- Close
ESPN- NBA draft analyst and writer
Joined ESPN.com in July 2017
Founder and co-owner of DraftExpress.com, a private scouting and analytics service used by NBA, NCAA and international teams
The 2019 NBA draft features consensus top-three prospects in Zion Williamson, Ja Morant and RJ Barrett, and then things really start to open up.
We've done deep dives on Williamson, Barrett and Morant heading into draft night June 20. What do we know and not know about the other top players on the board?
Who has the most star potential, and who will be ready to contribute right away? How strong is this group?
Our draft experts Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz dive into six questions to help sort it out.
Which player outside of the top three do you find most interesting heading into draft night?
Givony: Sekou Doumbouya. Despite the huge number of successful international players in the NBA, it still feels like there's a degree of skepticism around every highly touted draft prospect from Europe, even the biggest phenoms such as Luka Doncic. It's hard not to shake the feeling that NBA teams' scouting operations for college players are far more sophisticated and comprehensive than on the international front. It makes me wonder where that leaves Doumbouya, who has prototypical physical tools for a wing and put up some extremely productive games at a very high level of competition this season in Europe. He's the youngest player in this draft class, not turning 19 until late December.
Don't get me wrong, there are some questions -- including his motor and inconsistent approach to the game -- but this aura of mystery about him coming from teams is strange. He's been firmly on the NBA radar for a good 2½ years now, longer than almost any other player in this draft. Nonsensically, it seems like his pro day last week -- consisting of running up and down a court by himself, dunking, making (and missing) a bunch of 3-pointers and doing ballhandling drills -- is what has eventually put NBA teams at ease heading into draft week. There still seems to be a huge market inefficiency with how the league evaluates international players, and I'm not exactly sure what the solution to that is.
Schmitz: The biggest enigma in the draft: Cam Reddish. Will a team in the top five swing on the uber-talented forward, or will his inconsistent production prove too risky to invest in long term?
When Reddish is dialed in and playing with confidence, few players look better given his tools, smooth jumper and flashes of shot creation. When he no-shows, Reddish looks like the type of prospect who could shorten a front office's tenure if he's selected too high. The disparity between his extreme highs and underwhelming lows is fascinating to me, and ultimately where he lands should play a huge role in his NBA trajectory, maybe more than any other prospect in the draft.
Should Reddish end up with the Atlanta Hawks, where he can play off of Trae Young, John Collins and Kevin Huerter while shooting open 3s in a low-pressure environment, he'll likely be worth the gamble. But if he's drafted as a franchise centerpiece who will be asked to shoulder heavy shot-creation duties as a rookie, things could get ugly.
Which player outside the top three has the highest ceiling?
Schmitz: Darius Garland, and I don't think it's particularly close. We've spent all season calling this a three-player draft, but I think Garland deserves to be in the conversation, even though he played only five games at Vanderbilt.
Garland entered the season as the clear-cut No. 1 point guard on our board before Morant's emergence. It took me until I went to see Morant live at UT Martin -- a game in which he Vince Carter'd a defender and dished out 18 assists -- to fully commit to ranking the Murray State phenom over Garland. Although Morant earned his No. 2 spot, I think it's still conceivable that Garland ends up in the same class when we look back in a few years. Dating back to Garland's USA Basketball days and an eye-opening showing at 2017 Adidas EuroCamp, I've long been high on his shifty nature, versatile shooting stroke and passing instincts, even if we didn't always see them on display consistently. Some highly respected scouts I've spoken with actually still rank Garland over Morant, with others who don't go that far considering him a superior prospect to Barrett.
While part of the appeal is due to Garland's clear intrigue as a pick-and-roll shotmaker with never-ending range, it's also a product of how the NBA landscape has changed. Take a quick peek at the top PGs in the NBA and you'll mostly find score-first players who thrive thanks to off-the-dribble shooting, a tight handle, a finesse finishing package and just enough passing instincts to keep others happy. Look at the point guards who made All-NBA this season: Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, Kyrie Irving and Kemba Walker. All four had questions about their pure point guard status coming out of college. And over the past five years, the only real pass-first point guards to make All-NBA are John Wall, Chris Paul and maybe Kyle Lowry.
Morant is capable of going off for 30 points and sharing the ball at a high level, which is a big reason he's seen as the No. 2 overall prospect. But that doesn't mean Garland can't eventually enter the conversation, as his off-the-dribble shooting, deep range, handle and change of pace will make him an extremely tough cover with NBA spacing, buying him time to fine-tune his floor game. Although he's not nearly the same caliber of passer, a slight guard like Young having so much NBA success should serve as a sign of what's to come. Given the way the NBA is officiated and the recent stylistic changes, guards who can shoot it off the dribble like that are nearly impossible to defend, a sentiment Garland echoed after Vanderbilt's victory at USC on Nov. 11.
"If [Young] is thriving in [the NBA], I think I can thrive in it, too," Garland told ESPN. "Shooting abilities, how he can create his own shot, of course, get his teammates involved. I learned a lot from Trae. I played against him when he was a sophomore and I was a junior. I seen it first hand. He's really good. If he's thriving in the NBA, I think I can. That's like my big brother."
Like Lillard next to CJ McCollum, Garland is also capable of playing alongside other shot-creating guards, as he's a deadeye spot-up shooter who can also sprint off screens and get going out of dribble handoffs. Simply put, guards like Garland are en vogue in today's NBA, and he deserves to be mentioned in the same realm as Morant and Barrett as far as long-term upside is concerned.
Givony: Relative to draft position, I'll go with Bol Bol here. I went through the film recently from the nine games Bol played in college, and wow, did he do some impressive things. It's hard to find players who are as uniquely talented as he is at 7-foot-2 with his freakish wingspan, fluid mobility and combination of footwork, ballhandling, shooting ability and timing defensively.
I wouldn't be shocked if someone traded into the second half of the first round on draft night to get him if he ends up falling, as some around the league suspect. The gulf between Bol's ceiling and floor is perhaps as large as I've ever seen in the draft, even before we begin to take into account his health. It's a truly fascinating case, and I can't wait to see how it plays out.
Bol Bol conducted a Pro Day in LA yesterday in front of approximately a dozen NBA teams, including five GMs, to ease concerns around his health and remind them of his ultra high skill-level. Bol showed why he's considered a top-five talent in this draft in terms of pure upside. pic.twitter.com/GSPF6W3FYL
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) June 13, 2019
On the more conservative side, I think Romeo Langford's ceiling is really high, too. I can't help but remember watching him at all these different settings before he got to college -- high school, USA Basketball, the Adidas EuroCamp, the all-star circuit -- and absolutely loving his talent level, which led to his coming into the season as a projected top-five prospect. Gregg Doyel correctly pondered what might have happened with Langford's draft stock had he sat out the rest of the season at Indiana after tearing a ligament in his thumb in November, as Garland did after his injury. Sometimes that cloud of mystery can be really helpful in the draft process, particularly compared with the alternative of playing hurt and looking bad.
Which player outside the top three has the highest floor?
Givony: I'm on board with Jarrett Culver being a really good NBA player for a long time. He's most likely not an incredible enough athlete or a dynamic enough shooter to be a team's best player, but I could see him having a Khris Middleton-type trajectory and being a really good second or third option playing off a star.
He's just too versatile and too good of an all-around basketball player to not have a really good career in my mind.
Schmitz: De'Andre Hunter. There's always a place for big combo forwards who can defend four positions, make a spot-up 3 and play within a system -- all things Hunter showed during his career at Virginia, amassing a 66-6 record.
At the very least, Hunter figures to thrive as an OG Anunoby type: an eventual role starter, defender and fifth option who affects winning. Although older, Hunter has a little more off-the-dribble game than Anunoby, proving capable of knocking down one- or two-dribble pull-ups and straight-line driving in space. While his suspect handle and mediocre feel limit his upside, Hunter is a rock-solid, plug-and-play two-way forward who can step in and help an NBA team from day one.
Fact or fiction: This is a historically weak top 10
Schmitz: I generally subscribe to the idea that there are always guys who outplay their draft slot and turn what might seem like an underwhelming crop into a strong one years later.
But with that said, outside of the top four, I see mostly starters and rotation players here. There are a few high-variance prospects like Reddish, Bol and Kevin Porter Jr., but the level of stardom does seem a bit down after Williamson, Morant, Barrett and Garland.
Givony: Fiction. We're all prisoners of the moment, but a lot would have to go wrong for this draft class' top 10 to end up being worse than 2013 (which featured Anthony Bennett, Nerlens Noel, Ben McLemore, Trey Burke, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Alex Len and Cody Zeller). And 2014 with Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Dante Exum, Nik Stauskas, Noah Vonleh and Elfrid Payton doesn't appear to be trending in the right direction, either. That's just within the past six years. I think you need to look at 2011, too. There are five guys (Derrick Williams, Jan Vesely, Bismack Biyombo, Brandon Knight and Jimmer Fredette) who are out of the league or pretty close to it.
For 2019 to be worse than that in the top 10 would be really extraordinary. I think when people complain about this draft, they lament the lack of star power outside the top three. It would be pretty surprising if half of the top 10 flamed out like in some of those past years -- and that's without going back even further, when there were some incredibly random selections at the top. It seems as though NBA teams have improved the way they scout the draft significantly since when I first started doing this in 2003. There's still a long way to go, but I don't think there will be as many flat-out busts this year.
It is fair to question how many teams drafting Nos. 4-10 will be getting a star, though. History tells us that three of the players picked from Nos. 1-10 will end up being All-Stars, four will be NBA starters and one will be a bust. I think that's a fair expectation for this year's group as well.
Cam Reddish talks about his game and how it can translate to the NBA. He also discusses his role with the star-studded Duke Blue Devils.
What is your favorite potential player/team pairing in the top 10?
Givony: I like the idea of Barrett in New York, maybe partially because I live here and am on record saying how good I think he'll be. He's built to play in Madison Square Garden and loves the big moment. With Kevin Durant going down and the Brooklyn Nets becoming the leaders for Kyrie Irving, it feels as though the Knicks could use a guy like Barrett more than ever. He brings aggressiveness, star power and a will to affect the game.
If Knicks fans can stomach it, the idea of having another rebuilding season, centered around Barrett, and then going into free agency again in 2020 (with or without Durant) isn't a bad idea.
Schmitz: I love Jaxson Hayes' fit alongside Young in Atlanta, especially if the Hawks add more shooting on the wing. Although extremely raw, Hayes is the best pick-and-roll finisher and vertical spacer in the draft, and Young is emerging as one of the league's premier ball-screen facilitators. He has great touch and timing on lobs, and Hayes' soft hands, agility, and 9-foot-3 standing reach would give Young the perfect target. Hayes is already a master at slipping screens, either giving Young a lob threat or opening up shooters with his hard rolls.
Although Texas played at the 320th-fastest pace last season according to KenPom, Hayes is also one of the draft's better rim-runners, sporting outstanding coordination and fluidity. The Hawks play at a breakneck pace perfectly suited for Hayes' strengths. With Collins expanding his game and showing he can play some more 4, Young and Hayes could eventually become one of the better pick-and-roll duos in the league in time, producing highlight after highlight out of transition drag screens.