The Athletic

Are you watching the NBA Finals? Are you watching them and thinking about what they might mean for this year’s draft? We’re in a little bit of a weird place, right? The consensus top three players are fours and fives, but all the value is in big wings. Unlike a year ago, there isn’t an easy pathway to sorting out the top of the draft based on positional value. That ballhandling, playmaking 6-foot-7 wing every team craves isn’t out there at the top of this draft, which takes place June 23. Maybe a Cade Cunningham or Scottie Barnes is hiding in the weeds, but if so, it’s much less obvious this time around. Similarly, we have some good bigs in this draft, but we don’t have an Evan Mobley type, whose switchability is so obvious that it would allay concerns about the decreasing value of centers in the postseason. Conversely, in a world where either having a P.J. Tucker-type body or just being a 6-6 guy who doesn’t suck has exponentially more value in the games that matter most, a lot of energy must necessarily tilt toward finding those types of players in the draft.