This is a chaotic week in the basketball world. The transfer portal is churning. Friday is the NBA draft declaration deadline, and a handful of potential first rounders — Duke's Patrick Ngongba, UConn's Braylon Mullins, and both Florida's Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh — have already elected to return to college.
Others remain undecided, weighing NIL offers against draft slot expectations. The Portsmouth Invitational just wrapped up, quietly reshuffling the second round. Front offices are still trying to sort out who's actually in this class.
At least they know the draft order, now that the NBA has determined tie-breakers.Oh and by the way, the Pistons, Celtics, Spurs, Knicks, and Nuggets all just dropped one of their first two games at home in the first round.So this mock matches the wild mood. We're maximizing the chaos today. What happens if all three teams with the 14% flattened odds fall out of the top four?
What happens if — gulp — the Thunder move into the top four? Here’s my full two-round mock draft with analysis for every single pick. Let’s get to it:(Henry Russell/Yahoo Sports Illustration)1.
Chicago BullsAJ Dybantsa, 6-9, BYU freshman forwardArtūras Karnišovas and Marc Eversley got fired. And Billy Donovan decided to decline his option as head coach. But what really changes?
The team felt no different under them than it did with Gar Forman and John Paxson leading the front office. The common denominator: The Reinsdorf family is still in charge. But maybe all they really need is some lottery luck to escape the middle.
If the Bulls are lucky enough to move up from the ninth-best odds, it’d be hard to imagine them taking anyone but Dybantsa, who led the nation in scoring as a freshman by averaging 25.5 points for a top-25 team. At 6-foot-9, players his size are not supposed to move with the herky-jerky elasticity that Dybantsa does. He can dunk over defenders.
He can stop on a dime and fade away from midrange. And he can catch fire from behind the line too. BYU head coach Kevin Young said Dybantsa’s scoring talent is “in rare air with some of the greats.” Over the course of his freshman year, he began to make dramatic progress as a passer, too, as shown with his cross-court, pinpoint passes to find shooters.
But with the Bulls, there’d be less of a need for his playmaking with point guard Josh Giddey on the roster. Matas Buzelis can handle the ball too. And all of them are tall.
The three of them would have the upside to become an unstoppable trio given their blend of size and skill.2. Atlanta Hawks (via New Orleans)Caleb Wilson, 6-10, North Carolina freshman bigFront office executives around the NBA increasingly believe that Wilson could be the second player taken in June’s draft. While his exact spot won’t be clear until after the Draft Lottery, once each pick is determined, some teams value the high-flying North Carolina freshman above the more ground-bound Cam Boozer from Duke.
Others view Wilson as having similarly high upside as Kansas guard Darryn Peterson with dramatically lower downsides due to Peterson’s availability concerns.If there’s one thing the Hawks could use it’s an athletic big to pair in the frontcourt with Onyeka Okongwu, or serve as an alternate lone big on the floor. And Wilson is arguably the most gifted athlete in the draft class. He's 6-10 with springs for legs, and when he's flying above the rim, finishing through contact, and chasing down everything in his area code, he looks like a future cornerstone.
But the case against Wilson is pretty clear too. Despite all his positives, he hasn’t shown consistency as a shooter at any level. That would matter less on the Hawks, though, given they can utilize lineups with shooting at every other spot on the floor.
Wilson’s other defining traits on their own would provide star-level upside to an already emerging Atlanta roster.3. Sacramento KingsCameron Boozer, 6-9, Duke freshman forwardThe Kings need a leader. Boozer fits the bill.
He’s a do-it-all offensive talent who can post up, run pick-and-rolls, set screens, spot up, and crash the boards. He doesn’t need to rely on bully ball to make an impact as a scorer or passer. That said, the acquisition would almost certainly signal the end of the Domantas Sabonis given their overlapping strengths and weaknesses.
Defensively, some of the questions about Boozer popped up in Duke’s Elite 8 loss to UConn: He wasn’t big enough to defend Tarris Reed, and he got smoked by Alex Karaban on a key 3-pointer on the perimeter. But he plays hard and has improved at every weakness in his game so far. That approach is exactly the type of player Sacramento needs to bring into its organization.4.
Oklahoma City Thunder (via Clippers)Darryn Peterson, 6-6, Kansas freshman guardCan you imagine? There’s a 7.1% chance the Thunder move into the top four. While OKC could still find a difference-maker in the 12th spot, moving up would undoubtedly be the most chaotic possible event on lottery night. Because here, th
