Simulating Potential 2023 NBA Drafts for the OKC Thunder

With the 2023 NBA Draft on the horizon, mock drafts continue to flood social media, so we turned to a simulator to narrow down the options.

The NBA Draft is on the horizon and people are constantly attempting to determine who each team will land in their respective spots.

Mock drafts continue to be updated and prospects continue to work out for teams, attempting to raise their draft stock one more time before draft night.

Mock drafts have narrowed down possible picks for the Thunder in the draft, but a consensus is not known, so we turned to the Fanspo mock draft simulator.

Before getting into the results, here’s how it works: the mock draft simulator allows you to select which Big Board to use. For this, we used ESPN’s. You choose how the AI drafts from three choices: standard, team need and chaos. We used standard in this scenario as it’s likely the most accurate. The simulator does not predict any draft day trades that could take place.

For this article we ran the simulator for the full draft three times with a standard draft style and one time based on team need.

Here is how the drafts shook out:

Standard Draft 1:

The first draft eventually turned out to be the most un-chalk of the three runs of the simulator, based on other mock drafts and player rankings.

Oklahoma City came on the clock with one of the top 3-point shooters remaining on the board, but ended up selecting Dereck Lively Jr. a center out of Duke. Lively has typically been projected outside of the lottery, however OKC does need a big and Lively has good potential to be a talented player at the next level.

The 13th pick ended up being Kansas guard Gradey Dick, who is another player who OKC could use for his shooting ability. Other out of the ordinary selections from the lottery included Brandon Miller slipping to fifth overall.

With the 37th pick the Thunder grabbed Santa Clara guard Brandin Podziemski. At 37 he presents great value as he has worked himself into a projected first round pick.

The 50th pick gives OKC a chance to select a project player who may be slightly older or more raw, but has abilities to fill a need. In this first simulation the Thunder’s draft ended with the selection of Ryan Kalkbrenner, the center from Creighton.

Second Standard Draft:

This draft overall was more chalk, at least in the lottery and most of the first round. The Thunder’s selection came with likely a more accurate remaining board and it ended with the AI selecting Kentucky guard Cason Wallace.

Wallace would give OKC another ball handling guard off of the bench and possibly a future starter. The AI showed some of its colors in terms of who it likes for OKC as it again selected Podziemski at pick No. 37.

With the No. 50 pick the simulator went a different route than the first simulation though it was along the same idea. The simulation selected 6-foot-8 forward Kobe Brown from Missouri. Brown was a dominant scorer at Missouri and could bring talent to the end of the OKC roster.

Standard Draft Three:

The theme of big bodies in the second round with a guard in the first continued in this simulation.

The Thunder added a national champion in UConn guard Jordan Hawkins. Hawkins is another one of the options national mock drafts have had OKC select through their sites. He would give OKC a talented guard who can facilitate the offense and make plays.

In the second round, the Thunder were unable to select Podziemski as he was selected in the first round of this simulation. Instead OKC grabbed Belmont forward Ben Sheppard.

The Thunder then selected Ryan Kalkbrenner, again with the 50th pick.

Team Need draft:

Out of curiosity of how it weighed team needs, and the lengths the computer would go, we decided to test out the team need style of simulation, and we weren't disappointed.

Zach Edey and Ryan Kalkbrenner were drafted back-to-back at No. 15 and 16 despite both being late second round projections. Oscar Tshiebwe also found himself in round one of the projection.

For OKC the computer grabbed Anthony Black at No. 12, who OKC would love to see fall to them.

Round two the simulator stuck to its guns and drafted bigs. At 37th, the Thunder got Liam Robbins from Vanderbilt and at 50 they drafted Jamarion Sharp from Western Kentucky.

While the players changed through simulations the strategy produced remained consistent. The Thunder needs size and guard depth. 

---

Want to join the discussion? Like Inside the Thunder on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest Thunder news. You can also meet the team behind the coverage.