As the NCAA men’s college basketball regular season turns the page to March Madness, casual fans are starting to think more about the NBA draft.
While scouts are hyperfocused on the draft 365 days a year, the rest of the sports world will soon also turn their attention to the next generation of NBA talent as well. Before the chaos of the tournament leads to endless movement on draft boards, now is a good time to take a temperature and offer up a read on where things stand for the upcoming draft class.
For this exercise, I’ve separated each player into one of six tiers. There are several players who were excluded from this list (e.g. Michigan State’s Max Christie, UCLA’s Peyton Watson, Memphis’ Josh Minott) not because I think they will go undrafted but because I predict they go back to school.
Big boards this early in the process are especially flawed because it requires tremendous guesswork for which players will actually decide to turn pro. But based on where it stands now, I have included my predictions below.
Within each tier, I have also included a “player spotlight” for someone in that grouping that has especially caught my attention of late. Otherwise, courtesy of Bart Torvik and Hoop-Math, I included some data that may help illustrate the playing style of each individual who plays at the NCAA level.
These rankings are certain to change once the tournament begins. But until then, use this as a primer to help discover some prospects to watch over the course of the next month. Otherwise, check out my last NBA mock draft to see where I slotted many of these names.
All data is accurate through the end of Feb. 28, 2022.
