2021 NBA Draft Board

I know I’m a little late on this, but I have really liked spending some time the past few off seasons evaluating prospects for the NBA draft and looking back on it years later.  I figured I’d share with anyone else interested/bored waiting for the NBA season to start.

For a recap here is how I tier players.

Super star tiers- Obvious future all-stars who project as top 10 players at a minimum in their primes if they stay healthy. A prospect like this comes around once every five years. Since 2000, there has been Lebron, Oden, AD, Luka and Zion.

Normal #1 picks- Guys who are #1’s in a typical year, but in most cases have at least 1 issue that keeps them from being in the tier above. A franchise shouldn’t be too overly excited to pick them at 1, but would be awesome value at #2. Examples would be Derrick Rose, John Wall and Ben Simmons.

All-star tier-  Top 25  guys during the primes of their careers, but never someone you’d think of being the best player on a championship level team. There is normally 2 or 3 in each class. Think Ja Morant or Bradley Beal.

Above average starters- 7 or 8 WAR guys who probably have at least one and probably a couple year where they are viewed as top 50 players in the league. This is what you should be expecting with picks between 3 or 4 until picks 6 or 7. Think CJ McCollum or Clint Capela

Average starters- This is what you’re hoping from picks 7 until around 11. These are guys who you’re hoping will be in the neighborhood of 50-100 best players in the NBA during their peaks. Your completely average NBA starters like Ivaca Zubac, Joe Ingles or Spencer Dinwiddie.

Second rate starters- Guys who you don’t want starting if you’re a championship level team, but  content with if you’re not. These are guys who project to be somewhere between 20th-35^th best players at their respective positions. This is what you’re looking for until around pick 20 in the draft.

Anybody after that range probably isn’t quite good enough to stick in the league for more than 5-7 years. On to the list itself:

Generational talents: nobody

Typical #1’s:

1. Cade Cunningham (purposefully in a tier right behind these two levels)

All Stars: 2. Alperen Sengun

3. Johnathon Kuminga

4. Jalen Green

5. Jalen Suggs

Above average starters: 6. Scottie Barnes

7. Evan Mobley

Average starters: 8. Josh Giddey

9. Franz Wegner

10. Moses Moody

Rotational Pieces 11. Usman Garuba

12. Jaylen Johnson

13. Jared Butler

14. Isaiah Jackson

15. Trey Murphy

16. Cory Kispert

17. Josh Primo

18. JT Thor

19. Chris Duarte

Overall thoughts:  While Cunningham isn’t the slam dunk easy #1 prospect some make him out to be, the overall depth of the top 5 is really strong.  Jalen Suggs slotting in at 5 is about as strong as you get at that part of the draft.  After that, however, the quality of this draft falls off more quickly than an average draft. In a typical year I have 9 or 10 guys I project as above average or average starters.  This class has a pretty jarring low of five. The rest of the first round was pretty typical with an interesting blend of high floor/no potential polished seniors ready to contribute right away and some interesting freshman who could develop into starters or be out of the league in 5 years and neither would surprise me.  

Some overrated and underrated prospect comparisons:

Davion Mitchell vs. Jared Butler

This is one of the most confusing mis rankings of prospects I can ever recall seeing.  These guys were teammates so how the bigger, younger, and better current player slipped to the 2^nd round while the other was a lottery pick is baffling.  Mitchell is 6’0”, has limited point guard skills and shot 66% from the FT line his last year in college.  His on ball defense is grade A stuff, but even if that more than compensates for his lack of size how is he contributing as a guard offensively?  I’m not sure he would’ve made my top 30.

Every year there seems to be a Monte Morris/Fred Van Vleet/ Payton Pritchard/Kyle Lowry type of point guard that was extremely productive in college but scouts right off due to lack of athleticism or size, and a franchise winds up with a steal late in the draft.  Butler looks like the guy this year.  He’s a little bit of a tweener at the guard spot, and I don’t know if there is more to his knee in his medical files, but his skillset screams 3^rd guard in the NBA for a long time.  That teams in win now mode passed on him for long shots (think Cam Thomas to the Nets) towards the end of the first round was wild.

Alperen Sengun vs. Evan Mobley:

If there is a hot-take I want to be known for this draft its Alpy Sengun over Evan Mobley. Sengun is a year and a half younger than Mobley and won MVP in a league against grown men well Mobley was occasionally being pushed around guys who can’t by beer yet. 

Mobley is a fine prospect, but his rebounding numbers were nervously low for an apparent can’t miss big man.  I question his ability to score effectively on the block, and the ability to stretch the floor seems unlikely based off what he’s shown so far.  The defense is obviously the calling card and his ability to legitimately switch onto guards provides defensive versatility rare for a big man, but the ability to hang down low with huge dudes just might not be there. Both from a physical comparison, to analyzing college numbers the similarities to Mo Bamba are scary. Ultimately he has a better feel for the game and passes better Mo did at the same stage, but this looks a lot more like a little better version of Nerlens Noel than the next Anthony Davis to me.

Sengun is almost a virtual guarantee not to be a bust.  Everyone who has been as accomplished as him in Europe at this age wound up developing into a league average starter at worst.  Scouts are apparently worried about the defense, which is fair to an extent, but he was putting up block steal, and rebound rates that all point to being just fine defensively.  The guy has a phenomenal feel for the game.  If he can get enough minutes in a semi crowded Houston frontcourt he’ll be in contention for rookie of the year and I bet he makes at least one All-star game.  Phenomenal value at pick 16.

Cade Cunningham vs. Johnathon Kuminga

Most draft analysts have a pretty wide gap between these two prospects, but I don’t see it.  Cade did enough at Oklahoma State to keep his preseason number 1 spot, but he never really dominated like you’d want to see a #1 pick do.  He can stroke it, and at that size will always be able to get his shot off, but the lack of ability to bend defenses and create for others (yikes at that assist/turnover ratio) tells me that he’s probably more ticketed to being the midpoint between Khris Middleton and Jayson Tatum than the next Luka.

Kuminga might be the biggest wildcard in the draft.  He’s 8 months younger than the average freshman in this draft class and has as much upside from a physical perspective as anyone in the draft.  He also had the highest usage rate on of his G League team (again, a way higher level of competition than what the college guys face) when he played.  Starting at that point gets you excited and the moldings of a Kawhi Leonard are there (side note: It annoys me how many players get compared to Kawhi at a young age.  Sorry fellow Bulls fans, but there is virtually zero reason to think Patrick Williams will get to that level.  That every year the analysts get asked “who’s the next Kawhi from this draft?” is ridiculous cause he’s a once a decade type of talent.  That being said Kuminga is the guy I got the most Kawhi-like feel from in a while).  Like most prospects the questions are will the shooting come around, and will he pick up his defensive intensity?  If the answer is no to both, he’ll be just a rotation guy like Jeff Green, but if they do come around Kuminga could easily become a top 10 player in this league.

A part of me really wanted to be contrarian and put Kuminga at number one, and I do think he has more superstar potential than anyone in this draft, but there were just too many potential roadblocks for him to get there to actually go ahead and pull the trigger on it. When doing my best prospects over the past 10 drafts I get Cunningham around 8 and Kumniga around 14.

Thoughts?