The Ringer's 2018 NBA DRAFT GUIDE

With all due respect to Villanova, Sister Jean, UMBC, Rick Pitino’s press tour, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I will forever remember the 2017-18 college basketball season as the Year of Trae Young. Everyone remembers despising the coverage surrounding Young by the end of the season, but hopefully they also remember why he garnered so much coverage in the first place: He was doing things that nobody has ever done in the history of college basketball. Even though Young’s stats dipped toward the end of the season, I can still comfortably say that there has never been a player quite like him. He’s not Steph Curry, he’s not Steve Nash, he’s not Chris Jackson, and he’s not Jimmer Fredette. He’s his own breed of guard, with unlimited range, a tight handle, and incredible passing ability … who also takes a ton of dumb shots, throws the ball all over the gym, and plays defense like he’s got cinder blocks on his feet.

And that’s what makes him the most intriguing prospect of the NBA draft. If you were to watch just his highlights, you’d be convinced that he’ll win an MVP within his first five years in the NBA. But if you were to watch just his worst plays, you’d be convinced that in five years he’ll be back in Norman, Oklahoma, selling used cars and signing autographs at the local mall. I believe in Young more than most, but I also think it’s important for him to end up on the right team. He needs to go somewhere he’ll have the freedom to iron out the kinks in his game, which is another way of saying he needs to be able to go 3-for-12 from the field with nine turnovers and not get picked apart by the national media for a week. Basically, in an ideal world, the guy who is projected to be picked anywhere from fifth through 10th in this draft would not go to the Cavs, Knicks, or Sixers, who will probably have the eighth, ninth, and 10th picks respectively. What could possibly go wrong?

Devon Hall, Virginia. The senior wing was a two-way rock for the Cavaliers all season, and he has the size, shooting ability, and basketball IQ to be worth a shot at the next level. The Malcolm Brogdon comparison is lazy, but it's not completely absurd.

DJ Hogg, Texas A&M. Hogg, like fellow teammate Robert Williams, bounced back from an up-and-down regular season to cap off his college career with an unlikely run to the Sweet 16. At 6-foot-9 and 215 pounds, he has the type of size and athleticism that NBA teams are looking for at the forward positions, and a sweet outside stroke (37.8 percent from 3 on 5.4 attempts per game this season) that should get him a summer league invite, even if off-the-court concerns prevent him from getting drafted.

George King, Colorado. One of the oldest players in this year's NBA draft, King was an unheralded recruit who turned himself into a legitimate prospect over the course of five years at Colorado. The 24-year-old is a consistent shooter (career 40.1 percent from 3 on 3.6 attempts per game) who already has an NBA-caliber body (6-foot-6 and 225 pounds), and his willingness to fight on the glass (7.8 rebounds a game as senior) will win him respect from his coaches on the professional level.

Donte Ingram, Loyola-Chicago. Ingram has the best chance of any of Loyola's players to capitalize off their Cinderella run. At 6-foot-6 and 210 pounds, he's got an NBA-caliber frame with a consistent 3-point stroke, and he guarded players at all five positions during March Madness.

Malik Pope, San Diego State. NBA draft nerds will remember Pope's name from his freshman season at San Diego State, when he was briefly touted as a potential lottery pick thanks to a projectable 3-point stroke and absurd dimensions for a wing (6-foot-10 and 220 pounds with a 7-foot-2 wingspan). He never added much else to his game in four years in college, but those two things will at least get him a training camp invite.

LiAngelo Ball, the middle child of planet Earth’s most famous hoops family, has declared for the 2018 NBA draft. On March 27, the same day that he declared, he dropped 72 points in a game against a Chinese youth team. It’s been a wild year for Gelo: First he got arrested for shoplifting in China, allowing his father to feud with the president of the United States. Then he withdrew from UCLA to play overseas with his younger brother, LaMelo. With such prolific output and with his older brother, Lonzo, succeeding with the Lakers, will a team roll the dice and pick LiAngelo on draft night?

No.

From what I’ve been told, Luka Doncic is the best European professional basketball prospect who has ever lived. Trae Young turned college basketball on its head in 2017-18, Marvin Bagley III was unstoppable all season, and Deandre Ayton is such a physical specimen that it’s almost incomprehensible how a human being can be built like he is. And yet plenty of experts believe that Doncic is the best prospect in the world, which brings me to the biggest question surrounding the 2018 NBA draft: WHY IN GOD’S NAME WERE DONCIC’S GAMES NOT SHOWN ON AMERICAN TELEVISION?

It’s incomprehensible that an American network couldn’t figure out a way to show even a handful of Doncic’s games. It’s not like he’s playing in Kazakhstan’s third division or something. The man is playing for the most storied team in Europe (Real Madrid) and in the second-best professional basketball league in the world. Isn’t it ESPN’s entire business model to latch onto one player and overexpose the shit out of them until the general public loses its mind? So why not do it with the guy who has pro scouts foaming at the mouth and who most stateside fans know nothing about? Shoot, it doesn’t even have to be that. Why not buy the rights to ONE Doncic game? What am I missing here?

The only upside to not having convenient access to Doncic’s games is that it’s never been easier to tell who is full of shit with their draft analysis. Anyone with a strong opinion on Doncic who isn’t in the NBA draft business is lying through their teeth. That’s because here’s the other maddening thing about Doncic: He doesn’t have that many highlight reels on the internet either, as a search of “Luka Doncic” on YouTube spits out only 47,400 results. Meanwhile, a search of “Ted Valentine” produces 137,000 results, a search of “Grayson Allen” gives 137,000 results as well, and a search of “dog farts” gives us 801,000 results. Also, you could search “naked Japanese guy trick” and get 221,000 videos of some really weird shit or search “rainbow milk challenge” to discover 585,000 videos of people trying to drink gallons of milk without puking. That’s right: There are 12 times as many videos of teenagers vomiting all over one another after chugging multicolored gallons of milk than there are of the best European basketball prospect of all time. That somehow makes absolutely no sense and still makes complete sense at the same time.

Bruce Brown, Miami. After a breakout freshman season at Miami, Brown came back to school to play his way into the lottery. Instead, he struggled to share the ball with highly touted freshman Lonnie Walker IV, while his 3-point shooting fell off a cliff. After a foot injury prematurely ended his season in January, he became out of sight, out of mind for many NBA talent evaluators.

Justin Jackson, Maryland. It's hard to know what to make of the versatile forward’s brief sophomore campaign at Maryland, when he played in only 11 nonconference games before a shoulder injury ended his season. The only thing we know for sure is that he threw away any draft momentum he had — especially after struggling in a bigger offensive role with Melo Trimble gone.

Hamidou Diallo, Kentucky. Diallo is the poster child for how too much exposure can be a bad thing. He's such a good athlete that he would have been a potential lottery pick last season, even though he was with the team for only three months without ever playing in a game. Once he stepped on the court this season, his poor jumper and limited feel for the game became obvious.

Kostja Mushidi, Mega Bemax. Like a lot of international players, Mushidi flirted with the draft last season as an 18-year-old before withdrawing when he couldn't get a first-round promise. He plays for Mega Bemax, one of the few European clubs that gives big roles to younger players, but he wasn't able to do much with the opportunity. Mushidi is billed as a shooter, yet shot only 28.6 percent from 3 and 62.9 percent from the free throw line this season.

Rodions Kurucs, FC Barcelona II. Kurucs has been caught in limbo all season. He was unwilling to extend his contract with FC Barcelona, so the team kept him on its B team rather than promoted him to its senior team or loaning him out somewhere else. It's hard to evaluate him considering his substandard competition, and he may need to leave Barcelona before he can build enough buzz to stay in the draft.

Unless something unexpected happens or the Charlotte Hornets win the lottery and take Grayson Allen first overall to satisfy their annual “white guy and/or player from a North Carolina school” pick, Villanova’s Mikal Bridges will be the only upperclassman taken within the first 10 picks of the draft. And even that isn’t a guarantee, as most mock drafts seem to have Bridges projected to go in the no. 8 through no. 10 range. It’s definitely possible that Bridges will slide a bit because at least one GM rolls the dice on a freshman who tests well at the combine, sees highlights of a tall European who hits five 3s in a row and convinces himself the player is the next Dirk, or maybe even gets his Bridgeses mixed up and accidentally picks Miles when he really wanted Mikal. Whatever the case, Bridges represents a dying breed of NBA draft prospect that my heart is not ready to say goodbye to yet.

In the 11 drafts before the start of the one-and-done era in 2006, there were 50 seniors or juniors from American colleges taken in the top 10. In the 12 drafts since the eligibility rules were changed, only 26 upperclassmen were taken in that range, including the whopping zero taken in the top 10 in 2017. Of those 26 players, seven have been All-Stars, nine are already out of the league, and one is Evan Turner. I don’t need the why explained to me. I understand how we got to this point. I’m just nostalgic for a bygone era of NBA drafts, when we didn’t have to guess how good prospects might end up because we had already seen them play in college for a few years. I mean, just imagine if this draft were like the good ole days. Instead of a lottery full of freshmen, the top picks would include Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Devonte’ Graham, Keita Bates-Diop, Trevon Bluiett, Jevon Carter, Keenan Evans, Jock Lan—you know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything.