2025 Draft Thread - Part 3

[80sballboy]

Tankathon's latest mock has us taking Kon at 6 and Demin at 18.

No shot. That's about whyte. Maybe Demin at 18 if we take Maluach at 6.

[AFM]

Watch on YouTube

[Gig18]

Tankathon's latest mock has us taking Kon at 6 and Demin at 18.
I think I've said before that I think the first guys who look like they have a superpower on tape are Tre Johnson, Fears and Maluach (in our range). But our front office has done such a good job so far that I'm willing to follow wherever they lead.
And I could definitely live with Kon and Demin. They both have "a" superpower. Kon's a great, terrific, shooter and is very hoops smart. (again, last year lots of us were drooling over Reed Sheppard, who's shorter and 20 pounds lighter).
And Demin has a chance to be a 6'9" point guard with pretty special court vision.

No shot. That's about whyte. Maybe Demin at 18 if we take Maluach at 6.

[Gig18]

Tankathon's latest mock has us taking Kon at 6 and Demin at 18.

No shot. That's about whyte. Maybe Demin at 18 if we take Maluach at 6.

Tankathon's latest mock has us taking Kon at 6 and Demin at 18.
I think I've said before that I think the first guys who look like they have a superpower on tape are Tre Johnson, Fears and Maluach (in our range). But our front office has done such a good job so far that I'm willing to follow wherever they lead.
And I could definitely live with Kon and Demin. They both have "a" superpower. Kon's a great, terrific, shooter and is very hoops smart. (again, last year lots of us were drooling over Reed Sheppard, who's shorter and 20 pounds lighter).
And Demin has a chance to be a 6'9" point guard with pretty special court vision

[TheBlackCzar]

I don’t understand the Queen hate. If they’re going to go all offense/little to no defense, they should take Queen over Tre Johnson all day everyday. Queen is a supremely gifted player as a big man. I wouldn’t take him at 6, but in a trade down scenario absolutely.

I would absolutely take him at number 6. Offensive Bigmen like him are available once every 15 years. Guards are a dime a dozen, especially guards that don't play above the rim.

Queen is not a once in every 15yr prospect, come on with the hyperbole......

I only want Queen at our 2nd frp.... Being that out of shape when your career is being setup is a problem... I'm sorry this is your profession and you are already failing.....

Are ya'll watching the playoffs... They were taking the ball from Edey like he was a garbageman.... Over and over again he had to rush because they were stripping him of the ball.... The finals they are blocking layups left and right.... Not being able to jump and being slow is going to be an issue that he has to significantly improve.....

So all this supremely gifted needs to take into account the NBA is a UNIVERSE away from college.... He's not supremely gifted as an NBA player.... He's a good offensive prospect, with very glaring issues in defense and conditioning.... His poor defense really is concerning and I keep thinking how would he be if he were in these finals... I don't know if he's getting off the bench.. Hartenstein is getting his shots blocked and he's much quicker and more athletic than Queen.....So that is something to consider....

I like Queen because he can handle the ball and could make a nice tandem with Alex, but that's only because we have a unicorn like Alex... Those are the types that Queen needs to play with (Wemby, Chet, Alex, etc), because they literally are the only dudes that big who move the way they do.....

[nate33]

I don’t understand the Queen hate. If they’re going to go all offense/little to no defense, they should take Queen over Tre Johnson all day everyday. Queen is a supremely gifted player as a big man. I wouldn’t take him at 6, but in a trade down scenario absolutely.

I would absolutely take him at number 6. Offensive Bigmen like him are available once every 15 years. Guards are a dime a dozen, especially guards that don't play above the rim.

Queen is not a once in every 15yr prospect, come on with the hyperbole......

I only want Queen at our 2nd frp.... Being that out of shape when your career is being setup is a problem... I'm sorry this is your profession and you are already failing.....

Are ya'll watching the playoffs... They were taking the ball from Edey like he was a garbageman.... Over and over again he had to rush because they were stripping him of the ball.... The finals they are blocking layups left and right.... Not being able to jump and being slow is going to be an issue that he has to significantly improve.....

So all this supremely gifted needs to take into account the NBA is a UNIVERSE away from college.... He's not supremely gifted as an NBA player.... He's a good offensive prospect, with very glaring issues in defense and conditioning.... His poor defense really is concerning and I keep thinking how would he be if he were in these finals... I don't know if he's getting off the bench.. Hartenstein is getting his shots blocked and he's much quicker and more athletic than Queen.....So that is something to consider....

I like Queen because he can handle the ball and could make a nice tandem with Alex, but that's only because we have a unicorn like Alex... Those are the types that Queen needs to play with (Wemby, Chet, Alex, etc), because they literally are the only dudes that big who move the way they do.....

All the offense in the world doesn't matter if it's a layup line at the other end of the floor because Queen can't defend the pick-and-roll. You can't hide an offensively inept center. Even Sarr won't really make much difference because teams will force Sarr to guard a 3-point shooter to keep him out of the paint, forcing Queen to defend the pick-and-roll on an island.

[AFM]

Every time I open this god damn board queen becomes a worse defender. Amazing he averaged more stocks per 36 than Maluach! Not bad for a no motor, disinterested, fat, short guy!

[80sballboy]

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[nate33]

This is a pretty good microcosm of the strengths and weakness of both Queen and Wolf.

Wolf shows off his perimeter talents and crafty passing, but also his high turnover rate. Queen is tough on the interior but gets beat off the dribble constantly when out in space. As I've said before, I just think Wolf's skillset translates to the NBA better. No, he won't play PG or anything, but he'll be great in the high post with pick and pop ability, pump and drive ability, and passing. I think Queen's bully-ball approach will have less effectiveness against NBA size.

Watch on YouTube

[AFM]

Can someone explain to me why Queen has a better DBPM, DRTG, and DWS/40 than Maluach? He’s the worst defender of all time.

[pcbothwel]

This is a pretty good microcosm of the strengths and weakness of both Queen and Wolf.

Wolf shows off his perimeter talents and crafty passing, but also his high turnover rate. Queen is tough on the interior but gets beat off the dribble constantly when out in space. As I've said before, I just think Wolf's skillset translates to the NBA better. No, he won't play PG or anything, but he'll be great in the high post with pick and pop ability, pump and drive ability, and passing. I think Queen's bully-ball approach will have less effectiveness against NBA size.

Watch on YouTube

Imagine watching this thinking Queen is the better prospect.
Wolf was the better player with the more translatable skills. Vision, shooting, creating, hustling... Queen gets blown by on the perimeter and just lowers his shoulder driving to the hoop.
Taking him in the top 15 is a disaster

[PaulinVA]

Check this out. No Ceiling's latest mock has us with Edge at 6 and Fears (??!!) at 18:

https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/2025-nba-mock-draft-v8?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9100ee71-1893-44e7-a13e-eecec7bdc23f_1272x518.png&open=false

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

The rationale is that I believe Maluach and Sorber are the BPA if we can draft them at 6&18. We are cooler than we've ever been since the Wall/Beal era, but sadly, pretty bad at basketball so I'd draft the best player we can. If Sorber falls to 18 I believe is due to his injury, otherwise I doubt he'd be available there.

In terms of fit, I align with doc's ideas (he presented them much better than I would have). I would only add that if Sarr still can devolp into a full time center, he also still has the potential to develop into a Gianniesque player. In that case, the Sarr - Maluach (+ Sorber) frontcourt, potential-wise is as good as it gets.

I think the center position is a unique case where you can't just blindly apply the "draft BPA" mantra.

The problem with centers is that you really can't play two centers at the same time. (And I'm talking about true centers here, not a PF/C hybrid like Sarr.) It's not like having three redundant small forwards. You can play 3 small forwards at the same time with little difficulty so if you already have two good SF's on the roster and a SF is the BPA, you just take him and figure it out later. You can easily slide one of your SF's to PF or SG without too much consequence. It's what we're doing right now with Bilal, George and Champagnie, for example.

But if we had Maluach and Sorber, they absolutely could not share minutes on the court. And Sarr is going to play some C minutes just because game conditions will dictate the need for a switchable center in certain matchups, or a center than can shoot. So we are talking about just 25-30 center minutes available at the most. It's just a really bad idea to use a FRP on a position that you know full well you will have virtually no minutes available, and no feasible why to finagle the lineups to find minutes.

If Sarr averages 36 minutes, there's still 60 minutes remaining at PF or C.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Hyperbole. At age 19, he averaged 8.6 rebounds per 36, which beats every SF and PF on the roster except the freakishly good rebounding Champagnie.

The whole point of Sarr is to give us a defensively switchable 5 which is almost a necessity in the league these days, at least against some matchups.

Sarr will get stronger. I don’t expect him to ever be a dominant rebounder, but he will rebound well enough to play center 20 minutes a night. And that’s where he will be a difference-making player.

How do you think floor-bound Queen will rebound per-36?

I think Queen will be a solid rebounder at the NBA level - better than Sarr to be sure.

My problem with Queen is that I think NBA guards will blow past him like a pylon whenever he is caught in a switch. And if he plays drop coverage, he lacks the length and athleticism to effectively backpedal and guard both the penetrating guard and the lob threat. Teams will compromise our defense on every single position, forcing us into help rotations and yielding open corner 3's all night. He'll need to be the next Jokic on offense to offset his detrimental affect on our defense. And while I think he is good offensively, I don't think he is Jokic.

He'll probably be something like Demarcus Cousins. Cousins put up numbers and had lots of fans who thought he was good, but he was actually an awful player who won 33 games or less in 8 of his 9 healthy seasons. (He had one winning season as 3rd fiddle to Anthony Davis and Jrue, but even in that season, the team has a .562 winning percentage in 48 games with him, and a .618 winning percentage in 34 games without him.)

DeMarcus suffered a devastating injury during his best season on his best team

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I don’t understand the Queen hate. If they’re going to go all offense/little to no defense, they should take Queen over Tre Johnson all day everyday. Queen is a supremely gifted player as a big man. I wouldn’t take him at 6, but in a trade down scenario absolutely.

I would absolutely take him at number 6. Offensive Bigmen like him are available once every 15 years. Guards are a dime a dozen, especially guards that don't play above the rim.

Queen is not a once in every 15yr prospect, come on with the hyperbole......

I only want Queen at our 2nd frp.... Being that out of shape when your career is being setup is a problem... I'm sorry this is your profession and you are already failing.....

Are ya'll watching the playoffs... They were taking the ball from Edey like he was a garbageman.... Over and over again he had to rush because they were stripping him of the ball.... The finals they are blocking layups left and right.... Not being able to jump and being slow is going to be an issue that he has to significantly improve.....

So all this supremely gifted needs to take into account the NBA is a UNIVERSE away from college.... He's not supremely gifted as an NBA player.... He's a good offensive prospect, with very glaring issues in defense and conditioning.... His poor defense really is concerning and I keep thinking how would he be if he were in these finals... I don't know if he's getting off the bench.. Hartenstein is getting his shots blocked and he's much quicker and more athletic than Queen.....So that is something to consider....

I like Queen because he can handle the ball and could make a nice tandem with Alex, but that's only because we have a unicorn like Alex... Those are the types that Queen needs to play with (Wemby, Chet, Alex, etc), because they literally are the only dudes that big who move the way they do.....

I predict Queen will go 10th to San Antonio. With Wemby, he will have a good chance at being the third-straight Spurs Rookie of the Year.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Every time I open this god damn board queen becomes a worse defender. Amazing he averaged more stocks per 36 than Maluach! Not bad for a no motor, disinterested, fat, short guy!

DQ had a good DBPM in college.

He showed the ability to move his feet defensively on the perimeter.

Queen had a lot of steals.

nate and the preponderance of scouts hate Queen defensively. We shall see.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

This is a pretty good microcosm of the strengths and weakness of both Queen and Wolf.

Wolf shows off his perimeter talents and crafty passing, but also his high turnover rate. Queen is tough on the interior but gets beat off the dribble constantly when out in space. As I've said before, I just think Wolf's skillset translates to the NBA better. No, he won't play PG or anything, but he'll be great in the high post with pick and pop ability, pump and drive ability, and passing. I think Queen's bully-ball approach will have less effectiveness against NBA size.

Watch on YouTube

Three college seasons vs. one.

Goldin at C vs. ZJu Ju Reese.

[nate33]

Three college seasons vs. one.

True. Though Wolf is only 7 months older so I'm not sure how much that distinction matters. And two of Wolf's college seasons were in the woeful Ivy League, which may be less competitive than Montverde Academy where Queen went.

[nate33]

DeMarcus suffered a devastating injury during his best season on his best team

And the team finished out the season with a better record without Cousins than they had with him.

[nate33]

If Sarr averages 36 minutes, there's still 60 minutes remaining at PF or C.

No. It's not going to work out that way.

Sarr is going to play center for roughly 15-20 minutes a night. By that I mean, he will be alongside 4 non-centers. This will happen because many NBA matchups dictate switchability and shooting at all 5 positions, rendering it difficult for guys like Maluach or Sorber to play.

That will leave just 28-33 minutes at center for our "true" center. We won't need two of them. At least not if we are trying to develop them both.