Brandon Anderson’s 2017 NBA Draft Big Board

NBA Draft Day is here! Here’s what you need to know about every top prospect

The NBA Draft is here at last, and it’s already been a wild week. The #1 pick was traded down for the first time since 1993, D’Angelo Russell was moved to Brooklyn for a sack of moldy potatoes, and future Hall of Famer Dwight Howard was traded to Charlotte in a deal many barely even noticed. The rumors have been hot and heavy all week with names like Kristaps Porzingis, DeAndre Jordan, and LaMarcus Aldridge as headline acts. Every team seems to be in a state of panic, either loading up for a shot at the Warriors or clearing the decks to reload for a couple years from now.

Meanwhile, this year’s draft class is loaded, with eight surefire NBA starters at the top and a ton of depth and useful players after. Below is my official 2017 NBA Big Board with 6,000 words of analysis on my top 33 players, all broken into tiers. Scan for a player you like, read up on guys you don’t know much about, or just devour it all. It’s all there, and it’s all guaranteed to be correct in five years or your money back. If you’re reading later, here’s my draft analysis for each team.

If this still isn’t enough draft talk for you, be sure to check out the great work from Cole Zwicker, JZ Mazlish, and Ben Rubin below by clicking on the picture to get to their big boards. These three along with Jonathan Givony and the DraftExpress team and the guys at The Ringer Staff all have incredible NBA Draft stuff and informed a lot of my opinions here. Off we go!

Some Notes on Methodology

Feel free to skip this section if you just want to get to the good stuff. I consider a lot in ranking guys on my big board, but some are more important than others.

• I place a huge emphasis on fit in the modern NBA. Big men have evolved. We play less of them now (which is confusing since most mock drafts have like 25 big men getting drafted) and they need to be more skilled and more versatile defensively. Athletic wings are incredibly important. Guys need to do more than score, and they need to score efficiently. Prospects that might have been great a decade ago may be marginalized now. If I can’t imagine a player fitting a role on a good winning team, I’m probably not a big fan.
• Defense matters a ton. If you can’t play defensively, you don’t get to play when games really matter in the 4th quarter or in key playoff moments.
• Athleticism is huge. Athleticism overcomes a lot of shortcomings.
• Versatility is even bigger. In the modern NBA, it’s no longer about pigeon-holing a guy into a tiny fit. Now it’s players that can fit many roles who are valuable, guys that can defend multiple positions and switch on defense. The worst defender on the court needs to be at least passable on a switch, and the best defenders can guard three, four, or all five players out there. Great offensive players should fit into a bigger attacking scheme and contribute skills that make teammates better.
• Shooting matters a lot. If you can’t shoot, teams don’t have to defend you and you get played off the court. But shooting is also hard to measure. Elite shooting translates, but poor shooters can often develop later.
• Height matters very little to me, but a study I did on wingspan and standing reach for Seth's Draft House showed those to be two very key measurables for a player’s potential especially defensively.
• Upside matters over team fit and certainty, especially at the top of the draft and for teams that are not already title contenders. This is not the NFL. Trading down for multiple assets and bites at the apple is not necessarily the way to go. You win in the NBA first and foremost because of superstars, so any swing at a possible superstar is probably a good one. You just can’t take Justin Jackson or Luke Kennard in the lottery to fit a role when there are possible stars out there you’re missing on and you can get 85% of Jackson or Kennard as an undrafted free agent.
• I’m a wisdom of crowds guy. I trust my analysis but other people have spent a ton of time on all this and I trust them too. If there’s someone my gut doesn’t like but a lot of other smart people do, I probably tried to reconsider them or at least left the player fairly high on my board. If a ton of smart people spend time analyzing and all come to a similar conclusion, it’s probably more reliable than my own offerings.
• I’m also a big social economics guy, so you’ll see a lot of efforts here to avoid recency bias, anchoring, and other bias problems.
• The tiers are the major cut-offs between different groups. In general, you shouldn’t dip into the next tier down, but the names within a tier can move around a lot (and have during the course of my preparation). Fultz is alone in Tier I and has to be the #1 pick. I have seven guys in Tier II. They’re really good and really should be taken by pick #8. The further down the board, the more acceptable to reach to a lower tier, especially if it’s for a higher-risk upside guy instead of a safer player with a lower ceiling.

Tier I — The Superstar

There’s just one name alone at the top of this year’s draft class, and he’s going to be a stud.

1. G Markelle Fultz, Washington

Markelle Fultz is the best player in a really talented draft class. He is a sure thing #1 pick and he might be the best guard prospect in the draft in a decade. Fultz does everything and really does not have any significant weak spots or red flags. He has terrific size for a guard with a very big wingspan, and that should help him defensively and allow him to shoot and pass over many opponents and play both guard positions. Fultz can score at all three levels and can create space and make a shot for himself pretty much any time he wants. He posted insane efficiency numbers for an 18-year-old in college, especially considering the dumpster fire of a team he was on.

Fultz is a good shooter, though his 65% free throw stroke is one real nitpick. He draws a lot of fouls and is a good finisher at the rim. Fultz rebounds well and had a good assist rate, despite having teammates that were genuinely among the worst in basketball. He takes a few too many long and/or contested twos, but that part of his game can be worked out when there are other real players around him. Defensively, Fultz is lacking a bit but the tools are there and he’s so good offensively that it probably won’t matter.

The one knock on Fultz seems to be his athleticism, which is considered sub-elite. I see Fultz as having the athleticism of someone like James Harden. Athletic ability is more than just speed and jumping really high. Fultz has that Harden-esque stop-and-go ability to wriggle free, change direction, and create space. He’s so smart and so good at creating offensively, and he’s also barely 19 years old now, one of the youngest players in the draft, so he’s just going to keep getting better. Fultz is a star, maybe a superstar, and a clear #1 pick. The more I watched and studied this draft, the more it became Fultz as the star and everyone else as good role players. You can build an offense around this guy, and he’s the perfect complement to Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid in Philadelphia.

Every scout likes Markelle Fultz, and every analytics model loves him. Fultz is one of only five players since 2006 to be a top-two draft pick in every measured analytics model, along with Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, and Michael Beasley (no one’s perfect). That list excludes Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, John Wall, Ben Simmons, Andrew Wiggins, Derrick Rose, or Greg Oden. Fultz is really, really good and Philadelphia will now control his rights for almost a decade. He’s probably a top 15 asset in the NBA right now. I still can’t believe Boston traded him.

Tier II — Definite NBA Players with Star Potential

As much as Fultz is in a class of his own, the top eight in this year’s draft shows a clear distinction from everyone else. Teams in the top eight need to take someone in this tier or make someone else pay to trade up. All seven of these guys (and Fultz) are very likely to be quality above-average NBA starters. That’s really deep for a draft. Still I think the most likely outcome for most of these guys is to be really strong “role” players, guys that are the third or fourth best guy but possibly on a very good team. Fultz is the only one I see as a superstar.

2. G Lonzo Ball, UCLA 3. F Jonathan Isaac, Florida State

I’ve gone around the world on Lonzo Ball and came right back to where everyone else has him, #2 in the draft. The list of things Ball can’t do is long. He doesn’t create well for himself and isn’t a great athlete, and he has a really weird shooting motion and is average sized and an average defender. He doesn’t drive the ball well, doesn’t get to the line, and has one real iso move and it’s taking a 35-foot step-back jumper (cc: The Ringer NBA Show).

You look at Lonzo Ball and list off all those weaknesses, and there’s no one in the NBA like him that has even been moderately successful. And that’s scary. We like to compare guys to existing good players, and there is no Lonzo Ball to point at to know someone like this can be successful. But this is an availability heuristic problem. There are only so many NBA players, and it’s really hard to see the future, so we anchor our opinion of a player by comparing him to something we know. When there’s nothing to anchor to, we assume a player can’t succeed. There didn’t use to be any freakishly athletic Greek dudes in the NBA. Chubby undersized mouthy Michigan State guys were always good in college and bad as pros. Short scrawny dudes who starred at Davidson were never stars. That all used to be true, and then Giannis Antetokounmpo, Draymond Green, and Steph Curry happened.

When listing all of the things Lonzo Ball doesn’t do, it’s easy to forget all the things he does do well. Ball is an excellent rebounder and a terrific cutter. He moves well off the ball and has an incredible feel for the game. Ball’s shot form is painful — but his release is quick (faster than Klay Thompson), his range is deep, and his shot is effective (41% from deep). And then there’s that passing, oh my, that passing. We fawned over Ben Simmons last year, and Lonzo is an even better and smarter passer. Did Ball play in a system that was perfect for him and made him look good? Or is it possible Lonzo Ball was the system, that everyone else looked better and played well because of him?

Ball is a leader and a winner. The ball flies around the court when he’s out there, and he’s as good at secondary assists as making the final pass. The best comparison I can think of is Manu Ginobili, with less driving and finishing but a little more defensively. Watch Lonzo play ball and tell me you can’t see him as a super-elite system player for the Warriors or the Spurs, whipping the ball around the horn to the open corner three, running a terrifying 3-on-2 transition, sneaking to the rim for an open layup on a back cut.

I don’t know if Lonzo is a point guard. I don’t know if he’s going to be an elite scorer or an All Star, and I don’t give a rip about his dad. But I know that dude can ball, and he can do it for my team any day. If a team drafts Lonzo looking for 25 points and 10 assists a night, they’re not going to find it. If they’ll take 13 points, 7 rebounds, 9 assists, 5 secondary assists, 3 steals, and 8 winning plays instead, Lonzo Ball is their guy.

Six hundred words of Lonzo Ball later, I may actually like Jonathan Isaac a little more, partly because I’m a Timberwolves fan and desperately want to see him as that lock-down wing defender next to Wiggins and Towns. I wrote an entire piece on Isaac as the most interesting man in the NBA draft. He’s an elite winning player that fills a role on literally every NBA team. He’s already terrific, and I think there’s some long-shot Kawhi Leonard potential too if he can slowly grow into a bigger offensive role as he adjusts to his newfound size (he grew eight inches in high school) and continues to work on his handle and shot. Here’s my piece on Isaac for more:

4. SG Malik Monk, Kentucky 5. PG De’Aaron Fox, Kentucky 6. Wing Josh Jackson, Kansas

Malik Monk is one of my favorite players in the draft. If you watched college ball at all, you probably already know exactly what Monk is — an absolute gunner and an elite hot hand shooter from downtown, especially in the biggest moments of the big games. The question is just how valuable that can be if that’s his only skill, and the answer to that depends mostly on efficiency.

Monk’s floor is to be a gunner off the bench, a classic Jamal Crawford or Ben Gordon type who can heat up in a hurry and score volume points. And FYI, that’s a really valuable player that almost every NBA team would love to have. Efficiency is great, but someone has to score off the bench too. If that’s all Monk ever is as a floor, that’s still a pretty nice player, and he should be at least that. Monk hasn’t done much playmaking yet and isn’t a good defender, and his smallish wingspan limit his defensive potential. But Monk is an outstanding athlete and has the tools to contribute as a slasher and cutter on offense in addition to his spot up shooting, and that should also help him be useful as a rebounder and in closeouts on defense, maybe the way J.R. Smith developed late in his career to a 3-and-D type.

And Monk has a shot to die for. It’s picture perfect with great elevation that he can get off in a heartbeat and it’s pure with great results, even though many of his shots were contested or amidst terrible Kentucky spacing. Monk’s floor may be a bench gunner, but his more likely outcome is a Bradley Beal type shooting guard that runs around screens and bends the defense and scores all game, lighting the opponent’s game plan on fire. And if everything bounces right, his upside is Ray Allen. I love defense too, but two guard is the spot you can get away with less defense if the offense is good enough, and Monk’s offense is good enough and then some. I agree with Cole Zwicker — Monk is the best shooter and off-ball gravity prospect in a long time.

De’Aaron Fox is really good, and he’s also really not Elfrid Payton just because he has a questionable shot and fun hair. Fox is quicker, a better defender, and a better shooter already than Elf ever was in college and he’s two years younger (and by the way, Payton is a useful near-average starting NBA point guard). My vote for Fox is a vote against recency bias. It’s easy to scare away from Fox because of the recent failures of point guards like Payton, Mudiay, and MCW who don’t have a shot, but that’s only because those are the recent guys that come to mind.

De’Aaron Fox reminds me a little more of John Wall, another player without a great jumper. Fox is more quick than fast and we’ll see how his speed holds up when he adds muscle to his thin frame. I do think there will be a learning curve here, but Fox showed last year that he was a great learner. No college player I watched improved more over the course of the season. In November I thought Fox would be Kentucky’s downfall, a point guard without a dribble and a guy who looked lost most of the time. By March I thought he was UK’s saving grace. Fox learned to control his dribble and found a floater that let him use his quick step to make space in the lane and finish there, key for him with such a small frame. Fox will be a terror in transition and should be a plus defender one-on-one. His shot needs work but isn’t as bad as you think, just inconsistent, and his free throw rate is encouraging. I think of Fox’s game as something between Wall and Mike Conley. In a few years I think he ends up something like the 8th to 12th best point guard in the league.

Josh Jackson has been as high as #2 on my draft board. But the longer I’ve studied the draft, the more I fell in love with Fultz and the more I fell out of love with Jackson. Jackson is a very good athlete with good size, though he’s a couple inches smaller than I’d like, small enough that he’s more of a wing and not a small-ball four guy, and he definitely doesn’t have the wingspan to be a suffocating defender like Kawhi Leonard. He has good defensive instincts and is a strong defender but maybe not an elite one. Jackson is a good creator and averaged three assists a game at Kansas, though I worry that he played in a system with huge amounts of spacing and great guards that amplified his strengths and made him look really good.

Jackson’s shot is broken. He shot just 57% from the line, a terrible indicator, and shot 24% from downtown in the first half of the season before hitting 48% down the stretch. He’s got funky shooting mechanics and it sure looks like that 48% is the outlier there. Jackson’s athleticism and versatility are his calling cards, but his size limits his versatility a bit, and he doesn’t seem to have the frame to add a ton of strength. He might just end up a 3-and-D wing with some creation abilities but without an elite three or D. Jackson struggled with foul trouble at times and had a lot of turnovers, and though he’s a freshman, he’s also more than a year older than most freshmen so he has that going against him too. There are also some character and leadership red flags, both on and off the court.

There are a lot of Andre Iguodala comparisons, and I think that’s a problem. Andre Iguodala is probably going to end up in the Hall of Fame. He’s a good scorer, a decent shooter, and an all-time 3-and-D defending wing with terrific playmaking skills, a Finals MVP that kept LeBron James in check. Recency bias tells us how valuable Iggy is to one of the best teams ever, and all the Jackson-Iggy comparisons create a dangerous anchoring effect that make us fall in love with Jackson’s potential.

Josh Jackson is not Andre Iguodala. He’ll never be as strong or as good of a defender, he’s not as versatile, and he’s not as much of a creator. Jackson isn’t Giannis Antetokounmpo or Kawhi Leonard either. He’s just Josh Jackson, a nice wing player that we might be falling too much in love with. He might be something like Josh Howard, a perfectly nice wing that made an All Star team and contributed on good Dallas teams. That’s still really good, and really valuable. It just might not be as great as folks are expecting.

7. PG Dennis Smith, North Carolina State 8. F Jayson Tatum, Duke

I’m honestly not much of a fan of Smith or Tatum. I think both are really talented and likely to be high-scoring NBA starters — I’m just not sure I envision them as winning NBA players.

I like Dennis Smith far more. He’s an incredibly explosive athlete in the mold of Westbrook, Bledsoe, and Rose, and he might even be a better athlete since he’s still recovering from torn knee ligaments a year ago. Smith is a dynamic scorer and great at driving to the hole and getting buckets or drawing fouls. The analytics guys (like Cole Zwicker and Nate Duncan) love Smith, and he jumps off the film when you watch him. If his knee is right, he’s definitely an NBA player.

But the list of worries is long. The knee injury is a concern, since his game is so keenly predicated on his elite athleticism. Smith is also really small, with a tiny wingspan and reach almost certain to make him useless defensively and a real target in pick and rolls. I don’t love Smith’s shot. His form isn’t great and his percentages were average last year (72% from the line, 36% from deep), and that was an improvement from before that so it might go down and not up. And finally, there are the long list of character and leadership red flags. I’m not inner circle enough to comment too much there, but you can’t have a star point guard that lacks effort and has bad body language.

Smith reminds me so much of some of the “great” ‘90s point guards like Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis. Those guys were super fun to watch and had a few All Star seasons, but were they ever the leading guy on a really good team? And would you want that guy playing that way in 2017? One of the scouts from Seth's Draft House calls Smith “a guy that gets you fired,” and that could be for taking or passing on him. I’ll let someone else take the fall, even though I think there’s an immense talent here.

As for Jayson Tatum, I just don’t like him all that much. He’s a starting NBA wing and should be a high-volume scorer, but he just reminds me so much of the Rudy Gay, DeMar DeRozan, Andrew Wiggins (sigh) wing type of player that is so overvalued in the NBA, one that scores a bunch of points without contributing a lot else. Tatum has good size but isn’t great on defense, and he’s not much of a passer or creator for others and racked up turnovers. His three-pointer is pretty average, though I like that he shoots free throws so well (usually that’s a better shooting indicator). Tatum got in frequent foul trouble and struggled against better athletic competition outside of one awesome four-day ACC tournament run. I think Tatum has a poor man’s Carmelo Anthony skill set, and that’s just not a compliment from me. He should be a somewhat inefficient volume iso scorer on the wing and feels like a good stats bad team guy. Only the need for good NBA wings and respect for Kevin O'Connor (Tatum’s his #2 guy) keep Tatum even this high.

Tier III — High Upside Plays

The guys in the top eight have higher potential than this next tier, but they are also more likely to get there. That group above all seem exceedingly likely to be quality NBA starters, which is what makes the top of this draft so deep. This group will probably have a couple guys that end up better than some of the above players, or at least more useful on better teams, but there’s a lower ceiling here and a much higher chance of swinging and missing.

9. F/C OG Anunoby, Indiana 10. F/C Jordan Bell, Oregon 11. G Frank Ntilikina, international

This is my evil defenders trio. It’s become popular to call defense “half” of the game, and I suppose the math bears that out to an extent, but I don’t think defense is half of winning. It’s maybe closer to a quarter or a third, and the most valuable defenders in the NBA are the ones who can play elite defense next to the far more important elite offense guys and let those guys save their energy for scoring. Still, modern NBA has all but eliminated guys that can only be useful on one end of the court, so just like I have fears about someone like Smith or Monk being offense-only, these three can only be useful defensively if they find something to keep them on the court on offense.

OG Anunoby is up first because he is an absolute freak athlete and even more freakish body. Anunoby has almost a nine foot standing reach, longest for any wing in the DraftExpress database (if he’s a wing), and a huge 7'2 wingspan. OG looks like a guy that can switch and guard all five positions effectively, an absolute wrecking ball that honestly looks like he has Defensive Player of the Year potential. Think about Draymond Green on defense but with a bigger reach and more athleticism. With Anunoby, there are two huge questions. First is his health, which seems to be a real problem and leave him sliding on Draft Day. I don’t have health information, so I’m assuming he’ll get healthy here. Second is what Anunoby can do to contribute offensively. His jumper isn’t great and he’s raw as a handler, but he did score 70% of his twos this season. Anunoby is decidedly not Draymond Green on offense, but if he can be a great screener and a rim runner and play on a team with big men that can shoot and not clog the paint (think Minnesota or New York or Denver), he can find a role.

I love Jordan Bell even more than I love Anunoby, but OG has higher upside because of his size and athleticism, if he does hit. Bell has a lower ceiling but a higher floor. He’s a bit short to be a big man at 6'9, but he has incredible athleticism and agility and he ran the best shuttle in combine history, showing off the lateral quickness that makes him such a devastating defender. Like Anunoby, Bell will be able to switch and defend all five positions (though center for only stretches like Draymond) and he looks like an ideal candidate to play defense in the pick and roll. Think of him as somewhere in between Draymond Green and Tristan Thompson, the sort of guy who can be a key defender on a really good team. Bell is an awesome weak-side shot blocker and a terrific rebounder. There are worries about his ability (or desire) to box out, but there’s not a ton of boxing out in the NBA and Bell has a great nose for rebounds. He’s also already solid at both screening and passing, which should give him an offensive role as long as he’s playing next to stretch bigs (again: Minnesota, New York, Denver). Jordan Bell is my favorite sleeper in the draft. I don’t understand why he’s a sleeper.

Frank Ntilikina is a guy many draftniks have in their top nine, along with my top eight. I don’t buy that right now, but there’s potential to get there down the line. I just don’t think it’s the way people expect. Ntilikina is a smart player and still very young, and he has an insane body for a point guard with a supposed seven-foot pterodactyl wingspan that could make him a terror to other guards defensively. But this is not a guy that can come in and play right now. Ntilikina averaged 5.2 points and 1.4 assists a game in the German Bundesliga this year, and he’s only really dominated against younger competition. Ntilikina isn’t a top level athlete, though he’s strong for an 18-year-old. I’m not excited about Ntilikina as a point guard. I think he projects as a low-end starter at best, a poor man’s Patrick Beverley, there. But I think there’s a small chance Ntilikina is still growing and, if he grows another couple inches, he could end up being a really good young 3-and-D guy that plays the two or the three. That’s the player I’d be hoping for here.

12. C Jarrett Allen, Texas 13. F/C Zach Collins, Gonzaga 14. F Lauri Markkanen, Arizona

In a draft with a slew of useful bigs (too many of them, honestly), Jarrett Allen has long been my favorite. He’s one of the youngest players in the draft and has a huge body that may still be growing. He shows good instincts as a rim defender and looks like JaVale McGee, the perfect bouncy sort of guy that fits well in 2017. I love how Allen improved as the season went on, and I’m especially impressed with the 18 points and 10 rebounds a game he averaged in seven key games against Kansas, Baylor, and West Virginia.

Zach Collins is the guy everyone else has as the best true big man, but I have some concerns. Collins posted great numbers but did so in limited minutes against mostly backups on mid-major teams. He’s clearly a solid athlete with good footwork in the post and a nice passing touch, so he’ll be useful in the NBA, but I see a low ceiling. Collins got into a lot of foul trouble and lacks strength, so he struggled against bigger and better competition. He’s also lacking wingspan, so that and the lack of core strength could leave him struggling against true centers and stuck playing as more of a stretch four. It’s just hard for me to build a really good team with Collins in the starting lineup.

Lauri Markkanen is the lottery guy I just can’t myself into. He’s clearly a terrific shooter, boasting a 64% true shooting percentage as a freshman and knocking down 42% of his threes. He’s white and a tall shooter so you see a lot of Ryan Anderson comps but that’s crazy. Anderson is three inches shorter but averaged 21 points and 10 boards as a dominant 20-year-old at Cal. Markkanen averaged 14 points and 3 boards in five games against athletic Oregon and UCLA competition this year, a couple times getting played completely off the court. He’s not athletic, not good with his back to the basket, a terrible rebounder, and absolutely brutal on defense. To me, Markkanen is a seven-foot shooting guard. His aspiration is not Dirk Nowitzki; it’s Kyle Korver. Height alone doesn’t make you a big man. He can be a useful regular season player but won’t be on the court when it really matters.

Draft Day is always miserable as a Timberwolves fan. Year after year, we take the one guy I absolutely hate. That’s been Shabazz Muhammad, Zach LaVine, Kevin Love, and Jonny Flynn in the past decade. This year the one guy I can’t buy, especially under Thibs in Minnesota, is Markkanen. Naturally that’s who 75% of mock drafts give to Minnesota, and he’s the player I fully expect Minnesota to walk away with Thursday night… if we don’t trade the pick for some crappy overpriced veteran instead. Yay Minnesota sportsdom.

Tier IV — No Man’s Land

This is the part of the draft you really don’t want to be stuck picking in. The sure bets are gone and so are the really high upside guys. Here you’re looking at moderate upside and NBA-ready role players. These are good players but you missed your best chance at a game changer, and you might even reach for someone in a tier below if you’re swinging more for the fences than for a double.

15. F Semi Ojeleye, SMU 16. G Donovan Mitchell, Louisville 17. C Ike Anigbogu, UCLA

Semi Ojeleye is Jae Crowder 2.0. He has the same body, which is not a compliment by the way, but he’s a much better athlete and has the three-point shot Crowder seems to think he has. Ojeleye’s wingspan makes him a low-end wing but his body and game are that of a combo forward. That makes him a tough plug and play but he has a lot of offensive upside.

I really don’t care for Mitchell a whole lot, but that just shows you the drop-off after the lottery (and he’ll probably go in the lottery anyway). Mitchell has a big wingspan and projects as sort of a poor man’s Marcus Smart or Tony Allen, and I’m not sure how valuable that is. He struggled against more physical defenses and has an inconsistent jumper and a poor true shooting percentage.

Anigbogu is a long-term project but one worth the investment. He’s the youngest player in the draft and is incredibly raw, averaging just 13 minutes a game for UCLA and only ever playing 20 minutes once. But his 7'6 wingspan is tantalizing and he’s a great athlete with a body that could turn into Alonzo Mourning or Hassan Whiteside once it fills out. Right now Anigbogu is a fouling machine (7.6 fouls per 40 minutes) and has zero polish in the post or on his jumper. In four or five years, he could be DeAndre Jordan.

18. Wing Justin Jackson, UNC 19. SG Josh Hart, Villanova 20. SG Luke Kennard, Duke 21. Wing Sindarius Thornwell, South Carolina

Jackson is a classic better-in-college player who will be a mid-first pick anyway because of the NBA’s need for 3-and-D guys. Don’t get too excited. He’s three years older than everyone before him on this list and just this year got as good as them, and he’s not a top athlete. His college game was about using his size and game experience to his advantage, and both of those advantages are gone at the next level. Jackson should be a decent role player on the wing, but don’t be surprised if some team like Charlotte or Chicago that’s a sucker for experienced successful college players drafts him too high.

I’d rather pick Josh Hart a round later. He doesn’t have Jackson’s size but he has a much more stable shot and is a great finisher that can score at all three levels. Hart’s one “elite” skill is doing everything well without taking anything off the table. He’s that guy some good team steals in the middle of the draft and ends up playing next May while we all wonder how he fell.

Kennard is smaller, worse, less athletic, less gamey Josh Hart. He is a J.J. Redick clone body-wise, and that’s not a good thing since it means a small wingspan and poor athleticism. Redick worked his butt off to turn into a rotation player, and Kennard will have to do the same to be more than a shooter. JZ Mazlish also points out a slow low release on Kennard’s jumper that will limit even that one top skill.

Thornwell is this year’s March Madness stud, but he can really play. He’s a Lance Stephenson or Dion Waiters type body and an awesome on-ball defender and great rebounder. His offensive game probably won’t translate to the next level, mostly inefficient brute strength drives that worked only because of his size, but his defense should keep him in the league a long time.

Tier V — Big Swings

22. G P.J. Dozier, South Carolina 23. PF Cameron Oliver, Nevada 24. F/C Bam Adebayo, Kentucky 25. G Frank Jackson, Duke

These are my favorite post-lottery sleepers, and Dozier is the one guy that keeps grabbing my attention. He looks like Sindarius (#21) lite but is two years younger with a bigger body and more defensive upside, and a bit more offensive potential too. Dozier has a little Andre Iguodala in him. He’s an elite athlete and a big physical player that will be able to guard three, maybe even four positions in the modern NBA. He’s also a solid playmaker. The problem is his shot is absolutely miserable, and he also struggled with foul trouble and turnovers. The foul trouble won’t be a problem since he’ll play off the bench, but he needs a shot doctor in a bad way to have an NBA future.

I thought I was alone on the Cam Oliver hype train but then Jonathan Tjarks did an outstanding profile on him this week. Oliver is the stretch four you want your team to take a chance on. He’s a terrific athlete who produced game after game for Nevada, and he improved a ton from freshman to sophomore year when he added a good three-point shot and doubled his assists while keeping his rebounding numbers up, a difficult balance. The knock on Oliver is his low hoops IQ, but Tjarks talks about how that might just be poor coaching or a bad system.

Bam Adebayo is a guy that just seems exceedingly likely to be a rotation NBA big man. You see him on TV and he just looks and feels like an NBA player, with an NBA body and good athleticism. He’s sort of good-not-great at everything which at least makes him a third big like Cristiano Felicio, but he has the lateral quickness and athleticism to turn into a Tristan Thompson type big man that can switch and be really helpful on the pick and roll.

A lot of pundits seem to have fallen out of love with Frank Jackson lately, maybe in part because of a mysterious foot injury he picked up since having a great combine. Jackson was never the guy you noticed watching Duke but he was solid and steady. He’s more of a combo guard than a point, a great athlete who is very strong and ready to play defense both on-ball and fighting through screens. He’s also one of the youngest guys in the draft. A patient team could turn him into an Avery Bradley type.

Tier VI — Solid Bench Plays

Tier V and VI are really one tier but it’s easier to distinguish two groups with two titles. Really at this point these guys are all pretty equal, so beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This set of four are more likely to stick in the NBA than the four above but are probably career backups or low-end spot starters.

26. PG Jawun Evans, Oklahoma State 27. Wing Sterling Brown, SMU 28. PF T.J. Leaf, UCLA 29. Wing Davon Reed, Miami

Evans is really short with small hands, but his wingspan is average for point guards so that’s not a huge problem. The bigger problem is that his top skill is driving into the lane but he’s miserable at finishing once he gets there. But he’s a good scorer and passer and looks like a solid backup a la Aaron Brooks.

Sterling is Shannon Brown’s brother, another player who put in the hard work and stuck around the league awhile, so that bodes well. He looks like a great 3-and-D type who already filled that role in college, with a really nice shot and strong ability to cut and move off ball. Reed is another 3-and-D type that should fill a solid role. He has a career 40% three and is a good athlete, and he improved his finishing through his college career.

Leaf is the guy some team will take when they’re disappointed they missed on Markkanen. He’s got a nice shot and fits the modern NBA as a stretch four, and his footwork and playmaking probably make him a better immediate fit than Markkanen, but his tiny wingspan and defense are somehow even worse.

Tier VII — Let Someone Else Take the Risk

You’ll find all four of these guys in the first round of most mock drafts, and for good enough reason, but I’m not really a fan. Each of them is undersized and lacking athleticism, and each looks like a defensive liability to me so they need to be excellent on offense to stay on the court. All four are super talented but raw — one of them is sure to make me look dumb ranking them this low in a few years, but the other three will probably be out of the league.

30. C Justin Patton, Creighton 31. F/C Harry Giles, Duke 32. PF John Collins, Wake Forest 33. SG Terrance Ferguson, international

Patton has Tyson Chandler’s body but lacks his athleticism and, seemingly, his work ethic. Collins has a tiny wingspan similar to David Lee and Tyler Hansbrough, so he looks like a bad defensive four. He struggled against UNC and FSU size this year and got into a lot of foul trouble. Ferguson is supposed to be a 3-and-D guy but his lateral quickness on defense isn’t great and his shot isn’t either so I don’t get the hype. He’s also a bit small for a wing, more of a Danny Green size. All three of these guys are young long-term projects that might not get there.

Giles was supposed to be a stud and a possible #1 pick before torn ACLs in both knees. Now his athleticism is gone and he’s in constant foul trouble, and he looks like he lacks confidence in his body and in himself. Giles is a guy who dominated high school because of his body and never had to learn the requisite footwork and handling abilities, so now with the knee injuries killing his athleticism, what’s left? He smells a bit like Kwame Brown. I think he’s out of the NBA before long, but he still has monster upside if his body magically heals and is worth a shot by a team like Brooklyn with nothing to lose.

Second round targets

These are some of names that probably won’t go in the first round but caught my eye as possible sleepers that could catch on in the right situation. They could get a two-way G League contract or be developmental prospects to snag in the second round or undrafted in free agency. They’re not in any real order.

C Tony Bradley, UNC PG Edmund Sumner, Xavier C Thomas Bryant, Indiana

Bradley barely played but looks like a definite backup NBA center — it’ll just take him two to three years to get there and might not be for the team that drafts him. I seem to be alone with my eye on Bryant, who’s still young with a monster NBA-ready body that’s still growing. He’s an elite offensive rebounder and has some stretch five capacity if he can learn how to use his body defensively.

Sumner has the body of Shaun Livingston and reminds me of him — both from that and from the knee injuries that derailed his stock. His game is predicated on athleticism, and he may not have that anymore. He could be out of the league in a couple years but could also be a good starting point guard.

PF Kyle Kuzma, Utah SF Devin Robinson, Florida G Derrick White, Colorado PF Caleb Swanigan, Purdue

These are all guys with a lower ceiling for me, but each looks ready to come in and play useful NBA minutes. Kuzma was great at the combine and could be a useful stretch four. Robinson has teriffic athleticism for a wing and reminds me of Jonathon Simmons. Jonathan Tjarks had a nice recent piece on Derrick White, an older prospect that looks like a nice bench guard.

Swanigan is an analytics darling. He’s a beast rebounder and a really good shooter but has a weird body that doesn’t fit in the NBA and reminds me of Thomas Robinson, a guy built to dominate college but who didn’t last in the NBA. On the right team, like Houston, he could be good. I do worry I might be missing Swanigan on the availability heuristic like Lonzo Ball — the numbers for him are really good so he’s probably worth a shot.

PF Alec Peters, Valparaiso C Luke Kornet, Vanderbilt PG George de Paula, international

These are my deep sleepers I haven’t seen elsewhere. Peters was a small school star. He has a career 42% three on 700 attempts and shot 89% on 6.7 free throw attempts a game this year, so he looks useful as a stretch four for teams that miss out on Markkanen. Kornet is a similar player but big enough to play the five and not nearly as sweet of a shooter.

I haven’t seen any buzz on George de Paula (or seen him play, admittedly). He has freakish size for a point guard with massive hands bigger than most big men and a 7-foot-plus wingspan bigger than any guard. He has a good handle and is a good passer, but his shot is rough and he doesn’t seem to have much of a feel for the game yet so he’s a project.

Follow Brandon on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, humor, pop culture, and life musings. Visit the rest of Brandon’s writing archives here. Shouts to Draft Express and Basketball Reference in particular for a ton of research here along with many of the individual names already highlighted above.