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ESPN put out an early mock draft and they have us selecting Ace Bailey with the 2nd pick. The goal: do whatever you can to lock yourself into a top 5 pick.

Early top 5 contenders seem to be:

Cooper Flagg
Ace Bailey
Dylan Harper
Hugo Gonzalez
Nolan Traore
VJ Edgecombe
Tre Johnson

Rocco Zikarsky strikes me as a dude that's going to fly up the rankings with how he moves at 7'3"

The amount of teams that have 2+ draft picks in this draft is insane. Using ESPN's mock:

Utah - 5, 18, 26
Brooklyn: 6, 22, 25, 27
OKC: 11, 17, 23
Spurs: 9, 10

4 teams control what...40% of the draft?

Rafael122 wrote:ESPN put out an early mock draft and they have us selecting Ace Bailey with the 2nd pick. The goal: do whatever you can to lock yourself into a top 5 pick.

At the moment, Flagg looks like the more complete player with great D to go with good offense, whereas Bailey might be an offensive juggernaut but less of a sure thing on defense. If we still had Deni, an argument could be made that Bailey is the better fit. But with Deni gone, we need at least one more top tier front court defender to pair with Bilal, so Flagg is definitely my top choice.

A rotation of Carrington, Kispert, Bilal, Flagg and Sarr, assuming everyone reaches their ideal potential, could be pretty impressive. Even better if we eventually find a two-way shooting guard to bump Kispert to 6th man. (Who am I kidding, they're going to trade Kispert.)

nate33 wrote:

Rafael122 wrote:ESPN put out an early mock draft and they have us selecting Ace Bailey with the 2nd pick. The goal: do whatever you can to lock yourself into a top 5 pick.

At the moment, Flagg looks like the more complete player with great D to go with go offense, whereas Bailey might be an offensive juggernaut but less of a sure thing on defense. If we still had Deni, an argument could be made that Bailey is the better fit. But with Deni gone, we need at least one more top tier front court defender to pair with Bilal, so Flagg is definitely my top choice.

A rotation of Carrington, Kispert, Bilal, Flagg and Sarr, assuming everyone reaches their ideal potential, could be pretty impressive. Even better if we eventually find a two-way shooting guard to bump Kispert to 6th man. (Who am I kidding, they're going to trade Kispert.)

we need to finish with worst record in the league. If the same thing happens this year as did last year which is really unlikely...most we can fall is to 5. We should be starting johnny davis etc...get kuzma out of here

Let the mocking begin, Flagg may not be the consensus #1 pick later
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/early-2025-nba-mock-draft-cooper-flagg-carries-zion-like-hype-but-he-faces-big-battle-to-go-no-1-overall/amp/

They will do everything in their power to get the top pick or at least top slot. Trade Kuz, have Poole slip on soap in the shower, rest guys that are playing well due to "illness". With our luck, we'll have a Detroit-like slip but in this draft, it's not a bad thing to get the fifth pick.

closg00 wrote:Let the mocking begin, Flagg may not be the consensus #1 pick later
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/early-2025-nba-mock-draft-cooper-flagg-carries-zion-like-hype-but-he-faces-big-battle-to-go-no-1-overall/amp/

Let's see how he does against the US Olympic team.

80sballboy wrote:They will do everything in their power to get the top pick or at least top slot. Trade Kuz, have Poole slip on soap in the shower, rest guys that are playing well due to "illness". With our luck, we'll have a Detroit-like slip but in this draft, it's not a bad thing to get the fifth pick.

Yup, even the 5th can get us a good player. But this is the draft right here that decides the rebuild. Landing Flagg or Bailey gives this process some clear direction.

Mizerooskie wrote:Early top 5 contenders seem to be:

Cooper Flagg
Ace Bailey
Dylan Harper
Hugo Gonzalez
Nolan Traore
VJ Edgecombe
Tre Johnson

Rocco Zikarsky strikes me as a dude that's going to fly up the rankings with how he moves at 7'3"

Gonna be fascinating to see how drastically this changes by next year. There's always at least one top prospect with a precipitous drop compared to his preseason ranking. I remember at one point Yannick Nzosa was considered a top 5 guy. Justin Edwards went from potential #1 pick to undrafted in what feels like the blink of an eye.

If I had to make an educated guess as to who that might be, I'd say either Bailey or Harper. Obviously programs other than blue chips are capable of incubating NBA talent, but I have a gut feeling the combo of Bailey and Haper is going to follow the recent trend of elite prospects going to a less prestigious program and one of them struggles mightily. The Emoni Bates/Jalen Duren and Nick Smith/Anthony Black duos come to mind. I hope that either Rutgers has plan outside of just letting Bailey and Harper iso half of each game; or that scouts take that whole setup with a grain of salt.

Go 3rd yr in a row with a frenchie, Nolan Traoré at point guard !

Made me laugh we had this up the day after the draft.
I mean yeah I guess it's not too early to raise the white Flagg on the season.

Cooper Flagg is an incredible talent. Traore and Collin Murray Boyles are my early favorites.

This 2025 class is loaded…

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Edgecombe with 20 pts against Finland. Dominating performance at 18 years old…

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bro what the hell they feeding these kids. He dunking like shawn kemp.

AFM wrote:bro what the hell they feeding these kids. He dunking like shawn kemp.

Who knows!

Not sure how tall this kid is, he does not look taller than 6’4”, but his vert must be top 95 percentile.

This kid keeps balling…

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Noa Essengue is another crazy French talent. Playing in the German league, same club as Pacome Dadiet/Juan Nunez.

Michael Ruzic was a really solid rotation player for Joventut in the ACB/eurocup competition at 17 years old. Can shoot the lights out and has legit PF size.

Noa Essengue has top 5 talent.

Collin Murray-Boyles would’ve been drafted top 10 in 2024, elected to go back. If he shows the shooting touch, he’ll go top 10.

Class is loaded at the 2/3/4 positions. Shallow at the PG&C positions.

Just at the 2/3/4 you have: Harper, Edgecombe, Bailey, Flagg, Gonzales, Demin, Tre Johnson, Murray-Boyles, McNeeley, Ruzic, Essengue, Powell, Bethea, Ian Jackson. Still a crazy amount of blue chip recruits after that.

Nolan Traore is in a tier all by himself.