2025 NBA mock draft: Gonzaga’s Michael Ajayi rises up big boards

After not appearing in ESPN’s previous mock, Ajayi checked in at No. 36 on the updated big board released hours after the 2024 NBA Draft

Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford

Less than 24 hours since the conclusion of the 2024 NBA Draft, analysts and scouts have already shifted their attention toward next year’s draft. 

In fact, ESPN’s first 2025 mock was published back in February. While much has changed since then throughout the course of high school, grassroots, USA Basketball and college basketball, one player’s draft stock that’s risen considerably over the past few months is Gonzaga’s Michael Ajayi.

Ajayi, whose name didn’t appear in the February mock, checked in at No. 36 on ESPN’s updated big board (ESPN+ exclusive) that featured the top 58 players for the 2025 draft. The 6-foot-7 All-WCC wing is viewed as a legitimate pro prospect heading into his senior year with the Zags following a standout first season of Division-I basketball at Pepperdine in 2023-24, in which Ajayi averaged 17.2 points, 9.9 rebounds and shot 47.0% from 3-point range.

Ajayi parlayed his junior season with a strong showing at the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago, Illinois, this past May. The Kent, Washington, native posted a 34.5-inch max vertical and a 27.0-inch standing vertical in the strength and agility tests and averaged 12.5 points and 7.0 rebounds across two combine scrimmages. 

“He was able to get some great feedback and he was able to get some great experience, going to the combine and then also getting in a bunch of workouts,” Mark Few said of Ajayi. “Now he’s back here and he’s got a couple of practices under his belt, doing great.”

Ajayi burst onto the college basketball scene last year after he starred at Pierce Community College (JUCO) for two seasons, as he earned the 2022 Northwest Athletic Conference West Region's Most Valuable Player and the West Region's Freshman of the Year. He didn’t receive his first Division-I scholarship offer until he caught the attention of former NBA veterans Jamal Crawford and Isiah Thomas at a pro-am event in the Seattle area. Thomas, a former standout at Washington, connected Ajayi with his old college coach Lorenzo Romar, then the coach at Pepperdine, and the rest is history.

Upon withdrawing from the 2024 draft, Ajayi is set to join a loaded Bulldogs squad that despite not having any other players listed in ESPN’s 2025 mock, figures to be a preseason top-10 team. Seven of the top eight scorers are back from last season’s Sweet 16 team, while Few and the coaching staff rounded out the edges in the transfer portal. Along with Ajayi, the Zags added 6-foot-5 grad transfer Khalif Battle from Arkansas and 6-foot-5 defensive specialist Emmanuel Innocenti from Tarleton State.

Colgate transfer Braeden Smith, the reigning Patriot League Player of the Year, also joins the ranks and will redshirt the 2024-25 season.

“I know that Gonzaga has their whole core coming back, but I would be very surprised if [Ajayi] doesn't make like an immediate impact,” Kentwood boys basketball head coach Blake Solomon said. “His ability to stretch the floor and how hard he works and how versatile defensively he is because of how long he is. I don't see how there's not a way he doesn't come in and immediately impact that roster.”