2025 NBA Draft Discussion Part 7

[dohboy_24]

Other than being selected at #9 by the Raptors, which teams do you think could be interested in Khaman Maluach before we'd have the chance to select him?

Would anyone be willing/able to trade up into one of the top 8 picks to choose him ahead of us?

Both New Orleans or Brooklyn are threats to pick Maluach before us. Brooklyn more so because they're not fully invested in their frontcourt. Both teams will either be looking to fill their guard rotation or big man rotation.

Other than being selected at #9 by the Raptors, which teams do you think could be interested in Khaman Maluach before we'd have the chance to select him?

Would anyone be willing/able to trade up into one of the top 8 picks to choose him ahead of us?

New Orleans, Brooklyn, Washington.

Washington? Agreed. Kyshawn George moves to SF, Sarr moves to PF and Khaman Maluach starts at C.

While the Pelicans do lack some depth at the C and PF spots, they just drafted Yves Missi and traded for Kelly Olynyk so I'm not entirely sold on them being a team that would potentially draft Khaman ahead of us, especially when you consider the lack of good, young talent they have at the SG (CJ McCullom/Jordan Hawkins) and PG (Dejounte Murray/Jose Alvarado) spot and the prospects who could still be available at #7 (Tre Johnson, Kon Knueppel, Kaspars Jakucionis, Jeremiah Fears) to fill those needs.

Same goes with the Nets who have Nic Claxton/Day'Ron Sharpe at C and Cam Johnson/Noah Clowney at PF, not as much good, young talent at the SF (Ziaire Williams/Jalen Wilson) and PG (D'Angelo Russell/Tyson Etienne/Reece Beekman) positions, and would likely choose any of the four (4) prospects mentioned above in lieu of Khaman Maluach.

What about the Sixers?

Andre Drummond/Adem Bona are the backups at C and Joel Embiid has played an average of 50 games per season during his career. While choosing Khaman at #3 might be a stretch, I think Utah, Washington, New Orleans or Brooklyn would be viable trade partners to move up and select Ace Bailey or VJ Edgecombe.

What about the Hornets?

Mark Williams was traded, but the trade was rescinded due to his medicals and Jusuf Nurkic is his backup. What is the likelihood they would have Maluach ahead of Ace Bailey or VJ Edgecombe on their draft board?

[WuTang_CMB]

BRK gonna take a guard. Likely Fears if he's there
I see Joe Dumas liking KM. After that, I think he's there for TOR if they want him

[Brinbe]

There's def some pretty obvious landing spots with most of these lottery teams ahead of us.

Flagg and Harper are obvious
Some combination of Edgecombe/Bailey/Johnson go next to Philly/Charlotte/Utah
Brooklyn is gonna take Fears. Washington will go with Queen.

I think the Pels are the one team ahead of us that is hard to get a read on. They could go with Maluach, Kon or go completely off-the-board with someone else. Maybe they'll be a Carter Bryant team or go with CMB or Kasp, who the hell knows. They could go with Fears but doesn't seem to make much sense when they have Murray and Alvarado there.

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If the Pels do take Fears if they wanna go straight BPA, the Nets may well take Carter Bryant, as I think they're high on him, or Kasp.

I think the 3 sort of 'consensus' guys who we'll likely be picking from, depending on how the board shakes out, will be Maluach/Knueppel/Bryant.

[Got Nuffin]

Kalkbrenner has the same lane agility than Maluach (they are both bottom 2 with Queen behind), while only 2 inch short on his standing reach and less than an inch short on wingspan.

As for shooting, Maluach isn't shooting well with very low volume, it is all potential, lol. Check the stats.

I mean, that's why you draft an 18 year old over a 23 year old. Potential.

I mean, that's why there are so many bust, and people (eg. Vecenie) talked about it when you can have 4 years of data, yet, GMs still fall for the hype.

Not saying that Maluach, or anyone, will exceed expectations the same way, but Vecenie (and may others) made the same arguments against drafting Scottie Barnes so high and was completely shocked when he developed an offensive repertoire that he never showed in college. Sometimes it really is about the projection of what they could be, and Masai often drafts this way.

Again not saying that I'm sold Maluach is that guy - Fears and Jakucionis and Queen are also flawed but potentially really good prospects, but at #9 we're not going to get a 100% sure thing unless we do go for a lower ceiling, but closer to finished product.

[WuTang_CMB]

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[JCP11]

I don't see it with Carter Bryant either.

In the middle of the draft, sure. But I don't see the skills or production that would warrant a lottery pick. I see a lot of Josh Hart there as his potential upside and while Hart isn't garbage, I do think we should have our sights set a little higher than that at #9.

Josh Hart could at least put the ball on the floor and get to the rim, we don't even know if Bryant can dribble at all. I love Bryant's athletic profile but he's so hard to project, he hasn't shown much outside of his shot and athletic abilities. If Masai wants him I'm on board but I wouldn't pick him at 9.

Did you not watch any of his HS videos? He's bringing the ball up at times.

Obviously i haven't but the simple fact that you have to go to his high school games to see him do it at times says it all. Even OG who was very bad at it in college had some tape taking the ball to the rim and dunking on people. The workouts will say a lot about where he will be drafted because right now i wouldn't touch him at 9, way too much projection.

[XTC]

Im still standing firm that Maluach would be a waste of a pick. I pray to god someone nabs him before us. I wasn't impressed with him at all during his freshman season, I thought he lacked explosiveness(which is why he struggled as a shot blocker), and the combine just confirmed the eye test... and I think his anatomy is to blame, he has really high hips, how often do guys like this become explosive? Anyways his testing was just brutal.

Bottom 5 in max vertical (30")
Bottom 5 in standing vertical (24")
Bottom 5 in 3/4 sprints (3.5s)
The worst shuttle run (3.44s)
Bottom 3 lane agility (12.05s)

If he had displayed any sort of jump shot I'd be slightly intrigued, but he shot 4-16 (25%) from three, and he attempted less than 5 mid range jumpers all season. I don't see this hidden potential in his jumper, just because he can hit free throws. I'll give him his props, because his PR team is doing an amazing job of shooting footage of him shooting open jumpers and raising his draft stock. The hype has gotten far too out of control for a guy who has amazing measurements, is a brutal athlete, struggles to block shots, and has no jump shot.

Don't even get me started on how many times he was caught out of position this past year, and he was forced to recover, and people are trying to spin it as, he's this amazing guy at recovering when out of position. NBA players will eat him alive if he attempts this at the NBA level, and he will be run off the court. There's a reason why Duke's DRTG didn't change too much whether Maluach was on the floor or not.

[BoyzNTheHood]

I don’t think there’s a Kawhi in this draft, nor will there ever be another Kawhi again. He’s an anomaly. But, if you had to choose the next Kawhi from this class who would it be? I’ve seen Fleming, and I’ve seen Coward mentioned. State your case!

[Brinbe]

Josh Hart could at least put the ball on the floor and get to the rim, we don't even know if Bryant can dribble at all. I love Bryant's athletic profile but he's so hard to project, he hasn't shown much outside of his shot and athletic abilities. If Masai wants him I'm on board but I wouldn't pick him at 9.

Did you not watch any of his HS videos? He's bringing the ball up at times.

Obviously i haven't but the simple fact that you have to go to his high school games to see him do it at times says it all. Even OG who was very bad at it in college had some tape taking the ball to the rim and dunking on people. The workouts will say a lot about where he will be drafted because right now i wouldn't touch him at 9, way too much projection.

I really don't get this lol

When Bryant was on the floor for Arizona, they had an offensive rating of 128.4 (5th) and a defensive rating of 94.1 (15th). Without Bryant on the floor, those ratings were 122.1 (18th) and 97.3 (35th) respectively. Those aren’t detrimental drop-offs, but the difference is staggering when you consider that Bryant only started five out of 36 games and ranks seventh on the team in minutes per game. Even when we look at Bryant’s individual advanced numbers, they are staggering for someone who had his minutes so aggressively restricted all season. Bryant’s BPM of 7.8 ranked second on the team (just behind Henri Veesaar), eighth among all freshmen (behind Cooper Flagg, VJ Edgecombe, Jase Richardson, Kon Knueppel, Asa Newell, Khaman Maluach, and Dylan Harper), and his defensive BPM of 4.6 ranked fourth among all freshmen (behind Flagg, Flory Bidunga, and Luke Bamgboye), per BartTorvik. So how did a freshman who had a minute share of just 47.5 (Flagg was 71.3 for reference) and averaged 6.5 points make such an impact on winning?

The obvious place to start is on the defensive end. When we look at this freshman class, there aren’t many prospects who have the same combination of footwork, awareness, strength, and explosiveness that Bryant has. Bryant is an incredibly unselfish defender as he constantly has his head on a swivel; he is a highly effective weak-side rim protector, and he doesn’t hesitate to scramble on defense. Bryant’s reliability and consistency as a help defender are extremely rare for his age and a driving reason behind why he posted a block rate of 6.0 and a steal rate of 2.7.

Through no fault of his own, Carter Bryant has pretty consistently been the forgotten name when the 2025 NBA Draft gets discussed. All he’s done throughout the season is play winning basketball. On offense, he’s a highly efficient play-finisher with tantalizing passing upside. On defense, he does just about everything at a high level. Bryant may not have the upside that guys in the Top 5 have, but that’s why he doesn’t get mentioned in that range. What he does have, though, is an incredible baseline as a 3-and-D wing who looks like he could play a decade-plus in the league. At a minimum, that archetype deserves to go much higher than he tends to get mentioned. As he continues to explore his ancillary skills, too, who’s to say how much room for growth he still has left? Carter Bryant is a winning basketball player; don’t overthink it.

https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/carter-bryant-is-a-winning-player

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Projection is what Essengue is getting. The reason why people are bigging up Bryant is that the production is clearly there even in limited minutes and I don't think it's a question of that diminishing too much with greater volume and more minutes.

You're telling me this team wouldn't benefit from a defensive monster and a shooting threat?

How do people not watch the playoffs and not clearly see the value in what he brings?

[JCP11]

Did you not watch any of his HS videos? He's bringing the ball up at times.

Obviously i haven't but the simple fact that you have to go to his high school games to see him do it at times says it all. Even OG who was very bad at it in college had some tape taking the ball to the rim and dunking on people. The workouts will say a lot about where he will be drafted because right now i wouldn't touch him at 9, way too much projection.

I really don't get this lol

When Bryant was on the floor for Arizona, they had an offensive rating of 128.4 (5th) and a defensive rating of 94.1 (15th). Without Bryant on the floor, those ratings were 122.1 (18th) and 97.3 (35th) respectively. Those aren’t detrimental drop-offs, but the difference is staggering when you consider that Bryant only started five out of 36 games and ranks seventh on the team in minutes per game. Even when we look at Bryant’s individual advanced numbers, they are staggering for someone who had his minutes so aggressively restricted all season. Bryant’s BPM of 7.8 ranked second on the team (just behind Henri Veesaar), eighth among all freshmen (behind Cooper Flagg, VJ Edgecombe, Jase Richardson, Kon Knueppel, Asa Newell, Khaman Maluach, and Dylan Harper), and his defensive BPM of 4.6 ranked fourth among all freshmen (behind Flagg, Flory Bidunga, and Luke Bamgboye), per BartTorvik. So how did a freshman who had a minute share of just 47.5 (Flagg was 71.3 for reference) and averaged 6.5 points make such an impact on winning?

The obvious place to start is on the defensive end. When we look at this freshman class, there aren’t many prospects who have the same combination of footwork, awareness, strength, and explosiveness that Bryant has. Bryant is an incredibly unselfish defender as he constantly has his head on a swivel; he is a highly effective weak-side rim protector, and he doesn’t hesitate to scramble on defense. Bryant’s reliability and consistency as a help defender are extremely rare for his age and a driving reason behind why he posted a block rate of 6.0 and a steal rate of 2.7.

Through no fault of his own, Carter Bryant has pretty consistently been the forgotten name when the 2025 NBA Draft gets discussed. All he’s done throughout the season is play winning basketball. On offense, he’s a highly efficient play-finisher with tantalizing passing upside. On defense, he does just about everything at a high level. Bryant may not have the upside that guys in the Top 5 have, but that’s why he doesn’t get mentioned in that range. What he does have, though, is an incredible baseline as a 3-and-D wing who looks like he could play a decade-plus in the league. At a minimum, that archetype deserves to go much higher than he tends to get mentioned. As he continues to explore his ancillary skills, too, who’s to say how much room for growth he still has left? Carter Bryant is a winning basketball player; don’t overthink it.

https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/carter-bryant-is-a-winning-player

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Projection is what Essengue is getting. The reason why people are bigging up Bryant is that the production is clearly there even in limited minutes and I don't think it's a question of that diminishing too much with greater volume and more minutes.

You're telling me this team wouldn't benefit from a defensive monster and a shooting threat?

How do people not watch the playoffs and not clearly see the value in what he brings?

Thanks for the stats, i wasn't aware but it still doesn't change my stance. I didn't say he sucked or was liability, i just don't know what to make of him. You obviously like him a lot and i have no issues with that but you can't tell me that you don't understand my concerns. I'm not the only one having concerns with drafting him at 9 right now. Everybody in the draft world doesn't know where to put him.

[tanuki1031]

Our guy

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;t=100s

Thank you for your service, and I hope you're emailing these to Masai and Bobby too big dawg

I hope we take him and I've reached the point where I'll be disappointed if we don't.

[Basketball_Jones]

Im still standing firm that Maluach would be a waste of a pick. I pray to god someone nabs him before us. I wasn't impressed with him at all during his freshman season, I thought he lacked explosiveness(which is why he struggled as a shot blocker), and the combine just confirmed the eye test... and I think his anatomy is to blame, he has really high hips, how often do guys like this become explosive? Anyways his testing was just brutal.

Bottom 5 in max vertical (30")
Bottom 5 in standing vertical (24")
Bottom 5 in 3/4 sprints (3.5s)
The worst shuttle run (3.44s)
Bottom 3 lane agility (12.05s)

If he had displayed any sort of jump shot I'd be slightly intrigued, but he shot 4-16 (25%) from three, and he attempted less than 5 mid range jumpers all season. I don't see this hidden potential in his jumper, just because he can hit free throws. I'll give him his props, because his PR team is doing an amazing job of shooting footage of him shooting open jumpers and raising his draft stock. The hype has gotten far too out of control for a guy who has amazing measurements, is a brutal athlete, struggles to block shots, and has no jump shot.

Don't even get me started on how many times he was caught out of position this past year, and he was forced to recover, and people are trying to spin it as, he's this amazing guy at recovering when out of position. NBA players will eat him alive if he attempts this at the NBA level, and he will be run off the court. There's a reason why Duke's DRTG didn't change too much whether Maluach was on the floor or not.

Yeah I share a lot of those concerns as well and scratch my head when people say freak athlete. But it’s less concerning given his height and coordination which I found very good. Explosive 7 footers you really don’t see at all it’s almost impossible outside of Wemby/David Robinson/Hakeem/Shaq or even someone like James Wiseman lol.

[Potential]

Sold on Carter Bryant and Fleming

[Rapsfan07]

What I like about Coward is that even if you disregard his 6 games this year, he still scored it efficiently in his first two college seasons.

Over his college career, spanning 72 games including 40 starts, he has a .697 TS%!

I think he has a chance to be very, very good.

[Rapsfan07]

Im still standing firm that Maluach would be a waste of a pick. I pray to god someone nabs him before us. I wasn't impressed with him at all during his freshman season, I thought he lacked explosiveness(which is why he struggled as a shot blocker), and the combine just confirmed the eye test... and I think his anatomy is to blame, he has really high hips, how often do guys like this become explosive? Anyways his testing was just brutal.

Bottom 5 in max vertical (30")
Bottom 5 in standing vertical (24")
Bottom 5 in 3/4 sprints (3.5s)
The worst shuttle run (3.44s)
Bottom 3 lane agility (12.05s)

If he had displayed any sort of jump shot I'd be slightly intrigued, but he shot 4-16 (25%) from three, and he attempted less than 5 mid range jumpers all season. I don't see this hidden potential in his jumper, just because he can hit free throws. I'll give him his props, because his PR team is doing an amazing job of shooting footage of him shooting open jumpers and raising his draft stock. The hype has gotten far too out of control for a guy who has amazing measurements, is a brutal athlete, struggles to block shots, and has no jump shot.

Don't even get me started on how many times he was caught out of position this past year, and he was forced to recover, and people are trying to spin it as, he's this amazing guy at recovering when out of position. NBA players will eat him alive if he attempts this at the NBA level, and he will be run off the court. There's a reason why Duke's DRTG didn't change too much whether Maluach was on the floor or not.

I've been wracking my brain trying to understand the Maluach love in general, much less taking him at #9.

I simply don't get it and I pray that another team takes him before us so we can't even be tempted to take him.

[Son Goku 25]

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Kawhi, is that you?

[Brinbe]

Obviously i haven't but the simple fact that you have to go to his high school games to see him do it at times says it all. Even OG who was very bad at it in college had some tape taking the ball to the rim and dunking on people. The workouts will say a lot about where he will be drafted because right now i wouldn't touch him at 9, way too much projection.

I really don't get this lol

When Bryant was on the floor for Arizona, they had an offensive rating of 128.4 (5th) and a defensive rating of 94.1 (15th). Without Bryant on the floor, those ratings were 122.1 (18th) and 97.3 (35th) respectively. Those aren’t detrimental drop-offs, but the difference is staggering when you consider that Bryant only started five out of 36 games and ranks seventh on the team in minutes per game. Even when we look at Bryant’s individual advanced numbers, they are staggering for someone who had his minutes so aggressively restricted all season. Bryant’s BPM of 7.8 ranked second on the team (just behind Henri Veesaar), eighth among all freshmen (behind Cooper Flagg, VJ Edgecombe, Jase Richardson, Kon Knueppel, Asa Newell, Khaman Maluach, and Dylan Harper), and his defensive BPM of 4.6 ranked fourth among all freshmen (behind Flagg, Flory Bidunga, and Luke Bamgboye), per BartTorvik. So how did a freshman who had a minute share of just 47.5 (Flagg was 71.3 for reference) and averaged 6.5 points make such an impact on winning?

The obvious place to start is on the defensive end. When we look at this freshman class, there aren’t many prospects who have the same combination of footwork, awareness, strength, and explosiveness that Bryant has. Bryant is an incredibly unselfish defender as he constantly has his head on a swivel; he is a highly effective weak-side rim protector, and he doesn’t hesitate to scramble on defense. Bryant’s reliability and consistency as a help defender are extremely rare for his age and a driving reason behind why he posted a block rate of 6.0 and a steal rate of 2.7.

Through no fault of his own, Carter Bryant has pretty consistently been the forgotten name when the 2025 NBA Draft gets discussed. All he’s done throughout the season is play winning basketball. On offense, he’s a highly efficient play-finisher with tantalizing passing upside. On defense, he does just about everything at a high level. Bryant may not have the upside that guys in the Top 5 have, but that’s why he doesn’t get mentioned in that range. What he does have, though, is an incredible baseline as a 3-and-D wing who looks like he could play a decade-plus in the league. At a minimum, that archetype deserves to go much higher than he tends to get mentioned. As he continues to explore his ancillary skills, too, who’s to say how much room for growth he still has left? Carter Bryant is a winning basketball player; don’t overthink it.

https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/carter-bryant-is-a-winning-player

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Projection is what Essengue is getting. The reason why people are bigging up Bryant is that the production is clearly there even in limited minutes and I don't think it's a question of that diminishing too much with greater volume and more minutes.

You're telling me this team wouldn't benefit from a defensive monster and a shooting threat?

How do people not watch the playoffs and not clearly see the value in what he brings?

Thanks for the stats, i wasn't aware but it still doesn't change my stance. I didn't say he sucked or was liability, i just don't know what to make of him. You obviously like him a lot and i have no issues with that but you can't tell me that you don't understand my concerns. I'm not the only one having concerns with drafting him at 9 right now. Everybody in the draft world doesn't know where to put him.

I totally understand the skepticism, the divergence of opinion is why this is a great community to discuss ball. The defense with him really goes a long way. If you do a deeper dive you'll see that it's the driving force for him as a prospect. To me, he's already proven he can make the difference off a bench (which is likely where pretty much any prospect we draft @ 9 will likely end up) but I think he's someone you can potentially eventually play/start next to a Ingram and a Barnes and eventually be given the toughest assignments on that end, freeing up Barnes to return to his previous spot as the weakside help backline guy in which he previously thrived.

[XTC]

Did you not watch any of his HS videos? He's bringing the ball up at times.

Obviously i haven't but the simple fact that you have to go to his high school games to see him do it at times says it all. Even OG who was very bad at it in college had some tape taking the ball to the rim and dunking on people. The workouts will say a lot about where he will be drafted because right now i wouldn't touch him at 9, way too much projection.

I really don't get this lol

When Bryant was on the floor for Arizona, they had an offensive rating of 128.4 (5th) and a defensive rating of 94.1 (15th). Without Bryant on the floor, those ratings were 122.1 (18th) and 97.3 (35th) respectively. Those aren’t detrimental drop-offs, but the difference is staggering when you consider that Bryant only started five out of 36 games and ranks seventh on the team in minutes per game. Even when we look at Bryant’s individual advanced numbers, they are staggering for someone who had his minutes so aggressively restricted all season. Bryant’s BPM of 7.8 ranked second on the team (just behind Henri Veesaar), eighth among all freshmen (behind Cooper Flagg, VJ Edgecombe, Jase Richardson, Kon Knueppel, Asa Newell, Khaman Maluach, and Dylan Harper), and his defensive BPM of 4.6 ranked fourth among all freshmen (behind Flagg, Flory Bidunga, and Luke Bamgboye), per BartTorvik. So how did a freshman who had a minute share of just 47.5 (Flagg was 71.3 for reference) and averaged 6.5 points make such an impact on winning?

The obvious place to start is on the defensive end. When we look at this freshman class, there aren’t many prospects who have the same combination of footwork, awareness, strength, and explosiveness that Bryant has. Bryant is an incredibly unselfish defender as he constantly has his head on a swivel; he is a highly effective weak-side rim protector, and he doesn’t hesitate to scramble on defense. Bryant’s reliability and consistency as a help defender are extremely rare for his age and a driving reason behind why he posted a block rate of 6.0 and a steal rate of 2.7.

Through no fault of his own, Carter Bryant has pretty consistently been the forgotten name when the 2025 NBA Draft gets discussed. All he’s done throughout the season is play winning basketball. On offense, he’s a highly efficient play-finisher with tantalizing passing upside. On defense, he does just about everything at a high level. Bryant may not have the upside that guys in the Top 5 have, but that’s why he doesn’t get mentioned in that range. What he does have, though, is an incredible baseline as a 3-and-D wing who looks like he could play a decade-plus in the league. At a minimum, that archetype deserves to go much higher than he tends to get mentioned. As he continues to explore his ancillary skills, too, who’s to say how much room for growth he still has left? Carter Bryant is a winning basketball player; don’t overthink it.

https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/carter-bryant-is-a-winning-player

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Projection is what Essengue is getting. The reason why people are bigging up Bryant is that the production is clearly there even in limited minutes and I don't think it's a question of that diminishing too much with greater volume and more minutes.

You're telling me this team wouldn't benefit from a defensive monster and a shooting threat?

How do people not watch the playoffs and not clearly see the value in what he brings?

My main grip with Carter is, the more usage he got, the less efficient he became.



I do agree he's got a good blend of size, athleticism, and defense... but how is he going to fare at the NBA level when defenders run him off the 3 point line? He hasn't really shown he can make buckets other than threes, or cuts. He's also really dependant on on others, I'd wager he was assisted on close to 80% of his buckets.

To me personally he seems like a safe pick. He can come in and do exactly what he's doing right now (threes, and cutting), but he also seems like a low upside pick, because I'm not sure how the other parts of his game will grow. There's also sample size, he started off the year really bad from three, and then when on a slight heater. His free throw percentage suggest he might be a streaky shooter. Is he closer to 30 percent or 40 percent from three? There's tons of questions marks surrounding his game, so I can see why people are having trouble buying the hype. His defense combined with his athleticism is legit however IMO.

[Brinbe]

Obviously i haven't but the simple fact that you have to go to his high school games to see him do it at times says it all. Even OG who was very bad at it in college had some tape taking the ball to the rim and dunking on people. The workouts will say a lot about where he will be drafted because right now i wouldn't touch him at 9, way too much projection.

I really don't get this lol

When Bryant was on the floor for Arizona, they had an offensive rating of 128.4 (5th) and a defensive rating of 94.1 (15th). Without Bryant on the floor, those ratings were 122.1 (18th) and 97.3 (35th) respectively. Those aren’t detrimental drop-offs, but the difference is staggering when you consider that Bryant only started five out of 36 games and ranks seventh on the team in minutes per game. Even when we look at Bryant’s individual advanced numbers, they are staggering for someone who had his minutes so aggressively restricted all season. Bryant’s BPM of 7.8 ranked second on the team (just behind Henri Veesaar), eighth among all freshmen (behind Cooper Flagg, VJ Edgecombe, Jase Richardson, Kon Knueppel, Asa Newell, Khaman Maluach, and Dylan Harper), and his defensive BPM of 4.6 ranked fourth among all freshmen (behind Flagg, Flory Bidunga, and Luke Bamgboye), per BartTorvik. So how did a freshman who had a minute share of just 47.5 (Flagg was 71.3 for reference) and averaged 6.5 points make such an impact on winning?

The obvious place to start is on the defensive end. When we look at this freshman class, there aren’t many prospects who have the same combination of footwork, awareness, strength, and explosiveness that Bryant has. Bryant is an incredibly unselfish defender as he constantly has his head on a swivel; he is a highly effective weak-side rim protector, and he doesn’t hesitate to scramble on defense. Bryant’s reliability and consistency as a help defender are extremely rare for his age and a driving reason behind why he posted a block rate of 6.0 and a steal rate of 2.7.

Through no fault of his own, Carter Bryant has pretty consistently been the forgotten name when the 2025 NBA Draft gets discussed. All he’s done throughout the season is play winning basketball. On offense, he’s a highly efficient play-finisher with tantalizing passing upside. On defense, he does just about everything at a high level. Bryant may not have the upside that guys in the Top 5 have, but that’s why he doesn’t get mentioned in that range. What he does have, though, is an incredible baseline as a 3-and-D wing who looks like he could play a decade-plus in the league. At a minimum, that archetype deserves to go much higher than he tends to get mentioned. As he continues to explore his ancillary skills, too, who’s to say how much room for growth he still has left? Carter Bryant is a winning basketball player; don’t overthink it.

https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/carter-bryant-is-a-winning-player

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Projection is what Essengue is getting. The reason why people are bigging up Bryant is that the production is clearly there even in limited minutes and I don't think it's a question of that diminishing too much with greater volume and more minutes.

You're telling me this team wouldn't benefit from a defensive monster and a shooting threat?

How do people not watch the playoffs and not clearly see the value in what he brings?

My main grip with Carter is, the more usage he got, the less efficient he became.



I do agree he's got a good blend of size, athleticism, and defense... but how is he going to fare at the NBA level when defenders run him off the 3 point line? He hasn't really shown he can make buckets other than threes, or cuts. He's also really dependant on on others, I'd wager he was assisted on close to 80% of his buckets.

To me personally he seems like a safe pick. He can come in and do exactly what he's doing right now (threes, and cutting), but he also seems like a low upside pick, because I'm not sure how the other parts of his game will grow. There's also sample size, he started off the year really bad from three, and then when on a slight heater. His free throw percentage suggest he might be a streaky shooter. Is he closer to 30 percent or 40 percent from three? There's tons of questions marks surrounding his game, so I can see why people are having trouble buying the hype. His defense combined with his athleticism is legit however IMO.

Projecting a cap on a 19-year-old frosh doesn't seem to make much sense, especially when he has shown he can finish just fine in transition. It wouldn't take much of a leap for him to be adequete at attacking the rim in a half-court setting considering his athletic tools. And he's shown he can evade closeouts and knockdown open mid-range jumpers just fine, just at low volume.

And why do we need him to be an offensive hub when we already have Barnes, Ingram, RJ, IQ as guys who will probably eat up a large portion of usage this season. Not even considering Yak/Shead/Walter who will eat up the rest.

You're drafting him for his defense, which is something we badly need.

It's also not like he came out of nowhere and is just a fast riser. He's been a known commodity.

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[BoyzNTheHood]

With Bryant we’re playing the long game, hoping Darko is able to develop him into more than just a defender. Obviously, that will depend on his work ethic. But all of the raw tools exist.