Analyzing Top NBA Draft Prospects After March Madness

What did we learn about the top prospects in the NCAA tournament? Examining Jabari Smith Jr., Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren and Jaden Ivey's NBA draft stock.

With March Madness having come to its riveting, chaotic conclusion and the NBA schedule winding down, we’re drawing closer to full-blown draft season. This NCAA tournament proved to be a better learning opportunity for NBA teams than in years past, with the vast majority of projected first-rounders appearing in at least one tournament game and many making it to the second weekend, including three of the projected top four draft picks.

For a deeper dive into where things stand at the outset of the predraft process, we’ll have a full mock draft update coming next week. For now, here are some notes on the tourney fallout and its implications for our projected top-four prospects.

Jabari Smith Jr., Auburn

Smith’s forgettable showing in Auburn’s second-round upset loss to Miami shouldn’t change his status as the favorite to come off the board at No. 1, although it was disappointing not to see more of him in March. He did more than enough to prove his mettle over the course of the season, frequently showing poise in big moments and the capacity to make big shots late in games. Players who shoot a ton of jumpers, particularly teenage ones, are going to have bad days. And given the special degree of ease with which Smith shoots the ball at his size, nobody is going to ask him to stop. Not many players of any age or size enter the NBA with Smith’s mechanical consistency and ability to balance himself and rise up over defenders: he happens to be 18 years old and stand a legitimate 6' 10”. He doesn’t have the guard skills Kevin Durant had at Texas, but he does have an incredible, translatable strength in that jumper, and couples it with defensive effort and a fierce competitive spirit.

It’s not a secret that Auburn’s guard play was erratic over the course of the season, but Smith still found ways to be effective most of the time. As a result, it was sometimes tricky for the Tigers to manufacture easy shots for him, and those issues manifested in a high-pressure Miami game. Smith primarily plays off one or two dribbles at this stage and was encouraged all season to isolate and take the shots he’s always been comfortable taking in the mid-post. Auburn played to win games and played to his strengths. While it’s a fair critique that he didn’t get to the rim much and has to improve his interior finishing, Smith should be able to get much stronger and will be encouraged to expand that part of his game in the pros. Pair him with a creative coach and quality passers in the NBA, and his upside as an offensive weapon remains pretty immense.

Looking past the ugly shooting numbers from the Miami game, Smith still showcased his underrated passing vision and never-say-die nature over the course of that one, battling defensively and not wavering in confidence. The consistency with which he contributes to winning, even on a poor shooting night, bodes extremely well, particularly for 18 years old. There will be a learning curve in some respects, but even in a future where Smith never learns to play off more than two dribbles, he should still be able to score at a high level and knock down shots most NBA players can’t, and coupled with his defense and room to improve athletically, it’s hard to see him failing. The fact Smith is seven months younger than Banchero and an entire year younger than Holmgren—wielding a caliber of shooting skill that has a chance to be truly elite—isn’t lost on NBA decision-makers. My read on this situation hasn’t changed, and he will remain the top prospect on my board barring any surprises.

Paolo Banchero, Duke

Jim Dedmon/USA TODAY Sports

Banchero was ultimately able to answer many of the lingering questions that surrounded his uneven season, leading Duke to the Final Four and stringing together a series of positive performances. While it’s not necessarily likely that he’s the No. 1 pick, his play served as a good reminder of his key selling points: wielding a unique combination of strength and fluid coordination, Banchero can make defenses pay as a scorer and playmaker, and he can do that while operating in tight spaces. After his jumper disappeared for a few days at the ACC tournament, it was highly encouraging Banchero looked much more confident in his shot, hitting multiple threes in four of five NCAA tournament games and performing better at the foul line.

As has been the case for most of the season, the two biggest question marks remain the consistency of Banchero’s jump shot, which he’ll have to work hard at to maximize his star potential, and his individual and team defense, a major determinant in stabilizing his floor. His attentiveness and lack of urgency chasing rebounds and mixing it up inside will have to improve, and he’s been critiqued by some for not putting his physical gifts to full use on that side of the ball. Nobody would confuse Banchero for a rim protector at this point, but simply turning himself into a net zero on that end would enhance his ability to impact winning. Duke successfully paired him with Mark Williams this season, but there were times late in games when Williams had to sub out in order to free up space for Banchero to operate. Landing on a rebuilding team with a capable stretch five already in place would be an ideal situation.

When Banchero’s shot is falling, he’s capable of anchoring an offense and playing team-first basketball in a high usage role. His passing ability creates a pathway to big upside, and high-lottery teams in search of an immediate offensive fulcrum will presumably covet him. Clearly, Banchero is the most offensively polished of the projected top four prospects, although many scouts feel he still needs to simplify his game a bit more at times; his tendency to overdribble occasionally leads to avoidable mistakes. He proved capable of stepping up for Duke in big moments and ultimately looked like the player teams hoped to see after his early-season play. Banchero is pretty clearly going to be a good NBA player, and while he may not go No. 1, he won’t have to wait long.

Chet Holmgren, Gonzaga

Gonzaga’s three-game run as the tournament’s top overall seed was disappointing, and no matter what you think of the way games were officiated, it would be hard to argue Holmgren played particularly well. He was hampered by questionable foul calls in Gonzaga’s loss to Arkansas, but also got away with a lot of physical play in their close win over Memphis: it probably means little, but it’s at least noteworthy that Holmgren had fouled out just once all season (in a Feb. 26 loss to Saint Mary’s) before doing it in his final two college games. For the most part, when he was on the floor, Holmgren sprinkled in his usual positive plays in the flow of the game and turned in a workmanlike effort in what was briefly a scary spot for the Zags against 16-seed Georgia State.

NBA teams have now had a full season to look at Holmgren, and while the range of opinions on him remains fairly wide, I do think he’s mostly done what he can to assuage his critics, many of whom still have a hard time wrapping their head around the potentially massive variable of whether his lithe body type will allow him to reach his considerable potential. If you look at all things equal, Holmgren’s all-around basketball talent has a case as the most attractive in the draft. It’s reasonable to expect he’ll be a consistent three-point shooter (he shot 39% on the year from deep, but interestingly just 25% against KenPom Tier A teams). He should have a presence protecting the basket, with great length and the capacity to move his feet and alter shots, though opponents have frequently had success driving into his chest, bumping him back and then finishing over him. Those two key strengths, in conjunction with his passing and however functional his handle becomes, create a sensible value floor as a defensive anchor who can operate away from the basket, play with teammates and open up space.

Perhaps the biggest lingering question teams still have surrounds Holmgren’s now-established tendency to fade from games as a scorer, particularly when facing teams with the size and physicality to make his life difficult. It’s a key distinction that this discussion centers less on the quantitative rankings of the teams he faced and more on the caliber of personnel he directly matched up with in those games. It’s also important to note that Gonzaga never made a point of playing through him all that much, relying on Drew Timme and Andrew Nembhard to anchor the offense. This is something teams have to parse. At times, there was a definite lack of scoring aggression on Holmgren’s part, and his average foot speed and below-average strength does raise the question of how consistently he’ll create good shots for himself, and where those looks are going to come from. In high school he flashed some mid-range shooting ability that rarely cropped up in college. He’s shown he can catch lobs when he has space, but likely isn’t going to be a post-up threat.

While his NBA role will likely take more advantage of his passing skills and let him play more of a two-man, ball-screen oriented game, for evaluation purposes it may be safest to assume that the diet of shots we’ve seen from Holmgren as a scorer is what we’ll get. That still makes him a unique defense-first prospect with offensive upside, but that skill set still renders him more or less a true big on offense (and somewhat ironically so, considering the hype around his ball skills and perimeter game that cropped up back in high school). The nature of how Holmgren actually played this season—and the way physical teams like Memphis and Arkansas were able to make his life tricky—does lend credence to the long-standing concerns over his physical adjustment. Skinny players have certainly succeeded in the NBA before, but the nature of what Holmgren does and doesn’t do well at this stage is almost inextricable from his build, which is what has made him so successful, yet also would seem to play a big factor in his struggles to impose himself as a scorer when contending with bigger and taller players. We shouldn’t expect him to carry anyone’s offense, and I’d still be surprised if he’s the No. 1 pick in the end, but his unique abilities will put him in the discussion for some teams, and his rookie year should be fascinating.

Jaden Ivey, Purdue

Benny Sieu/USA TODAY Sports

For all the goodwill Ivey built up early in the tournament, including what I felt was his most complete game of the season against Texas, Purdue’s season ended in the Sweet 16 with a shocking upset against Saint Peter’s, and Ivey regressing to poor form. He mustered just nine points on 12 shots, turned the ball over six times, and failed to register a block or a steal, struggling with defensive coverages against a hot but less talented opponent. And whatever the reason—whether he was checked out, whether the Peacocks had an immaculate game plan, or whether there was something else going on entirely—Ivey followed up his best game with one of his worst, illustrating why some scouts find the prospect of drafting him early a bit scary.

The book on defending Ivey has been out for a while: get back on defense, wall up at the free throw line, try to force him into split decisions and keep him out of the paint. It’s also understood among NBA teams that Purdue’s deployment of a center in the paint at all times and insistence on playing through the post inhibited Ivey’s ability to get into the paint as much as he maybe should have. He sometimes vacillates between sitting back and being too cool, and being wild and overly aggressive. He can really defend the ball when he tries, but often doesn’t try enough. How you feel about him going into the draft may depend on what day you saw him play, but the Saint Peter’s game was a stark reminder of just how far Ivey has to go to be a reliable lead guard in the NBA.

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Ivey still figures to be the first guard drafted, and there’s been some thought that he could rise as high as No. 2, depending on which teams need guards—his athletic tools, size and open-court speed are all off the charts, and the upside is pretty obvious. He should be able to get loose in space and score more easily in the free-flowing NBA game, and whichever rebuilding team drafts him will likely empower him to do that. His path to stardom may be more in the Donovan Mitchell sense than the De’Aaron Fox sense, and he still has to improve quite a bit as a jump shooter to be a consistent off-ball threat, but a team that feels like it can bring the best out of him and understands the concerns could feasibly take him pretty early. And Ivey’s poised, unselfish showing against Texas, in which he made several astonishing passes and closed the game with a pair of late threes, will stand as a big plus on his ledger. The tournament may have been a reality check for Ivey’s draft stock, but his predraft process—particularly his interviews and interactions with lottery teams hoping to understand his personality—should be a bigger determinant on when and where he lands.

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