Sports Illustrated

It’s been about six weeks since the last mock draft and quite a bit has happened as we near the midway point of college basketball season. This is a good checkpoint to take the temperature of the 2022 draft, which is a little more than six months out if things stay on schedule. Right now, teams mostly feel comfortable with the very top of the draft, where Jabari Smith, Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren, Johnny Davis and Jaden Ivey have all made convincing cases for themselves as high-quality prospects. To me, Smith is the draft’s top prospect, though there’s still debate around the NBA on that front. But after those five names, the shape of the draft itself gets muddier: many prospects, particularly the younger ones, have underperformed or feel unproven. NBA teams have a sense of what the options are, but things may look much different a month or two from now. Per usual, this exercise serves as a gauge of how the NBA broadly views prospects in the present moment. The mock draft is based heavily on intel and conversations with executives, scouts and others around the NBA, as well as my own evaluations of each prospect, which in many cases date back several years between in-person viewings and film review. The closer we get to the draft lottery, the more team needs come into play, but the matter of fit isn’t worth seriously worrying about until after the NBA’s Feb. 10 trade deadline has passed