Jim and I were talking this morning about the upcoming NBA draft this Thursday, June 22nd and I surprised him when I exclaimed that neither Victor Wembenyama nor Scoot Henderson were going to have the best career from this coming draft class. Needless to say, Jim was shocked and so instead of compiling another mock draft that will miss far more than it will hit, I thought I’d take a few minutes to explain my reasoning.
Let me begin by saying that I know less about this draft class – outside of Victor, Scoot and Brandon Miller – than many previous draft classes and a large part of the reason for that is the incredible hype machine around Victor Wembanyama. Even by the NBA’s own standards, Vic is hyped as being possibly the best player since LeBron James to enter the league and if you listen closely you’ll hear them say best ever in hushed tones that can’t be overheard by LeBron. In fact, if you weren’t diligent and simply listened to the espn talking heads, you might not think that anyone that ever came before in the NBA was any good at all and this is where my eyes roll back into my head and I say one word, Zion. Zion is now Webster’s Dictionary’s definition of ‘overhyped’. And while he is perhaps the most overhyped in the last number of years, the last dozen or so years of the NBA’s first, second and third overall picks upon examination never lived up to the hype. Let’s have a look:
2022: Paulo Banchero, Chet Holmgren and Jabari Smith. Chet sat out the year and is now one major injury away from irrelevance, Paulo was solid but not spectacular and Jabari Who? Everyone said Smith could shoot but he didn’t in his rookie year. Too soon to say who the best player from this draft will be, but certainly we don’t have a core of all NBA players here that we were led to believe we had.
2021: Cade Cunningham, Jalen Green and Evan Mobley. And the Rookie of the year goes to Scotty Barnes! Not even in the top 3. Cade was supposed to light the world on fire but he looks more than mortal after a couple of seasons, Mobley looks like he might be something someday but Green was another major disappointment.
2020: Anthony Edwards, James Wiseman, LaMelo Ball. I’ll give you that LaMelo has some skills, but if he can’t stay healthy, it simply doesn’t matter. James Wiseman? Ouch, Hyped as the next ‘big’ thing, he can’t get playing time in his third year. Edwards has potential for sure, but so far it’s been hit and miss. One could argue that the 30 pick, Desmond Bane has already given his team more than Edwards has in the tank.
2019: Zion Williamson, Ja Morant, RJ Barrett. Super hype machine in overdrive and Zion eats his way out of the league while Ja flashes guns to work his way out of the league. Neither of these 2 guys has the mental fortitude to make it in the NBA. RJ will at least be a decent role player but for a draft that was unbelievably hyped, it was a bust. It’s looking more and more that Tyler Herro at 13 to Miami was the best pick in this draft.
2018: Deandre Ayton, Marvin Bagley III, Luka Doncic. Doncic with the 3rd pick is great. A superstar. The first one we’ve run across in 5 years and no doubt the best player in this draft. Certainly Deandre Ayton is a serviceable big man but comparisons to Tim Duncan were wildly over inflated. Marvin Bagley the Third? Can barely get on the floor.
2017: Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, Jason Tatum. No one in the world has been more over hyped than Lonzo Ball by his father. Too bad for Lonzo but it did earn him a big payday. Fultz fell to pieces after being hyped as an instant all star leaving only Jason Tatum who spends too much time channeling Kobe instead of trying to be himself. Tatum will be a good player, but the other 2 won’t be in the league much longer. Tatum might be the best player in this draft but it also might be one of De’Aaron Fox (No. 5, Sacramento), Donovan Mitchell (No. 13, Utah) or Bam Adebayo (No. 14, Miami).
2016: Ben Simmons, Brandon Ingram, Jaylen Brown. Sure Jaylen Brown is a decent role player who can have a big night and maybe, maybe, Brandon Ingram will find some consistency but nothing is ever going to rescue Ben Simmons from himself. A very sad circumstance unto itself, he has the ability to rip the hearts out of tens of thousands of fans at one time. Too much money, too much fame, too little ability to handle any of it. Jamal Murray taken 7th by Denver is probably the best player from this draft but Pascal Siakim went at 27 and he is probably better than any of the top 3.
2015: KAT, D’Angelo Russell, Jahlil Okafor: Certainly no one could have suspected that KAT wouldn’t play defense and only sorta care about conditioning and D’Angelo has been shuffled around as trade bait almost every year while Jahlil peaked in his rookie year and is now on his 4th team in 7 seasons. Picked at 13, Devin Booker by far is the best player from this draft.
2014: Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid: 9 years later and who really knows what Andrew Wiggens is? Still not a 3rd piece on a good team, the 1st overall pick ended up as a role player and not a high functioning one. Jabari Who? The only great pick here is Joel and even though he just won MVP, he still hasn’t been able to create any team success. The best pick this year went in the second round at the 41st pick, Finals MVP, Nikola Jokic.
2013: Anthony Bennett, Victor Oladipo, Otto Porter: Granted no one was hyping Anthony Bennett way back in 2013 but he was, well, the most unfortunate 1st overall pick since at least Andrea Bargnani and it could be argued that there was no real talent in that draft at all. Follow that up with a 2 and 3 pick that could never stay on the floor long enough to make an impact and you have a complete failure of player evaluation. Best player picked that year was Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Steven Adams, Rudy Gobert and CJ McCollum also went later in the draft.
2012: Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Bradley Beal: Truthfully, Davis is a pretty good player but has never lived up to the hype in large part due to his physical fragility. It has always been the idea of Anthony Davis, he of the genuinely magnificent physique. But it never materialized into success. Bradley Beal is another player who has also been hyped year after year and has made a fortune in the league but never brought his team any success. Kidd-Gilchrist almost caught fire before being effectively snuffed out. Best player this year is probably Damian Lillard.
And even if we dropped back another year, we would see a similar trend with the best player picked well outside the top 3 in Kawhi Leonard. So why would I believe the hype machine this year? I’m sorry to say but Wembanyama is simply too big, too tall. He won’t be able to stay healthy. Scoot is a great talent but does he have the mental fortitude and common sense to understand how to get the most out of his abilities? I say no. I say neither of these overhyped prospects has a chance of being the best player to come out of this draft. Who will it be? Maybe Brandon Miller, but more likely it will be a player less heralded and with a bigger point to prove, a bigger chip on his shoulder.