2025 Draft Winners and Losers

[Klomp]

I think it's important for executives to have an awareness and understanding of where your franchise is at and what it needs.

Brooklyn probably won't get maximum value from each one of its picks for example but if one or two work out for them, it's a significant factor for this next era of the Nets. They are so far away right now that they need value wherever they can find it.

[JMAC3]

This thread overreactions won't age well, lol

This is mostly just going to be how people viewed prospects prior to the draft as to which teams won or lost the draft. So yeah there will be some that are not good, but that is evaluating prospects- nobody is going to nail every single eval. However, I don't think this is an overreaction- this is based on people's evaluation of prospects that are over 30-100 game sample sizes.

[One_and_Done]

Winners
Pelicans - Drafted my #5 and #7 ranked players in Fears and Queen. I get it cost a lot to move up, but hard to hate the draft if they land two top 7 guys via my rankings. Peavy feels like a solid swing in 2nd.
Kings- Landing both Clifford and Raynaud, my 23rd and 21st players.
Suns- Maluach, Fleming and Brea is a haul.
Spurs- Harper and Bryant is a great combo.
Heat - Kasparas was ranked on my board, got him 20th.

Losers
Nets - Reached on Egor, should have went Queen or Kasparas in my ranks. Other picks were fine value wise, but feels like they missed up top.
Hornets - Kon was a reach on my board, ranked 11th. Other 3 picks were fine values- especially Kalkbrenner.
Raptors - CMB was a reach on my board, ranked 18th and took him 9th. Fit seems questionable. Martin felt like bad fit in 2nd.
Blazers - Hansen Yange was ranked 37th on my board, reached to 16th for him when they just spent 8th pick on center last draft.
Wolves - Was lower on Beringer, had him ranked 34th and they took him 17th.

Underated drafts
Celtics- Hugo and Shulga were good stabs. Amari was iffy to me, but still.
Golden State- Like both Toohey and Richard selections.

If you had a poll for worst moves on draft night, the Pelicans would be winning with like 90% of the vote. Excluding the Luka trade, that was probably the worst trade in some years. I disagree with most of your winners in fact, other than the Spurs who legitimately had a great draft

[JMAC3]

Winners
Pelicans - Drafted my #5 and #7 ranked players in Fears and Queen. I get it cost a lot to move up, but hard to hate the draft if they land two top 7 guys via my rankings. Peavy feels like a solid swing in 2nd.
Kings- Landing both Clifford and Raynaud, my 23rd and 21st players.
Suns- Maluach, Fleming and Brea is a haul.
Spurs- Harper and Bryant is a great combo.
Heat - Kasparas was ranked on my board, got him 20th.

Losers
Nets - Reached on Egor, should have went Queen or Kasparas in my ranks. Other picks were fine value wise, but feels like they missed up top.
Hornets - Kon was a reach on my board, ranked 11th. Other 3 picks were fine values- especially Kalkbrenner.
Raptors - CMB was a reach on my board, ranked 18th and took him 9th. Fit seems questionable. Martin felt like bad fit in 2nd.
Blazers - Hansen Yange was ranked 37th on my board, reached to 16th for him when they just spent 8th pick on center last draft.
Wolves - Was lower on Beringer, had him ranked 34th and they took him 17th.

Underated drafts
Celtics- Hugo and Shulga were good stabs. Amari was iffy to me, but still.
Golden State- Like both Toohey and Richard selections.

If you had a poll for worst moves on draft night, the Pelicans would be winning with like 90% of the vote. Excluding the Luka trade, that was probably the worst trade in some years. I disagree with most of your winners in fact, other than the Spurs who legitimately had a great draft

What if the Pelicans had Fears and Queen ranked 4th and 5th on their board and they landed them with picks 7 and 13?

Maybe those 90% are right, but if the Pelicans are believers in Queen then bravo for them to get aggressive and going to get their guy. That to me is better than the BS we see reported 5+ years down the line when player X is a superstar, when the Headlines read "Mavs had Tyrese Haliburton #2 player on their board" yet they make no attempt to trade up to get him outside the top 10.

https://footballnews90.com/how-rick-carlisle-and-the-mavericks-almost-drafted-tyrese-haliburton-in/

https://www.nbcsportsbayarea.com/nba/golden-state-warriors/ex-knicks-gm-claims-he-tried-to-trade-up-for-steph-curry-in-2009-draft/1350260/

https://www.sportscasting.com/news/giannis-antetokounmpo-almost-ended-up-with-a-different-team-years-ago/

If anything the Pelicans are incentivized to win next year and will have no agenda to stealth tank.

[EvanZ]

For me the biggest winners were OKC getting Sorber and Atlanta getting Asa where they did. Lakers ending up with Thiero was a win.

Not sure I really have big losers tbh. Demin was a bit too high for my liking but once you get past the Lottery the swings are a lot bigger and the stakes are lower. Yanic Konan Niederhauser was probably the biggest WTF pick for me.

[One_and_Done]

Winners
Pelicans - Drafted my #5 and #7 ranked players in Fears and Queen. I get it cost a lot to move up, but hard to hate the draft if they land two top 7 guys via my rankings. Peavy feels like a solid swing in 2nd.
Kings- Landing both Clifford and Raynaud, my 23rd and 21st players.
Suns- Maluach, Fleming and Brea is a haul.
Spurs- Harper and Bryant is a great combo.
Heat - Kasparas was ranked on my board, got him 20th.

Losers
Nets - Reached on Egor, should have went Queen or Kasparas in my ranks. Other picks were fine value wise, but feels like they missed up top.
Hornets - Kon was a reach on my board, ranked 11th. Other 3 picks were fine values- especially Kalkbrenner.
Raptors - CMB was a reach on my board, ranked 18th and took him 9th. Fit seems questionable. Martin felt like bad fit in 2nd.
Blazers - Hansen Yange was ranked 37th on my board, reached to 16th for him when they just spent 8th pick on center last draft.
Wolves - Was lower on Beringer, had him ranked 34th and they took him 17th.

Underated drafts
Celtics- Hugo and Shulga were good stabs. Amari was iffy to me, but still.
Golden State- Like both Toohey and Richard selections.

If you had a poll for worst moves on draft night, the Pelicans would be winning with like 90% of the vote. Excluding the Luka trade, that was probably the worst trade in some years. I disagree with most of your winners in fact, other than the Spurs who legitimately had a great draft

What if the Pelicans had Fears and Queen ranked 4th and 5th on their board and they landed them with picks 7 and 13?

Maybe those 90% are right, but if the Pelicans are believers in Queen then bravo for them to get aggressive and going to get their guy. That to me is better than the BS we see reported 5+ years down the line when player X is a superstar, when the Headlines read "Mavs had Tyrese Haliburton #2 player on their board" yet they make no attempt to trade up to get him outside the top 10.

https://footballnews90.com/how-rick-carlisle-and-the-mavericks-almost-drafted-tyrese-haliburton-in/

https://www.nbcsportsbayarea.com/nba/golden-state-warriors/ex-knicks-gm-claims-he-tried-to-trade-up-for-steph-curry-in-2009-draft/1350260/

https://www.sportscasting.com/news/giannis-antetokounmpo-almost-ended-up-with-a-different-team-years-ago/

If anything the Pelicans are incentivized to win next year and will have no agenda to stealth tank.

It's the Pelicans, I have no confidence Fears and especially Queen are these hidden gems everyone else whiffed. Queen in particular strikes me as a bad fit for the modern NBA, and an even worse fit next to Zion.

[G R E Y]

i'm obviously biased, but even looking at it objectively, it seems like on paper (and that's all this is, right - we're looking at how teams did on paper since we have clue how things will actually turn out) the jazz did extremely well and i'm surprised that haven't even gotten a mention in this thread.

the got arguably the third best prospect (before all the pre-draft garbage about not working out, talking with philly, charlotte and utah, etc) and perhaps the highest ceiling prospect (outside of Flagg), and followed that up by getting the star of the NCAA tournament in Clayton.

I know Bailey isn't loved on this board, but the Jazz HAD to swing for the fences with their lottery pick, and they were able to do that. And to trade up a few slots to get the best player in the tournament, a guy with a high floor in Clayton was masterful.

I like that Utah didn't capitulate to Bailey's/camp's won't -show threats(?) to get clear BPA at 5. If he lets it sink in, this is a big opportunity for him.