2025 NBA Draft Class

[JustBuzzin]

Gonna go ahead and throw this out there.

Ace Bailey will be the #1 pick in this draft.

[azcatz11]

Gonna go ahead and throw this out there.

Ace Bailey will be the #1 pick in this draft.

Guys with cool names like him always get more hype

[Big J]

Gonna go ahead and throw this out there.

Ace Bailey will be the #1 pick in this draft.

Guys with cool names like him always get more hype

Yup, only 2 outcomes when you name your kid Ace. He either becomes a gigachad alpha male, or he's a smelly beta on the spectrum that gets bullied relentlessly.

[MotownMadness]

I like Harper

[Chuck Everett]

Nolan Traore, VJ Edgecombe and Asa Newell. Let's go.

[EmpireFalls]

Nolan Traore, VJ Edgecombe and Asa Newell. Let's go.

Newell is probably a little too skinny right now but he’s really intriguing. What have you seen from him?

[Chuck Everett]

Nolan Traore, VJ Edgecombe and Asa Newell. Let's go.

Newell is probably a little too skinny right now but he’s really intriguing. What have you seen from him?

The jumper looks smooth, which at his size is a major thing, but for me, it's the fluidity that I like the most. Guy plays basketball pretty effortlessly and is a terrific athlete. 6'8, large wingspan and scoring instincts. Sign me up. I expect him to have a Brandon Miller type year at Georgia (not SEC POY per se, but definitely All-SEC). If he does what I think, UGA, makes the tournament and he goes top-5. If Mike White can't do it with him and the other transfers they picked up, then there's no hope for him.

If you get a chance, check out his Hoop Summit performance. He looked like a pro to me within like 5 minutes of watching.

[Chokic]

Nolan traore is my darkhorse to be the #1 pick next year.

Super early mock 1st rd

1. Nolan Traore
2. Cooper Flagg
3. Ace Bailey
4. Vj Edgecombe
5. Dylan Harper
6. Noa Essengue
7. Flory Bidunga
8. Jahlil Bethea
9. Asa Newell
10. Khaman Malauch
11. Liam Mcneeley
12. Dj Wagner
13. Ian Jackson
14. Aj Storr
15. Boogie Fland
16. Xavier Booker
17. Hugo Gonzalez
18. Dink Pate
19. Kwame Evans jr
20. Donovan Freeman
21. Alex Karaban
22. Tre Johnson
23. Hunter Dickinson
24. Collin Murray Boyles
25. Isaiah Evans
26. MacKenzie Mgbako
27. Zconimir Ivisic
28. Saint Thomas
29. Karter Knox
30. Aaron Bradshaw

[clyde21]

lol Traore is not a "darkhorse" at this point my man

[Saints14]

Man I’m excited for this class. It’s been 2 years since we had any tier 1 prospects playing in college, and this is a great college class. Selfishly I’m happy the Ignite are gone

[Colbinii]

What is the deal with France producing so many high-end talents recently? Did they do something with their developmental league's 5-8 years ago which is paying dividends?

[FarBeyondDriven]

What is the deal with France producing so many high-end talents recently? Did they do something with their developmental league's 5-8 years ago which is paying dividends?

imo Luka being such a high profile superstar since he was 15 y/o inspired so many European kids and we're seeing the results all these years later. It's not just France.

[Colbinii]

What is the deal with France producing so many high-end talents recently? Did they do something with their developmental league's 5-8 years ago which is paying dividends?

imo Luka being such a high profile superstar since he was 15 y/o inspired so many European kids and we're seeing the results all these years later. It's not just France.

It's primarily France though.

[bravor]

Nothing extaordinary. We always had a good development/youth system (good detection, lots of quality coaches at very young age that can redirect some prospects in adapted structures) which relies on Insep for the better ones and teams youth teams for the others. And it's not just basketball

there are years off and years on. Basically we had the same stuff for Batum generation (Batum, Vaty, Moerman, Ajinca, Diot, Jackson, M'Baye, etc) except not all were nba materials.
One of the point (which is a weakness actually) is the impact the nba has and we have way too many nba oriented prospects (in a caricature, long athletic dudes who can shoot). We still have some euro (fiba) profiles, but lets say they dont seem to be the priority for our federation as of now (even though we had good performance from Raynaud and Kamardine last year in U20 who are precisely much more fiba players than anything).
We are less stereotyped than what it was 20 years ago, but we still need to do better with good fundamentals/less athletic prospects basically.

The recent trend was just a bit different than last ones because of the number of "son of" former pro player here. Victor (his mum), Risacher (dont need to precise who is his dad i guess), Pietrus, Cazalon, Hayes, in a few years Soliman etc, many of our recent prospects have a dad/mother who played at the highest level in bball (nba or europe).

And we also had failures. What matters is not necessary being drafted, it's being able to develop well enough to remain in the league and be impactful (on both ends).

Just a little summary, but thats nothing surprising, at least for scouts who are used to come here. We have a nice pool of young players, especially in Ile de France (the area around Paris) and in french antillas. That provides a bunch of interesting profiles. Rest is matter of dedication and development.

As for Doncic, if Boris Diaw was younger and not the athletic dude he was once drafted, i could say he was the one inspired by Doncic, but that would not be for bball reasons
Joke aside, we dont need to look for inspiration elsewhere, we had plenty of good players in history. Nothing surprising, but i would say for older players MJ is the basketball god and for youngers maybe it's more KD, Duncan, Pippen players like that

[MemphisX]

What is the deal with France producing so many high-end talents recently? Did they do something with their developmental league's 5-8 years ago which is paying dividends?

Colonization kicking in...

[clyde21]

don't get me started on the french

[babyjax13]

Nolan Traore, VJ Edgecombe and Asa Newell. Let's go.

Newell is probably a little too skinny right now but he’s really intriguing. What have you seen from him?

The jumper looks smooth, which at his size is a major thing, but for me, it's the fluidity that I like the most. Guy plays basketball pretty effortlessly and is a terrific athlete. 6'8, large wingspan and scoring instincts. Sign me up. I expect him to have a Brandon Miller type year at Georgia (not SEC POY per se, but definitely All-SEC). If he does what I think, UGA, makes the tournament and he goes top-5. If Mike White can't do it with him and the other transfers they picked up, then there's no hope for him.

If you get a chance, check out his Hoop Summit performance. He looked like a pro to me within like 5 minutes of watching.

Somehow he always seems to be in the right place at the right time.

[EmpireFalls]

What is the deal with France producing so many high-end talents recently? Did they do something with their developmental league's 5-8 years ago which is paying dividends?

imo Luka being such a high profile superstar since he was 15 y/o inspired so many European kids and we're seeing the results all these years later. It's not just France.

So what inspired Luka? What inspired Jokic?

This great man of history bollocks is so annoying to read. No “Luka” was not responsible for the INSEP Academy coaching kids into stars. This is ridiculous.

Systems create results. The European development systems have been churning out better results with far fewer resources in all aspects.

[RyugaFan]

Flagg's going #1. HS prospects with this much hype usually always do.

[Chuck Everett]

Newell is probably a little too skinny right now but he’s really intriguing. What have you seen from him?

The jumper looks smooth, which at his size is a major thing, but for me, it's the fluidity that I like the most. Guy plays basketball pretty effortlessly and is a terrific athlete. 6'8, large wingspan and scoring instincts. Sign me up. I expect him to have a Brandon Miller type year at Georgia (not SEC POY per se, but definitely All-SEC). If he does what I think, UGA, makes the tournament and he goes top-5. If Mike White can't do it with him and the other transfers they picked up, then there's no hope for him.

If you get a chance, check out his Hoop Summit performance. He looked like a pro to me within like 5 minutes of watching.

Somehow he always seems to be in the right place at the right time.

That's what freaked me out. That game clearly wasn't a showcase for him as far as name recognition went and I came away from it going, "okay, this dude can ball a little bit. Why aren't more people talking about him?" He also plays the right way. Koa Peat is similar in the 2025 class. Just constantly making the right play.

I also keep saying he's 6'8, but he may be closer to 6'10 in terms of size. Makes a difference. So we get this kid against the physical competition and athleticism of the SEC, which is a big deal to me because even though the Big 12 is a better pure basketball league, for the kind of players Asa's going to see at the NBA level, SEC is a better challenge to see how good he can really be.

None of the national media have him in their lottery right now, but they have a sloth like Khaman. It's like they don't actually watch these young guys and project. They just look at each other's mocks. I am probably the most biased towards big men of anyone and I don't do below the rim bigs that are oversized. They never pan out.

Come December, when Newell drops and effortless 30 on someone's head, people are going to say he came out of nowhere. But this is a kid who has been in the Team USA system. He's not an unknown like that.

So I am holding my stock in him, Traore (another guy the media refuses to put in their top 5. Have they not watched him this spring? Probably not.) and Edgecombe. He's undersized, but he has Ant like in-game athleticism which you just can't teach. He's going to be dynamite at Baylor.


Edited to add: Asa's high school team Montverde was also too stacked so he is getting lost but outside of Flagg, he has the highest upside (over McNeeley and Derik Queen who are pretty darn great in their own right). He may be slipping under the radar because of playing on a HS super team.