Yesterday Cooper Flagg announced he would be declaring for the NBA draft this upcoming year and turning down the $4.8 million from Duke to return. During the 2024-25 college season the 6 foot 9 in freshman averaged 19.2 points along with 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game. He led his team to being a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Along with that, he won the Naismith Player of the Year, ACC Player of the Year, ACC Rookie of the Year, First Team All-American, and the winner Wooden Award. He is currently the #1 prospect in the draft and for good reason, He’s only 18 years old and was the best player of the year in all of college basketball.
After the end of the NBA season, there will be a lottery held for the first overall pick. The bottom 14 teams in the league will all have a chance to get the #1 overall pick with the best odds going to the 3 worst teams. This year the Jazz Wizards and Hornets were the worst teams and each have a 14% chance of getting the first overall pick.
After Flagg picks two and three are both projected to be the Rutgers star freshmen Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey. Dylan Harper the 6’6″ freshman averaged 19.4 points and 4 assists but did not have a lot of team success. Ace Bailey averaged 17.6 points and 7 rebounds as a freshman.
Following these 3 there is a slight drop of to the next few picks but there is still plenty of talent to be drafted. With a combination of high-scoring guards, dominant big men, and elite defenders and playmakers throughout the draft board. This year’s class is expected to have one of the highest amounts of freshmen taken in this year’s draft. Over the next few weeks, more and more players will start declaring for the draft or choosing to stay bak in college for another year. With NIL being available more players are staying in college to get more money than they would get for being drafted. After the end of the season we will start to see more teams making trades to acquire picks in this year’s draft or trade up for a better pick.
