T0INE
formerly toine2983
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Man really does sound like Young Lebby.
Hopefully he can carve out a niche for himself in the league.
2024 NBA Draft Thread - the hawks might be on the clock
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by addict4sneakers,
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Man really does sound like Young Lebby.
Hopefully he can carve out a niche for himself in the league.
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Bronny doing and saying all the right things.
Leaving the door open for any and every team to take a swing on him.
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MIKE LOWERY
formerly chuck finster
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Ainge playing games I see.
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Lebby gonna say "Good luck son, wouldn't wanna be ya".
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Im starting to believe Edey can be a somewhat decent rotation player .
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What’s the word on Ronald Holland? Haven’t got a chance to really watch anything he did in G League, I know he got hurt too.
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double
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Should probably be given some leeway with how bad Ignite was put together this season. I think he's a top 10 pick, top 14 at worst.
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Holland gotta tighten the handle or jumper and he should be solid
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There's always one guard every year in the 20s range that I have no clue on. This year, it's Bub Carrington. Past guards include Blake Wesley, Jaden Springer and RJ Hampton.
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Very good passer. Doesn’t get to the rim a lot. Really good off the dribble. Really good in pnr. Looked like a top 10 pick then looked like he should go back to school and now looks like a first round pick
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Alex Sarr leads continuation of NBA’s French influx. Will next chapter come with Hawks?
It seems a little too perfect, right?
The Atlanta Hawks win the NBA Draft Lottery in a year when the closest thing to a consensus top prospect, Alex Sarr, is familiar with exactly one American city: Atlanta, where he lived for a year as a member of Overtime Elite in 2022-23. A French big man who played last season for the Perth Wildcats in Australia, Sarr has lived in Spain, the U.S. and Australia over the past three years while developing his game.
At the NBA Draft Combine, Sarr told reporters he often went to Hawks games as a spectator — OTE was just two and a half miles from State Farm Arena — but he didn’t know or meet any of the players. He’ll surely recognize several of them if he’s Atlanta’s choice, as the Hawks have made virtually no transactions in the past two seasons. (That includes Clint Capela, by the way, the French-speaking center Atlanta already employs; Sarr said he and the Geneva native have never met.)
Atlanta fans may roll their eyes at the idea that of course the Hawks won the consolation-prize lottery year — another French center went first in last year’s draft, if you haven’t heard, and the 2025 class is pretty stacked too.
Yet there is no doubt the Hawks still were tremendously fortunate last Sunday. A team that has no tanking option for the next three seasons due to unprotected picks owed from the Dejounte Murray trade instead lucked into a No. 1 overall pick anyway. Sarr might not be Victor Wembanyama, but he (or whomever the Hawks take with the first pick) still should be an impactful player, one who will also be on a team-friendly contract for four seasons. And importantly for a team that was shredded on defense a year ago, Sarr’s strengths tilt heavily toward that end of the floor.
“I’m a versatile defender,” said Sarr, who measured just under 7-feet tall without shoes last week, “and I can play inside-out offensively.”
Sarr didn’t tip his hand on city preferences at the combine but said he wanted to go No. 1.
“I’m a competitor, so I want to be first in anything I do,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s important because I can’t control it. I would (tell them) I’m the best player in the draft.”
Unlike some tall players who pick up the game late when they realize their size advantage, Sarr said he began playing basketball at the age of 4 because his father and older brother both played. (His brother Olivier played collegiately for Wake Forest and Kentucky and is currently on a two-way contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder.)
That development track is to be expected, because France has become a proper basketball country. Sarr’s emergence is part of a powerful new wave of French talent hitting the league in this three-year span. In addition to Wembanyama in 2023, the Rookie of the Year’s fellow lottery pick, Washington Wizards forward Bilal Coulibaly, and projected 2025 high lottery pick Nolan Traore, four French players are likely to be first-round picks in this draft: forwards Zaccharie Risacher, Tidjane Salaun, Pacome Dadiet and, of course, Sarr.
The Hawks will at least consider two of them, Sarr and Risacher, at No. 1. Sarr is the name most often mentioned atop draft boards, but Atlanta executives Landry Fields and Kyle Korver and head coach Quin Snyder said au revoir to the draft combine on Thursday to jet across the pond and see Risacher play in France (including this scandalous photo from the game that shows Snyder wearing normal human glasses). Salaun, meanwhile, is a late riser who may crash the lottery similarly to how Coulibaly did a year ago. Dadiet’s range is more toward the late first round.
Given this influx, I caught up to the most prominent of the old guard French players, Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert, before Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals to chat about his young countrymen.
“I think we got so much talent, it’s exciting,“ Gobert said. “You go (back) 20 years ago, we had a few guys like (Tony Parker) and Boris Diaw and (Nicolas) Batum, and now you look and there’s so much talent every year coming in. Credit the French clubs and the French federation for being able to develop some of this talent and allowing them to play to their abilities.”
Gobert knows Olivier Sarr well but hasn’t met Alex yet. Gobert still tracks French prospects’ games, even if the time zones don’t allow him to watch.
“It’s really important for me to be one of those guys to inspire the younger generation. Some of those older guys inspired me,” Gobert said. “It’s just the cycle. I try to lead the way and be there for them … giving them whatever knowledge or whatever they need.”
As for his scouting report on the younger Sarr?
“Sure, he’s got all the tools to be an amazing player,” Gobert said. “It’s always up to the way the guy works and his mindset and his mental toughness. In this league, that’s what it comes down to. That’s the one aspect that people don’t realize or talk about from the outside.”
Sarr, who weighed in at 224 pounds at the combine, has a skinny frame. That takes us to Gobert’s one big piece of advice.
“Embrace the moment … and work on your body. Obviously the skill is really important, but as a 7-footer in in this league, the body is the key, and then the skill.”
Gobert and Sarr could theoretically be teammates as early as this July, when the French national team will play in the Olympics, but Sarr might be a longshot to make that roster given the presence of two star centers (Gobert and Wembanyama) on a veteran squad. More likely: Gobert will first meet Sarr in the jump-ball circle at a Timberwolves game early next season.
Whether that happens against Atlanta or another team is still anyone’s guess, and neither the Hawks nor Sarr was leaving any clues during the week. Regardless of whom they select on June 26, the Hawks are in a much better place than they were a week ago.
It seems a little too perfect, right?
The Atlanta Hawks win the NBA Draft Lottery in a year when the closest thing to a consensus top prospect, Alex Sarr, is familiar with exactly one American city: Atlanta, where he lived for a year as a member of Overtime Elite in 2022-23. A French big man who played last season for the Perth Wildcats in Australia, Sarr has lived in Spain, the U.S. and Australia over the past three years while developing his game.
At the NBA Draft Combine, Sarr told reporters he often went to Hawks games as a spectator — OTE was just two and a half miles from State Farm Arena — but he didn’t know or meet any of the players. He’ll surely recognize several of them if he’s Atlanta’s choice, as the Hawks have made virtually no transactions in the past two seasons. (That includes Clint Capela, by the way, the French-speaking center Atlanta already employs; Sarr said he and the Geneva native have never met.)
Atlanta fans may roll their eyes at the idea that of course the Hawks won the consolation-prize lottery year — another French center went first in last year’s draft, if you haven’t heard, and the 2025 class is pretty stacked too.
Yet there is no doubt the Hawks still were tremendously fortunate last Sunday. A team that has no tanking option for the next three seasons due to unprotected picks owed from the Dejounte Murray trade instead lucked into a No. 1 overall pick anyway. Sarr might not be Victor Wembanyama, but he (or whomever the Hawks take with the first pick) still should be an impactful player, one who will also be on a team-friendly contract for four seasons. And importantly for a team that was shredded on defense a year ago, Sarr’s strengths tilt heavily toward that end of the floor.
“I’m a versatile defender,” said Sarr, who measured just under 7-feet tall without shoes last week, “and I can play inside-out offensively.”
Sarr didn’t tip his hand on city preferences at the combine but said he wanted to go No. 1.
“I’m a competitor, so I want to be first in anything I do,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s important because I can’t control it. I would (tell them) I’m the best player in the draft.”
Unlike some tall players who pick up the game late when they realize their size advantage, Sarr said he began playing basketball at the age of 4 because his father and older brother both played. (His brother Olivier played collegiately for Wake Forest and Kentucky and is currently on a two-way contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder.)
That development track is to be expected, because France has become a proper basketball country. Sarr’s emergence is part of a powerful new wave of French talent hitting the league in this three-year span. In addition to Wembanyama in 2023, the Rookie of the Year’s fellow lottery pick, Washington Wizards forward Bilal Coulibaly, and projected 2025 high lottery pick Nolan Traore, four French players are likely to be first-round picks in this draft: forwards Zaccharie Risacher, Tidjane Salaun, Pacome Dadiet and, of course, Sarr.
The Hawks will at least consider two of them, Sarr and Risacher, at No. 1. Sarr is the name most often mentioned atop draft boards, but Atlanta executives Landry Fields and Kyle Korver and head coach Quin Snyder said au revoir to the draft combine on Thursday to jet across the pond and see Risacher play in France (including this scandalous photo from the game that shows Snyder wearing normal human glasses). Salaun, meanwhile, is a late riser who may crash the lottery similarly to how Coulibaly did a year ago. Dadiet’s range is more toward the late first round.
Given this influx, I caught up to the most prominent of the old guard French players, Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert, before Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals to chat about his young countrymen.
“I think we got so much talent, it’s exciting,“ Gobert said. “You go (back) 20 years ago, we had a few guys like (Tony Parker) and Boris Diaw and (Nicolas) Batum, and now you look and there’s so much talent every year coming in. Credit the French clubs and the French federation for being able to develop some of this talent and allowing them to play to their abilities.”
Gobert knows Olivier Sarr well but hasn’t met Alex yet. Gobert still tracks French prospects’ games, even if the time zones don’t allow him to watch.
“It’s really important for me to be one of those guys to inspire the younger generation. Some of those older guys inspired me,” Gobert said. “It’s just the cycle. I try to lead the way and be there for them … giving them whatever knowledge or whatever they need.”
As for his scouting report on the younger Sarr?
“Sure, he’s got all the tools to be an amazing player,” Gobert said. “It’s always up to the way the guy works and his mindset and his mental toughness. In this league, that’s what it comes down to. That’s the one aspect that people don’t realize or talk about from the outside.”
Sarr, who weighed in at 224 pounds at the combine, has a skinny frame. That takes us to Gobert’s one big piece of advice.
“Embrace the moment … and work on your body. Obviously the skill is really important, but as a 7-footer in in this league, the body is the key, and then the skill.”
Gobert and Sarr could theoretically be teammates as early as this July, when the French national team will play in the Olympics, but Sarr might be a longshot to make that roster given the presence of two star centers (Gobert and Wembanyama) on a veteran squad. More likely: Gobert will first meet Sarr in the jump-ball circle at a Timberwolves game early next season.
Whether that happens against Atlanta or another team is still anyone’s guess, and neither the Hawks nor Sarr was leaving any clues during the week. Regardless of whom they select on June 26, the Hawks are in a much better place than they were a week ago.
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Bronny and LeBron, coaching hot-seat chatter and other NBA Draft Combine takeaways
The 2024 group may not end up being much of an NBA Draft class, but now that we’re counting down the days until draft night, the excitement factor is starting to kick in. Teams know where their picks stand after last week’s lottery, they’ve started going deep on prospect homework and, inevitably, they’re starting to develop crushes on certain players who might fall to them.
That was the stage for last week’s NBA Draft Combine, and it helped that some changes mandated in the new collective bargaining agreement made it a more inclusive affair. No longer can elite prospects sit out the interviews or (more vexingly) play games with sending individual teams their medical reports; even the top Europeans who couldn’t come because their teams are still in-season had to submit to medical. Helpfully for the league (and those who cover it), the changes also included prospects participating in media sessions, allowing the future faces of the league to get some additional exposure ahead of draft day.
As ever, we still didn’t get all the best players on the court for five-on-five; basically, none of the players projected to go in the top-30 picks suited up for the two days of scrimmages, although the shooting drills and athletic testing portions were well attended.
Nonetheless, many of the league personnel in Chicago this past week agreed that the new CBA rules helped make the 2024 version a vast improvement on previous events. No, that may not make this class any better when we look back on it, but it’s a great omen for when we do this again a year from now with a loaded 2025 class led by Duke commit Cooper Flagg.
In the meantime, we have much to discuss from this past week. Here’s the best, worst and weirdest from the 2024 combine:
Most conspicuous scout: LeBron James
Bronny James was the biggest story at the combine, at least outside the building, and that storyline got another boost Wednesday when Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James sat with his GM Rob Pelinka to watch his son perform. Technically, the rules say LeBron shouldn’t have been at the event, since it’s supposed to be for front-office personnel and agents only. Let’s just say that if this was Bruno Fernando’s kid, I don’t think he would have been in the building. But for the people who were there working, it wasn’t a distraction.
Bronny, meanwhile showed some of the same traits we saw at USC: An inability to gain separation off the dribble or get into the paint, and a limited ability to leverage his straight-line speed and one-leg leaping ability in the run of play. James hit two 3-pointers in the second game and made two floaters in the first, but over the course of his two days, he shot 6 of 18 with four rebounds, two assists and four turnovers. He was 2 of 9 on 3-pointers and 3 of 5 from the free-throw line.
James also measured just 6-foot-1 1/2 inches in socks; between that and his inability to get anywhere off the dribble, finding a pro position for him will be tough. His strong frame, 6-7 wingspan and 32-inch no-step vertical give him a chance to play bigger than his height, although we haven’t seen much evidence of it in his game tape yet.
For most scouts, I don’t think his play or measurements moved the needle much. Mostly, it just reinforced what they already knew. Certainly, there have been worse players drafted, but James’ résumé is hardly overwhelming. He seems likely to show up in the 50-to-100 range on most draft boards — firmly in play for a two-way contract, but probably not somebody whom teams would strongly consider before the back half of the second round. Whether that is enticing enough for him to take the leap versus a potential name, image and likeness package for another year in college, or whether an NBA team takes him higher than that based on his name, remains to be seen.
Finally, let me yell out one more time, loudly, for the people in back: I constantly hear people bringing up galaxy-brain “hostage” scenarios that involve a non-Laker team drafting Bronny because they imagine it will force LeBron James to sign with them or force Pelinka to make a ridiculous trade for the younger James’ rights. Forget it, folks. This is a non-starter. Not happening. If another team drafts Bronny James, the only thing it’s getting out of it are the rights to Bronny James.
Biggest whispers: Next year’s hot seats
The draft combine is a magnet for front-office personnel, but increasingly, it’s been a tractor beam for coaches as well. That includes college coaches who are there ostensibly to “support their players,” but also are scouting other players hunting for NIL money and looking for jobs themselves.
As a result, coaching chatter was inevitable, in particular chatter about where the next shoe may drop. While many felt it was inevitable the Cavaliers would seriously consider making a change, just as my colleagues reported once their season ended Wednesday, the other topic at hand was determining which teams were tipping their hand toward “hot seats” next season.
Three names that came up in my conversations with folks around the league were the Memphis Grizzlies’ Taylor Jenkins, the New Orleans Pelicans’ Willie Green and the Portland Trail Blazers’ Chauncey Billups.
Jenkins comes off a 27-win season that was plagued by myriad injuries. He’s mostly had success in Memphis, including finishing second in the 2022 Coach of the Year vote, but the Grizzlies have hit some turbulence since then. More notably, Memphis also fired the majority of his assistant coaches just before the combine; that’s always a tell the head coach isn’t a great spot.
Green won 49 games in New Orleans, but enters his fourth season facing increasing scrutiny about his offense and player usage, especially the revolving door at the center position. A recent contract extension likely makes it untenable to move on from him this summer, but a slow start next year could be a different story.
And finally, Billups has one year left on his deal with a GM who didn’t hire him, and, as with Jenkins, the Blazers fired multiple assistants of his … including his brother. He also seemed to be angling for the Phoenix job that went to Mike Budenholzer. Right now, Portland’s situation feels like a staredown reminiscent of the Damian Lillard saga, with neither side wanting to make the first move. But nobody I talked to thinks Billups will still be coaching the Blazers 12 months from now.
Biggest jump (literally): Devin Carter, Providence
One unusual thing about the athletic testing at the draft combine is how many people focus on the wrong things.
The shuttle tests and lane-agility drills are cool in theory, but they’re also heavily technique-driven and thus don’t have a lot of predictive ability. The max vertical leap is more useful, especially if you’re trying to forecast future dunk contest winners. However, the no-step vertical is the real prize and most relevant to the widest variety of basketball situations.
Enter Devin Carter, who jumped a combine-best 35 inches on his no-step vertical, tying with Marquette’s Oso Ighodaro (more on him below) and UCLA’s Adem Bona. The guard from Providence, who is the son of former NBA guard Anthony Carter, had already been steadily rising on draft boards in the second half of the season, and the athletic testing and measurements likely solidified him in the top 20 (at least).
In addition to the jump, Carter measured with a 6-8 1/4 wingspan, alleviating some concerns about his 6-2 1/4 no-shoes height at the shooting guard position. He also ripped off a 2.89-second sprint that was the fastest at the combine; this doesn’t have a ton of predictive value up the position scale, but is mildly useful for guards.
In fact, it appears to be the fastest time ever recorded at the combine, based on NBA.com’s data. However, that historical data also brings up a little problem with how the league may have set up the run this year.
I don’t know if the league accidentally made the course shorter, had a timing issue or something else, but something was off. Carter’s 2.89 time is 0.17 seconds faster than the fastest time a year ago, a 3.06 by Terrance Shannon. Two other players beat Shannon’s mark by more by than a tenth of second. That kind of margin is scarcely believable. More jarringly, 23 players had times of 3.1 or less, whereas Shannon was the only one to beat that time a year ago. It’s not like these times were wind-aided; they did it indoors.
Combine repeaters also saw their times improve markedly. Creighton’s Trey Alexander, for instance, went from a 3.35 to a 3.21, while Virginia’s Reece Beekman went from a 3.14 to a 2.94.
We can, however, say with more certainty that Carter still blew away everyone else in this draft class with his sprint time. It’s another data point that should see him gone by the 20th pick on draft night.
Best (former) teammate: Oso Ighodaro, Marquette
Ighodaro showed up for his media session last week wearing a T-shirt plastered with pictures of his Marquette teammate (and likely starting center replacement) Ben Gold, then began extolling Gold’s virtues as a player when I asked him about the shirt.
Gold, if you must know, is a 6-11 stretch big from New Zealand who comes off a strong sophomore season for the Golden Eagles and has a decent chance of sitting in the exact same chair as Ighodaro a year from now.
As for Ighodaro, he got attention at the combine for more than just his shirt. While his wingspan and standing-reach measurements were disappointing for a center (6-11 wingspan, 8-8 1/2 standing reach), he uncorked a 35-inch no-step vertical that tied with Carter for the best at the combine. Additionally, Ighodaro showed an advanced perimeter game for a center in the on-court session, handing out seven assists in just 47 minutes while making all six of his field goal attempts and going 7-of-9 from the foul line.
Ighodaro also said he learned his floater game from “a guy named Sam” at the Pecos Community Center where he played growing up in Phoenix because, as a youngster, he was getting his shot blocked by bigger, older players. We’ll never know who Sam is, sadly, but I can assure you it’s not this guy.
Regardless, his advice to a young Ighodaro has helped make him a popular sleeper pick.
Best potential October matchup: Ron Holland vs. Matas Buzelis
G League Ignite teammates and likely lottery picks Matas Buzelis and Ron Holland have been tight all season and have a clear mutual respect, but they also weren’t shy about what might happen when they first face off as NBA players.
“Oh, we’re gonna go at it,” Buzelis said. “I love Ron, but we’re gonna go at it for sure.”
“We talk about that all the time,” Holland said. “We used to go at it in practice all the time, it was all fun. But you know how me and him are, we’re both really competitive athletes. That game, there’s gonna be a lot of trash talk.”
Holland said he modeled his game after two-way forwards like Jaylen Brown and Mikal Bridges, but growing up, his favorite players were forwards such as Michael Beasley, Kevin Garnett, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant.
Um, run that first name by me again?
“Yeah, Beasley was a beast,” Holland said. “He could score any time he wanted to.”
Tentacles Award: N’Faly Dante, Oregon
Dante was just OK on the court, but he was the winner of the wingspan measurements that preceded five-on-five play.
Dante has what scouts call a “plus-8 wingspan,” measuring 6-10 without shoes with a 7-4 fingertip-to-fingertip length, the biggest differential of any player at the combine. Since wingspan does correlate with pro success (albeit not as well as some other factors, like, for instance, being good at basketball), this is always a measurement front offices keep an eye on.
Other winners are San Francisco’s hybrid forward Jonathan Mogbo (plus-7.75 inches), UCLA’s bouncy big man Adem Bona (plus-7.5), Virginia defensive ace Ryan Dunn (plus-7.25) and Washington State’s late blooming big man Isaac Jones (plus-7.25). Among perimeter players, Creighton combo guard Alexander (plus-7.25) had the biggest margin, followed by North Carolina’s Harrison Ingram (plus-7).
T-Rex Award: Kyle Filipowski, Duke
One reason scouts are skeptical about Kyle Filipowski’s ability to play as a pure five is his short arms; he had just an 8-11 standing reach and a 6-10 1/2 wingspan. His wingspan was the only one at the combine that was a “minus,” measuring a quarter-inch shorter than his no-shoes height of 6-10 3/4.
He’s not the only potential lottery pick who measured with short arms. Buzelis was just a plus-1.25, with a 6-10 wingspan on a 6-8 3/4 frame, while Filipowski’s Duke teammate Jared McCain graded out as just plus-1.5. Other notably short wingspans include Kansas’ Johnny Furphy (plus-0.25), Washington State’s Jaelen Wells (plus-0.75), Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard ( plus-1.5) and Marquette teammates Ighodaro (see above) and Tyler Kolek (plus-1.5).
Best on-court performance: Baylor Scheierman, Creighton
With 26 points, four assists and four steals across two games, Baylor Scheierman was probably the one prospect who did the most to improve his stock in the on-court sessions. A 6-6 wing, Scheierman already had scouts’ attention because he shot 38.1 percent from 3 and 87.6 percent from the line in his final two seasons in the Big East, but he was seen as a mid-to-late second-rounder given his age and iffy athleticism.
In this environment, however, Scheierman showed his skills as a secondary ballhandler could scale up to potentially make him more than just a catch-and-shoot threat at the next level. A respectable 27.5-inch standing vertical and a zippy 3.09-second sprint time added further credibility to the idea that he can hang athletically, especially when added to his stout 15.9 percent rebound rate in Big East games this past season.
Like a lot of players in this draft, the fifth “COVID year” of eligibility given by the NCAA in 2020 means that Scheierman is unusually long in the tooth for a draft prospect: He’ll be 24 by the time training camp opens. However, his ability to be a plug-and-play wing from day one could make him a more attractive proposition than a developmental player and a popular target in the top half of the second round.
All five-on-five team
Simpson may have moved himself into the tail end of the first round with his strong showing on the court. The junior guard from Colorado battled injuries and mononucleosis during his sophomore season, but had a breakout junior season in 2023-24. The 6-1 ball of energy showed his game could translate even against bigger players, compiling 27 points and 10 rebounds in his two games.
We knew Shead is a first-rate pain on the defensive end, but the guard showed more juice than expected offensively with 27 points and 10 assists in the two games.
Hawkins was outstanding in the second game with 17 points, five rebounds and three assists. His narrow frame will need to fill out to deal with NBA physicality, but he showed a high basketball IQ at both ends of the court.
Finally, Ajayi was not well known after playing for a weak Pepperdine team this past season, but he finished with 23 points and 14 rebounds in his two combine games while looking the part of an NBA small forward. He’s set to transfer to Gonzaga this year, but could have a decision to make if he can get a second-round guarantee.
Most baffling on-court absence: Tristen Newton, Connecticut
As ever, a few players (and their representatives) got a little too cute in leaving their players out of the five-on-five part the competition. While nobody expects players with top-20 projections to risk guaranteed first-round money with a bad showing or injury, that calculus changes quite a bit for the next tier of players. The Scheiermans, Simpsons and Sheads I listed above will displace other payers on draft boards, and the most likely victims are the nonparticipants.
Players such as Newton, Ariel Hukporti, Hunter Sallis, Tyler Kolek, Bobi Klintman, DaRon Holmes, Jaylon Tyson and Cam Christie weren’t exactly assured of top-40 selections before the week, and their athletic testing numbers were unlikely to move the needle. The lowest-rated of those players on most expert draft boards was Newton, a fifth-year guard from Connecticut who has two national titles on his résumé, but needs to show evaluators he can shine outside of UConn’s system.
These are the players NBA teams want to see on the court at the combine. They’ll get other chances to play in front of teams they visit for draft workouts, but five-on-five play isn’t permitted at those events. This was their best chance to make a case for themselves on the court, and they punted.
The 2024 group may not end up being much of an NBA Draft class, but now that we’re counting down the days until draft night, the excitement factor is starting to kick in. Teams know where their picks stand after last week’s lottery, they’ve started going deep on prospect homework and, inevitably, they’re starting to develop crushes on certain players who might fall to them.
That was the stage for last week’s NBA Draft Combine, and it helped that some changes mandated in the new collective bargaining agreement made it a more inclusive affair. No longer can elite prospects sit out the interviews or (more vexingly) play games with sending individual teams their medical reports; even the top Europeans who couldn’t come because their teams are still in-season had to submit to medical. Helpfully for the league (and those who cover it), the changes also included prospects participating in media sessions, allowing the future faces of the league to get some additional exposure ahead of draft day.
As ever, we still didn’t get all the best players on the court for five-on-five; basically, none of the players projected to go in the top-30 picks suited up for the two days of scrimmages, although the shooting drills and athletic testing portions were well attended.
Nonetheless, many of the league personnel in Chicago this past week agreed that the new CBA rules helped make the 2024 version a vast improvement on previous events. No, that may not make this class any better when we look back on it, but it’s a great omen for when we do this again a year from now with a loaded 2025 class led by Duke commit Cooper Flagg.
In the meantime, we have much to discuss from this past week. Here’s the best, worst and weirdest from the 2024 combine:
Most conspicuous scout: LeBron James
Bronny James was the biggest story at the combine, at least outside the building, and that storyline got another boost Wednesday when Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James sat with his GM Rob Pelinka to watch his son perform. Technically, the rules say LeBron shouldn’t have been at the event, since it’s supposed to be for front-office personnel and agents only. Let’s just say that if this was Bruno Fernando’s kid, I don’t think he would have been in the building. But for the people who were there working, it wasn’t a distraction.
Bronny, meanwhile showed some of the same traits we saw at USC: An inability to gain separation off the dribble or get into the paint, and a limited ability to leverage his straight-line speed and one-leg leaping ability in the run of play. James hit two 3-pointers in the second game and made two floaters in the first, but over the course of his two days, he shot 6 of 18 with four rebounds, two assists and four turnovers. He was 2 of 9 on 3-pointers and 3 of 5 from the free-throw line.
James also measured just 6-foot-1 1/2 inches in socks; between that and his inability to get anywhere off the dribble, finding a pro position for him will be tough. His strong frame, 6-7 wingspan and 32-inch no-step vertical give him a chance to play bigger than his height, although we haven’t seen much evidence of it in his game tape yet.
For most scouts, I don’t think his play or measurements moved the needle much. Mostly, it just reinforced what they already knew. Certainly, there have been worse players drafted, but James’ résumé is hardly overwhelming. He seems likely to show up in the 50-to-100 range on most draft boards — firmly in play for a two-way contract, but probably not somebody whom teams would strongly consider before the back half of the second round. Whether that is enticing enough for him to take the leap versus a potential name, image and likeness package for another year in college, or whether an NBA team takes him higher than that based on his name, remains to be seen.
Finally, let me yell out one more time, loudly, for the people in back: I constantly hear people bringing up galaxy-brain “hostage” scenarios that involve a non-Laker team drafting Bronny because they imagine it will force LeBron James to sign with them or force Pelinka to make a ridiculous trade for the younger James’ rights. Forget it, folks. This is a non-starter. Not happening. If another team drafts Bronny James, the only thing it’s getting out of it are the rights to Bronny James.
Biggest whispers: Next year’s hot seats
The draft combine is a magnet for front-office personnel, but increasingly, it’s been a tractor beam for coaches as well. That includes college coaches who are there ostensibly to “support their players,” but also are scouting other players hunting for NIL money and looking for jobs themselves.
As a result, coaching chatter was inevitable, in particular chatter about where the next shoe may drop. While many felt it was inevitable the Cavaliers would seriously consider making a change, just as my colleagues reported once their season ended Wednesday, the other topic at hand was determining which teams were tipping their hand toward “hot seats” next season.
Three names that came up in my conversations with folks around the league were the Memphis Grizzlies’ Taylor Jenkins, the New Orleans Pelicans’ Willie Green and the Portland Trail Blazers’ Chauncey Billups.
Jenkins comes off a 27-win season that was plagued by myriad injuries. He’s mostly had success in Memphis, including finishing second in the 2022 Coach of the Year vote, but the Grizzlies have hit some turbulence since then. More notably, Memphis also fired the majority of his assistant coaches just before the combine; that’s always a tell the head coach isn’t a great spot.
Green won 49 games in New Orleans, but enters his fourth season facing increasing scrutiny about his offense and player usage, especially the revolving door at the center position. A recent contract extension likely makes it untenable to move on from him this summer, but a slow start next year could be a different story.
And finally, Billups has one year left on his deal with a GM who didn’t hire him, and, as with Jenkins, the Blazers fired multiple assistants of his … including his brother. He also seemed to be angling for the Phoenix job that went to Mike Budenholzer. Right now, Portland’s situation feels like a staredown reminiscent of the Damian Lillard saga, with neither side wanting to make the first move. But nobody I talked to thinks Billups will still be coaching the Blazers 12 months from now.
Biggest jump (literally): Devin Carter, Providence
One unusual thing about the athletic testing at the draft combine is how many people focus on the wrong things.
The shuttle tests and lane-agility drills are cool in theory, but they’re also heavily technique-driven and thus don’t have a lot of predictive ability. The max vertical leap is more useful, especially if you’re trying to forecast future dunk contest winners. However, the no-step vertical is the real prize and most relevant to the widest variety of basketball situations.
Enter Devin Carter, who jumped a combine-best 35 inches on his no-step vertical, tying with Marquette’s Oso Ighodaro (more on him below) and UCLA’s Adem Bona. The guard from Providence, who is the son of former NBA guard Anthony Carter, had already been steadily rising on draft boards in the second half of the season, and the athletic testing and measurements likely solidified him in the top 20 (at least).
In addition to the jump, Carter measured with a 6-8 1/4 wingspan, alleviating some concerns about his 6-2 1/4 no-shoes height at the shooting guard position. He also ripped off a 2.89-second sprint that was the fastest at the combine; this doesn’t have a ton of predictive value up the position scale, but is mildly useful for guards.
In fact, it appears to be the fastest time ever recorded at the combine, based on NBA.com’s data. However, that historical data also brings up a little problem with how the league may have set up the run this year.
I don’t know if the league accidentally made the course shorter, had a timing issue or something else, but something was off. Carter’s 2.89 time is 0.17 seconds faster than the fastest time a year ago, a 3.06 by Terrance Shannon. Two other players beat Shannon’s mark by more by than a tenth of second. That kind of margin is scarcely believable. More jarringly, 23 players had times of 3.1 or less, whereas Shannon was the only one to beat that time a year ago. It’s not like these times were wind-aided; they did it indoors.
Combine repeaters also saw their times improve markedly. Creighton’s Trey Alexander, for instance, went from a 3.35 to a 3.21, while Virginia’s Reece Beekman went from a 3.14 to a 2.94.
We can, however, say with more certainty that Carter still blew away everyone else in this draft class with his sprint time. It’s another data point that should see him gone by the 20th pick on draft night.
Best (former) teammate: Oso Ighodaro, Marquette
Ighodaro showed up for his media session last week wearing a T-shirt plastered with pictures of his Marquette teammate (and likely starting center replacement) Ben Gold, then began extolling Gold’s virtues as a player when I asked him about the shirt.
Gold, if you must know, is a 6-11 stretch big from New Zealand who comes off a strong sophomore season for the Golden Eagles and has a decent chance of sitting in the exact same chair as Ighodaro a year from now.
As for Ighodaro, he got attention at the combine for more than just his shirt. While his wingspan and standing-reach measurements were disappointing for a center (6-11 wingspan, 8-8 1/2 standing reach), he uncorked a 35-inch no-step vertical that tied with Carter for the best at the combine. Additionally, Ighodaro showed an advanced perimeter game for a center in the on-court session, handing out seven assists in just 47 minutes while making all six of his field goal attempts and going 7-of-9 from the foul line.
Ighodaro also said he learned his floater game from “a guy named Sam” at the Pecos Community Center where he played growing up in Phoenix because, as a youngster, he was getting his shot blocked by bigger, older players. We’ll never know who Sam is, sadly, but I can assure you it’s not this guy.
Regardless, his advice to a young Ighodaro has helped make him a popular sleeper pick.
Best potential October matchup: Ron Holland vs. Matas Buzelis
G League Ignite teammates and likely lottery picks Matas Buzelis and Ron Holland have been tight all season and have a clear mutual respect, but they also weren’t shy about what might happen when they first face off as NBA players.
“Oh, we’re gonna go at it,” Buzelis said. “I love Ron, but we’re gonna go at it for sure.”
“We talk about that all the time,” Holland said. “We used to go at it in practice all the time, it was all fun. But you know how me and him are, we’re both really competitive athletes. That game, there’s gonna be a lot of trash talk.”
Holland said he modeled his game after two-way forwards like Jaylen Brown and Mikal Bridges, but growing up, his favorite players were forwards such as Michael Beasley, Kevin Garnett, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant.
Um, run that first name by me again?
“Yeah, Beasley was a beast,” Holland said. “He could score any time he wanted to.”
Tentacles Award: N’Faly Dante, Oregon
Dante was just OK on the court, but he was the winner of the wingspan measurements that preceded five-on-five play.
Dante has what scouts call a “plus-8 wingspan,” measuring 6-10 without shoes with a 7-4 fingertip-to-fingertip length, the biggest differential of any player at the combine. Since wingspan does correlate with pro success (albeit not as well as some other factors, like, for instance, being good at basketball), this is always a measurement front offices keep an eye on.
Other winners are San Francisco’s hybrid forward Jonathan Mogbo (plus-7.75 inches), UCLA’s bouncy big man Adem Bona (plus-7.5), Virginia defensive ace Ryan Dunn (plus-7.25) and Washington State’s late blooming big man Isaac Jones (plus-7.25). Among perimeter players, Creighton combo guard Alexander (plus-7.25) had the biggest margin, followed by North Carolina’s Harrison Ingram (plus-7).
T-Rex Award: Kyle Filipowski, Duke
One reason scouts are skeptical about Kyle Filipowski’s ability to play as a pure five is his short arms; he had just an 8-11 standing reach and a 6-10 1/2 wingspan. His wingspan was the only one at the combine that was a “minus,” measuring a quarter-inch shorter than his no-shoes height of 6-10 3/4.
He’s not the only potential lottery pick who measured with short arms. Buzelis was just a plus-1.25, with a 6-10 wingspan on a 6-8 3/4 frame, while Filipowski’s Duke teammate Jared McCain graded out as just plus-1.5. Other notably short wingspans include Kansas’ Johnny Furphy (plus-0.25), Washington State’s Jaelen Wells (plus-0.75), Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard ( plus-1.5) and Marquette teammates Ighodaro (see above) and Tyler Kolek (plus-1.5).
Best on-court performance: Baylor Scheierman, Creighton
With 26 points, four assists and four steals across two games, Baylor Scheierman was probably the one prospect who did the most to improve his stock in the on-court sessions. A 6-6 wing, Scheierman already had scouts’ attention because he shot 38.1 percent from 3 and 87.6 percent from the line in his final two seasons in the Big East, but he was seen as a mid-to-late second-rounder given his age and iffy athleticism.
In this environment, however, Scheierman showed his skills as a secondary ballhandler could scale up to potentially make him more than just a catch-and-shoot threat at the next level. A respectable 27.5-inch standing vertical and a zippy 3.09-second sprint time added further credibility to the idea that he can hang athletically, especially when added to his stout 15.9 percent rebound rate in Big East games this past season.
Like a lot of players in this draft, the fifth “COVID year” of eligibility given by the NCAA in 2020 means that Scheierman is unusually long in the tooth for a draft prospect: He’ll be 24 by the time training camp opens. However, his ability to be a plug-and-play wing from day one could make him a more attractive proposition than a developmental player and a popular target in the top half of the second round.
All five-on-five team
- K.J. Simpson, G, Colorado
- Jamal Shead, G, Houston
- Baylor Scheierman, F, Creighton
- Michael Ajayi, F, Pepperdine
- Coleman Hawkins, F, Illinois
Simpson may have moved himself into the tail end of the first round with his strong showing on the court. The junior guard from Colorado battled injuries and mononucleosis during his sophomore season, but had a breakout junior season in 2023-24. The 6-1 ball of energy showed his game could translate even against bigger players, compiling 27 points and 10 rebounds in his two games.
We knew Shead is a first-rate pain on the defensive end, but the guard showed more juice than expected offensively with 27 points and 10 assists in the two games.
Hawkins was outstanding in the second game with 17 points, five rebounds and three assists. His narrow frame will need to fill out to deal with NBA physicality, but he showed a high basketball IQ at both ends of the court.
Finally, Ajayi was not well known after playing for a weak Pepperdine team this past season, but he finished with 23 points and 14 rebounds in his two combine games while looking the part of an NBA small forward. He’s set to transfer to Gonzaga this year, but could have a decision to make if he can get a second-round guarantee.
Most baffling on-court absence: Tristen Newton, Connecticut
As ever, a few players (and their representatives) got a little too cute in leaving their players out of the five-on-five part the competition. While nobody expects players with top-20 projections to risk guaranteed first-round money with a bad showing or injury, that calculus changes quite a bit for the next tier of players. The Scheiermans, Simpsons and Sheads I listed above will displace other payers on draft boards, and the most likely victims are the nonparticipants.
Players such as Newton, Ariel Hukporti, Hunter Sallis, Tyler Kolek, Bobi Klintman, DaRon Holmes, Jaylon Tyson and Cam Christie weren’t exactly assured of top-40 selections before the week, and their athletic testing numbers were unlikely to move the needle. The lowest-rated of those players on most expert draft boards was Newton, a fifth-year guard from Connecticut who has two national titles on his résumé, but needs to show evaluators he can shine outside of UConn’s system.
These are the players NBA teams want to see on the court at the combine. They’ll get other chances to play in front of teams they visit for draft workouts, but five-on-five play isn’t permitted at those events. This was their best chance to make a case for themselves on the court, and they punted.
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Where would Sarr get drafted next year? Top 5 still?
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We gotta take Sarr. He’s exactly what we don’t have. A legit 7 footer than can handle the ball, athletic and can knock down shots. He could be a Chet for us. Trade a couple pieces to get BI from NO, maybe Murray. Get capela off our books. Trae, Jalen, BI, Okongwu and Sarr. This needs to be the starting roster come October.
