The Three Bets That Could Define the 2027 NBA Draft’s Top College Returners
Every NBA Draft cycle is headlined by the incoming crop of freshmen at the collegiate level who, while possessing tremendous upside, also come with more uncertainty. There’s a reason draft boards, especially when it comes to true freshmen, can vary significantly from the time the season starts to when a champion is crowned in March Madness.
But when you look beyond the seemingly limitless upside and attention that group naturally generates each season, some of the more interesting prospects are the ones NBA teams already know quite a bit about.
Returning to college for another season is a path more players are taking for various reasons, and it’s making modern draft classes look a lot different. For some players who return, the decision is about expanding their role and showing they can handle responsibilities they weren’t given previously. Others already have a clear NBA archetype, but need another year to develop particular skills that could change how teams view their ceiling. Then there are productive college players who have already put up numbers, but need to prove that production is indicative of NBA translation, sometimes against higher-level competition, and that they’re more than just great college players.
That’s what makes the upcoming draft cycle particularly interesting. This is a class that features quite a few first-round and early second-round graded talents who will spend another season at the collegiate level. That doesn’t mean those players don’t have high ceilings or can’t become stars at the next level. Development is never linear. But their pathways to improving their stock over the next year look different.
Many of these players have already received feedback from NBA teams throughout the pre-draft process before ultimately opting to return to school, along with plenty of informal feedback throughout their careers. So rather than simply ranking the best returning prospects, let’s categorize them by the actual bet they’re making by going back to school.
The Role Expansion Bet
Sometimes returning to college isn’t about addressing a weakness or improving in one particular area. Sometimes it’s simply about earning more minutes and usage and proving that your production can scale. It’s the difference between being a player with perceived scalable upside and someone who has actually done it.
Braylon Mullins is perhaps the best example of that.
As he enters his second season at UConn, Mullins has already shown plenty of NBA-translatable skills, particularly as a shooter. And in the upcoming season, he’s not going to be asked to reinvent himself to become a top-tier pick. In fact, had he been a one-and-done prospect, he likely would have been a first-round pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
Instead, the opportunity he’ll have this season to become a primary offensive piece is what could really improve his stock. There’s a meaningful difference between projecting as a high-level complementary shooter and being viewed as a perimeter player who can create offense and assume significant responsibility. That’s the additional value another collegiate season can provide.
This is the chance for players like Mullins to take on the type of role they envisioned when they were highly recruited prospects. He’ll have an opportunity to move higher in the offensive hierarchy and prove that some of the skills he showed in flashes as a freshman can hold up in a much greater context.
Other players in similar situations include Amari Allen at Alabama, Trey McKenney at Michigan, Matt Able at North Carolina, Dame Sarr at Duke, Ivan Kharchenkov at Arizona and Neoklis Avdalas at North Carolina. All of them have opportunities to shoulder larger loads and showcase more of their skill sets.
The question isn’t simply whether they can get better. It’s whether that increased responsibility reveals a different level of upside, or shows that these players are actually less capable of shouldering that type of load than previously believed.
The Skill Development Bet
For another group of returners, the NBA role is a little bit more clear. That’s not to put a player in a box or be naive enough to think they can’t develop into a different type of player at the next level. The question for this group is whether they can develop the skills necessary to complement the ones that are already starting to show promise.
Malachi Moreno is a great example of this type of bet.
The Kentucky center already possesses several attributes that make him intriguing at the NBA level. He’s got great size, good feel as a passer and can impact the game around the basket in multiple ways. NBA teams already buy into many of those things, too. Moreno is a player who potentially could have gone late in the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft.
Another college season gives him a chance to become stronger, more physical and more dominant than he was last season. It’s not necessarily about adding a bunch of net-new things to his game. A lot of complementary players don’t need to become superstars to stick at the next level. It’s about what they can do to impact winning.
For Moreno, the development he shows this season could be the difference between being viewed as a useful NBA big and one with significantly more upside.
Sometimes even small improvements in a few core areas can change everything. It’s not about suddenly developing the ability to knock down shots from 30 feet or becoming a primary ball-handler as a big. For a player like Moreno, improvement in strength, processing, decision-making and functional playmaking within a scheme could be all it takes. It’s doing things more consistently and at a higher level.
Tounde Yessoufou at St. John’s, Patrick Ngongba II at Duke, Flory Bidunga at Louisville and JoJo Tugler at Houston are among the other returners whose stock could change considerably through targeted development.
They don’t need to become completely different players. They need to become better versions of the players NBA teams already think they can be and continue to show growth in the areas that made them intriguing in the first place.
The Production Translation Bet
This is probably the most difficult bet of all, because when a player has already proven he can be really good at the college level, there’s risk in changing scenery or continuing to produce without showing meaningful improvement.
Juke Harris is a name that falls into this category as he enters his first season at Tennessee after proving himself as a productive player at Wake Forest. Unlike a young prospect still waiting for an opportunity, Harris doesn’t need this upcoming season to show he can put up numbers.
What he will have the opportunity to do is produce in the SEC against high-level competition and prove those numbers actually matter, are translatable and aren’t simply empty statistics. There’s an important distinction between being a great college player and a great NBA prospect. Throughout the history of college basketball, plenty of players have landed on national player of the year lists and broken records from a production standpoint without their games translating to the NBA.
The professional game presents different spacing and different types of athletes, and even highly productive college players are often asked to play much smaller roles when they reach the league. That’s especially true for scorers, who likely won’t receive the same volume of shots early in their NBA careers.
That’s why this bet is about proving that production can translate across a multitude of different roles and frameworks.
For Harris, continued scoring production would certainly help, but improved shooting consistency and accuracy, greater defensive impact and the ability to influence games without dominating possessions could be more impactful for his draft stock than simply increasing his points-per-game output or taking more shots.
Milan Momcilovic at Kentucky, Thomas Haugh at Florida and Tyler Tanner at Vanderbilt are other players who fall into this category. Each of their situations is different and represents a different version of the same bet, but it’s not simply about producing more. It’s about producing in ways that could change how NBA teams value them and showing how that production can translate to a future NBA role.
That’s ultimately what makes this group of returners so fascinating. Another season in college doesn’t automatically make someone a better NBA prospect. In some cases, going back another year introduces additional questions. Players get older, expectations change and NBA teams get another full season to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.
But that’s what makes it a bet.
These players have an opportunity to fundamentally change how NBA teams see them, for better or worse. Some will thrive with another season and significantly improve their stock, while others could find themselves in a worse position than they were a year earlier. By the time the 2027 NBA Draft arrives, the players who make the most of that additional season could find themselves in an entirely different tier than where they stand today.
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