I stopped posting draft boards in the 2024 draft cycle because I started to feel like the exercise was futile in a vacuum. “How do you rank and project players without the development context?” It’s a fundamental question of scouting for the NBA Draft from the public sphere. Players are so young that projection in itself is difficult to achieve with accuracy, so adding the variable of development context makes the evaluation even tougher.
Since the 2024 cycle, I have tried to dive deeper into answering the question of how we can project and evaluate draft prospects more accurately from the vacuum. I thought the best way to approach this would be to solve the problem systematically. I started by trying to identify what traits were common among the players that succeeded over time regardless of how limited their early usage was and their fit in the roster construction.
In a lot of ways to rank players on a board is taking a step back and looking at scouting the draft through a broader systemic approach. I believe that part of the exercise has intrinsic value. However, to project without a development context has no real value. I think the optimal way to rank and project the players from a vacuum is to identify the caliber a player can reach even if they end up in a less-than-desired development context.
The idea that I kept circling back to is that success was often tied to the traits that were much harder to develop: feel, athletic tools, motor, and touch. Digging through the history of the draft, it landed me on the concept of role malleability – a notion that encompasses these traits. In my experience, showing a high proclivity to role malleability below the age of 23 has been a strong proxy for a player’s processing, application of athletic tools, shooting tools, and motor. With this, my draft philosophy evolved and has helped me formulate my tenets of scouting the draft through my eye test and statistical analysis:
- Age-Adjusted Production Relative To Competition.
- Role Malleability Traits (Application Of Feel, Motor, Application Of Athleticism, Touch).
- Skill Intersections (Positive Or Negative Chain Of Skills That Provide Baseline For Production).
- Margin Of Error On The Court
- Application Of Tools (Avoid Archetype Bias)
In my margins piece, I designed a funnel framework to systematically value the projection of players based on their margin of error – a function of a player’s advantage creation/mitigation skillsets. While I still agree with much of what went into the framework, I realized I structured it too narrowly by using the dependency on scheme (usage of screens or an empty-side action to clear one side of the court). I mainly argued that the dependencies on scheme and volume of advantages created on offense or mitigated on defense derived a player’s margin of error on the court, and therefore their value. While this system was valuable, I noticed it was devaluing the players who do produce at a better rate with the help of scheme than the ones who produce worse and do not require assistance to create or mitigate advantages.
Since reading Avinash’s piece this past cycle, I think a more expanded way to frame the funnel framework would be by defining the Margin of Error On the Court as the application of tools (cognitive, athletic, and shooting) that lead to a positive basketball outcome regardless of scheme dependency. Advantage creation and mitigation are essentially a function of the application of tools and the efficiency of that application.
This change in framework brings more focus to the efficiency and success rate of a player versus the former idea of valuing a player for their lack of scheme dependencies or volume (a number that can be tied to usage/role). The former idea has value but overvalues high-volume flawed advantage creators and devalues players in smaller roles but are extremely efficient. When it comes to projection, having this idea in mind removes the bias of archetypes, especially from the lens of advantages.
This is another reason why I have valued role malleability highly, it captures the idea of showcasing mastery in a number of roles – mastery that only happens when the combination of cognitive, athletic, and shooting tools are applied effectively and lead to a good basketball outcome consistently.
I believe grading a player on the five tenets above gives a better projection of player quality regardless of the development context. This is how I would now evaluate players within the tiers of the funnel framework and each tier directly correlates to a tier of my draft board. Essentially a lot of the philosophy from the original framework still applies but instead of valuing it through an advantages lens, it’s about how well they grade against the 5 tenets of my draft scouting philosophy to take a more holistic approach.
Looking at it from a statistical lens, I think another good way to frame these tiers is through career VORP in the same way Spreadsheet Scouting does with his board. I plan to do my deep dive into different impact metrics to correlate these tiers statistically but for now, using these similar thresholds as a projection benchmark feels like a good approximation.
Pre-Conference Play 2025 Draft Board
Although there is still plenty of time for players to develop and regress to their averages throughout the draft cycle, this is my current assessment of the 2025 NBA Draft. Here, I rank my top draft-eligible players up to this point who I believe have the potential to reach the Green tier of the framework for their career in the NBA.
*Disclaimer: Working with the Mexico City Capitanes this year, I have excluded any prospects that form a conflict with my work and the Capitanes. I have also excluded players who will likely not declare for this draft.
Purple: All-Time Tier (45+ VORP)
- 0.1 Cooper Flagg
Players in this tier tend to check all 5 tenets I’ve laid out above. Cooper Flagg grades extremely well and is the epitome of my philosophy. Productivity at a young age, strong role malleability traits, positive skill intersections, high margin of error, Flagg’s got them all. At a young age, Flagg already has the traits that are tough to develop(size, motor, fluidity, feel, touch) and applies them effectively outside of his 3-point shooting. Even without making 3s at an efficient clip, Flagg’s margin of error is high with his size, feel, and motor which is evident in his ability to scale on and off the ball on both sides of the ball.
The reason why Flagg may not reach this tier would be his peak as an on-ball creator and a lot of this will do with his current offensive process. He creates his advantage by using his size and fluidity to get leverage but oftentimes, even when he has the opportunity to take advantage of that and get straight to the rim, he uses this window to take a midrange shot. This could be a lack of confidence in his handle counters to take it to the rim (mostly uses a spin move when he gets contained off the dribble). Flagg’s handle issue also shows up in his passing deliveries, passing off of a live dribble is still a work in progress so he often picks up his dribble to jump pass and expand his window to pass. The midrange reliance and handle issues could put more pressure on Flagg to be a better 3-point shooter to get to primacy; however, with the touch on midrange jumpers, free throw efficiency, and 3-point volume (7 3PA/100 at Duke), he’s got the chance to become a reliable 3-point shooter even in a problematic development context.
Dark Blue: All-NBA Caliber (30+ VORP)
- 1.2 Collin Murray-Boyles
Players in this tier also grade well against my tenets but there may be a smaller margin of error or limitations in role malleability that stop them from reaching the tier above but are still highly valuable players.
Collin Murray-Boyles is probably the clearest example of applying their tools to the max at a young age, with an emphasis on cognitive tools. We have over 40 games of Murray-Boyles having outlier production as a rebounder, finisher, playmaker, and defender for a 6’7″ player (10+ OREB%, 20+ DREB%, 60+ TS%, 15+ AST%, 2+ BLK and STL%). Playing in the SEC and producing at this level as a teenager is the epitome of functionally applying your tools to a high degree regardless of being undersized for a big. It’s a real proxy for how Murray-Boyles can impose his size, strength, length, feel, and hand-eye coordination even against older athletes. He has such a high margin for error because he produces at an outlier rate in so many areas of the game, but he truly shines on the defensive end. Processing rotations early, the length and coordination to protect the rim, the ability to flip his hips, footspeed, and upper-body strength to contain dribble drives all give Murray-Boyles a high degree of role malleability on defense.
Unlike Flagg, Collin Murray-Boyles is a lower-volume shooter and handler which has limited his role malleability on the other end, and plays more as a big offensively. While he’s shown a much larger sample of shooting and handling in HS and AAU compared to college, the sample is still limited. There has been an uptick in that volume in his sophomore year compared to his freshman year, but the lack of experience in those situations would need him to end up in a context that would allow him to play through inexperience as a handler and reach a higher outcome on the offensive end. Regardless, he’s shown a high degree of efficiency on non-rim 2s and good energy transfer on his shot since HS/AAU that the shot can be improved with range even without that desirable context. In my opinion, Murray Boyles’ has a high margin of error with the rest of his game that he can reach this tier of player operating as a high feel DHO big and exceedingly versatile defender.
Light Blue: All-Star Caliber (15+ VORP)
- 2.3 Dylan Harper
- 2.4 Derik Queen
- 2.5 Jeremiah Fears
- 2.6 Jase Richardson
- 2.7 Thomas Sorber
- 2.8 Darrion Williams
- 2.9 VJ Edgecombe
The light blue tier tends to have players that have even lower margins of error than the tiers above due to having more red flags in their profile but produced at such an outlier level in my other tenets that they can still provide all-star caliber production. Even with the red flags, the players in this tier can often reach secondary or tertiary creation with varying degrees of role malleability on defense.
Dylan Harper has shown he can be an elite driver with his acceleration, size, rotation in tight spaces, and feel but he’s struggled with his midrange efficiency since HS/AAU. He’s got mediocre initial burst and vertical explosion, which shows up on tape and in his defensive playmaking numbers against higher-level competition so he needs to be a high-level pull-up shooter to be a more rounded scorer in the league. These issues drop his margins of error but with how outlier his driving production is at his age, the shooting is something that can improve in a less-desired context considering he’s always shown a proclivity to shoot the ball with volume.
Maryland big man Derik Queen has shown high application of processing, touch, and scoring versatility so far. Even though he is closer to being a sophomore in age, Queen has one of the higher offensive projections in the class. His ability to scale on and off the ball offensively, hurt defenses with his touch, and shift defenses with his playmaking at his size give him a high margin of error. The application of tools is not as effective on the other side of the ball, where he’s not a true shot-blocking presence and will most likely be reliant on hedge and recover situations. Queen’s production would be dominant even for a sophomore and with this margin of error on the offensive end, he can reach All-Star level production in the NBA even with his lack of role malleability on the defensive end.
Jase Richardson, in addition to Cason Wallace and Johnny Furphy in years past, have been the exact types of players that have caused me to define the margin of error on the application of tools and their efficiency rather than grading them against the volume or the lack of dependency on scheme. Oftentimes, it’s difficult to have high usage as a freshman in some high-major programs due to a) upperclassmen monopolizing usage and b) getting the coach’s confidence to rely on a young player. Players like Jase Richardson are exceptionally efficient in their low-usage roles but often don’t have the leeway to do more even if they can. Being elite at the simple things does not get valued enough and it’s why I believe Richardson has a false ceiling.
He’s exceedingly quick at processing passes that are one rotation away, and ample burst and strong touch make him a multi-level scorer. Richardson has traits that are harder to develop and give him an immediate baseline as a closeout creator, but these same traits are why I think he can scale up with a higher offensive workload. So far those results in on-ball situations since his pre-NCAA sample have been stellar albeit on a small sample. There are some red flags with his size and athletic indicators such as rebounding and defensive playmaking against top competition, but Richardson has such a high margin of error with how great he is at the simple and the role malleability he’s shown in limited usage.
Green: Career Starter – Above Average Rotational Player (3+ VORP)
- 3.10 Noah Penda
- 3.11 Khaman Malauch
- 3.12 Noa Essengue
- 3.13 Labaron Philon
- 3.14 Johni Broome
- 3.15 Kam Jones
- 3.16 Kasparas Jakucionis
- 3.17 Anthony Robinson II
- 3.18 Tre Johnson
- 3.19 Ryan Kalkbrenner
- 3.20 Asa Newell
- 3.21 Ace Bailey
- 3.22 Miles Byrd
Finally, the players in this tier tend to have the production to be good NBA players but have clear limitations or flags in their profile that prevent them from reaching higher value. For example, this can be players with strong application of tools but there are specific areas in their game where the tools might be missing or are not effectively applied, causing a far lower margin for error. Due to these issues with their games, these players generally need to end up in a more favorable development context to attain this tier or higher
Kasparas Jakucionis has shown a strong intersection of touch and feel at 6’6″ but he has far lower margins of error to be a role-malleable creator considering his high turnovers, low at-the-rim rate, below-the-rim finishing, and difficulty shooting off-the-catch. Perhaps Jakucionis is such an elite shooter that his margins expand, but with these concerns, I have a tough time betting higher value solely on his intersection of touch and feel.
Ace Bailey is a player who is going to need to end up in a context with defined roles, getting him experience playing in a scaled-down role and working on quicker decision-making. Why? Bailey has been tremendous as a shooter at a young age, especially inside the arc but his feel is lagging to project him as a creator. His shotmaking at his size can be absurd but his low assist/usage ratio, high turnover rate, and lower rim rate give him far lower margins. This shows up on tape too, where Bailey often can hold onto the ball for long periods out of triple-threat situations, slowing down the offense and not capitalizing on a tilted defense. With the right context, these tendencies can be hammered out and you might be looking at a dynamic play finisher that can play multiple defensive roles.
Missouri guard Anthony Robinson II will be below 20.5 on draft night and has had great production in his first real year of usage. At 6’3 with great feel, touch, and length, he’s shown a great application of his tools with his high assist/usage ratio, OREB%, FTR, and STL%. Honestly from a statistical perspective, there’s not a lot to question in Robinson’s profile outside of his low 3-point volume and efficiency which could be a function of his role at Missouri because he shot a 0.42 3-point rate in 17U EYBL play.
He’s also not an outlier vertical athlete at his size with his < 1 BLK% and lower dunk numbers. These issues cause Robinson to have a lower error for margin, but the biggest gripe I have with him is when you turn on the tape. From a statistical lens, it looks like Robinson has a sound handle, but he’s got some issues with lifting from his handle into deliveries in live-dribble situations. Part of this is just general ball control as he has to expend more energy to keep the dribble alive and that often leads to high dribble points. Due to this, Missouri sets highway screens to get Robinson better lanes and he relies on a jail dribble to not have his handle tested. While I think the shooting can be developed with his shooting indicators throughout his sample, the handle gives a lower margin of error to be a creator in a less-than-favorable context. However, with the rest of his profile, he’s got the chance to be a strong starter with development.
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