Who does the site mocks these days?

I mean I don’t think Wembanyama is a generational talent he is just the next in line “unicorn” like Chet, Bol Bol, Porzingis, etc. I agree at this point he should be ahead of Henderson, but I don’t think Wembanyama is far and away the best prospect in 2023 draft I actually think Scoot has a higher ceiling.

Victor Wembanyama I’ve always seen as the next great defensive C and any offence will be a bonus – the next Gobert or Mount Mutombo is he the most hyped big since AD, Embiid or Greg Oden. Do we expect him to be hitting 3’s – maybe not but if he has some good scoring moves and he is that defensive changer who can dominate the paint – I see him being the likely top pick.

The thought of him and Chet would give you a 2020’s Twin Towers.

Scoot looks a powerhouse and is almost built like a wide receiver rather than a PG. He has the potential to be an elite scoring PG and with his power will be hard to defend. I see him as a top 3 prospect but cannot put him ahead of Victor.

Another guy I like is Dereck Lively who is listed at 7ft and 200lbs on here but on other sites I’ve seen him listed at 7ft 2ins and 235lbs. If he is the later size and with a chance to take over from Mark Williams as Duke’s anchor I see hom having top 5 potential next year.

Leonard Miller could well have gone first round this year – Spurs at 25 or GSW a bit lower I liked as a fit. He will still be a fteshman next year and with another year behind him I see top 10 potential minimum.

The Thompson Twins will get a lot of media coverage and it will be fun to see them playing in tandem for Overtime Elite to see how they develop. Could a team look to draft them as a duo?

Terquavion Smith had a good freshman year and if he could push on could be one of the top Sophs if he declares next year.

Armando Bacot I thought was immense for the Tar Heels last season and although his game may not translate to current NBA I still think he’d be a rock solid pick for a contender needing a high IQ role player,

Victor and Scoot are a lot closer than people realize especially since Scoot will play another year in the G League. The one guy I like though is Cam Whitmore. I wanna see if he becomes a one and done player in Villanova. I’ll be surprised if Terquavion Smith doesn’t have a Jaden Ivey like sophomore season this year and be a top 5 pick next year.

The one year out mock drafts only serve to identify which first year eligible players you should follow. Half of them are going to be bad, and if this year was any indication many will still declare. A few of them will go undrafted. Maybe you make 35% of your shots at the rim and still go in the 1st. To each their own. The one difference with this class is that Scoot and Victor both got between 550-600 minutes at pretty respectable levels last season. Victor was not ready for the Euroleague, and it is not insulting to point that out. He had a couple nice games at the end, and it showed promise. Scoot was the best player on his team, albeit a bad team, but they had one lottery pick, one other 1st, and a 2nd. We don’t know if Victor is going to change teams for next year, nor do we have a good weight on him. After John Butler, I would prefer to see guys on scales. Just to be safe. I tend to believe Victor will receive a ton of latitude for the same reason Chet did, but it is also not crazy to think Scoot could do to the G-League something we haven’t seen yet among Ignite guys.

I will say this though, I think Teddy Allen is not eligible for next year’s draft.

I know this might sound crazy, but doesn’t anyone else think both players will be franchise players at the next level?
Scoot Henderson balled it up for the G League Ignite. I see mini Kobe in this kid. He’s the real deal. He makes plays and has a great combination of scoring and creating space. Oh yeah, and he’s more than a quality defender. Scoot has a sucker punchers chance of being the top pick next year. He will also be one of the youngest prospects coming up in the draft. Sounds far fetch, but Scoot could be considered in Mt. Rushmore somewhere when he retires. That is only if he reaches his max potential of course.

Wemby on the other hand I don’t think is just another unicorn. He is the true definition of a unicorn. I’m actually sick of that term due to how loosely it is used, but he’s Pegasus. Wembanyama I see as another franchise player. He is often being compared to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He’s been the best prospect arguably since the age of 15 years old. He will also be a younger classman and the odds on favorite to be the top pick. The sky is merely a space within a space to this guy. The entire universe is about the limit for this kid. Not just a sky. Imo, his floor barring injuries is +Evan Mobley as a rookie and a better version of KG/AD as a player. While his ceiling could be the G.O.A.T. It all depends on his early development of course. But I’d bet on this guy to be an all time great. Better than Porzingis, Chet, etc.

All that being said, atm I’d pick Wemby>Henderson. His chance of being the G.O.A.T. is actually slightly higher than Scoot making Mt. Rushmore. I don’t hold anything against the 2023 top pick yet for any mock having Scoot at the top. But it is where I’ll slightly agree to disagree with the ones that do have Scoot at the top.

If Victor had been in this year’s draft I would have seen him going before Chet IMO.

Teams will follow hype and with Euro guys for all the busts they hoped wpuld be the next Dirk look at how many teams passed on Giannis, Gobert and Jokic so they tend to be very interested in these type of players.

I don’t like the unicorn term and to talk about Victor Wemby being a possible great is just putting pressure on him. If he was the next Hakeem then great or if he bought the skyhook back into fashion too even better.

Lots of players have been hyped over the years the 2007, 2008, 2014, 2015 seemed years which sprang to mind. There have been other years with outstanding top picks like AD, Ben Simmons etc. But lots of cannot miss prospects have ended up out of the league for one reason and another.

It would be interesting to look back at in how many years the best player longer term went first or even in the top 3.

Lest we forget in talking about way too early projections, 2023 was originally regarded as the Emoni Bates lottery.

https://www.si.com/high-school/2019/10/29/emoni-bates-nba-draft-prospect-kevin-durant

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/insider/story/_/id/27332999/why-15-year-old-emoni-bates-basketball-next-phenomenon

There is a lot of appeal in being first or early on players, but it just puts a huge amount of pressure on kids who still have a long way to go in their development. It is wrong that ESPN and the like made such a big deal out of Arch Manning and Bronny James, almost entirely because the families they were born into. The whole thing about Patrick Baldwin being a shooter seems entirely based on a few good shooting games in the summer of 2019. He wasn’t a good shooter in high school by the numbers. He was an outright bad one last year, but reputations are tough to alter. Emoni Bates might go to Louisville and thrive, but if he is bad then are we really going to have to hear and read about how good he was when he was 15 in justifying him as a lottery pick?

Nobody is claiming Victor won’t go high. He was 18 and playing decent minutes in France and the Euroleague. The fact that he doesn’t fall on his face at 7’2″ means he is going to going to be intriguing. I think the assumption that he cannot go anywhere but #1 is wrong, because it is needlessly premature. It is only slightly less severe than Emoni Bates being called the best high school player since LeBron or ESPN discussing whether Arch Manning will lead Texas to a title.

Some players have stayed number 1 on the mock board pretty much for a couple of years but other players can challenge them. I’m more interested to see who emerges behind Victor and Scoot as the likely to 5 picks and where the fall off berween tiers in the draft will be.

Bates is ridiciously low in next years’s mock for a guy who is only going to be eligible then. He’d have surely gone first round this year if he had been eligible?

Another year under Penny Hardaway will really help him and sometimes a player getting a reality check in college is good for them. How many players all the way through HC are considered “the man” and a superstar and then they go to next level and they are not. Better it happens before they go into the NBA and start rubbing established pros up the wrong way.

I can remember “Born Ready” Lance Stephenson was said to have an attitude and I was thinking how could a guy only drafted 2nd round so believe his own hype but he had been the star player at his age level for several years and had a huge ego. Lance had off court issues which affected hisa draft status but after being considered a guy who could crash abd burn. He did knuckle down and has had a 12 year career mainly in the NBA and ironically became a good role player despite never reaching his once predicted heights.

Bates announced he was transferring middle of April with his top 6 being announced beginning of May: Arkansas, DePaul, Eastern Michigan, Lousiville, Michigan, Seton Hall. He was supposed to announce his decision after the NCAA withdrawal deadline for the draft so he could see who was staying/going in programs. Since he hasn’t picked anywhere yet and the dust has settled on who is coming back to programs many think he may end up staying at Memphis or maybe he has a non-NCAA route he is still trying to figure out.

I think he ends up at Lousville or stays at Memphis if he stays NCAA route.

I’m also not bashing Bates or the chance he has a good season. My point is that things change, and the desire to be first on guys is largely unfair. It creates a set of expectations that in the case of Bates are literally impossible to live up to. To compare him to the best players of their generations going back 40 years is crazy. Be the absolute best, or bust. Good luck with that. The hype also probably played a role in Bates and his family thinking he could walk into college a year early with no summer on campus and not be behind. It is still a big leap.

Victor is a pro, but he isn’t Luca. It is easy to forget that Luca had more minutes at Real Madrid at 15 and 16 than Victor did last year. By the time he was draft eligible, he was on the shortlist of guys who were the best players in Europe prior to getting drafted. Victor is 7’2″, athletic, and coordinated, but that doesn’t mean he is great yet. 570 minutes is not that many. Porzingis had 1600 minutes in Spain and Europe before getting drafted. Luca had like 3000. If Victor goes from ASVEL to Paris, how much of a step forward will he have to take in the LNB and Eurocup to maintain this current level of hype? I’m certain that would assure him of more minutes. Still, if his scoring average is right around 10-13 and his three point shooting is under 30 percent again, won’t most people reconsider just how worthy he is at the very top? What if Scoot has a better shot from deep next year? A lot of things can change. It is worth following, and as such there is no point in taking these way too early mock drafts too seriously.

As regards Victor I’d not be too fussed about his 3 point range if a guy that size is expected to have a 3 point range then every team is really playing D’Antoni ball. I like to keep an eye on these mocks but as BTPH says a lot can change and to compare players on different continents can be even harder. In the NCAA alone we don’t know who will really kick on were Ivey or Keegan Murray that high this time last year.

One thing I have noticed is that since the end of HS guys being able to declare there has been a reduction of Seniors and Jnrs going high in the draft.

Also has anyone seen an early 2024 mock yet?

Wow, Idk – but this site’s already got 2023 create mock up! I like it! Need some underclassmen eligible yet, but it’s a start!