first, thanks for clicking!

second, it's been a decent 2 months since I last posted, been absolutely swamped at work with the NBA playoffs. but when those ping pong balls start rolling around, so do the neurons in my brain. I absolutely had to do a serious first round mock before the order was known, because it's so much more fun with that element randomness.

a couple things about this mock: I think for the most part, the way it turned out is only about 60-70% true to my isolated, vacuum prospect rankings. as you know, things get really weird in every draft past a certain point. my process with these is to truly approach like it a real draft. the teams don't know what the other teams will do. they have a board, and make decisions on who to pick based on a million other factors. all this to say, really, don't be annoying: this is just my process, just my own thoughts and evaluations.

and lastly, this body section is the only chance I have to explain my thoughts on players who did not end up on this mock! the biggest asterisk there is that I'm treating a lot of guys who have commit to a school and aren't publicly participating in the draft process as completely withdrawn. this includes Ian Jackson and guys in those kinds of situations.

but more interestingly, I wanna talk about guys that missed the first round because I didn't pick them! for example, Nolan Traore misses the first round entirely here, which is CRAZY, because I am personally a huge Traore Truther! but it just turned out the way it did, I guess. some other guys I think I'd normally have higher but missed the cut here are Bogoljub Markovic, Neoklis Avdalas (still not in the system, ugh), Hansen Yang, Liam McNeeley, Ben Saraf, and Hugo Gonzalez. each I've mocked in the first round plenty of times, but not today! just wasn't the direction I decided to go.

as for the reverse, guys who I think are higher than most would expect: Nique Clifford, because, well, you're probably well aware of my evaluation on him. or maybe not at all, that's also much more likely and completely valid lol. Labaron Philon ended up far higher than where I individually rank him. Danny Wolf snuck into the first round, which I also don't totally love but kinda just happened. Joan Beringer is quite high, but from all the intel I've observed, NBA teams in more-or-less that range view him as a top 20-25 type prospect. re: Jon Givony's insider sources and a few others. Kam Jones also pretty high here, but I don't know. OKC is kind of a team that I think can be expected to do some weird stuff.

some other random late first guys I have previously drafted in older first round mocks but simply didn't here: Chaz Lanier, Adou Thiero, Dink Pate, Tyrese Proctor, Jamir Watkins, and Sergio de Larrea.

and as for my favorite parts of this mock draft, the most fun parts, the picks I think are amazing fits and exciting for the league: you just have to read the analysis! that's where all my hard work and passion is.

thanks again for reading! let's talk basketball in the comments, I wanna hear your thoughts, where you agree, disagree, or anything else. just don't be a dick lol.