My team grades for the 2025 NBA draft, completed Thursday night, are the only ones you'll read that aren't concerned with results.
After the teams call in their picks, factors outside their control -- and even perhaps outside the player's control, particularly health -- will determine the results. No team, not even the Brooklyn Nets with their five first-round picks, drafts enough players in one year for that to even out.
Keeping that in mind, we're evaluating picks based solely on the information available to us at the time they were made in terms of value and fit. Naturally, I'm relying heavily on my stats-based projections for prospects, as well as analysis from ESPN's Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo.
Trades are also considered. In general, teams tend to overpay to move up in the draft, overestimating their ability to evaluate prospects better than their peers. Even by those standards, this year's trade up from No. 23 to No. 13 by the New Orleans Pelicans stands out as especially risky. As a result, the Pelicans got the worst grade of any team while the Atlanta Hawks (who dealt with New Orleans) are tied for the best.
Let's run through my grades for every team.
**Jump to a team:**br/>ATL|BOS|BKN|CHA|CHI|CLEbr/>DAL|DEN|DET|GS|HOU|INDbr/>LAC|LAL|MEM|MIA|MIL|MINbr/>NO|NY|OKC|ORL|PHI|PHXbr/>POR|SAC|SA|TOR|UTAH|WAS
It almost didn't matter who the Hawks took after getting an unprotected 2026 first-round pick -- the better of those from Milwaukee and New Orleans -- via the Pelicans to move down 10 spots. I might have made that trade straight up without getting No. 23. All the better that Atlanta did take a prospect ranked 13th in my projections.
Time will tell if Newell cracks the rotation quickly enough to pair with newly acquired Kristaps Porzingis, but I love that fit since Porzingis' strengths fit perfectly with the shortcomings that make Newell something of a forward/center tweener.
Gonzalez would have made more sense for Boston as a stash pick, to come over later in his development. Instead, Brad Stevens indicated the Celtics plan to bring him to the NBA next season.
On the broadcast, Gonzalez was compared to Denver Nuggets wing Christian Braun. One key difference: Braun, though not thought of as a shooter, hit 38% of his 3s in college. Gonzalez shot 27% at Real Madrid.
Williams is an intriguing prospect with multiple strengths as a rebounder, rim protector and facilitator at the elbow. However, he shot just 54% career on 2s, very poor for a center who doesn't stretch the floor. Shulga, the last of Boston's three picks, actually projected best my model because of his 39% career 3-point shooting.
Round 1: Egor Demin (No. 8), Nolan Traore (No. 19), Drake Powell (No. 22), Ben Saraf (No. 26), Danny Wolf (No. 27)
The record-setting volume of first-round picks the Nets made is almost more important from a process standpoint than the picks themselves, one reason I graded the trades to acquire them well.
That said, Brooklyn is betting on developing a remarkable number of teenagers, many of them with overlapping skill sets. In particular, Demin and Traore share a lot of traits as strong playmakers with size whose shooting and scoring efficiency need work. They can play together defensively, but spacing the floor with those groups could prove challenging.
Drafting so many projects should help the Nets' efforts to land in the lottery again in 2026, the last year they control their first-round pick before the Houston Rockets get it in 2027.
Cue the jokes about the Hornets' penchant for drafting players from the Research Triangle, but Knueppel was second in my projections and perfectly fits a void for Charlotte at shooting guard.
Although the same was true of Tre Johnson, Knueppel was a far more efficient scorer at Duke and rated better by my metrics than Johnson in a larger on-ball role in the Nike EYBL.
Since McNeeley fits a similar mold, that was likely a best-available pick after the UConn product dropped well below his expected range in the early 20s.I'm less enamored with the Hornets going back to the Blue Devils well for James high in the second round. Strictly a role player in five college seasons, James never had a usage rate higher than 17.1%.
After Charlotte traded starting center Mark Williams, there may be an opening for Kalkbrenner to contribute immediately if his pick-and-roll defense is up to speed.
I'm intrigued by how Essengue will fit with 2024 lottery pick Matas Buzelis, another young combo forward. If they two shoot well enough to play together at forward or Buzelis bulks up enough to play center at times, they'd give Chicago combined strengths of length and athleticism.
Credit to the Bulls for taking the best player available and continuing to draft young, despite their resistance to bottoming out and picking higher in the lottery.
Round 2:Tyrese Proctor (No. 49), Saliou Niang (No. 58)
The Cavaliers didn't get on the clock until well into night two of the draft and landed an interesting prospect in Proctor, who continued to develop post-one-and-done hype. Proctor shot 40.5% on 3s last season and shows promise as an on-ball defender, though he could stand to improve his steal rate.Niang, a stash pick, faces longer odds due to his shooting: 26% career on 3s and 71% from the foul line.
Round 1: Cooper Flagg (No. 1)
How long do you think the Mavericks' front office spent debating this pick? From the moment Dallas' combination unexpectedly came up No. 1 in the draft lottery, we knew Flagg was the pick, and rightfully so.
From a process standpoint, they don't get credit for winning the lottery, only for not screwing it up.
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