There are always a number of questions leading up to the NBA draft, and this year is no different. In this article we’ll tackle some of the most interesting storylines leading up to the 2025 NBA Draft on June 25th

With the transfer portal and NIL, who goes back to school?

More than ever in recent years, NBA draft prospects are incentivized to go back to school. Gone are the days of one-and-done players staying in the draft only to go in the second round or end up undrafted entirely. The transfer portal means that top players with remaining eligibility can essentially go and play at any school they want, and that they will receive significant compensation to do so. There are a number of really good players in this year’s class who could go back to school, and some players who were originally projected to be drafted this year if they had declared have already decided to head back to school. For example, Texas Tech big man JT Toppin already made the call to return to college even though he had first round buzz. Former UNC Guard Ian Jackson has decided to transfer and play his second college season at St. John’s instead of take his chances on potentially sneaking into the end of the first round. Former Drake University standout Bennett Stirtz, who we covered as a potential sleeper in this year’s draft, will instead return to school and play for Iowa next year. All of these guys likely would have been selected in this year’s draft, but it makes sense that they would return to good situations in college and try to solidify themselves as first round prospects for the 2026 draft.

There are also a number of talented young players who are testing the draft waters, but who may opt to return to school. Some of the most notable names on that list include Yaxel Lendeborg (Michigan), Tahaad Pettiford (Auburn), Miles Byrd (San Diego State), Karter Knox (Arkansas), Alex Condon (Florida), and Isaiah Evans (Duke). All of these guys are potential late first round picks who have received invitations to the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago this May, but all could potentially opt to stay at school and receive strong NIL compensation to play for competitive college teams, potentially build their stock to ensure they are first round picks the following year. While there is always the risk of getting injured or tanking your draft stock with a bad season, prospects know that they will still make money, potentially more than they would if the draft doesn’t go well, and that they’ll have options to move to a better situation through the transfer portal if they have a bad season. It will be fascinating to see if these guys stay in the draft, because the middle to end of the first round could look very different if multiple of these players decide to return to school.

Who is getting overlooked?

In the 2006-2015 NBA Drafts, there were 8 NBA All Stars selected in the second round (Paul Millsap (’06), Marc Gasol (’07), DeAndre Jordan (’08), Goran Dragic (’08), Isaiah Thomas (’11), Draymond Green (’12), Khris Middleton (’12), and Nikola Jokic (’14). That isn’t a huge number, and there were certainly far more second round picks who never played a game in the NBA in those drafts, but ultimately there is almost always a player who is a high-level starter for years picked outside the first round, and sometimes a future superstar makes it past the first. So, who will that guy be this year? Well, it’s a really difficult question to answer, and there is not necessarily a consistent pattern. Every one of the players listed had things against them. Their age, their size, a lack of athleticism, other glaring weaknesses, or all of the above. With hindsight, it seems evident that Jokic’s elite feel and basketball IQ should have jumped off the screen, or that Green’s tenacious defense was obviously a first round skill, but at the time, there was no uproar that these guys were going in the second round because it made sense given the knowledge and information that was known about them as prospects.

It is an incredibly fun exercise to try and find hidden gems in the NBA draft, although it is always difficult, and there are some guys in this year’s class who may end up being much better than their projected draft slot. One of those players is San Diego State’s Miles Byrd, a long and athletic guard/wing who has evident elite defensive tools. His offensive game has room to improve, but the defense could easily make him a great player. Chaz Lanier (Tennessee), Tyrese Proctor (Duke), Karter Knox (Arkansas), Maxime Raynaud (Stanford), Alex Condon (Florida), and Boguljub Markovic (Serbia) all look like they might go in the second round, but all have skillsets that may lend themselves to making a splash in the NBA. Lanier and Proctor look like they can be elite shooters in the league, while Knox and Condon could be elite defenders, and Raynaud and Markovic are versatile bigs who stretch defenses. While the second round of the draft is often discarded as unimportant, finding talent on day two in the NBA can keep great teams relevant and can significantly expedite a rebuild for struggling teams. Second round rookies from the 2024 draft like Kyle Filipowski (Jazz), Jaylen Wells (Grizzlies), and Quinten Post (Warriors) have been major contributors for their teams and figure to be part of the longterm plans for each of their organizations. Identifying and drafting these players is crucial to creating and maintaining winning basketball teams in today’s NBA.

Are the kinds of prospects that teams are looking for changing?

In today’s NBA, what is more valuable, amassing stars, or playing good team basketball? While the first is important, recent history, and the financial structure of the league, have indicated that the second definitively outweighs it. What ultimately matters in today’s NBA is having some of the best role players in the league who fit really well around efficient and effective star players. The key is not having any players on the floor who are a liability on either end, and finding players who maximize their teammates. You see it with the last NBA Champion, the Boston Celtics, who have versatile two-way stars in Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Kristaps Porzingis, but also elite role players like Derrick White, Jrue Holliday, Payton Pritchard, and Al Horford, who have versatile, well-rounded skillsets, and make up for any deficiencies with awareness and effort. The same can be said for the best teams in this year’s regular season, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers, who have a multitude of players who can score and defend across different contexts. Meanwhile, the failings of focusing on stars above all were made abundantly clear with the performance of the Phoenix Suns this year, who struggled to win games and finished only 36-46 with three elite talents in Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal on their roster. The Suns roster structure didn’t fail just because it’s bad to prioritize stars though, it was because of the implications of dolling out the vast majority of your payroll to 3 stars without considering fit and team-building more broadly.

The real driver of this shift away from prioritizing stars to an increased focus on role players is financial, and it comes in the form of the NBA’s second salary cap apron. The apron functions to significantly disincentivize teams from spending over a second, higher tier of the salary cap, and penalize them when they do to ensure better competitive balance around the league. This means that paying stars who command massive max contracts comes at a price, and it is imperative to find rotation players on valuable contracts through the draft and free agency to stay competitive. This incentivizes teams to surround a few key stars with versatile mid-tier talent rather than bring in as many stars as possible and throw cheap specialists around them. This has major consequences on the draft, as a prospect being good at a lot of different things is relatively more valuable in comparison to being elite at one or two skills at the expense of all others. With this year’s draft, guys who fit that bill will come off the board high. Bigs like Derik Queen (Maryland) and Danny Wolf (Michigan) who are more comfortable handling the ball and making plays for their teammates are valuable assets, and so are do it all wings like Cooper Flagg (Duke), VJ Edgecombe (Baylor), Nique Clifford (Colorado State), Noa Essengue (France), Carter Bryant (Arizona), and Noah Penda (France). All of these guys have seen their draft stock rise due to versatility. It will be interesting to see where teams start to take shots on prospects with less complete profiles, and how a player being able to fit into a number of different rosters may push them up draft boards.

Who has a weakness that won’t (really) hold them back?

Every year, scouts and decision-makers have to consider player weaknesses in their evaluations and determine the extent to which those weaknesses are likely to hinder a prospect’s NBA game. This is always a valuable exercise, but with certain players, scouts can be right about a weakness they see, but wrong about the degree to which is will actually limit a player’s effectiveness in the league. We’ve seen it with a lot of players. Take a guy like the Houston Rockets’ Amen Thompson, who was projected to be a great NBA defender and athlete who might struggle on offense due to a lack of outside shooting. As projected, Thompson’s three point shooting numbers have been bad, but ultimately, the shooting hasn’t limited him from being an elite role player, because his athleticism and IQ have allowed him to still be an effective offensive player. The same concept can apply to a different style of player like the Orlando Magic’s Franz Wagner. Wagner was scouted as versatile player with great defensive talent and a lot of offensive upside due to his playmaking and ball handling at his size, but someone who would be limited as an interior scorer in the NBA because of his athleticism, despite his good college production in this area. The evaluation of his profile was largely accurate, as Wagner has absolutely shown to be a below average NBA athlete, but the analysis of the implications was not, as he has been a great finisher in the post because of his touch, IQ, and finesse. These are skills that were identified, but thought to possibly not be translatable to the NBA.

In this year’s draft, there are a number of players who present similar questions. As with every year, the number of so called “can’t miss” guys is not a long list, and there are players projected to go in the top 5-10 who warrant major concern about certain weaknesses. Duke Forward Cooper Flagg has a very high floor as the projected number one overall pick, and projected number two pick, Rutgers Guard Dylan Harper is also quite unlikely to be anything worse than a solid starter, but below that, there is significant variance between many of the top prospects ceilings and floors. That conversation really starts with Rutgers forward Ace Bailey, who is big enough, athletic enough, and aggressive enough to be an All-NBA player, but also could be an inefficient role player at his worst if his defensive tools don’t translate to production and his shooting doesn’t live up to the hype. Texas Guard Tre Johnson may end up being the best scorer and shooter in the class, but he also could be a liability on defense who is entirely dependent on his shot falling to be successful. Duke Center Khaman Maluach has incredible size and length, but so far it has not translated to great production on either side of the ball. Illinois Guard Kasparas Jakucionas is a big playmaker who gets a lot of assists, but he also generates far too many turnovers. NBA teams will have to determine if they believe these weaknesses are fixable, or if they are possible to work around through other strengths.