Kings Take Kentucky Big Man in 2025 NBA Mock Draft

The way-too-early mock draft has Sacramento continuing a trend of being called the "Kentucky Kings."

Habits can be good or bad - the Sacramento Kings have both. However, most Kings fans would agree that one of their good ones is their tendency to pool together players from one college - Kentucky.

Amazingly, there are four Kentucky players on the roster - 1 in the G League - playing for the Kings. G De'Aaron Fox and G Malik Monk were two that actually played together at UK in the 2016-17 season, while F Trey Lyles also attended two years earlier.

Beyond them, F Skal Labissière is rostered to the Stockton Kings and dominating in the G League. His high-level performance in Stockton earned him honors to the recently played Up Next Game at All-Star Weekend.

The Kings have found a system - so why break it? An early ESPN 2025 mock draft has the Kings taking another player from Kentucky with the 44th pick.

Deepening the big man rotation, ESPN projects the Sacramento Kings to select Aaron Bradshaw, a 7'1" freshman. Starting half his games, the 19-year-old is yielding 5.1 points and 3.7 rebounds on 54.7% shooting in 16.2 minutes per game.

Managing a foot injury to start the season, Bradshaw has not exactly been operating at the level he was expected to in the twenty games he's played. In a monstrous 2023 recruiting class, Bradshaw was ranked 4. 

Bradshaw clearly shows potential despite his stats and could become a rim protector that the Kings struggle with. ESPN is predicting that he will stay another year, which would give him another year of development under John Calipari to ultimately hone the skills he has and fulfill his potential.

However, there is also a slim chance he will become a King. 2025 is still a long way away - the Kings will more than likely have some big roster changes this offseason and will potentially have even more during the 2024-25 season. 

This draft also assumes that the Kings lose their first-round pick in 2025. This is due to the Kings trading away a 2024 first-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks when they acquired G Kevin Huerter in 2022. This pick had lottery protection, meaning if the Kings missed the playoffs and entered the draft lottery, they would retain their pick and it would be given to Atlanta the following year instead. ESPN believes that the Kings will miss this year's playoffs essentially.

Ultimately, a way-too-early 2025 mock draft is just that - too early. It will come down to many factors across a 30-team league, and needs will change. However, if the Kings were to somehow draft Aaron Bradshaw, it would prove at least one thing: the Kentucky Kings are a valid conspiracy to have.

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