On our final daily podcast before the summer break, Matt Jones and Anthony Kristensen discuss Arkansas’ latest basketball schedule additions, and take one more look back at the run to the College World Series. 

You can subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify or YouTube. It publishes each weekday.

WATCH: 

One of the stranger media beefs in recent memory came after The Ringer’s Bill Simmons went after Meadowlark Media’s Pablo Torre for Torre’s reporting on Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson. And while Katie Nolan has guested on Simmons’ podcast (and vice versa) in the past, she’s more regularly appeared on Pablo Torre Finds Out, and made it clear she was “Torre ’til I die” in this feud in conversation with Dan Le Batard earlier this month. But now, Nolan has explained in more detail just why she’s siding with Torre over Simmons.

To recap, Simmons started the media beef by saying, “I’ve never seen anybody dine on a stupider story for a week and a half while pretending you’re a journalist,” about Torre’s Belichick/Hudson reporting,. Torre took note of Simmons’ criticism, and after some social media back-and-forth, including sending Simmons an invite to appear on PTFO, appeared on Simmons’ podcast within two days.

That appearance saw many conclude that Torre won the dispute, with the two men having a largely-amicable conversation. But Torre’s points judged to hold up better. Nolan finds herself in that camp, doubling down on her initial June 4 comments to Le Batard in a conversation on the latest PTFO episode:

“I picked you, it wasn’t like…there was no hesitation. He didn’t even listen to the episode! I listened to it back and I was like ‘Bro, come on.’ …[Pablo] was out there in LA, so he did Simmons’ podcast, refuting Simmons saying that it was whatever, sh*tty reporting or whatever. And basically during the episode, he was like, ‘Have you listened to any of the episodes that the aggregated comments you’re referring to are coming from?’ And Simmons was like ‘What I’d like to talk about instead is…’”

“It was skillful move by Bill,” Torre interjected.

“No, it was not! Immediately, you could see right through it. ‘So no then, Bill?’” Nolan replied

After Nolan’s Simmons remark, Torre apologizes to her for “getting you sucked into a larger internet happening in which you were asked questions like ‘Which side are you on.’” He then plays the clip of her on Le Batard’s show from earlier this month. And that’s where Nolan drops the new comments in response.

To be fair, it is possible to accurately comment on clips from longer projects; if it wasn’t, both Simmons’ and Torre’s shows would likely get significantly less attention given the length of their episodes. But Nolan is right that Simmons’ approach here, especially in his podcast with Torre, saw him bringing up things that were addressed elsewhere in Torre’s shows, and that’s far from ideal.

Some of the times where Simmons has wound up facing significant criticism have come when he tosses off an “in the moment” take or two on a subject without fully researching it. That’s come up several times, perhaps most notably with his discussion of the George Floyd protests with Ryen Russillo in 2020, but also with a factually incorrect comment on ESPN’s NBA broadcasts this year, a “F**k Jalen Green” line in a discussion about NBA awards voting (Simmons remains a voter for those awards), and much more.

The dust-up with Torre seems like another example of that, with Simmons getting mad about the part he did see, seemingly not checking out the whole context, and then winding up not being able to contest Torre much as a result.

Fox Sports commentators Nick Wright said Fever G Caitlin Clark is “already more famous than every NBA player” except Suns F Kevin Durant, Warriors G Stephen Curry and Lakers F LeBron James. Wright, on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd,” asked if after Curry and James retire, “will there be an active American athlete that’s more famous than her?” He said she will be “more famous than every baseball player” — and “might already be” — and noted she’s more famous than “every hockey player.” Cowherd called her the Tiger Woods “of 20 years ago on tour.” Cowherd: “She’s literally changing the entire league economy” (“The Herd with Colin Cowherd”, FS1, 6/17).

STAR POWER: In S.F., Mia Wachtel wrote “fans flocked” from across the West Coast to come to S.F. and watch Clark and the Fever play the Valkyries in Chase Center for the very first time. And making “no apologies, many in attendance, while harboring enormous pride in the Bay Area’s expansion team, came for Clark.” Fans “were not shy to compare Clark to NBA legends Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry, who often draws a lot of physical defense on the court” (S.F. CHRONICLE, 6/19). In S.F., Ann Killion wrote “this was a game circled as soon as the Valkyries’ schedule came out.” Back then, “one had to wonder what the crowd would be like: would the newish Valkyries fans be drowned by legions of Clark devotees?” Killion noted “absolutely not.” The sell-out Chase Center crowd of 18,064, as it has at every game, “welcomed the opponents with warm applause.” But when the ball tipped, it was a “highly partisan Valkyries crowd.” She noted the scene before the game was “a bit reminiscent of what it’s like for another superstar shooter at Chase.” A crowd gathered in the stands to watch Clark drain threes in her warmups. Curry was not in the arena; he is on vacation. But Warriors coach Steve Kerr, GM Mike Dunleavy and other members of the Warriors organization were in attendance (S.F. CHRONICLE, 6/19).

On today’s podcast, Matt Jones and Anthony Kristensen discuss Arkansas’ heartbreaking season-ending 6-5 loss to LSU in the College World Series semifinal.

You can subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify or YouTube. It publishes each weekday.

WATCH: 

I’ve been evaluating NBA Draft prospects professionally for a decade now, first at CBS Sports and now at The Athletic. Because we’re coming up on a nice round number, and because Duke forward Cooper Flagg projects as one of the truly elite prospects over that period, I decided to look back at the 20 prospects over the last decade who received the highest grades from me before the draft.

This was a fun exercise, and one that I learned a lot from. Among my top-10 prospects, excluding Flagg, seven of the nine have gone on to become All-Stars. Of the 18 prospects listed who have played in the NBA, 12 have made an All-Star game, and I’d expect Chet Holmgren to join that group in the coming seasons. That’s not a bad hit rate for choosing the elite of the elite.

And yet, I’m hard on myself as an evaluator and constantly try to learn from mistakes. I probably was not quite as certain as I could have been over my first five years and think I have gotten drastically better over the last two years. Largely, that’s because I’ve learned from my errors.

One lesson that popped up for me during this process: If you have questions about a player’s competitiveness, drive or off-court character, you should listen to those. Many of the players below who have abbreviated peaks or never hit their expected level had some sort of problem with those factors. Once you get drafted highly, the job isn’t finished. You need to continue to improve; otherwise the rest of the league will catch up.

A few notes:

• The first draft featured here is 2015, and players from the 2025 NBA Draft, including Flagg and Dylan Harper, are included.
• The best grades on my board to not make it onto the list? Jahlil Okafor, D’Angelo Russell, James Wiseman, Anthony Edwards, Jalen Green and R.J. Barrett. The big miss there is obviously Edwards, who went No. 1 in 2020. I was too skeptical of his ability to consistently create rim pressure and paint touches, as he often settled for pull-up jumpers.
• The only draft not represented here is 2024, which featured zero Tier One or Tier Two players. No player in that class would have even rated within my top-30 prospects of the decade.
• Again, this list is based solely upon how I graded these players as prospects when they entered the draft, not how it ended up working out.

1. Victor Wembanyama | 7-4 center | Metropolitans 92 | 2023

Wembanyama is the clear No. 1 prospect because we had never seen a player like this before. That’s not to say that truly special talents like Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), Ralph Sampson, Shaquille O’Neal and LeBron James weren’t as impressive; rather, we’d never seen a 7-foot-4 human who could dribble, pass and shoot at this level as a teenager. Maybe if Sampson and Alcindor had been born in this era, they would have developed those skills. But Wembanyama was entirely novel. Essentially, he projected to be Rudy Gobert-like on defense while also being a legitimate shot creator and shot-maker on offense. It’s a truly absurd combination of skills that every team searches high and low for across the globe.

Wembanyama is the highest upside prospect to enter the NBA since LeBron, and his performance through his first two years in the NBA has only put an exclamation mark on his game. He finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting as a rookie, and the only thing that stopped him from making All-NBA this year was a blood clot that held him out after the All-Star break. He projected to become the best player in the NBA at some point in his career before he was drafted; that prognostication remains the same two years later.

2. Cooper Flagg | 6-8 wing | Duke | 2025

Flagg and the next guy on this list are the clear contenders for the No. 2 spot. Ultimately, Flagg is a bit safer when it comes to health, as he has never had a major injury.

Flagg led Duke to a Final Four, an ACC title and a 35-4 record. From mid-December to mid-February, he averaged 22.6 points, 6.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.1 blocks while posting a slash line of 52.1 percent from the field, 46.4 percent from 3 on four attempts per game, and 85.7 percent from the free-throw line on nearly eight attempts per game. On offense, he became a highly skilled mismatch nightmare who could bully smaller players by backing them down, shooting over the top of them, or posting. Or he could hammer bigger players by getting off-balance, and either going around them to the rim or hitting a step-back. When defenders collapsed onto him, he always made the right reads. And then on defense, he was a force in help all season and competed on the ball at a high level. It wouldn’t stun anyone if he makes an All-Defense team at some point.

He’s also one of the most competitive, winning-focused teenagers to enter the NBA in a long time. He wants to be great, but he does whatever it takes for the team to win. He plays hard all the time and is relentless in his aggression on both ends. He gives energy to his teammates and is all sorts of tough and fearless. He’s the easiest person to buy into becoming a winning basketball player because he amplifies those around him.

Outside of Wembanyama, Flagg has the best combination of a ridiculously high floor and also a ridiculously high ceiling if everything goes right in his development. He has a chance to become the next apex wing in the NBA.

3. Zion Williamson | 6-6 wing | Duke | 2019

When Williamson played at Duke, he had the best blend of power and explosiveness I’ve ever seen on a basketball court. Built more like an elite defensive end than a traditional basketball player, Williamson waddled around between plays but was an undeniable force once the game began. The way he leaped off the ground with force but then hung in the air like he was levitating is still a unique viewing experience.

He was sudden with his movements as a ballhandler, freezing defenders with nasty inside-out moves before pulling up from the midrange. He was more comfortable shooting from distance then than he is now. His ability to pressure the rim was unique then and has entirely translated into the NBA throughout his first five seasons when he’s been on the court.

Alas, the injury concerns were there before the draft with Williamson. He suffered a foot injury in high school, a thumb injury at the McDonald’s All-American game, a minor knee injury in the spring of 2017 and a right knee sprain at Duke. While Williamson was remarkably skilled for his size, there were worries he would lose some of his elite explosiveness as he aged.

Still, Williamson’s upside at the time was seen as potentially the best player in the NBA. He’s clearly the No. 3 player here.

4. Cade Cunningham | 6-6 guard | Oklahoma State | 2021

I was higher on Cunningham than many entering the 2021 NBA Draft. I had him as my lone Tier 1 player in that class largely because of how he created shots for both himself and his teammates. Going back to his final year at Montverde (Fla.) Academy, Cunningham possessed a unique ability to control the game at an incredibly high level. He and Luka Dončić are likely the two most polished ball-screen creators to enter the league in a long while; both have enormous frames that allow them to maintain advantages in drop-coverage situations with defenders trailing, or in switch situations where they would get matched up against smaller players in guard-to-guard actions.

In both high school and college, Cunningham showed he could hit every passing read off a live dribble with either hand, something that has translated nicely to the NBA, given that he averaged nine assists per game this season.

There were flaws, for sure. Cunningham’s ability to separate in isolation was questionable because he wasn’t all that fast. Defensively, he was OK, not great. Cunningham was also a turnover machine at Oklahoma State, averaging four per game. That hasn’t changed in the NBA. And yet, it didn’t worry me enough to think that Cunningham wouldn’t be a tremendous, All-NBA caliber talent. And that has played out over his rookie-scale deal.

Troy Weaver, the former Detroit Pistons’ general manager, did a catastrophic job of building around Cunningham for three years before the team fired him and hired Trajan Langdon. After a summer of focusing on shooting, Cunningham made third-team All-NBA this season and averaged 25 points, eight rebounds and nine assists in a tightly contested playoff series against the New York Knicks. He looks like someone who could lead a team to a title eventually.

5. Karl-Anthony Towns | 6-11 big | Kentucky | 2015

Towns was a part of what is still the best college basketball team I have watched in recent memory: The dominant, platoon-based, 38-1 Kentucky Wildcats who ran the table before losing to Wisconsin in the 2015 Final Four. Towns in the middle was the key to all of it.

His college numbers looked relatively pedestrian: 10.3 points, 6.7 rebounds and 2.3 blocks. But he did that in just 21.1 minutes per game while playing on a laughably loaded team where no one averaged more than 11 points. He was wildly efficient as a post player with clearly elite touch, and everyone who saw him in high school knew he could shoot even though he made only two 3s during his collegiate season. He looked like a mismatch nightmare with his ability to dribble, pass and shoot at 7 feet tall. His defense looked like the easiest translatable skill. He swatted shots with impunity, finishing top 20 in the country in block rate. He rebounded incredibly well and was used in a variety of ball-screen coverages effectively.

His pro career has gone very differently, even though he has made three All-NBA teams.  Towns has become arguably the best 7-foot shooter at the center position in league history. He’s a career 40 percent 3-point shooter on nearly 3,000 career attempts, won the 3-point contest at All-Star Weekend in 2022 and will enter the top 100 all-time in 3-point makes next season. He’s one of 14 players all-time to have made 1,000 3s while shooting 40 percent from distance, and he’s the lone big man in that group. On defense, Towns has turned into a difficult player to build around. There are roles where he is effective (he did well dealing with Nikola Jokić last season in the playoffs when having help next to him in Rudy Gobert), but it’s difficult to have an above-average defense with him as a true center.

6. Ben Simmons | 6-10 guard | LSU | 2016

Ben Simmons’ career is the kind that they make YouTube videos about, especially after it went so well in his first four NBA seasons.

Simmons was utterly dominant at LSU, a 6-foot-10 transition dynamo who was athletically superior to everyone around him. He averaged 19 points, 12 rebounds and five assists as LSU played at a breakneck pace to accentuate his gifts. He would grab-and-go on the break to lead the offense and had a sublime blend of power and coordination to dribble and read the court simultaneously. He could get to the rim with ease and would finish well above the rim with regularity. Guys aren’t supposed to move like Simmons did at his size. He was a walking paint touch who would throw in wild Eurostep moves to cause the defense to collapse or to open up a lane to the rim before finishing or kicking out to his teammates. He could make every pass in the book.

And yet, Simmons could showcase a laissez-faire attitude on defense. He had all of the tools to be great but didn’t always utilize them. He didn’t always take control of the game and had nights when he looked like he was just hanging out before getting to the NBA. Many pre-draft reports also questioned his attitude.

After sitting out his first pro season with a broken right foot, Simmons averaged 16 points, eight rebounds and eight assists as a rookie for the Philadelphia 76ers. He made the All-Star team in his second season, and earned third-team All-NBA honors his third season.Then in 2020-21, he was second in Defensive Player of the Year voting and got an MVP vote. However, he struggled immensely that postseason, culminating in a Game 7 moment in the second round against the Atlanta Hawks when he passed up a wide-open dunk. Things have mostly been a disaster for Simmons since.

A combination of the concerns that always surrounded Simmons mixed with injuries tanked a once-promising career. In retrospect, Simmons probably should not have been as highly regarded as he was, and yet it’s clear that it never had anything to do with his talent.

7. Markelle Fultz | 6-5 guard | Washington | 2017

Speaking of strange careers, Fultz’s is probably the most bizarre of any player on this list.

It’s hard to overemphasize how creative and special a prospect Fultz was at Washington. He averaged 23 points, six rebounds and six assists per game while mixing in 1.6 steals and 1.2 blocks. He displayed tremendous passing vision, with the ability to execute reads from a variety of different angles with his near-7-foot wingspan. He drilled 45 percent of his pull-up 3s and 41 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3s. He hit 41 percent on pull-up midrange shots and made over 60 percent of his half-court attempts at the rim while attempting nearly four of those shots per game (all per Synergy). Every indicator projected him turning into an elite 3-level scorer.

Fultz also had a special creativity and tempo to his game. His handle was tight and crisp, with serious hesitation and craft with his footwork. He could gather into a shot at the rim from a variety of different angles. His crossovers were nasty and sudden. Undeniably, this should have worked.

But then a shoulder issue, mixed with changes to the mechanics of his jumper before he reached the NBA, sapped his shooting ability. At first, his shoulder problem was diagnosed as soreness and a scapular muscle imbalance. But the following season, Fultz was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome.

Fultz never recovered his shooting ability. He has never attempted more than 1.9 3-pointers per game in the NBA. He has stuck around the league and earned a three-year, $50 million contract extension with the Orlando Magic after being traded by the 76ers. It’s hard for me to blame this one on evaluators getting it wrong. Fultz got hurt before we got to see his best in the NBA.

8. Ja Morant | 6-2 guard | Murray State | 2019

Morant was overshadowed by Williamson during his pre-draft year but was a special prospect in his own right. A true under-the-radar recruit, he wound up at Murray State, where he exploded as a sophomore, averaging 24.5 points, 10 assists, 5.7 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 0.8 blocks. He dominated every game with mind-bending athleticism in transition and a brain that innately saw passing angles all over the court. Moreover, he was dynamic with the ball in his hands, a genuine blur who could change directions and speed, or merely just beat his man to get an easy paint touch.

Sometimes, you need to dig deep into stats and put all sorts of filters on them to find the diamonds in the rough. In Morant’s case, you can simply say this: he’s the only player in the last 65 years of college basketball, per Sports-Reference.com, to average at least 24 points and 10 assists per game in a season. Morant has been an All-NBA player, although he has missed quite a bit of time over the last few years with injuries and a suspension stemming from firearm-related incidents. It is concerning that he has yet to play more than 67 games in a season and has missed at least 21 games in each of his last four seasons.

9. Deandre Ayton | 7-0 center | Arizona | 2018

Yeah, I screwed this one up in hindsight. I loved Luka Dončić and had a higher grade on him than the NBA consensus when he entered the league, but having Ayton at No. 1 was too aggressive. Why was he so highly thought of?  I’m not sure that any player in college basketball over the last decade has more looked the part than Ayton did in 2018, and I was still in a phase when I thought that mattered more than it does. He is over 7 feet tall, with a massive 7-foot-6 wingspan and as chiseled a 250-pound frame as you’ll find.

In his lone year at Arizona, Ayton averaged 20 points and 11 rebounds while shooting 61 percent from the field and made a dozen 3s. He was a first-team All-American and the Pac-12 Player of the Year. Ayton’s post game was excellent, he had potential as a rim-runner in ball screens, and his physicality was so next-level at just 19 years old that he looked like he could bully even NBA guys at his ceiling. There were some incredibly lofty Patrick Ewing-ish outcomes if he reached his ceiling.

Alas, he never did. I undervalued how far behind he was in terms of his ball skills and passing ability. I also missed that he rarely played with any bend, which allowed the opposition to leverage him regularly. Ayton has had a solid career as a key piece of a Phoenix Suns team that made the NBA Finals. He earned a max-contract offer from the Indiana Pacers — think about that during this NBA Finals run and imagine if the Pacers had gotten stuck with the Ayton deal — that was matched by the Suns before he was eventually traded to the Portland Trail Blazers. This is the first player on this list that I just missed on.

10. Luka Dončić | 6-8 guard | Real Madrid | 2018

Dončić’s dominance was unparalleled in European basketball at his age. I wrote extensively about this at the time, and loved Dončić’s game, ranking him essentially as the 1B in his class to Ayton’s 1A. He won Euroleague MVP at 19 years old and had already proven himself as a true pick-and-roll savant at 6-foot-8. It’s not unfair to call Dončić’s resume the most decorated one among all teenage basketball players of the last 25 years.

So why in the world was he not the consensus No. 1 pick? I fell victim to this a bit less than most, but I would say it was an industry-wide lack of comfort at the time with projecting players from Europe. Only two European players without collegiate experience had been selected in the top two picks in the draft. Their names mononymously live in infamy: Darko and Bargnani. But Darko Milicic averaged under 10 points per game in Serbia. Andrea Bargnani was better playing for Baskonia in Euroleague but averaged just 9.9 points and two rebounds. Most of the other young European top-five picks weren’t that successful in the NBA. However, none of those players were nearly as accomplished as Dončić. Only Pau Gasol, who won second-team All-Euroleague honors at 19 in 2001, could approximate it.

Dončić’s frame led many to question his upside long-term — which is how he ended up going No. 3 — as he wasn’t all that explosive. But he was immensely skilled and saw the court at a truly elite level. He has a special basketball mind, processing things around him unlike anyone else. Dončić probably should have been universally recognized as a LeBron-like prospect.

While I just liked Ayton too much as opposed to undervaluing Dončić, I underrated his upside. I thought he was likely to be an All-Star/All-NBA player as opposed to a top-five player in the league.

11. Scoot Henderson | 6-2 guard | G League Ignite | 2023

I slightly misevaluated Henderson by grading him out as more athletic than he actually is. The reason was a lack of understanding (not just from me, but from many across the basketball industry) of how teenagers’ performance in the G League translated to the NBA. At 18 years old, he averaged 18 points, five rebounds and six assists in that league, playing against men fighting for their NBA lives.

At his best, Henderson changed tempo and pace at an exceedingly high level and had a handle that allowed him to navigate tight areas. He also blended power with a low center of gravity and physicality to maintain advantages. That made him very well-rounded in ball-screen actions. He could pull up and hit floaters, get to the rim and finish with authority or touch, or he could make high-level passing reads. And he always drove transition play with his aggressiveness.

But I thought he would get more paint touches than he has so far in his career. His rookie season was quite poor, as he couldn’t get into the areas of the court he needed to and seemed to struggle to read out where help defenses were playing him. He showed positive flashes this past season, though. His true-shooting percentage compared to the league average jumped by 10 percentage points. He found more consistent answers as a pull-up shooter and turned the ball over less often.

Next year is the big one for Henderson. The Blazers have a nice core now with him, Deni Avdija, Toumani Camara, Shaedon Sharpe and Donovan Clingan. He’s unlikely to be the All-NBA player that I projected, but it takes young guards time. De’Aaron Fox and Darius Garland similarly struggled as rookies, took slightly bigger leaps than Henderson did as a sophomore, but then exploded during their third seasons. Hopefully, that’s the trajectory Henderson follows.

12. Jayson Tatum | 6-8 wing | Duke | 2017

After a few losses, I’ll happily note that I was higher on Tatum than the consensus in 2017, ranking him as my No. 2 player in the class behind Fultz. I loved his game and thought the smoothness of his repertoire would translate. Tatum was a very polished scorer at Duke, averaging 17 points, seven rebounds and two assists, but it was more about the way that he got better throughout the season that impressed me.

Tatum’s footwork into his gathers was elite and showcased serious potential. His jab-step game was filthy out of triple-threat situations, and his mid-post game was already incredibly developed for a teenager. His balance was superb and allowed him to find different step-back jumpers with a smoothness beyond his years. His passing vision was tremendous for the role, though he consistently turned the ball over on his slashes toward the rim. Tatum was a great bet to continue to improve, as he came from a basketball family (his father Justin played at Saint Louis and is a coach) and was known to have an elite work ethic and habits.

Whereas nearly every team had Fultz as the top player, the Boston Celtics had Tatum atop their board, traded out of the No. 1 pick with the 76ers down to No. 3 and still got their guy. All that’s happened since then? Tatum was the best player on a title team, a five-time All-NBA selection and has positioned himself as one of the greatest Celtics in the storied franchise’s history.

13. Chet Holmgren | 7-0 big | Gonzaga | 2022

Holmgren was my top player in the 2022 NBA Draft, and I would have had a Tier One grade on him if not for his frame. Weighing in at just 195 pounds coming out of Gonzaga, Holmgren had to prove he could withstand the wear and tear of the NBA. But Holmgren has always been one of the most competitive players you’ll watch. I loved his game and saw him as the guy I wanted most in that class; now he’s on the precipice of helping lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a title in just his second NBA season.

He was a unique player, and one of the best defenders I’d ever evaluated at his age. He was already positionally elite and had every length-based tool at 7 feet with a 7-foot-6 wingspan. His anticipation and instincts were truly outlandish, and he’d make some of the most incredible scramble rotations to help his teammates I’d ever seen at that age. I predicted that “if his frame allows it, he is going to win at least one Defensive Player of the Year award.” I still feel good about that projection. He’s one of the five best defenders in the NBA right now with the versatile nature of his defense in ball screens, his ability to scramble around and help his teammates and his rim protection. He constantly cuts off angles and makes life miserable for the opposition. He can also handle the ball at his size and take opposing centers off the dribble, in addition to knocking down shots from distance.

I’d bet he makes at least one All-NBA team in his future.

14. Dylan Harper | 6-5 guard | Rutgers | 2025

The second player from the 2025 NBA Draft, Harper has a tremendous chance to become an All-Star point guard. He ticks nearly every box. He has great size and length for the position at 6 foot 5 with long arms. He created rim pressure at an elite level this year at Rutgers, despite playing in an archaic offense that lacked spacing. He drew fouls regularly and has showcased vision throughout his career, both for the Scarlet Knights and for USA Basketball. He’s competitive on defense and tough. The only cause for concern is that he needs to keep working through his pull-up game, and that’s ultimately what slots him at No. 14 and made him a Tier Two player for me (more of an All-Star projection) as opposed to a Tier One guy.

The Spurs have the No. 2 pick and should be excited to pair him with Wembanyama long-term.

15. Jalen Suggs | 6-4 guard | Gonzaga | 2021

I loved Suggs pre-draft, and I remain a big fan of his game. He’s already made an All-Defense team on his rookie contract, and I’d expect him to make a few more. But I was too aggressive ranking him as my No. 2 player in the class ahead of the next player on this list. I overestimated his offensive game by a fairly substantial margin and overvalued other parts of his game.

He was a monster on-ball defender in college who got a bit gambly on that end, but he had all of the tools to be elite. However, when I went back and watched his tape after his sophomore NBA season, I realized that I overestimated his polish in ball screens. His footwork had a long way to go, and he didn’t always hit the right steps in his gathers. His paint pressure was more predicated upon easy reads within Gonzaga’s offense as opposed to complicated progressions. Additionally, his jumper has been a bit hit-or-miss so far in the NBA, although he’s hit 36.5 percent from distance over the last two seasons on nearly six attempts per game.

Suggs is still a consummate winner who helps teams thrive. He’s not going to be a top-two option on a great team, but he might be a No. 3. It would not stun me if he became this generation’s Jrue Holiday, a guy who ends up winning multiple titles as a lead guard who can elevate the games of those around him. But I would probably take him at No. 6 or 7 if we were re-drafting that class, behind Cunningham, Evan Mobley, Alperen Şengün, Franz Wagner, and Scottie Barnes.

16. Evan Mobley | 7-0 big | USC | 2021

Mobley was a no-brainer at No. 2  in 2021, but I had him third behind Suggs. I wrote in that year’s draft guide that Mobley “has potential to be one of the few guys in the league who can be real shot creators and offensive initiators along with providing All-Defense-level skill. He’s one of the most skilled big-man prospects to enter the league in a long time.”

I was worried about two factors, though. First, I was concerned about his frame, as he wasn’t overly strong. Second, Mobley struggled to shoot it at the time, and I was worried about his offensive game falling apart without the threat of the jumper. That bore itself out over his first few years, as NBA defenders could close out short on him and make him less impactful as a driver when he was spacing.

But his athletic tools, mixed with his tremendous anticipation and feel for the game, won out. Mobley was an All-NBA selection this year in addition to winning his first Defensive Player of the Year trophy. He’s going to be a many-time All-NBA guy for Cleveland. I’d only take Cunningham in that draft over him long-term.

17. Brandon Ingram | 6-9 wing | Duke | 2016

Ingram was my No. 2 prospect in 2016 behind Simmons after a terrific freshman campaign at just 18 years old at Duke, where he averaged 17 points, seven rebounds and two assists while hitting 44 percent from the field and 41 percent from 3. Ingram fit the modern archetype of a big, shot-making wing with solid ballhandling ability, the physical gifts to shoot over the top of the defense with a high release point and a 7-foot-4 wingspan, and a creative mindset.

Ingram had two flaws that held him back for me, though. First, he was painfully skinny at the time, coming in at just 190 pounds at 6-foot-9. He absorbed contact better than you’d think at that size and generally was comfortable driving to the rim, although he struggled to finish once he got there. Ingram was also not a particularly impactful defender at Duke. The entire bet was on a big wing shot creator who was extremely young.

Ingram is a one-time All-Star who has repeatedly gotten paid and is on his way to making $300 million in career earnings. However, his willingness to slow the game down when he has the ball in his hands hinders his team on offense despite his skill set. Now that he’s in the Eastern Conference, it wouldn’t stun me to see him make a second All-Star game for the Toronto Raptors.

18. LaMelo Ball | 6-6 guard | Illawarra Hawks | 2020

Ball had a circuitous route to the NBA, going from Chino Hills in Southern California to turning pro in Lithuania (still one of the wildest decisions we’ve seen in a five-star prospect’s journey) to something called the JBA (created by his father LaVar) to SPIRE Academy in Ohio before going over to play with Illawarra in the Australian NBL. It’s a miracle and a testament to Ball’s basketball genius that he overcame all of those developmental interruptions to even become an NBA player, let alone an All-Star.

Ball was seen as a potential cautionary tale entering his time in Australia, but he immediately proved that he was a genuinely terrific prospect. His passing and playmaking were sublime, as he peered over the top of the defense at 6-foot-6 and found creative angles to hit his teammates. The creativity he displayed as a ballhandler was top-notch and allowed him to separate from his man consistently by going slow to fast with sudden crossovers. Defensively, I remember possessions when he’d be wiping his shoes instead of tagging rollers to the rim out of ball screens when he was on the weak side. But there was special offensive upside, and that’s why I ranked him No. 1 in 2020.

Ball’s been tremendous on offense for the Charlotte Hornets, averaging 24 points and eight assists per game over the last three seasons. The problem is that he’s only played 105 games out of a possible 246. And when he is playing, his defense is so non-existent and the offense so carefree that it’s hard to have faith in his game translating to winning basketball. Ball has all the talent in the world as an offensive player; he just needs to get healthy and figure out his game a bit more.

19. Jabari Smith Jr. | 6-10 big | Auburn | 2022

This one was a bad ranking that I would do over if I could. I’m generally a fan of Smith’s and think he will continue to grow as a starting-caliber player on good teams because of his defensive improvement and shooting ability at nearly 6-foot-11. But I drastically underestimated how uncomfortable Smith was as a ballhandler when thinking of him as a potential wing as opposed to what he’s turned into, essentially a big man. Smith averaged nearly 17 points per game as an 18-year-old at Auburn and drilled 42 percent from 3 but rarely seemed to create easy shots. It was all either catch-and-shoot 3s, jab-steps, or mid-post jumpers over the top of defenders.

He wasn’t that capable of driving toward the rim to take advantage of his gravity as a shooter because he played very upright and didn’t have a tight handle. Smith was a tremendous collegiate defender but struggled early on in his NBA career before turning it around. I probably overestimated his shiftiness and lateral agility as it pertains to being switchable. I thought Smith would be a borderline All-Star type who impacted winning at a high level because of his shot-making and defense. He was the consummate high-floor prospect whose ceiling was not as high as I thought.

20. Paolo Banchero | 6-10 big | Duke | 2022

This is the one that I wish I could have back in 2022. Banchero is one of the few young guys in the NBA who has a chance to be the primary scoring option on a title team. He’s a ways away from that still, largely because he’s not quite the shooter he needs to be to make it happen, and I think Holmgren’s two-way game makes him a better bet to be a top-two option on title-winning teams. But the ceiling is the roof with Banchero. He averaged 26 points per game while shooting 45 percent from the field and 32 percent from 3 this season, numbers right in line with his career averages. Can he ever become not just a good contested shot-maker from the midrange, but rather an elite shot-maker from all three levels?

That’s the swing skill, because there’s not a player 22 or under in the league better at creating mismatch opportunities and advantageous situations. That’s always been Banchero’s superpower. When the game tightens up, Banchero has proven in the last two years against top-six defenses in the league that he can still get his own shot at an elite level. He’s just a tremendous blend of size, power, physicality, and skill.

The reason I had him at No. 3 in 2022 was that I worried the shooting wouldn’t quite get there and that it might resign him to being an elevated version of a Julius Randle type. But Banchero is far more capable of creating advantages from more versatile situations than Randle. He’s far more skilled with the ball. He’s going to make All-NBA teams even if the shooting doesn’t come around. But if it does, he might end up being this era’s Carmelo Anthony, and unlike Anthony he already has a team around him in Orlando that works to accentuate his gifts.

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; photos of, from left, Cooper Flagg, Victor Wembanyama and Cade Cunningham: Christian Petersen, Chris Coduto, Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

Flashing around the pitch at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami was advertising for a sponsor FIFA partnered with only at the beginning of June. “Invested in better” circled the Real Madrid and Al Hilal players on a hot and humid afternoon in Miami Gardens. It is the mission statement of PIF, the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which also paid $1billion ($750m) for a 10 per cent stake in host broadcaster DAZN back in the spring.

PIF hasn’t only put up the money for this tournament, but it has provided a team too. Al Hilal are controlled by PIF, and Wednesday afternoon’s game against the most successful club in Europe was a test to see whether the entity really had “invested in better”.

Al Hilal are not a start-up club. They were founded in 1957 and have won the Asian Champions League on four occasions. But this is still a start-up team in a start-up competition backed by immense wealth. Regardless of Neymar’s return to Brazil in January, the starting XI fielded by Al Hilal still cost a lavish €350m (£299.3m; $401.6m).

Simone Inzaghi, who made his debut in the dugout for the runners-up in last season’s Saudi Pro League, has become one of the highest-paid coaches in the world on a reported €25m a year. Teams put together like this can be unbalanced and disinterested, with little in the way of collective ethos. Inzaghi also had next to no time to bring them together — after all, the Champions League final lost by his Inter team 5–0 was only two and a half weeks ago.

Depicted by some as on the rebound, others thought his focus was maybe on Al Hilal too soon, his head turned by the chance to more than double his wages. Earlier this week, Al Hilal’s CEO Esteve Calzada clarified that Inzaghi had not signed before Inter played Paris Saint-Germain in Munich. But a deal was already agreed with his agents — one of whom was Inzaghi’s son, Tommaso — and that it wasn’t something that “came quickly”.

This left Inzaghi exposed. “Everyone knows what he did,” Inter president Beppe Marotta told DAZN before their Club World Cup opener against Monterrey. As was the case with Roberto Mancini, who left the Italy job for the Saudi one, Inzaghi has had to reckon with a backlash back home.

‘Everyone knows what he did,’ Inter president Beppe Marotta said of Inzaghi (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)

“If this is the price I have to pay for my four years at Inter, I’m happy to pay it,” he said. Inzaghi, after all, can now afford to — although the compensation he had in mind when making that comment was the well wishes of his former players, and friends and family.

While there was some scoffing at Inzaghi’s stated claim of always wanting to work abroad — why the Saudi Pro League then, and not the Premier League or La Liga? — it isn’t hard to see why the calibre of player at Al Hilal made the project appealing in conjunction with the chance to make an amount of money that’s transformational, even for a former Serie A player who coached one of the biggest clubs in Italy.

Bono, the goalkeeper, was one of the stars of the World Cup in Qatar, a double Europa League winner who once collected the Zamora Trophy in Spain. Kalidou Koulibaly was considered the best centre-back in Serie A during his time with Napoli. Joao Cancelo and Renan Lodi are used to playing against Real Madrid from their time at Barcelona and Atletico Madrid respectively.

Taking the Al Hilal job also meant Inzaghi was reunited with Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, one of the principal difference-makers in a Lazio team that won three trophies and made a title tilt during Covid-19 under his management. Marcos Leonardo was the next big thing out of Santos when Benfica edged the likes of Roma to his signature and was covering for top scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic, who joined for €55m from Fulham.

Bono saved a penalty during Al Hilal’s opening draw (Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)

Inzaghi is unfamiliar with this level of largesse. Lazio are famously frugal under president Claudio Lotito, and much was made of how his Inter teams were put together on the cheap, with players like Andre Onana, Marcus Thuram, Stefan de Vrij, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and Hakan Calhanoglu all arriving at different stages on free transfers.

While the football reasons for leaving Inter for Al Hilal make little sense when comparing a top European league with the Saudi Pro League, it is perhaps worth thinking about Inzaghi’s choice in the context of whether the Club World Cup might be held every two years rather than four.

That is, of course, if he sticks around longer than Mancini — who left after 14 months, expressing regret he ever took the Saudi job — and Stefano Pioli, who looks set to return to Fiorentina after a season with Al Nassr.

It’s early days, but focusing on the present, Al Hilal already look the most credible contender from outside of Europe to unlock Gianni Infantino’s golden trophy. Many teams spend vast amounts of money without it translating into competitiveness. Neymar aside, Al Hilal’s transfer targets have, creditably, hit and do look part of a coherent strategy.

“No, I’m not surprised because I’ve seen many of their games,” Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso said. “Today was the first game with the new coach, but they have players who have played in the top leagues.”

Inzaghi called the 1-1 draw “a great start”. He betrayed little in the way of trepidation. The training sessions of the past few days had filled him with confidence. Al Hilal’s first attack was straight out of the Lazio playbook: a long ball from the back for Milinkovic-Savic to win, a near guarantee of beating the press and turning opponents on their heels. Lodi and Salem took advantage of Rodrygo’s intermittence in covering for Trent Alexander-Arnold on his tentative debut.

Alonso also admitted “it wasn’t quite clear” how Al Hilal would play. Inzaghi adapted to his new team, playing a back four rather than imposing the three-man defences he was famous for at Lazio and Inter.

Much of the curiosity in the opening week of the Club World Cup has been about whether or not the South American teams can take it to their European counterparts. This is, in part, explained by the institutional memory of the competition’s forerunner — the Intercontinental Cup — and the legendary battles of a bygone era.

But the playing field is no longer as even; the disparity never greater. None of the teams from Argentina, nor those from richer Brazil, have Saudi’s money. And while it’s still early for Inzaghi and Al Hilal, and it shouldn’t be taken for granted, it perhaps isn’t a surprise that they’re a contender.

People seem to have slept on a PIF team in a PIF-backed tournament having a shot. An outside shot, but a shot nonetheless.

(Top photo: Joao Bravo/Sports Press Photo/Getty Images)