2024 NBA Draft Top 10 Prospects and why this list matters

Very interesting. I’d like to avoid the bad shooting non-bigs like Topic, Holland…even Castle (although he’s the most intriguing of the non-shooters). Buzelis can’t shoot and he’s supposed to be a stretch 4; they have him #2? This draft is yuck.

75% chance we pick at #9 or #10. If we make the pick I think you have to look at guys like Devin Carter, Terrence Shannon, Filipowski, Cody Williams, McCain, and some others as well. Very eager to see how tightly draft consensus holds; I can’t see how it would past the top few picks.

 

How would this have affected Cam Whitmore last year???

 

I just want them to go best player available. I don't care if they pick someone who is redundant. If they're good, that just makes it easier to throw in one of our young guys in a package deal for a star. I have to admit, there is a part of me that wonders how Reed Sheppard will be as a pro. I love his tenacity and shooting, but his size scares me. He's listed at 6'3 but I've heard lots of pundits saying they believe he's closer to 6'1. There just aren't a whole lot of guys at that size succeeding in the NBA these days.

 

I rate the prospects as…..

1. Topic
2. Sarrr
3. Risacher
4. Clingnan
5. Dillingham
6. Shep
7. Castle
8. Holland
9. Salaun
10. Knecht

 

I definitely get the upside with Castle, Topic, and Matas. It’s just that none of them appear to be good shooters. I’m all for BPA, but it just feels like most of our core are not great shooters. So ideally we are able to find a great shooter in this draft, but I’m always supportive of BPA. I trust our scouts to get it right.

 

My guess is that Cody Williams makes it into the Top 10.

 

I think he still drops past 14.

He reportedly worked out for the lotto teams so we can assume they had his medicals. The only way this change would have impacted Cam is if a non-lotto team that was originally scared off due to not having his medicals now feels comfortable enough to trade up for him.

Keep in mind there were a few non-medical flags around Cam. Kyle Neptune didn't like him, his assist numbers were historically bad, and his interviews and workouts were "poor".

I'm not sure a playoff team would be willing to trade up 10+ spots for a prospect with that many questions. But who knows?

 

I'm wondering what the weighting on the composite rankings is because it's rare to see Buzelis that high (and I like the dude) on most mocks. Maybe the NBA is trying to nudge Topic to the Spurs.

 

Basically I don’t want anything to do with the two G-League Ignite prospects; neither of whom can shoot. I’d be fine coming away with Sheppard, Dillingham, Kenecht, Clingan, or Castle. If all of those guys and the euros are gone i think the draft gets pretty flat. I suspect Matas gets drafted before #9 and pushes one of those 5 guys up.

Other guys I’m slightly intrigued by are Shannon, Carter, Filipowski, Saulun, and McCain, but I feel like in any other draft you’d be looking at those guys as late 1st rounders (maybe save for Filipowski).

 

I don't know about Buzelis being a bad shooter. I'm more of a "I have no idea about his shooting" because he was pretty good on 2P%, but horrible at 3's. Some of that could be because he went from the high school 3 where he was great to the NBA 3 where he was atrocious. That's a 4-foot shot distance difference in a span of a year. Maybe he just needs time to adjust since there was no intermediate shot since he didn't go to college. We've seen how Jabari is taking time to adjust from the college 3 distance to the NBA's. With Jabari, I always asked how you can call the guy a 6'10" Steph Curry, Ray Allen, KD, etc. when his 2pt shooting %age was so meh. It's the opposite right now with Buzelis. He's probably adjusting to his position, sets, etc. in the NBA, too. A lot to expect of basically a high school kid. The dude played point guard/point forward a lot in high school. I don't know how much he'll do that in the NBA, but I doubt he's going to be handling the ball as much as the guards will in the NBA, but hey, who knows. lol. Just saying he's still learning his position, where to be, what to do, etc. - especially off-ball.

Ron Holland's best attribute is his motor/aggressiveness. I don't think anybody thinks he's going to be a great shooter, but if he does, that's just an added bonus. He's athletic, but it's raw athleticism. I think he's going to run into guys in the NBA that can be his equal or greater on athleticism. Without a jumper, he's tough to project because he could be raw as hell at his age but be improved in 2 or 3 years. His motor/hustle kind of reminds me of Tari Eason, in a way, but Eason has some kind of weird aura that allows him to get basketballs or attract basketballs to come to him and find openings where there don't seem to be any to do so. I'm not sure I see that in Holland's play despite his hustle. But if he's all that's left, what the hell, I wouldn't blink an eye if there's nobody they think is better - I'd take him.

Shooting is so weird to predict. You can have great shooters that end up being nobodies or average shooters in the NBA, so it's hard for me to say "he was a great shooter in college, so he's already got a head start in the NBA". Been burned way too many times thinking that. It's even more difficult trying to predict a high school kid's shooting going into the NBA for me.

 

all great points. I’d take a chance on Matas way before Holland given his size and talent. But it’s worth flagging that Matas struggled from the foul line, which is another concerning red flag on the shooting for me.

 

The funny thing about that is that he was around an 80% FT shooter during the EYBL and the NIBC, so maybe his 70% shooting is at least a bit of an aberration (or the banging against more mature players wore him out during games in the G-League?). Of course his 70% FT shooting or whatever in the G-League isn't horrific, but yeah, you'd like it to be better. I don't know how he'll be used in the NBA, but no matter what, he'd probably need to put on some weight and his shot looks slow and low sometimes.

It's interesting that when I fell in love with Paolo in high school, I always wondered if his ballhandling at that size would translate as he went from high school to college to NBA. He's a physical freak with handles. Matas grew up playing a lot of point-guard/point-forward roles where he handled the ball a lot which is what I was hoping we may see as he went from high school to G-League, but I don't think his handles have translated all that well. Not that they can't improve, but he doesn't seem quite like a modern-day Toni Kukoc. But we'll see.

Have you ever watched that video with him playing 1-on-1 against Cooper Flagg? There is one move in there where he juked the crap out of Cooper. That's the kind of stuff that makes you go He's a bit of a project, but most of these guys in this draft look like they'll be projects to some extent. They all have huge flaws, but you see that a lot in high school-aged kids going to the NBA, so I don't know.

 

For Guards I'm really only interested in Sheppard because he does what the rest of our guards can't, shoot, and he seems to match Udoka's expectations on the defensive end.

For the 3 I'm interested in Knecht for his shooting as well and his athleticism.

For the bigs . . . Any of the guys that are 7'+ intrigue me. We need size added to this team.

 

I think Buzelis was 42% from three in Hugh school.

Sometimes these bigger guys benefit from the way the ball is given to them. Look at someone like Baldwin jr, 38% from three last year when playing with the Warriors, 32% with the Wiz and poor in college too. Having someone get you a shot vs making your own is a big difference.

Not advocating for Buzelis - just an observation

 

I haven't been as engaged with the college game this year, but Knecht looks very lost defensively on the occasions I have seen him.
A lot of ball watching and getting lost off-ball.

Apart from that, he could be the Jaquez of this class

 

Yeah, but a 3 is less than a 20' jumper in high school, so it's hard to compare. In high school, the offense was also run a lot through Buzelis and he handled the ball a lot.

 

This no-ceilings big board to me is pretty spot on, but I’m far from a professional draft analyst. It will obviously change after the combine, but for now this closely aligns with how I’m seeing the draft. I think it’s a pretty flat draft; I like the mid-1st round of this draft because you could end up with a Devin Carter or a Filipowski or a Saulun, any of which could be as good as the guys taken in the mid-lotto. Interesting that they are down on the G-league ignite guys.

https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/2024-nba-draft-big-board-v7

 

Scouts and FO are going to earn their monies this year, projecting these draftees's careers. So many of the top Gs can not shoot 3s ... yet.