NBA DRAFT 2024 - BIG BOARD

Howdy friends,

Welcome to the 92-92 big board for the 2024 NBA Draft.

I'll do my best down below to explain my thought process here, at least on the places where it feels necessary. If you have a question I didn't address don't hesitate to leave a comment and I'd be happy to talk more about it.

The book on this years’ class from day one has been that its underwhelming. As a basketball sicko, I happen to love when a draft is considered weaker. Not only because it requires more effort to sift through certain prospects but becuase this draft class will probably reveal more about team building and how each individual organization approaches views their own roster.

There are no easy or obvious picks here, at any point really. Which is ultimately the reason why I land on Clingan at #1 on my board. There’s a level of security with him in the sense that, his floor as an NBA Player is quite obvious. At a bare minimum, he can come in and be a Walker Kessler/Andre Drummond type almost immediately if nothing else. There’s enough upside to warrent taking him in the top two or three picks. He thrived in one of the most sophisticated and successful offenses in the Country for two years. He might be the most NBA ready prospect in the draft and will most likely contribute to winning on both ends right away.

Clingan is not without his weaknesses or concerns though. He’s too burley to help much in transition outside of outlet passes and teams will test his lack of speed in transition defense if he’s not ready to get out and run. While he’s tremendously skilled as a screener, post finisher and as a passer, his lack of an outside shot is going to limit him, and by proxy, whatever offense he’s on no matter how much you work around it.

On the flipside is Alex Sarr, who is almost like an answer to the questions one might have about Clingan. He’s much more green as a prospect but has considerably more upside than other bigs in this class. He’s got tremendous length and foot speed at his size and should be an elite level defensive player at his peak. He might not ever be the complimentary player that Clingan can be, but his jumper looks promising and might have a signifigantly higher impact as a scorer than Clingan ever could.

Ultimately the questions around Sarr are a bit too loud for me to feel comfortable taking him first overall in spite of his tremendous upside. Sarr is the riskier pick between the two, and maybe its my anxiety talking but I’d feel much more comfortable knowing what I have in Clingan than waiting and seeing on Sarr atleast for now.

In its brief history, the G League Ignite has either maintained a prospect’s relative draft standing or like much of this class, worsened it. The roster put out by Ignite was not created in any way to help anyone of its highly regarded propsects succeed, and the product on the court exemplified that. Which is why I think its important to evaluate this group of prospects with many grains of salt. I think if we’re willing to be a bit more forgiving than perhaps we want to be when evaluating a prospect, Matas Buzelis stands out above the rest in my eyes. The one thing we thought knew about Buzelis is that he was a knock down shooter, and boy did he ever not do that with Ignite. His shooting numbers tanked across the board in a way that feels outside of what could be considered normal deviance. After shooting 40% from 3 and 50% from the field in high school, Buzelis finished the G League season shooting 44% from the field and 27% from 3. Even more concerning (but more telling overall) his FT% dipped from 80% in highscool to 67% with the Ignite.

When you watch the Ignite (which I wouldn’t recommend), you can pretty easily figure out why it’s not working. All the developmental focus in the world can’t make up for underwhelming coaching, a complete lack of organization, and a roster that was ultimately doomed to fail the moment it was constructed.

Perhaps I’m being lazy for my own convenience when I choose to see Matas for what could be, but what could be is pretty hard to ignore. 6’10 guards with three level scoring potential and a pretty good handle don’t grow on trees. The assist to turnover ratio is concerning, and while the rebounding and stock numbers are impressive (1.9 BPG!!!) his weak frame is going to make him vulnerable to the leagues physicality on both ends. For me though, there’s simply too much with Buzelis to ignore. He has the skill set to become the best player in this draft class.

Easily my biggest riser compared to the consensus is Isaiah Collier from USC. ESPN’s #1 Ranked recruit was poised to share the backcourt with Bronny James before an unfortunate medical issue pushed even more onto Collier’s plate. USC’s season was a dissappointment, and the freshman guard hadn’t dominated competition the way you’d like the best prospect in the country to. Collier’s failure to live up to expectations might have him falling down draft boards, but when I watch him I see someone worth taking a chance on.

For the uninitiated, Collier is a 6’4 205lb freight train of a guard. He is a menace as a driver with his combination of speed strength which gets him plenty of looks at the line (6 FTA per game). He can bring rim pressure at the next level on day one to whichever team drafts him.

What makes Collier so interesting developmentally is that he shows flashes of really high end skills outside of his drives, but they’re not consistent enough for teams to feel confident taking him higher up in the lottery. He’s primarily a scoring guard but shows promising vision as a passer, but is also prone to making riskier decisions with the ball which lead to turnovers (4.3 APG to 3.3 TOPG). His outside shot is streaky, as opposed to just bad and certainly isn’t helped by his at times questionable shot selection. He finished the season shooting 34% from 3 on 3.3 attempts per game. The jumper will be crucial to unlocking everything else that makes him so special as a player. I’m not a shot doctor by any means, but there’s nothing visibly broken about his jumpshot that should give any teams concern that their own staff couldn’t make tweaks to improve upon it.

It’s unfair to blame all of USC’s ails on Collier who had to take on a much bigger role than what might suit him at the next level, he also battled with some ankle injuries throughout the season as well. Collier will turn 20 in early October and has just as much upside as any other lead guard in this class.

The final thing I want to touch on for board 1.0 is my tier 4, which consists only of Rob Dillingham and Zach Edey. The only things these two have in common for me is that I still don’t know what to make of them. I feel pretty confident that Dillingham will score at the NBA level. Will it impact winning? Is it even possible for someone of his size to become even a below average defender? His offensive talent is immense but he will be tested and attacked at every turn because that’s probably the smartest thing you could do. That thinking has lended itself to the idea of the Spurs taking Dillingham, whose defensive issues might be negated by having a generational defensive talent behind him. Is it the best value for San Antonio at pick number 8? I don’t think so, but I can see the thought process behind it at least.

I see more of Bones Hyland more than Trae Young when I think of Dillingham. I don’t even mean that as an insult, I like Bones Hyland. I also think there’s a reason a championship team traded him away for two secound round picks. Both things can be true unfortunately, and for Dillingham I’m not sure I’ll ever feel confident about it either way until I see it.

I'm not sure I'll ever know what to make of Edey either. Even when I watch him I'm not quite sure what to make of him. He has undoubtedly earned himself a 1st round grade, even if it is at the expense of an objectively weaker class than the year prior. To the shock of many, Edey showed noticable improvement in his senior season where he had already been dominating. His scoring and assist numbers increased while keeping his turnovers the same and he still shot above 70% from the line.

During his pre draft workout with Toronto he joked that he’s a 50% career 3 point shooter (because he is, on two attempts and one make), whether there’s ever a reliable jumpshot or not, Edey can contribute to winning basketball at the next level…

I think.