has taken the leap.
No one is going to confuse him with a UFC fighter in terms of being lean, but he’s clearly in better shape and is a bit more explosive than he has been each of the past two seasons. That’s resulted in his ability to get just that extra bit of separation necessary to make plays as a driver.
More than that, though, he’s gone from good-but-streaky shooter into being just a flat-out high-level shooter at 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot wingspan. He’s not quite a movement shooter at this stage, but if you give him an open look from a standstill off the catch, he’s going to knock it down.
His balance through the shot is tremendous, and his release is very clean, with a perfect follow-through and great rotation on the ball. He catches the ball right on the hop and goes directly up into the shot without much wasted motion. It’s a totally translatable shot, and I’d bet he shoots up over 40 percent from 3 on high volume this year.
Beyond that, though, Harper’s feel for the game is very strong, something that is unsurprising for the kid of a high-level hoops bloodline (his father is former NBA champion Ron Harper, and his mother, Maria, played Division I hoops at New Orleans). The younger Harper makes the right pass all the time and finds his open teammates. His footwork on drives is sublime, with Harper never really taking extraneous steps.
He also is a really smart mover away from the ball. He’s great at relocating and finding soft spots in defenses for 3, and he’s really good at finding open cutting lanes to get little dump-off passes from drivers. Defensively, he’s good at staying in the right position, and he plays well through contact due to how strong he is at 245 pounds. He’s not an elite on-ball defender, but he’s tough and has fluid feet, if not necessarily quick ones.
The big question is obviously the athleticism. Some NBA scouts believe there is some real room for growth with his frame, which could give him some upside athletically in terms of his lateral quickness. Could he get into better shape and blossom into an even better long-term prospect than he is now? I think there is a real case for that. If he can lean out and add some quickness, there is always an enormous market for players who are 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot wingspan who are smart and can shoot it the way he does.
Given that, I’d have Harper as a top-60 guy on my board right now. If he can maintain that strength, add a bit of quickness and keep shooting the way he does, he could be the kind of multi-positional floor-spacer who can provide value in a wide variety of lineups at the NBA level.
Jalen Wilson | Kansas | 6-8 wing/forward | 20 years old
Early season stats: 7 GP, 15.8 PPG, 8.7 RPG, 1.6 3PM, 37.9 3P%
I’ll be honest: I’m not sure what to make of the Wilson breakout quite yet. I’m not even totally sure Kansas knows what to do with it outside of leaning into the surprise that he’s turned into the team’s go-to guy in its biggest spots. It’s not a surprise that Wilson is good, as he was a consensus top-50 prospect in the 2019 recruiting class. His freshman season was unfortunately abbreviated after he broke his ankle in Kansas’ second game. Rather, it’s just the way he’s been doing it that makes him kind of a tough evaluation.
In Kansas’ biggest moments against the toughest teams it has played this season, Wilson has clearly been the guy who has stepped up and made the enormous play. He scored 23 points and had 10 rebounds in critical early-season matchups against Kentucky and Creighton, morphing into a weird mismatch five in weird five-out Bill Self lineups. He’s done an exceptional job of using his quickness and athleticism edge against big men to his advantage and become a truly difficult matchup every night. He plays extremely hard and crashes the glass, while also being able to take bigs away from the hoop and either hit a shot or attack off the bounce. But it’s also not the role that he’s going to play at the NBA level.
Overall, he and Kansas as a whole have been considerably worse in the minutes he’s played at the four next to David McCormack. In the minutes Wilson plays with McCormack, Kansas is only nine points better than its opposition per 100, according to Pivot Analysis. In the minutes Wilson has played at the five, the Jayhawks are 31 points better per 100 possessions than their opposition. And that certainly matches up with how it feels on the tape.
Kansas has been much better on offense without McCormack on the floor because he takes up space without providing much of a threat himself, allowing teams to help off him at will. But another part of it is that Wilson doesn’t kill them on the defensive glass while also providing a significant offensive boost.
Where I’m struggling a bit with Wilson as a prospect is two-fold. First, despite having played 71 of his 178 minutes at center, Wilson has only blocked one shot and gathered one steal. I don’t think he’s a poor defender, but he’s not really an impact guy on that end despite doing his job solidly.
Second, while Wilson has made 38 percent of his 3s so far, I don’t know that I’m fully in on the jumper yet. He has touch, but his lower body mechanics are really inconsistent. Sometimes he twists his legs to the left. Other times he has a really exaggerated knee inversion. Here is how he loaded into two shots during the Creighton game. You’ll notice what I’m talking about here if you pay close attention to his lower half.
Ultimately, Wilson is going to need the jumper to play at the NBA level. He clearly can make it when he has time and space, but I want to see what happens as he starts to move up opposing teams’ scouting reports before making any sort of real determination as to where he currently is as a shooter.
If he’s a legit 38 percent 3-point shooter on five attempts per game, then he’s probably a top-45 guy. If he’s more like a 33 percent shooter, given his lack of defensive playmaking and passing right now, I’d say he’s more of a two-way guy who should stay in school and work to improve. Wilson has been one of the most important players in the country so far during this college hoops season, but I’m going to be a bit more patient in evaluating him.
Jason Preston | Ohio | 6-4 guard | 21 years old
Early season stats: 6 GP, 19.3 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 7.8 APG, 1.0 SPG, 2.7 TPG, 2.2 3PM, 52.0 3P%
Preston was a top-70 prospect for me entering the season and has one of the best stories in college hoops. He was a 6-foot senior in high school who barely played for his team in his hometown of Orlando. He was planning to go to UCF and not play basketball, but he decided to give AAU one final go and got noticed by Believe Sports Academy, a prep school in Tennessee. He didn’t even originally play for the best team there, having to suit up on the academy’s second and third teams. During this time, he had a growth spurt up to 6-foot-4 and started posting highlights of his exploits in these lower-level prep school games on Twitter. From there, he got an offer from Ohio (which just happened to notice these highlights), and the rest has been history. Preston morphing into a real NBA prospect is honestly one of the most incredible journeys I’ve seen.
And he’s not just a story, either. Preston is a legit point guard with size who operates at an extraordinarily high level out of ball screens. He averaged 17 points and seven assists last season and has upped those numbers across the board this year. His footwork and feel out of ball-screen actions is exceptional. He knows exactly how to use his body to shield defenders away from the ball to get into the paint.
His tempo is sublime, and he knows how to change speeds to freeze defenders and get them on their heels before blowing by. His touch around the rim is very good, and his floater game is lethal once he touches the paint. He’s great at making quick-decision live-dribble passing reads. Basically, Preston is a maestro with the ball in his hands, despite having a loose dribble that can get away from him a bit at times, something that actually ends up making him look like he has a bit less burst than he does in certain scenarios. Against Illinois, he did an incredible job of stringing out defenders and using his footwork and touch to drop 31 points and eight assists against what is undeniably a top-10 team.
The key for Preston is going to be the jumper. I know he’s shooting 52 percent from 3 so far this season, and he has displayed some real touch. But he’s not that guy as a shooter at this stage. He shoots kind of a leaning shot that doesn’t yet have great balance. It also has a bit of a low release point. Additionally, improving that tightness of handle while also adding a bit as a live-dribble passer would make him an even better prospect than he is now.
But these are things that could legitimately come. After all, over the last couple of years, Preston has really had to work to improve his frame just to be able to deal with contact at this level. Once he gets a runway to improve his skills alone, there’s a chance he could take another leap. I’d have him right around my top-50 at the moment.
Dalano Banton | Nebraska | 6-8 wing | 21 years old
Early season stats: 6 GP, 13.8 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 5.0 APG, 1.8 SPG, 1.0 BPG
Banton is from Toronto and decided to go to a prep school in New York to help raise his profile. He originally was a class of 2019 player but reclassified into the 2018 group to commit to Western Kentucky a year early. That year, NBA scouts went down to Bowling Green in droves to see incoming freshman Charles Bassey. And Bassey piqued their interest, for sure, as a potential one-and-done who ultimately has gone on a bit of a journey due to an underwhelming freshman season followed by a sophomore injury.
But a few scouts who talked to me after seeing those practices noted that Banton was the one who really caught their eye as a bit of a surprise in those settings due to his size and comfort as a perimeter player with ball in hand. They thought he had a chance to emerge as the more interesting longer-term prospect after having grown from 6-foot-6 to 6-foot-8. In his first year in Nebraska’s lineup after sitting out as a transfer during the 2019-20 season, Banton has started to fulfill that promise.
Playing as a pseudo-lead guard in Fred Hoiberg’s offense, Banton does a great job of using his long strides mixed with his flexibility when it comes to getting real bend to get past defenders. His ability to cover ground in a hurry with those strides and get downhill is real. He’s also a good ballhandler who can really change speeds then use that stride length to extend past. He’s just extremely fluid and doesn’t move like the typical 6-foot-8 guy when he has the ball in his hand.
His hand-eye coordination at full speed is very good for his size. More than that, though, Banton’s vision and ability to read help defenders is absolutely outstanding. There are few players in the country who can hit the cross-corner kickout pass with as much ease and with as much creativity as Banton. He’ll pass teammates open into corners, or he’ll hit tough-angle kickouts either with touch or on a bullet. Honestly, he has at least two just jaw-dropping passing highlights per night given how big he is.
Ultimately, like many guys with this skill set, it’s going to come down to the shot. Banton has messy shot mechanics that he has to prove are workable before he hits his ceiling as a player. They’re not broken. He makes his free throws at a reasonable clip, and when he has time to set his feet, he can hit shots. But it takes him an eternity to set in order to shoot. And if he’s even remotely rushed, his legs fly everywhere, and his follow-through wavers.
Frankly, he just doesn’t shoot like a guy who thinks the ball is going to go in. He’s tentative when firing, as it’s absolutely not his initial plan. He takes shots because a big part of Hoiberg’s offense is to take the open shot when it’s there, but Banton’s just not there yet as a shooter. It might be better off for Banton to stay in school one more year, really rep out the jumper and turn into a legitimate monster in the Hoiberg offense. His ceiling is very high in terms of draft stock, but I do have him as a borderline top-60 guy right now. It’s just too hard to find guys like this who have this much skill and feel at his size. If the jumper ever truly improves, he’s going to be a first-rounder.
This college basketball season is weird and unlike any other. We’re in the middle of a pandemic that is ravaging the United States, and it’s led to little eccentricities in the process that teams are still trying to navigate. Chief among those evaluation difficulties? How to actually evaluate the freshmen who have played thus far.
Because of the stop-start nature of the season due to COVID-19 pauses, and the abbreviated preseason and summer players got with their new collegiate programs, it’s hard to get a handle on what is and isn’t fair to say regarding the freshman class across college basketball. Remember: The 2020 recruiting class is regarded as one of the better ones to come across college hoops in the last decade. It’s deep at the top, and it’s strong throughout in terms of depth. And frankly, as scouts, we just haven’t seen quite the level of production we anticipated from those players coming into the year. Is that because they’re just not very good and were overrated at lower levels? Or is it because they haven’t been placed into a high-level situation to succeed? After all, freshmen have gotten less practice time to assimilate with their teammates and less developmental time in the summer than they typically get with coaching staffs or trainers.
I’m holding off on making too many sweeping judgments on the young players in this class because of that. Guys such as B.J. Boston, Greg Brown and Caleb Love (among others) haven’t been very good so far, but I think it’s worth playing out the string a little bit longer to see if we see improvement throughout the season. It’s worth maybe just being patient before writing guys off this year.
Having said that, there are some older players who have really stood out this season and didn’t really have the high-level publicity in the preseason that their play thus far has shown them to be worth. On some level at least, all of these guys have pushed themselves into legitimate draft consideration early and are worth diving a bit deeper into as we start to enter conference play. (Statistics are through Monday’s games.)
Kessler Edwards | Pepperdine | 6-8 wing/forward | 21 years old
Early season stats: 6 games played, 20.7 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 1.5 APG, 1.0 SPG, 1.3 BPG, 2.5 3PM, 45.5 3P%
I’m just going to call my shot on this one. I haven’t ironed out the entirety of my 2021 NBA Draft Big Board (it’s very early), but I’d have Edwards as a top-40 guy right now. Everything he does looks extremely translatable looking toward the NBA, starting with the jumper.
At 6-foot-8 with a 7-foot wingspan, he has actual NBA range, and he can take shots on the hop to get into rhythm directly off the catch without slowing down. He’s great at aligning himself in mid-air toward the bucket, and it’s a quick release. And this isn’t just small sample size theatre, either. Edwards hit 43.7 percent of his 124 3-point attempts last season. Pepperdine loves running little slip-screen actions where Edwards will come up and set a screen for Colbey Ross (another sneaky under-the-radar prospect), then just fly out beyond the break and can 3s.
And this isn’t just a case of a small-school player putting up big numbers against other small-school players. Edwards went out and dropped 17 points and five rebounds against UCLA in a matchup against potential top-40 pick Chris Smith. He scored 22 points, grabbed five rebounds and had two blocks and two steals against another potential draft pick in Matt Mitchell and top-20 San Diego State. He then scored 26 points and grabbed nine rebounds in a win against Cal.
He’s also a really smart team defender and is great on the help side and terrific at getting his hands into places that disrupt what opposing offensive players can do. Edwards actually led the West Coast Conference in blocks last season due to his intelligence rotating over from the weak side and his length. He’s great at scrambling and has good enough lateral quickness to where you can pretty easily portend real switchability long-term given his size and length.
What improvement areas are holding Edwards back? Right now, he doesn’t really process things particularly well as a passer. It’s not his role with Pepperdine, as he’s largely just a play finisher either off the deep shot or out of the post. But I’d like to see him recognize where the help is coming from a bit more quickly. Additionally, his on-ball defense can leave something to be desired on occasion. Guys who are stronger than him can bowl through his 215-pound frame.
But it’s really hard to find guys who are this good at shooting the basketball and are also this smart rotationally on defense. Edwards is a legitimate prospect who should get real conversation for teams with first-round picks. It also doesn’t hurt that NBA scouts would love the ability to potentially go out to Malibu to check him out again at some point.
Kai Jones | Texas | 6-11 center | 19 years old
Early season stats: 6 GP, 9.7 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 4-6 from 3
Every year, scouts flock to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational because, logistically, it’s one of the best tournaments to see a large number of teams in one location over three days (the weather typically doesn’t hurt, either, in regard to choosing where to spend one’s time). And every year, someone drastically raises his profile through standout performances. Obviously, this season was different due to the event being held in Asheville, N.C., but the same held true because the event remained the highest-profile early-season tournament on the calendar.
Jones is the guy who really helped himself this season, showcasing drastically improved perimeter skills as a 6-foot-11 big man, skills that could portend him turning into the kind of center every team is looking for these days.
Everything with Jones right now is “flashes” as opposed to actual consistent production. But the flashes are as intriguing as any other big man’s in this class outside of Evan Mobley. Jones has shown some ability to knock down shots from 3, hitting nearly one per game so far this year. But more than that, he’s actually started to put the ball on the deck.
Against North Carolina in the Maui Invitational final, Texas gave him the ball at the top of the key with two minutes left out of a slipped ball screen. He pump-faked Garrison Brooks to freeze his momentum from going backward, took a pound dribble into the midrange, then shot a 16-foot pull-up that looked as fluid and dextrous as anything you’d see a college wing take off an advantage like that.
Against Indiana, he isolated Trayce Jackson-Davis at the top of the key, froze him with two jab steps, then drove right past him, pump-faked him out of the play as Jackson-Davis attempted to recover and went up for a thunderous dunk. Against Davidson, he had multiple baseline drives either coming out of pump-fakes or involving Euro steps to get to the rim.
Basically, it’s stuff you rarely see out of near-7-footers. And on top of that, Jones was pretty good at doing the stuff offensively that bigs are supposed to do, like running the floor, finishing above the rim and being an option for little dump-offs.
The key moving forward for Jones will be consistency. He goes through swaths of games being invisible on both ends of the floor. The reason Jericho Sims is currently starting over him is that Jones is still learning where he needs to be consistently on defense. So far, with Jones on the floor, Texas has been about 9.6 points worse per 100 possessions defensively, according to Pivot Analysis. And while that is a small sample, it does line up with the tape where Jones will push himself out of position a bit too often.
With Jones as the center and Sims off the floor, Texas gives up about 95.2 points per 100 possessions. With Sims on and Jones off, Texas gives up only 82.2. Having said that, Jones showed enough defensive upside at prep levels to where I wouldn’t write him off on that end. He’s still just 19 and clearly learning.
Originally from the Bahamas, Jones didn’t start playing organized basketball until he was 15, and he’s reputed to have a strong work ethic. I think he’s probably worth a bet late in the first round right now from a team that can afford to let him learn slowly and matriculate through at his own pace. He needs to find somewhere he can be nurtured, though, because he’s still not a sure thing to even be a consistent NBA player. And frankly, it might behoove him to stay in college for an additional year, depending on how the rest of this season goes. Still, the consensus coming out of the Maui for evaluators is that Jones is Texas’ best long-term prospect, not five-star freshman Greg Brown.
Ron Harper Jr. | Rutgers | 6-6 wing/forward | 20 years old
Early season stats: 5 GP, 23.2 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 2.8 APG, 0.6 SPG, 0.8 BPG, 3.1 3PM, 50.0 3P%
Harper was a sneaky interesting guy last season at Rutgers, averaging 12.1 points per game for a likely NCAA Tournament team in the Big Ten as a 19-year-old. But NBA scouts had concerns about him getting into better shape and his overall athleticism on both the offensive and defensive ends. This year, Harper has taken the leap.
No one is going to confuse him with a UFC fighter in terms of being lean, but he’s clearly in better shape and is a bit more explosive than he has been each of the past two seasons. That’s resulted in his ability to get just that extra bit of separation necessary to make plays as a driver.
More than that, though, he’s gone from good-but-streaky shooter into being just a flat-out high-level shooter at 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot wingspan. He’s not quite a movement shooter at this stage, but if you give him an open look from a standstill off the catch, he’s going to knock it down.
His balance through the shot is tremendous, and his release is very clean, with a perfect follow-through and great rotation on the ball. He catches the ball right on the hop and goes directly up into the shot without much wasted motion. It’s a totally translatable shot, and I’d bet he shoots up over 40 percent from 3 on high volume this year.
Beyond that, though, Harper’s feel for the game is very strong, something that is unsurprising for the kid of a high-level hoops bloodline (his father is former NBA champion Ron Harper, and his mother, Maria, played Division I hoops at New Orleans). The younger Harper makes the right pass all the time and finds his open teammates. His footwork on drives is sublime, with Harper never really taking extraneous steps.
He also is a really smart mover away from the ball. He’s great at relocating and finding soft spots in defenses for 3, and he’s really good at finding open cutting lanes to get little dump-off passes from drivers. Defensively, he’s good at staying in the right position, and he plays well through contact due to how strong he is at 245 pounds. He’s not an elite on-ball defender, but he’s tough and has fluid feet, if not necessarily quick ones.
The big question is obviously the athleticism. Some NBA scouts believe there is some real room for growth with his frame, which could give him some upside athletically in terms of his lateral quickness. Could he get into better shape and blossom into an even better long-term prospect than he is now? I think there is a real case for that. If he can lean out and add some quickness, there is always an enormous market for players who are 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot wingspan who are smart and can shoot it the way he does.
Given that, I’d have Harper as a top-60 guy on my board right now. If he can maintain that strength, add a bit of quickness and keep shooting the way he does, he could be the kind of multi-positional floor-spacer who can provide value in a wide variety of lineups at the NBA level.
Jalen Wilson | Kansas | 6-8 wing/forward | 20 years old
Early season stats: 7 GP, 15.8 PPG, 8.7 RPG, 1.6 3PM, 37.9 3P%
I’ll be honest: I’m not sure what to make of the Wilson breakout quite yet. I’m not even totally sure Kansas knows what to do with it outside of leaning into the surprise that he’s turned into the team’s go-to guy in its biggest spots. It’s not a surprise that Wilson is good, as he was a consensus top-50 prospect in the 2019 recruiting class. His freshman season was unfortunately abbreviated after he broke his ankle in Kansas’ second game. Rather, it’s just the way he’s been doing it that makes him kind of a tough evaluation.
In Kansas’ biggest moments against the toughest teams it has played this season, Wilson has clearly been the guy who has stepped up and made the enormous play. He scored 23 points and had 10 rebounds in critical early-season matchups against Kentucky and Creighton, morphing into a weird mismatch five in weird five-out Bill Self lineups. He’s done an exceptional job of using his quickness and athleticism edge against big men to his advantage and become a truly difficult matchup every night. He plays extremely hard and crashes the glass, while also being able to take bigs away from the hoop and either hit a shot or attack off the bounce. But it’s also not the role that he’s going to play at the NBA level.
Overall, he and Kansas as a whole have been considerably worse in the minutes he’s played at the four next to David McCormack. In the minutes Wilson plays with McCormack, Kansas is only nine points better than its opposition per 100, according to Pivot Analysis. In the minutes Wilson has played at the five, the Jayhawks are 31 points better per 100 possessions than their opposition. And that certainly matches up with how it feels on the tape.
Kansas has been much better on offense without McCormack on the floor because he takes up space without providing much of a threat himself, allowing teams to help off him at will. But another part of it is that Wilson doesn’t kill them on the defensive glass while also providing a significant offensive boost.
Where I’m struggling a bit with Wilson as a prospect is two-fold. First, despite having played 71 of his 178 minutes at center, Wilson has only blocked one shot and gathered one steal. I don’t think he’s a poor defender, but he’s not really an impact guy on that end despite doing his job solidly.
Second, while Wilson has made 38 percent of his 3s so far, I don’t know that I’m fully in on the jumper yet. He has touch, but his lower body mechanics are really inconsistent. Sometimes he twists his legs to the left. Other times he has a really exaggerated knee inversion. Here is how he loaded into two shots during the Creighton game. You’ll notice what I’m talking about here if you pay close attention to his lower half.
Ultimately, Wilson is going to need the jumper to play at the NBA level. He clearly can make it when he has time and space, but I want to see what happens as he starts to move up opposing teams’ scouting reports before making any sort of real determination as to where he currently is as a shooter.
If he’s a legit 38 percent 3-point shooter on five attempts per game, then he’s probably a top-45 guy. If he’s more like a 33 percent shooter, given his lack of defensive playmaking and passing right now, I’d say he’s more of a two-way guy who should stay in school and work to improve. Wilson has been one of the most important players in the country so far during this college hoops season, but I’m going to be a bit more patient in evaluating him.
Jason Preston | Ohio | 6-4 guard | 21 years old
Early season stats: 6 GP, 19.3 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 7.8 APG, 1.0 SPG, 2.7 TPG, 2.2 3PM, 52.0 3P%
Preston was a top-70 prospect for me entering the season and has one of the best stories in college hoops. He was a 6-foot senior in high school who barely played for his team in his hometown of Orlando. He was planning to go to UCF and not play basketball, but he decided to give AAU one final go and got noticed by Believe Sports Academy, a prep school in Tennessee. He didn’t even originally play for the best team there, having to suit up on the academy’s second and third teams. During this time, he had a growth spurt up to 6-foot-4 and started posting highlights of his exploits in these lower-level prep school games on Twitter. From there, he got an offer from Ohio (which just happened to notice these highlights), and the rest has been history. Preston morphing into a real NBA prospect is honestly one of the most incredible journeys I’ve seen.
And he’s not just a story, either. Preston is a legit point guard with size who operates at an extraordinarily high level out of ball screens. He averaged 17 points and seven assists last season and has upped those numbers across the board this year. His footwork and feel out of ball-screen actions is exceptional. He knows exactly how to use his body to shield defenders away from the ball to get into the paint.
His tempo is sublime, and he knows how to change speeds to freeze defenders and get them on their heels before blowing by. His touch around the rim is very good, and his floater game is lethal once he touches the paint. He’s great at making quick-decision live-dribble passing reads. Basically, Preston is a maestro with the ball in his hands, despite having a loose dribble that can get away from him a bit at times, something that actually ends up making him look like he has a bit less burst than he does in certain scenarios. Against Illinois, he did an incredible job of stringing out defenders and using his footwork and touch to drop 31 points and eight assists against what is undeniably a top-10 team.
The key for Preston is going to be the jumper. I know he’s shooting 52 percent from 3 so far this season, and he has displayed some real touch. But he’s not that guy as a shooter at this stage. He shoots kind of a leaning shot that doesn’t yet have great balance. It also has a bit of a low release point. Additionally, improving that tightness of handle while also adding a bit as a live-dribble passer would make him an even better prospect than he is now.
But these are things that could legitimately come. After all, over the last couple of years, Preston has really had to work to improve his frame just to be able to deal with contact at this level. Once he gets a runway to improve his skills alone, there’s a chance he could take another leap. I’d have him right around my top-50 at the moment.
Dalano Banton | Nebraska | 6-8 wing | 21 years old
Early season stats: 6 GP, 13.8 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 5.0 APG, 1.8 SPG, 1.0 BPG
Banton is from Toronto and decided to go to a prep school in New York to help raise his profile. He originally was a class of 2019 player but reclassified into the 2018 group to commit to Western Kentucky a year early. That year, NBA scouts went down to Bowling Green in droves to see incoming freshman Charles Bassey. And Bassey piqued their interest, for sure, as a potential one-and-done who ultimately has gone on a bit of a journey due to an underwhelming freshman season followed by a sophomore injury.
But a few scouts who talked to me after seeing those practices noted that Banton was the one who really caught their eye as a bit of a surprise in those settings due to his size and comfort as a perimeter player with ball in hand. They thought he had a chance to emerge as the more interesting longer-term prospect after having grown from 6-foot-6 to 6-foot-8. In his first year in Nebraska’s lineup after sitting out as a transfer during the 2019-20 season, Banton has started to fulfill that promise.
Playing as a pseudo-lead guard in Fred Hoiberg’s offense, Banton does a great job of using his long strides mixed with his flexibility when it comes to getting real bend to get past defenders. His ability to cover ground in a hurry with those strides and get downhill is real. He’s also a good ballhandler who can really change speeds then use that stride length to extend past. He’s just extremely fluid and doesn’t move like the typical 6-foot-8 guy when he has the ball in his hand.
His hand-eye coordination at full speed is very good for his size. More than that, though, Banton’s vision and ability to read help defenders is absolutely outstanding. There are few players in the country who can hit the cross-corner kickout pass with as much ease and with as much creativity as Banton. He’ll pass teammates open into corners, or he’ll hit tough-angle kickouts either with touch or on a bullet. Honestly, he has at least two just jaw-dropping passing highlights per night given how big he is.
Ultimately, like many guys with this skill set, it’s going to come down to the shot. Banton has messy shot mechanics that he has to prove are workable before he hits his ceiling as a player. They’re not broken. He makes his free throws at a reasonable clip, and when he has time to set his feet, he can hit shots. But it takes him an eternity to set in order to shoot. And if he’s even remotely rushed, his legs fly everywhere, and his follow-through wavers.
Frankly, he just doesn’t shoot like a guy who thinks the ball is going to go in. He’s tentative when firing, as it’s absolutely not his initial plan. He takes shots because a big part of Hoiberg’s offense is to take the open shot when it’s there, but Banton’s just not there yet as a shooter. It might be better off for Banton to stay in school one more year, really rep out the jumper and turn into a legitimate monster in the Hoiberg offense. His ceiling is very high in terms of draft stock, but I do have him as a borderline top-60 guy right now. It’s just too hard to find guys like this who have this much skill and feel at his size. If the jumper ever truly improves, he’s going to be a first-rounder.
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