NBA draft tiers Top prospects by stats and scouting

NBA draft tiers Top prospects by stats and scouting

How would I evaluate the players in the 2020 NBA draft (Nov. 18 on ESPN)?

Back when the draft would typically have taken place in June, we published my statistical projections for the top prospects available, which we'll update later this week with full top-100 projections. However, I don't always completely agree with my own projections and spend plenty of time watching college basketball to understand what we might be capturing and might be unable to glean from the box score.

With that in mind, I've broken down my favorite prospects this year into five tiers to go over where I have them, considering both their stats and my own perspective.

  Prospect: LaMelo Ball

For the second time in four years, a Ball brother tops my projections. Fans might wonder if that's a concern for LaMelo given that his older brother Lonzo does not appear to be on track for stardom.

First, I'd caution against saying Lonzo has underperformed his projections, which estimated around four wins above replacement player (WARP) by my player-value metric during his first five seasons. So far, Lonzo has averaged 3.5 WARP and reached 4.4 last season, putting him well on track to match his projection. It's just that other players in his class have massively outperformed their projections and draft slots -- as typically happens for a large number of prospects.

Second, the Ball brothers are different players. Lonzo projects more as a role player at his best because he's not a traditional pick-and-roll threat, forcing him off the ball much of the time in the half-court offense.

That was predictable. Per Synergy Sports tracking, Lonzo finished just 49 pick-and-roll plays with a shot, trip to the free throw line or turnover in 36 games at UCLA. By contrast, LaMelo finished 95 pick-and-roll plays in the 15 games he played for the NBL's Illawarra Hawks.

For better or worse, LaMelo is a much more scoring-minded player than his brother. While that removes some of the safety net Lonzo had of being a valuable role player, it also gives LaMelo more upside if he can maximize his potential as a playmaker.

  Prospects: Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton

There is a Lonzo Ball-esque prospect in this year's draft, and it's actually not his brother. Haliburton is likewise a quality passer with excellent size who doesn't do much damage in the pick-and-roll. He finished 91 pick-and-roll plays in 24 games as a sophomore at Iowa State, per Synergy tracking, and ranked in the 31st percentile in Division I in his efficiency on those plays.

It's worth remembering that Haliburton is 20 years old and players develop in unpredictable ways; Synergy tracking shows Jimmy Butler finished 32 pick-and-roll plays his entire three-year career at Marquette. Still, that does seem to make Haliburton a better fit for teams that have a primary creator, allowing him to spot up and attack defenses that have already tilted to defend the first option.

Edwards is more of an upside play. His projected usage rate puts him among the top 15 one-and-done prospects in my database, but his projected efficiency as a scorer is in the bottom half of this group. How much Edwards can improve on that, along with the consistency of his defensive effort, will determine whether he can be a star or will end up more of a volume scorer.

  Prospects: Deni Avdija, Onyeka Okongwu, James Wiseman

This is probably as high as I'd feel comfortable having big men who don't project as elite shooters or distributors from the high post. While this year's conference finals featured multiple All-Stars playing a majority of their minutes at center (Bam Adebayo, Anthony Davis and Nikola Jokic), all of them have that kind of offensive skill to set them apart from more easily replaceable big men. I'm not confident Okongwu and Wiseman will be able to get there, even though both should be able to defend in the modern NBA.

As for Avdija, I get the concern over projecting based on his performance in the relatively weak Israeli BSL -- particularly after Dragan Bender, my No. 2 prospect in 2016, drastically underperformed his projected BSL stats. However, going strictly by Avdija's EuroLeague play results in virtually an identical projection for him, so I don't think his strong rating is a product of weak competition.

  Prospects: RJ Hampton, Killian Hayes, Aaron Nesmith, Isaac Okoro, Obi Toppin, Devin Vassell

This group, heavy on perimeter players, more or less fills out my lottery.

Of them, I could probably most easily be talked into promoting Hayes to the third tier. Watching Hayes play, I was struck by his similarity to fellow lefty point guard D'Angelo Russell. By comparison, Hayes looks more capable of getting to the basket and likely to be a better defender than Russell, which would make him an awfully valuable player if he can get to Russell's level as a pull-up shooter. Per Synergy tracking, Hayes made 35% of his 3s off the dribble from the shorter FIBA line.

  Prospects: Cole Anthony, Saddiq Bey, Josh Green, Tyrese Maxey, Theo Maledon, Patrick Williams

Anthony is a case where I think my statistical projection likely misses the mark. On the strength of his performance in the Nike EYBL AAU competition, Anthony comes out as a top-five prospect despite his rough season at North Carolina and slide in draft rankings.

While I think Anthony can be better than he looked in college, his poor finishing in college (46.5% around the basket, per Synergy Sports) and shoot-first style were major concerns. I agree the middle of the first round is more appropriate for him. 

Green was next up in my wing rankings after Bey, meaning I put him ahead of two players (Maxey and Williams) who will likely be drafted higher. The upside is there for Williams, who could emerge as a quality on-ball defender with more ability to create his own shot than, say, OG Anunoby. But he's raw offensively and will have a hard time sliding down to power forward because of his poor defensive rebounding.

During the NBA playoffs, Maxey was often compared to 2019 Kentucky product Tyler Herro, the latest in a series of John Calipari products to show more ability to create shots in the NBA than we saw on loaded college teams. I see two issues with that comparison.

First, Maxey got the opportunity to play with the ball in his hands, finishing 97 pick-and-rolls according to Synergy Sports tracking as compared to 25 for Herro the previous season.

Second, while Herro and the other breakout Kentucky stars of the bubble (Devin Booker and Jamal Murray) are knockdown shooters, that's not a sure thing for Maxey, who hit just 29% of his college 3-point attempts. His 83% foul shooting is more encouraging, but Herro still looks like the better prospect.

  Prospects: Precious Achiuwa, Udoka Azubuike, Desmond Bane, Leandro Bolmaro, Malachi Flynn, Isaiah Joe, Tre Jones, Nico Mannion, Aleksej Pokusevski, Paul Reed, Jalen Smith, Tyrell Terry, Xavier Tillman, Cassius Winston

Since I can't hit everyone in this much larger group and I already covered many of them in our position-by-position rankings, here are a few highlights, starting with why I'm lower than consensus on Achiuwa.

I get the theory of what Achiuwa can be in the NBA: a highly switchable defender who wreaks havoc finishing on the pick-and-roll, sort of Montrezl Harrell meets Bam Adebayo.

In practice, too often during his lone season at Memphis, Achiuwa was guilty of trying to do too much. He also doesn't show much touch around the basket, shooting an effective 34% on shots that weren't layups or dunks, per Synergy Sports tracking. Harrell was able to overcome similar issues (he shot an effective 37% on non-layups/dunks his final season at Louisville); we'll see whether Achiuwa can also accept a smaller role.

Bolmaro is the lone prospect of note currently playing in the ACB and EuroLeague with FC Barcelona. That's useful because he had just 171 first-division minutes last season between the two competitions. He now just barely has enough minutes for a semi-credible projection, which would put him on the fringes of the top 30 statistically.

Thanks to Bolmaro's recent playing time, Pokusevski is the lone top-50 player without a statistical projection, having played primarily in the Greek second division. Watching his film from those games doesn't offer much, because Pokusevski is both bigger and more athletic than his opposition. The concern is Pokusevski won't prove a good enough shooter to spend most of his time on the perimeter, not unlike Bender. As a result, I'd have him near the bottom of this tier.