NBA Draft 2015: Updated Prospect Big Board Heading into Scouting Combine

The NBA draft process' state of inertia is finally about to be over. The best and brightest players of the 2015 class are scheduled to make a trip to Chicago this week for the combine, though it's fair to say the hoopla is not quite the same as for its NFL counterpart.

Whereas participation is a must for even the most elite NFL prospects, top NBA guys tend to eschew the actual basketball drills. The most information we'll get from a majority of prospects in Chicago is their athletic numbers, which tell us a bit but are far from the most important aspect of evaluation. Some, including top point guard Emmanuel Mudiay, won't even be showing up at all.

Instead, the combine is largely about the secondary stars and sleepers establishing themselves.

Participation begins to ratchet up once you get toward the end of the lottery, when players are still trying to establish themselves within the class' hierarchy. Last year, we saw Zach LaVine leap his way into the lottery, Noah Vonleh's length leave mouths agape and Aaron Gordon enter the top-five conversation.

We'll have to wait until later this week to find out who will be the combine superstar. For now, let's take a look the latest breakdown of the top 40 prospects in this class and assess who is rising and falling heading into Chicago.  

Rank	Player	Position	School
1	Karl-Anthony Towns	PF/C	Kentucky
2	Jahlil Okafor	C	Duke
3	D'Angelo Russell	SG	Ohio State
4	Emmanuel Mudiay	PG	China
5	Justise Winslow	SG/SF	Duke
6	Kristaps Porzingis	PF	Latvia
7	Stanley Johnson	SF	Arizona
8	Mario Hezonja	SG	Croatia
9	Willie Cauley-Stein	C	Kentucky
10	Cameron Payne	PG	Murray State
11	Frank Kaminsky	PF/C	Wisconsin
12	Devin Booker	SG	Kentucky
13	Myles Turner	C	Texas
14	Kevon Looney	PF	UCLA
15	Jerian Grant	PG	Notre Dame
16	Sam Dekker	SF	Wisconsin
17	Bobby Portis	PF	Arkansas
18	Kelly Oubre Jr.	SF	Kansas
19	R.J. Hunter	SG	Georgia State
20	Trey Lyles	PF	Kentucky
21	Tyus Jones	PG	Duke
22	Cliff Alexander	PF	Kansas
23	Justin Anderson	SF	Virginia
24	Delon Wright	PG	Utah
25	Rondae Hollis-Jefferson	SF	Arizona
26	Montrezl Harrell	PF-C	Louisville
27	Terry Rozier	PG	Louisville
28	Christian Wood	PF	UNLV
29	Joseph Young	SG	Oregon
30	Robert Upshaw	C	Washington
31	Dakari Johnson	C	Kentucky
32	Tyler Harvey	SG	Eastern Washington
33	Jarell Martin	PF	LSU
34	Georges Lucas Alves De Paula	PG	Brazil
35	Chris McCullough	PF	Syracuse
36	Cedi Osman	PG	Macedonia
37	Andrew Harrison	PG	Kentucky
38	Timothe Luwawu	SF	France
39	Michael Frazier II	SG	Florida
40	Norman Powell	SG	UCLA

Rising

Cameron Payne, PG, Murray State

David Crenshaw/Associated Press

I'm a little bit higher on Payne than most right now, a trend I fully expect to change by the time scouts leave Chicago. His decision to leave Murray State after only two seasons raised some eyebrows—even small-school superstars like Stephen Curry stayed three—but recent draft history is in the young guard's favor.

Payne would make four straight mid-major guards who made the leap into the lottery. Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum and Elfrid Payton all paved the way with their strong play early on. Had one of them been headed for bust town, perhaps the whole "strength of competition" narrative would be louder at the moment.

As it stands, most are falling for a player who could wind up the consensus No. 2 point guard in this class. Payne averaged 20.2 points and 6.0 assists per game last season, chucking up more than six threes per game at a 37.7 percent rate. He's more of a natural point guard than a Lillardian gunner, but his improvement as a shooter over the last two seasons is promising for his development.

Some will knock him for his lack of above-the-rim explosiveness and defensive acumen, which is fair at the moment. That said, he projects as a league-average starter or ace sixth man—the exact type of player a team like the Oklahoma City Thunder could use.

Justise Winslow, SG/SF, Duke

Chris Steppig/Associated Press

Winslow's momentum began at the NCAA tournament and hasn't really subsided. The Duke product is the best individual defender in this class, a human ball of energy who can take on three positions without much of a drop-off in performance. He's like a lesser version of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist if you only added the ability to hit a set shot and dribble.

The biggest knock on his game at this point is something I'm not even sure is a negative. Mid-range jumpers are important to keep defenders honest, but James Harden was damn near the league MVP this season while posting half as many mid-rangers as threes.

Asking a player to be Harden is wildly unfair. But there are definitely some Harden/Jimmy Butler vibes when watching Winslow, and he's going to continue impressing if he participates in the athleticism portion of drills this weekend.

After spending all regular season in late-lottery limbo, Winslow won't fall out of the top five now.

Joseph Young, SG, Oregon

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

I'm probably going to wind up out on an island here with Young, but he's going to have an NBA career. The 22-year-old Oregon guard is built in the mold of a Jamal Crawford/Lou Williams type, a combo slasher whose defensive acumen is almost nonexistent.

Players Young's age and with his lack of two-way ceiling are fodder for early in Round 2. Teams aren't going to take a designated hitter early in the first round, and opinion on his game is fractured enough that it'll probably take an impressive showing at the combine to guarantee he's drafted. Right now Draft Express has him ranked 58th, behind even the likes of Chris Walker.

Look for that to change following the five-on-five drills this week. Young's game is uniquely suited for these situations. His three-point acumen and off-the-dribble skills should allow him to make an impression. Even if you want to knock him down a bit because of his age—Young will turn 23 in June—the skill set is there for him to stick as a seventh or eighth man.

That sounds like faint praise, but it's more of an NBA career than 75 percent of the players who will be selected in his range will have. 

Falling

Jahlil Okafor, C, Duke

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

It's getting just about time for us all to call the "debate" between Jahlil Okafor and Karl-Anthony Towns for the latter. While it's been more than a month since he's touched a basketball court, Towns has slowly increased his lead over the more polished Duke product. In fact, Okafor might be falling outside the top two on some draft boards.

Wrote ESPN Insider Chad Ford:

"

I'm hearing, more and more from scouts, that Okafor may actually be sliding on some boards down to 3, 4 ... even 5. But I take that with a grain of salt. Workouts will be interesting. He needs to get in elite shape. That's the big key for him. I think conditioning, more than effort, may have hurt him a bit this year -- much like it did Jabari Parker last year. Get in elite shape, go in and dominate workouts, and he'll be right back in the mix at 1 or 2.

"

Ford's hesitance to buy into Okafor's nosediving stock is smart. Barring some medical issues showing up in the predraft process, it'd be a major shock to see Okafor fall outside the first two selections. He was the best freshman in college basketball last season by a good margin, flashing elite offensive upside down low and solid passing skills out of double-teams.

There's not much debate about who's the top overall prospect; Towns has been there for months and will remain through June. Now that NBA scouts and others are starting to fall in line with that assessment, though, it's up to Okafor to remind folks why he looked like a consensus No. 1 a few months ago.

Willie Cauley-Stein, C, Kentucky

Pool/Getty Images

Don't be surprised if Myles Turner winds up passing Cauley-Stein on most boards by June. The reasoning is pretty straightforward. Turner is what Cauley-Stein was two years ago: a freak athlete with unlimited two-way potential.

Cauley-Stein, though still very much a freak athlete, probably is who he is as a player at this point. The faults in his game are largely the same now as they were two years ago. He remains incredibly raw on the offensive end, boasting little in the way of go-to moves down low or ability to stretch the floor.

The best-case scenario for Cauley-Stein's career is developing into a Tyson Chandler type, which is weirdly a compliment and an insult.

If WCS is Chandler reincarnated, then you spend a lottery pick on him 10 times out of 10. Chandler's soft hands and leaping ability make him a terror in pick-and-roll situations, and his defensive acumen is well-established. 

If WCS is a lesser version of Chandler, he's Brandan Wright. Guys like Wright have a place in the NBA—we saw how much Dallas missed him after adding him to the Rajon Rondo deal—but they're not worth lottery selections. Cauley-Stein turns 22 in August; he's eight days younger than Andre Drummond. The window for progression is much smaller than most think.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter.