Top 100 | Big Board 5.0 | Mock Draft 2.0
We are now a few games into conference play and the picture surrounding a number of players is starting to come into focus. Last week we took a stroll through the top 30 with our Big Board update.
This week I want to take a look at some less-heralded prospects who are beginning to get strong looks as potential first-round picks. While they haven't cracked our top 30 just yet, they are well on their way if they keep up their strong play.
Devin Booker, SG, Kentucky
This draft is completely devoid of lights-out shooters. Currently the only players in our top 30 shooting better than 40 percent from 3-point territory are Texas' Myles Turner (12-for-26), Kansas' Kelly Oubre (16-for-34), Virginia's Justin Anderson (36-for-64) and Michigan's Caris LeVert (28-for-70). Turner is a big man who doesn't take many shots from behind the arc. Oubre's sample size is limited because of reduced minutes at the start of the season, which leaves us with Anderson (who was a career 30 percent 3-point shooter his first two seasons at Virginia) and LeVert. Meanwhile, Georgia State's R.J. Hunter was supposed to be the purest shooter in the draft, but he hit a major shooting slump in December and is currently shooting just 31 percent on the season.
Enter Booker, who is shooting a lights-out 50 percent from behind the arc, on 30-for-60 shooting. He has been on fire over the past month, shooting 16-for-21 from 3-point range. Booker isn't a great athlete and doesn't necessarily bring a lot of other elite skills to the table, but his shot is so pure that more and more scouts are talking about him as the best shooter in the draft. Yes, Anderson is shooting the ball even better, but there's skepticism that he can keep hitting shots at this clip. Oubre, because of his size and athleticism, is a better prospect than both players. But it's looking as though Booker might not only crack the first round, he could end up in the late lottery to early 20s. A number of teams need shooters, and this draft is proving they are hard to come by.
Demetrius Jackson, PG, Notre Dame
Jerian Grant is getting all the publicity right now at Notre Dame (and rightfully so) but virtually every scout who has gone to a Notre Dame game this season has walked away also raving about Jackson. Jackson, a former McDonald's All American, is sharing ballhandling duties with Grant and producing terrific numbers. He's averaging 14.1 points, 3.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 2.1 steals and just 1.4 turnovers per game. Jackson is also shooting 44 percent on 3-point field goals, 59 percent on 2-point field goals and 63 percent at the rim. He has an NBA body, athleticism and quickness, and has shown a really nice balance between scoring the ball and passing it.
Teams are still hunting for another top-tier point guard in this draft. Emmanuel Mudiay will be a top-three pick. More and more scouts and GMs believe Ohio State's D'Angelo Russell, another potential top-10 pick, will be a point guard in the NBA. After that, there is somewhat of a scrum between Utah's Delon Wright, Grant, Cal's Tyrone Wallace (who has been struggling of late) and Duke's Tyus Jones. But multiple scouts told me this week they could see Jackson in that group.
"He reminds be a little of Eric Bledsoe," one NBA GM said. "We keep talking about this draft lacking point guards, but I would love to have Jackson on my team. He's tough, he does everything. I think we all thought maybe we'd see it from him next year, when Grant went to the NBA, but I think we're seeing it now. He's more ready than half the guys on draft boards. After Mudiay, Russell and maybe Grant, I think he's the next best point guard for the NBA."
Troy Williams, SF, Indiana
Williams turned some heads last season with his elite athleticism and occasional highlight dunks. This season, especially lately, he has started to show scouts he can put up strong numbers against good teams. With the exception of a stinker when he didn't show up against Michigan State, he has been a major factor in all of the Hoosiers' Big Ten games this season. He has put up strong performances against Georgetown, Nebraska and, on Saturday, versus Ohio State.
The Ohio State performance was especially telling. He had 15 points, 12 rebounds, three assists and one terrific block. Williams still needs a passable 3-point shot, but he's shooting a respectable 50 percent from the field on his 2-point field goals and an excellent 70 percent at the rim. While the Paul George comparisons seem a bit much, he's definitely playing himself into a potential first-round selection.
Shevon Thompson, C, George Mason
This draft is already heavily loaded with centers, but another big man is emerging from an unlikely place. Thompson, a native of Jamaica, transferred to Mason from Harcum College this season and has been a revelation for the Patriots.
Thompson went to high school in Jamaica and didn't start playing basketball until he was 16 years old. Last season, at Harcum, Thompson averaged 9.9 points and 11.6 rebounds per game in just more than 21 minutes per outing for the No. 4-ranked junior college team in America.
This season he's averaging 12.9 PPG, 11.7 RPG and 1.3 BPG while shooting 54 percent from the field in just less than 29 minutes per game. Thompson is a long, athletic defensive stopper right now. He's also especially potent as an offensive rebounder, posting a terrific 18.7 offensive rebounding rate and a 22.5 overall rebounding rate. Only Baylor's Rico Gathers is posting a higher offensive rebounding rate in a major conference.
Thompson has had some big games lately, including a 12-point, 16-rebound, 5-block game against UMass on Sunday. While scouts think he has a long way to go, especially offensively, as a prospect there's no denying his size and rebounding abilities. He's a definite late first-round sleeper to watch.
Vince Hunter, F, UTEP
Hunter wasn't highly ranked coming out of high school, but won freshman of the year honors in Conference USA last season and has shown major improvements across the board in 2014-15.
Hunter is a 6-foot-8 combo forward who can guard wings and power forwards thanks to his explosive athleticism and length. Right now his calling card has been on the boards, where he's averaging 10.2 rebounds in 28 minutes per game this season. Hunter's 27.5 defensive rebounding rate is one of the best in the country.
He has had some big games against big teams this season. He dropped 20 points and 13 rebounds against Washington, 17 and 12 against Xavier, and 18 and 12 against Arizona before fouling out with eight minutes left in the game. Afterward, Arizona head coach Sean Miller told reporters Hunter was the best player Arizona had faced all season.
"The last 10 minutes of the first half, we just had a hard time with Hunter," Miller said. "I just don't see guys rebound his own miss like he did very often. He's really talented. He took over for about a 10-minute stretch in the first half in which we didn't have an answer for him."
Hunter already has 10 double-doubles on the season and has looked great so far in conference play. Scouts do have concerns about his overall lack of strength, and his shaky jump shot. Hunter takes 67 percent of his shots at the rim and is shooting 75 percent from there. However, he's hitting on 25 percent of his 2-point jumpers. He's also shooting only 58 percent from the line.
"He could have a great future in the NBA as a lockdown defender at the 3," one NBA scout said, "but he's going to have to show teams he can knock down a jumper. He's got an ugly stroke. I see signs it's getting better, but it still has a long ways to go."
Chris McCullough, PF, Syracuse
Syracuse announced Monday that McCullough had torn his ACL and would be out for the rest of the season, an injury sustained against Florida State on Sunday. The move is another piece of bad news in McCullough's already sliding draft stock. He started the season great and looked like a lottery pick through his first eight games, but struggled more recently. In his last six games prior to his injury he was averaging 4.5 PPG and shooting just 28 percent from the field. He had fallen to No. 24 on our latest Big Board.
The latest news obviously does not help his draft stock, but it doesn't hurt as bad as some may think. Most NBA teams were looking at McCullough as a project anyway. His length, athleticism and ability to block shots and shoot the basketball were the selling points. But everyone understood he would take a few years to develop. While getting drafted in the lottery certainly seems out of the question, teams have not shied away from drafting players with torn ACLs in the past. He could be viewed as a value pick by teams drafting in the late first to early second round. However, his best course of action if he wants to be a lottery pick someday is to return to Syracuse for his sophomore season.
International men of mystery
I've been scouring the world over the past several weeks for an international draft sleeper. It's clear that Latvia's Kristaps Porzingis is a likely top-five pick and Croatia's Mario Hezonja also should land in the top 10.
But after those two are off the board, we don't have another player who is currently overseas and in our top 30. That's unusual. So I canvassed a group of top international scouts to see who else from that realm might end up in the first round at the end of the season.
While several names emerged, there was zero consensus about their NBA prospects. A prospect that one scout really liked would be shot down by a different international scout. There just isn't anyone, with the exception of Porzingis and Hezonja, whom scouts are uniformly in love with right now.
But here are three names that were consistently mentioned to me as potential first-rounders:
Egemen Guven, F, Turkey
Guven was a hot name this past summer after winning MVP honors in the European Under-18 Championships. But he has played sparingly for his Turkish team Pinar Karsiyaka this season, and is averaging 4 points and 3.3 rebounds in 11 minutes per game.
Scouts are a little disappointed he isn't playing a bigger role this season, but that doesn't deter some of them from believing he could be a steal late in the first round. "It's hard to tell your GM, 'Look, I know this kid can't get off the bench on an obscure team in Turkey, but he's the real deal,'" one scout said. "But if you you saw him in the European Under-18s, you saw a kid who was athletic, who could defend and who could score with his back to the basket. He'll be a steal for someone just like [Bulls forward Nikola] Mirotic was. You just have to be patient."
Nedim Buza, G/F, Bosnia
Buza is a 6-foot-8 athletic wing who declared for the 2014 NBA draft before withdrawing. Buza actually came over to the U.S. for a few workouts, but was sick at the time and didn't do much to impress.
While his foray into the draft didn't pay immediate dividends, it got him on NBA radar screens and a number of scouts have made their way to Bosnia to see him play for Spars Sarajevo this season.
This season, Buza is averaging 9.9 points, 4.6 rebounds and is shooting 35 percent from 3-point territory in 22 minutes per game. Obviously, teams are interested in young, athletic wings who can shoot the basketball. He needs to continue to get stronger and probably isn't ready to come over the NBA right away, but could be a nice draft-and-stash option.
Guillermo Hernangomez, C, Spain
There was a strong debate on Hernangomez. He's the teammate of Porzingis in Sevilla this season so he has had a lot of scouts and GMs taking a close look. That can be a good thing and a bad thing. Some scouts feel because of his size and potential, he has the strongest case for finding his way into the top 30. However, others were equally insistent that every time they see him play, they walk out of the gym disappointed.
Those who saw him drop 29 points and 13 rebounds against Barcelona in December certainly weren't disappointed. It was one of the ACB's best performances of the season. However, for the season he's averaging 10.5 points and 5.9 rebounds, while shooting 54 percent from field in 22 minutes per game. Solid numbers, but nothing that will blow you away either.
Still, some scouts are preaching patience with him. "He's a really skilled player with nice mitts," said one evaluator. "Once he gets into workouts, you'll see his stock really start to rise. He's one of the few guys in Europe right now with a really bright NBA future."
Others who could potentially crack the first round as well: Turkey's Cedi Osman, Kosovo's Kenan Sipahi, Spain's Marc Garcia, China's Wang Zhelin and France's Mouhammadou Jaiteh.
However, all of the prospects except Jaiteh are very young and would be draft-and-stash-type prospects that teams might take a late first-round flier on.