Scouting the draft is a minefield, so how can you think smarter when looking for the next franchise superstar or second-round gem?

Jonny Flynn, Marvin Bagley III, Sam Bowie. The draft is tough. Those guys would’ve had massive support from analysts, scouts, GMs, and fans before draft day. Each one of them were selected in the lottery and they were each the pick before an all-time great. When you’re scouting the draft in any capacity, amateur or professional, there’s a chance to miss big, like, really, really big, Sam Bowie big.

Defining how you scout could prevent some of those all-time faux pas (or at least make them a little more acceptable). In this article, I want to define some points that I’m carrying into the 2025 class and some advice that the podcast GOAT himself, Chucking Darts, shared on the most recent episode of The Drop Step.

The Basics:

Let me get this out of the way first. Like many people in the community, I balance the use of data with getting in the film room, loading up tape, and taking down notes on guys who stand a chance of making the league. I’ll likely scout the big names first, crunching film on them in the early stages of the process, whereas I’ll rely on data to tell me who I should be watching from lesser-known schools/players that weren’t highly touted in the preseason process. It’s a flawed approach, but I’ve got to live with it before I make it big-time in the league. In addition to the film and the data, I’m huge on listening to people around the community. I know I can’t watch every minute of every game this year, so in the same way that I might turn to that snobby film student friend for what to watch on a Friday night, I’ll have my guys who can “put me onto” a must-watch prospect.

I’m not hard and fast on exclusively wanting to draft “dribble pass shoot” guys *cough cough Sam Presti*, and I’m not opposed to valuing below-the-rim talent either. I think it’s misguided to let any sole archetype guide your philosophy. There are different horses for different courses, so I cast a wide net. Good players are good players at the end of the day, but here are the five points of my philosophy that should tell you all you need to know leading up to the 2025 class.

Get The Signature Dish:

You shouldn’t go to McDonald’s and order the Filet-O-Fish. No one gets the Macaroni Cheese from Pizza Hut. If you stop by Five Guys and you aren’t getting a side of fries, there’s something wrong with you.

You don’t make a pick in the lottery and take a profile of a player that you can get somewhere else. I’m flat out stealing point one from a friend of the pod and host of the “You Know Ball” podcast, TrillBroDude, but the draft is for finding players that you can’t acquire any other way, and they’re the players that, like most people, I’ll be favoring on my board. Take the archetype of 5 that we’ve recently seen emerge in the last decade, the so-called “Unicorns.” Starting with Kristaps Porziņģis back in 2016, this new style of big man, the one that can roll, rim protect, and light it up from the outside, is becoming increasingly valuable. The Thunder and the Celtics topped their respective conferences with that profile of player Myles Turner, who was an underrated part of one of the more electrifying offenses we’ve ever seen in Indiana last season. At the same time, Wemby could take it all to another level. The optionality of having a guy who’s equally as dangerous spacing to 25/30 feet as he is rolling to the rim is seemingly unlocking an even higher level of offense than we’ve ever seen before. Combine that with not having to give up the interior defense on the other side of the ball, and at the moment, this profile of player is looking like an NBA cheat code. That’s why I loved Kel’el Ware in the draft last year: 7’0″ feet, insane measurements, performance at the combine, and tantalizing touch from floater range that, to me, suggested that Ware’s 42% 3-point percentage wasn’t pure fluke. I ignored questions about attitude, awareness, and in-game acumen because, quite frankly, if this guy works, you’ve got a significant marginal gain over 80% of teams in the association. Here’s what I wrote about Ware in a mock draft that took place when the consensus had Ware ranked as a late first/early second-rounder:

“As the draft flattens out in the late lottery stage, I believe we’ll see teams take swings, and that’s exactly what I’m doing here. Kel’el Ware is a toolsy player, 7’0 tall with a 7’7 wingspan, he’s a theoretical spacing five with a stride resembling a gazelle and nifty touch from floater range. There’s still a rawness to his game, and Indiana disappointed this season with Ware as their headline act, but I’m willing to take a chance stepping into Joe Cronin’s shoes. I know I might be picking the next James Wiseman, but that’s because I’m searching for what many thought James Wiseman could be predraft. Portland has win-now players on the roster in Jerami Grant and Malcolm Brogdon (amongst others), so I think there’s less value in taking a ready-to-play guy here. If this all works out I’ve got a five man who resembles a Frankenstinian hybrid of Deandre Ayton and Duop Reath, ready to pair in pick and roll action with Scoot Henderson. If it doesn’t, I’m willing to take my lumps. I think Portland needs to shoot for the all-stars if they hope to build a contender over the back half of the 2020s, and that’s exactly what I’m doing in selecting almost ‘Son of Krypton’ Kel’el Ware.“

If memory serves correctly, there were NBA role player-style picks—good ones at that—still on the board. I took Ware over Filipowski, Missi, Zach Edey, and everyone’s favorite late draft riser, Devin Carter. Despite an impressive Summer League showing, I still think Ware is a boom-or-bust guy. In contrast, other late lottery/mid-first-round guys might provide a higher-floor (potentially less embarrassing) outcome. But Ware is a scarce commodity. Role players can be found in free agency, traded for if you’re willing to part with pick capital, but when a high-ceiling rare archetype guy is sitting in the crosshairs come draft night, I think I’ll still biased towards picking the signature dish when wearing my fake GM hat.

Look to the future:

I’m not just talking about the Jahlil Okafor-style pick here. When I’m putting together my big board throughout the season, I’ll constantly think about the rough direction I think the league is going. I’ll try to get ahead of the curve by valuing players who don’t just project to be good now but could be even more valuable in 5/6 years’ time. On the most recent episode of The Drop Step, Chuck spoke about how you can start to infer where the league might be heading:

If looking at guys going out of fashion is one way to get an idea of where the league is going, the next is to look at what’s leading to overperformance around the association. Fundamentally, the NBA is a copycat league, so if something works for a couple of teams now, expect it to work for many teams later. Look at the ever-increasing prevalence of the hand-off hub at the big man position. Cast your mind back a few seasons, and I think it’d be reasonable to say that Nikola Jokic, Bam Adebayo, and Draymond Green were the only starting 5-men who functioned more as creators at the elbows and top of the key than in the low post or as rim runners/lob threats. Cut to 23/24, and suddenly, the Kings have Domas Sabonis at the heart of their half-court offense; Jarrett Allen has progressed into a diverse offensive 5-man, not just an elite lob threat for Darius Garland and Ricky Rubio to play with. Alperen Sengun probably got the keys in Houston this year because of the playoff success of his final evolution, Nikola Jokic. Heck, even Joel was running delay and pitchback sequences under Nick Nurse in Philadelphia this year! If something works for the few, expect the many to try it in the ensuing seasons. I won’t hammer home the spacing centers point, but the Celtics, the Nuggets, and the Thunder all have big men who can step out and splash from beyond the arc. I’ll be valuing 5s with the potential to space for that reason. Will Hardy has seen great offensive success using multiple screeners, big and small, as well as multiple ball handlers in Utah over the last couple of seasons, so I’ll be looking for those savvy guys who can operate on and off-ball, not necessarily just the top of the key PnR playmakers who dominated the late 2010’s.

You might have different ideas about the league’s direction, but make sure those ideas influence your boards in the coming years.

Initiation isn’t the “Be All and End All”:

This might be a little spicy! I think as the general draftee becomes more and more comfortable with the ball in their hands, making reads, and getting to their shot off the dribble than previous generations, finding “The Guy” will become less and less important. Through the next few months, I’ll be valuing guys I define as “Force Multipliers” a little higher than guys who flash primary potential if I’m not sure they have a capital S Star future in the NBA. This might be lights-out off-ball shooters who move the ball quickly when it gets to them, 0.5 players who make decisions in a blink-or-you-‘ll-miss-it fashion, and event creators who turn defense into offense by generating steals, blocks, and opposition turnovers. There isn’t a single player archetype that sums up what I mean as the league continues to evolve. We see OG Anunoby getting paid $200 million a year, Mikal Bridges being traded for four unprotected picks, and Derrick White getting mentions in All-Star conversations. I will be leaning away from primary guys unless I think they can provide value 100% of the time when they’re on the floor, not just when they have the ball in hand.

If you’re unconvinced, here was my opening gambit to Chuck on The Drop Step this week:

Creation and initiation are fun but consider valuing those secondary skills this year when ranking prospects against each other.

Small Ball is Dead. Long Live Big Ball:

This could come across as a little reactionary to the success of the Nuggets, the Wolves, and the Celtics over the past couple of seasons, but in general, I think we’re now transitioning away from small balls 5’s to oversized 2’s, 3’s and 4’s. The Great Leap Forward that took place at first with the D’Antoni Suns and then at full scale in the mid-2010s (inspired by the “Lightyears Warriors”) saw the league transition away from lumbering big men parked in the paint to lightning-fast switchy small ball lineups built to space teams out. It was a true revolution in the sport. Because it hit the league so fast, there was an absolute scarcity of players to facilitate this style. Teams sacrificed size for skill, admitting that there might be tradeoffs on the boards/protecting the rim, but they lived with it, and by and large, teams that got small won big.

I just think that sacrifice isn’t necessary with the talent in the league. The generation of players that watched those Warrior teams growing up are now entering the league, and to me, the skills that made those small-ball lineups special aren’t reserved for the little guys anymore. Because we’re seeing the emergence of this unicorn profile, because guys like 6’10” Franz Wagner can dribble and penetrate the paint in the same ways that jitterbug guards used to, I think that the league will begin to shift away from looking for players who can play up to players that can play down. I recently had this debate about Franz on the NBA podcast. Recent NBA history might suggest that if Wagner improves his rebounding and weakside rim protection abilities, then the Magic could build towards their own pseudo “Death Lineup.” Paolo at the 5, going to work with four spacers and enough rim protection to get by; I lean the other way:

Again, this is a little more personal to me, but maybe consider looking for players with the right skill development profile as “play down” players rather than “play up” players.

There is no Golden Rule:

~~I’ve just spent the best part of 2,000 words writing my essential dos and don’ts about shaping your draft philosophy, but ultimately. At the same time, it’s beneficial to keep these ideas in place and guiding principles in mind; once in a while, it’s alright to throw them out of the window, even if it doesn’t feel quite right. Sometimes, all your rules won’t line up together. While I wrote about “playing down” instead of “playing up” players, the guy at the top of my 2024 board, like many others, was Reed Sheppard. Reed topped my 2024 board because I think he has a chance to be that “Force Multiplier” guy that adds a significant ceiling to high-level teams. Yes, he’s short, and yes, he’s slight, but if you live and die by these strict rules, you can end up making the mistakes I wrote about at the top of this article. In the 1984 draft, the Blazers needed a big man, and they already had Clyde ‘The Glide’ Drexler on their roster. They saw the talent that Jordan had. Bobby Knight, coach of the Team USA at the 1984 Olympics, reportedly spoke to the Blazers office, claiming that Jordan was the best player he’d ever seen! But… You didn’t take wings that high in the draft. How would he and Drexler fit together? So, they did the safe thing, took a five-man at number two, as most teams did back then, and missed out on my GOAT.

Twenty-one years later, with Billy Knight at the helm (no relation to the Bobby mentioned above), the Atlanta Hawks sat at number two in the 2005 NBA draft. Billy, in many ways, was ahead of the curve. He had this vision of extremely athletic players at every position, all 6’7″ and up, a swarming monster of a defensive unit that could run the break and physically overwhelm just about every other team in the league. He had taken Boris Diaw in 2003 and Josh Smith in 04. Weeks after the 04 draft, the Hawks signed Joe Johnson in free agency. All these guys were plus-size in their position and had legitimate on-ball skills. In another world, that Hawks team could’ve gone on to be something special, but in that other world, they correctly drafted Chris Paul at number two, not North Carolina 6’7″ forward Marvin Williams. Williams fit the philosophy; he’d had an excellent season for UNC, and at the time, it was predicted that he’d become a shot creator, too. Williams didn’t quite pan out; he had his best years in the NBA in a Charlotte Hornets uniform as a 3 & D low-usage role player with some athletic pop.

Meanwhile, that Chris Paul guy went on to be arguably the best pure PG ever to touch a basketball. Sometimes, the right thing to do is forget philosophy. Star talent is star talent, and there aren’t hundreds of ways to add that to your franchise if you’re running a team, so remember, rules are made to be broken!

I hope you enjoyed the article! Drop me your comments down below with any questions/feedback and check out my latest podcast with Chuck about Draft Philosophy on The Drop Step feed.

Links:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3RoRJwuo5nGykk43wWYn7E?si=7c2e921e6af9487f

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR51ASzPkik