Lower The Rim is back with our annual assessment of NBA mock drafters.
Jazz Fan, we know you’re looking to the future—you certainly don’t want to look back… it’s too ugly. You’ve endured the blatancy of your team’s mega tank last season and the subsequent gut punch that was the Jazz’ fall in the draft lottery to the five slot. But you, the stalwart fan, remain hungry to see any light at the end of the Jazz’ long and dark rebuild tunnel. And, for now, that light, although dimmed, is still the June 25th draft.
Prognostications on who the Utah Jazz will select with their two 2025 first-round picks (the 5th and 21st) are ubiquitous. All sorts of analytics, metrics, and eye-tests are brought into the discussions and testified to by both the learned NBA insider and the poser. There are the interminable YouTube highlight reels, and draft combine stats, and insider (but maybe not) scoops. Will Rutgers’ Ace Bailey fall to the Jazz? Will Texas’ Tre Johnson be on the board at five? Are the Jazz going to reach for Duke shooter Kon Knueppel (heaven help us!)? Which mock draft has the answers?
Who can you trust for the right pick?
Well… nobody really.
Sorry, but we’ve learned that even the most experienced predictors from the highest-profile and most plugged-in outlets miss a lot more than they hit.
We’ve also learned that some mock drafters are consistently better than others.
So, let’s see who you should be looking to this year for the best draft predictions for the Jazz and the rest of the NBA.
Our mock draft comptetors and assessment approach
As in past reviews, we’ve assessed drafter accuracy by summing the differences (residuals) between the mock predictions and actual draft positions and tallying the number of correct picks made by each publication. We’ve continued to use only recent seasons, beginning now in 2019, to keep the conditions of the mock drafts, principally the drafts’ authors, consistent.
We presume that outlets with dedicated, seasoned, and connected journalists are in the best positions to give fans the most accurate draft insights. The outlets checking that box for us are: The Athletic (Sam Vecenie), Sporting News (various), Bleacher Report (Jonathan Wasserman), ESPN (Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo (previously of Sports Illustrated)), and the Ringer (Kyle Mann and Danny Chau (previously Kevin O’Connor)). We’ve added Yahoo Sports to our review this year replacing Sports Illustrated. SI now serves out multiple “Draft Digest” mocks from different authors—so no consistency to track. Kevin O’Connor has moved to Yahoo Sports, so we’ve subbed Yahoo inplace of SI to keep O’Connor, an long-time drafter, in the mix.
Who’s the Best?
We gave it away already. It’s ESPN… they’re still the best. But their dominance cracked a little in the 2024 draft.
ESPN’s Givony and Woo were the clear winners in our 2023 and 2024 published reviews, and they are still on top as far as on-average accuracy after adding the 2024 draft results to the data set (see figure below). For the last six drafts, ESPN’s projections are, on average, within 3.5 draft positions of the actual pick and Givony is making an on average group-leading 9 correct picks per draft.
Compare (on the left) ESPN’s six draft-season results to bottom-dwellers Sporting News and The Ringer who are both off, on average, about 4.5 positions from actual picks and only average 4.2 and 5.2 correct picks respectively each season… pretty big difference.
Although we still rank ESPN on top, the 2024 draft was Givony’s worst performance of the reviewed drafts (see figure below, the red bars) with an on-average position discrepancy of 4.2 and only seven correct picks in the first round (still tied for the best of the group). Wasserman from the Ringer edged ESPN in 2024 with a slightly lower on-average accuracy but only had six correct first round picks. Kevin O’Connor fared no better drafting for Yahoo than he has for The Ringer coming in with the least accurate on-average projections for the 2024 draft, followed closely by the hapless folks at the Sporting News (these guys should just give up).
So What?
All fans should realize that none of these mock drafts are very good. On average these guys are making correct picks only about 20% of the time. They hit on less than 7 picks out of 30 per draft. The message is… don’t get too excited about anything.
Our competitors’ predictions for Jazz picks in recent drafts are indicative of their difficulty in getting things right—even ESPN. For example, none of the reviewed outlets did very well in telling you who the Jazz would pick at 9, 16, and 28 in the 2023 draft. Out of 18 projected picks by the six reviewed outlets for three Jazz’ draft slots only one prediction was correct—The Sporting News’ Matt Babcock (wait, really, The Sporting News!) correctly predicted that the Utah Jazz would pick Taylor Hendricks, forward out of UCF, with the 9th pick. That’s it.
Of the 12 predictions for the Utah Jazz’ 10th and 29th picks in the 2024 draft, only Sam Vecenie of The Athletic correctly predicted that the Jazz would pick Cody Williams at 10 (we wished Sam had been wrong). None of the reviewed drafters had us picking Isaiah Collier at 29.
History is telling us that all these dart throwers are probably wrong. Let’s see who they have the Jazz picking at 5 and 21 this year anyway.
Who do the experts think the Jazz will pick?
For what it is worth, ESPN, our crowned king of bad mock drafts, predicts the Jazz will take Jeremiah Fears, the 6’2” point guard out of Oklahoma, with the 5th pick (hmmmm, scratching head). They have the Jazz then taking Asa Newell, a power forward from University of Georgia, at 21.
Three of the five remaining drafters; the The Ringer, Bleacher Report, and Yahoo Sports, have the Jazz picking Baylor’s V.J. Edgecombe. The Athletic and The Sporting News think the Jazz will end up with Tre Johnson the sharp shooting guard out of Texas.
We fear Fears at five. Did the Jazz not recently jettison a small back court in Mitchell and Conley at the start of this rebuild? Did we not just see teams with short guards go away early in playoffs. We’d like what Fears does better if he were 6’5’. And the same goes for Edgecombe—we’d prefer a 6’6” version of him… but there isn’t one.
Lower the Rim would like to see Tre Johnson there for Utah at five. Johnson excelled as a freshman in the toughest conference in the nation while consistently being the main focus of the opponent’s defense. He is long and rangy and can shoot with accuracy anywhere on the court. And he is a heck of a lot of fun to watch. He’s got a little bit of the Young Bull type energy about him.
The Jazz, unfortunately, may have to settle for what is left out of Ace Bailey, Edgecombe, and Tre Johnson at the fifth slot. If they feel strongly about one of these three, then they might be inclined to search for a deal to move up. Rumors abound (as they always do leading up to the draft) of teams, including the Jazz, trying to move up via trade to ensure they get their man. The recipient of these rumored trades is usually the Sixers, who would presumable be okay with dropping to as low as 6th with a pick swap and other compensation like an additional pick or player.
Who knows what will happen. Nobody seems to have a handle on it yet. We’d still love to see Utah find Johnson at five. And we wouldn’t mind the Jazz dealing to move up a pick or two if that is what it would take.