2019 NBA Draft Board Tiers 1–3

8 min readJun 19, 2019

This is not a mock draft. It’s my big board — a ranking of draft-eligible players roughly in the order I estimate their talent level/usefulness to NBA teams. As a point of emphasis, tiers are more important than rankings within tiers. The tier labels correspond primarily to perceived upside value — as opposed to a player’s floor. Of course, some players will invariably play above or below the tiers as I’ve constructed them. Hopefully, I am within +/- 1 tier when it’s all said and done! I wish I had time to write up more than these little blurbs, but hopefully, my thoughts will be somewhat useful to you — and perhaps, different in some little way from other draft profiles you’ve read. At the end of each prospect blurb I give subjective rankings in the following 10 offensive and defensive categories that I find useful to think about (scale is 1–5 for each):

Offense

Spacer — ability to space the floor (“gravity”) with shooting off the dribble or on the move.
Facilitator — ability to run an offense or keep an offense flowing (ball stopping dribble pounders will have low scores here).
Creator — ability to create shots off the dribble, coming off screens, rolling to the basket, cutting, etc.
Finisher — ability to finish shots, regardless of shot location (but taking into account relative efficiencies of 3pt vs 2pt, layups vs mid-range, etc).
Rebounder — should be self-explanatory

Defense

Stopper — point of attack defense, penetration stopper.
Protector — rim protector + ability to hold position in paint and keep opposing big men from establishing deep position.
Exploder — (“play exploder”) ability to deflect passes, create turnovers off-ball, generally wreak havoc on opposing offenses
Extender — (“play extender”) ability to switch, hard closeouts to the 3pt line, team defense
Rebounder — self-explanatory

Tier 1 — All-NBA/MVP

1 Zion Williamson — Duke — 18y11mo

As evidenced by the above tweet I had to struggle to come up with anything negative to say about Zion this season. He’s simply an incredible prospect. The crazy thing is that I actually think he might be a better basketball player than people give him credit for — as opposed to seeing him purely as a uniquely gifted athletic specimen, which he absolutely is, of course. I think he will go as far as his basketball IQ and conditioning/health takes him because I’m pretty sure about everything else. This is as easy a number 1 pick as it gets.

Spacer — 3 Facilitator — 4 Creator — 5 Finisher — 5 Rebounder — 4
Stopper — 5 Protector — 4 Exploder — 5 Extender — 4 Rebounder — 4

Tier 2 — All-Stars

2 R.J. Barrett — Duke — 19y0mo

I think Barrett ends up quite a bit better than Wiggins — even if he disappoints me. Barrett is a bit like Marvin Bagley last year — not physically, please hear me out — in the sense that even though both are player archetypes I’m typically not enamored with, there is no denying the productivity — at least, in terms of bucket-getting. I think Barrett showed more passing ability than I expected as the season progressed to the point where I think that will eventually be a considerable strength of his. I suspect his first few seasons in the league will be about him proving he’s “the man”, but my hope is he continues to develop the rest of his game — because I think lurking underneath the bravado and killer instinct is a pretty talented and smart player.

Spacer —3 Facilitator — 3 Creator — 4 Finisher — 5 Rebounder — 3
Stopper — 3 Protector — 2 Exploder — 3 Extender — 4 Rebounder — 3

3 Jarrett Culver — Texas Tech — 20y3mo

Statistically, and perhaps, in some other ways, Culver is eerily similar to ET — but that doesn’t doom him necessarily. Culver is a smooth, if not an explosive athlete who has an uncanny ability to slither through and carve up defenses — especially adept at using picks for his size. In some ways, he’s a bit like a bigger more wingy version of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. I’m not exactly sure how it will play out for Culver at the next level, but after a few months of falling out of love with him, I think I’m back to seeing All-Star upside if he hits on his shooting. Regardless, he should provide legit value on both ends of the court during the regular season and Playoffs.

Spacer — 3 Facilitator — 4 Creator — 3 Finisher — 4 Rebounder — 3
Stopper — 4 Protector — 3 Exploder — 4 Extender — 5 Rebounder — 3

4 Darius Garland — Vanderbilt — 19y4mo

Let me get this out of the way…I have a Warriors bias going on here for two reasons: 1) Garland’s dad Winston played for the Warriors when I was a kid. 2) I can’t help but think about Steph when I watch Darius on and off the court. Darius is a super skilled and super-cute babyface assassin with a killer personality just like Steph! Ok, ok. I’ll stop. But seriously, I get all the reasons people have not to be high on DG. He could definitely fail to live up to being a top 5 pick. But in this draft, which feels really weak to me, I think you have to place some high variance bets, and Garland just feels like one of the better ones to make with his general skill level. If I’m a real GM, maybe I don’t make this pick, but I’m a fake GM, so here we are.

Spacer — 5 Facilitator — 4 Creator — 5 Finisher — 4 Rebounder — 1
Stopper — 1 Protector — 1 Exploder — 2 Extender — 2 Rebounder — 1

5 Ja Morant — Murray St — 19y10mo

Given that Ja is likely to be the #2 pick, I think I don’t need to explain much more. I guess I’m not quite as high on him as the consensus, because I’m not sure his shooting ever reaches truly elite levels, but he can be a star regardless given his vision, playmaking ability, handles and general athletic goodness — the latter may be a bit overrated but still seems quite considerable to my eyes. Hopefully, he gains a bit more strength.

Spacer — 4 Facilitator — 5 Creator — 5 Finisher — 5 Rebounder — 1
Stopper — 1 Protector — 1 Exploder — 2 Extender — 2 Rebounder — 1

Tier 3 — High-End Starters

6 Jontay Porter—Missouri — 19y7mo

If you follow me at all, you know I absolutely hate Jontay Porter. What a dick.

Ok, so here’s the thing. Jontay’s a mess right now. His injuries have injuries. But I absolutely love Jontay’s basketball talent — especially his ability to make plays and handle the ball for his size. I decided that I’m just going to rank him as high as I reasonably could even despite all his myriad injury issues. I would have ranked Jontay 5 or 6 in last year’s stacked draft, so in the end, it’s pretty easy for me to put him here. There’s no chance a sane GM would take him this high, but this slot just reflects where his talent level is for me. You can discount him as far down as you want for injury reasons, but if he ever does get fully healthy and fit — great news to hear he measured at 8.5% BF at the Combine — he’ll be a winning player for a very lucky team. He does so many things right.

Spacer — 5 Facilitator — 5 Creator — 3 Finisher — 3 Rebounder — 3
Stopper — 2 Protector — 4 Exploder — 3 Extender — 3 Rebounder — 3

7 Grant Williams — Tennessee — 20y6mo

Grant is like a shorter chiseled football player version of Jontay that isn’t quite as talented in any one area. But that still makes him good enough to be up this high. He’s a winning player and bonus he’s a fairly young Junior — for example, he’s a couple of months younger than P.J. Washington. Right now Grant is not much of a 3pt shooter but given his FT% and touch I think that will come in time.

Spacer — 3 Facilitator — 4 Creator — 4 Finisher — 3 Rebounder — 4
Stopper — 3 Protector — 4 Exploder — 3 Extender — 4 Rebounder — 4

8 Goga Bitadze — Buducnost — 19y10mo

I started doing research on Goga last year when I thought he was going to be in the 2018 Draft. At this point he just feels like one of those no-brainer Euro bigs that will probably be drafted like 10–15 slots below where he should be. When he fully matures he’s probably going to anchor a defense and stretch the floor a bit. I don’t know if he’s a Gasol or a Jokic or even a Nurkic, but he’s probably something — and have I told you this is a weak draft?

Spacer — 4 Facilitator — 3 Creator — 3 Finisher — 4 Rebounder — 5
Stopper — 3 Protector — 5 Exploder — 3 Extender — 4 Rebounder — 5

9 Chuma Okeke — Auburn — 20y10mo

Admittedly, Chuma did not get on my radar until maybe a month or two before the Tourney this year, but he quickly rose in my personal rankings once he did. Not sure if he’s a big wing or a small big, but he checks a lot of boxes — shooting, passing, some ball handling ability, team defense. It’s unfortunate that he had a major injury a few months before the Draft and may miss his entire rookie season, but like Jontay, I’m really just ranking him based on talent. You can apply your own injury discounting from here.

Spacer — 4 Facilitator — 4 Creator — 3 Finisher — 4 Rebounder — 3
Stopper — 3 Protector — 3 Exploder — 3 Extender — 4 Rebounder — 3

10 Jaxson Hayes — Texas — 19y0mo

Jaxson Hayes was kind of the hipster #DraftTwitter pick early in the NCAA season this year, but for legit reasons. He has a great athletic profile, requisite size and huge football-catching able hands. I’m not sure about the rest of his game — I’m openly skeptical about his passing ability — but the good stuff is good enough to squelch those doubts and take him here.

Spacer — 2 Facilitator — 1 Creator — 2 Finisher — 5 Rebounder — 5
Stopper—3 Protector — 5 Exploder — 2 Extender — 4 Rebounder — 5

11 Nicolas Claxton — Georgia — 20y2mo

https://twitter.com/thecity2/status/1094273013850071041

If Jaxson Hayes was the hipster pick early in the season, Claxton might be that guy now. As the above tweet shows, I was in on Claxton before he started gaining much Draft momentum. Although similarly sized to Hayes they are very different players and prospects. Claxton is kind of a weirdo big who was asked to basically run the offense at Georgia (weird!). Of course, he won’t be responsible for running an offense in the NBA, but the fact that he can do a lot of different things is super intriguing to me. On defense, he kind of reminds me of a Kevon Looney — who by the way, was a considerably high ranked prospect at UCLA before serious injury (and asthma) questions arose. I’m glad Claxton ended up declaring, now he has to prove me right!

Spacer — 3 Facilitator — 3 Creator — 3 Finisher — 4 Rebounder — 4
Stopper — 4 Protector — 4 Exploder — 3 Extender — 4 Rebounder — 4