2026 NBA draft thread

[Winter]

I appreciate the info. But let me add a caveat.

From EVERYTHING that I have seen regarding scouting and the NBA draft, all this movement is likely to be way "wrong" (if we're trying to get a prediction of the draft itself). The common theme is that while the scouts and execs do give some consideration to the NCAA Tourney games - and it's a somewhat bigger data point than most of the others - it's not nearly the be-all end-all that the mock draftsters make it out to be. 

The point made over and over is that these are just games. And there have been MANY games this year to look at, in which these players did things. Super important results for the team and the college, but just a few games vs literally dozens before. In addition, draft position transcends game performances - other things are also super important like height, length, wingspan, speed, vertical, age, injuries, work within a team, etc etc, and these are things which in most cases didn't change at all in the NCAA Tourney. 

I suspect some of these players did indeed move to some degree, but maybe not nearly as much as the gurus doing some knee-jerking. For me and you, these games are informative because we may be seeing some of these guys for the 1st time, whereas for the scout and exec, these were just the last game of many views. 

The point being, when we have a mock draft that has shifted considerably in the wake of the NCAA's, we should probably give that mock (and the guy who did it) a major side eye. My 2c.

To your point, all the Michigan players moving up was almost certainly in regard to tournament exposure and nothing else. So yes, people writing these mock drafts aren't really drawing on anything substantially new. Metrics and workouts will change all this again eventually.

They are probably significantly more accurate than they were mid-season, but outside the top four players, there's nothing reliable. Just chit-chat on a message board (and a few more games to add).