The College Basketball Coaches NBA Execs Trust Most

With both March Madness and the NBA regular season wrapping up, it's time for the basketball world to shift its focus toward the draft.

NBA scouts and executives will spend the next two months combing through notes on every prospect as they finalize their big boards. 

NIL has transformed college basketball, redistributing talent across the country. "In the past, most top players came from the same handful of schools," one NBA executive said. "Now, you're seeing elite prospects emerge from programs like Rutgers."

"A lot of coaches have to make a choice basically between winning and recruiting NBA-level talent," one longtime NBA agent said. 

"At some places, player development isn't really a big thing there anymore," a second executive said. "You can just go out in the transfer portal and get a better senior now."

Still, some college coaches are viewed by NBA insiders as especially effective at developing pro-ready talent.

Bleacher Report polled a dozen NBA insiders—a group consisting of executives, scouts and agents—to find out who these most-trusted coaches are. 

Interestingly, the most frequently mentioned name belonged to a retired coach.

"In terms of guys who were able to take less high-profile recruits and turn them into pros, nobody was better than Jay Wright," the second league executive said.

Mike Krzyzewski's name was another one that came up often.

"Mark Few has a pretty good track record, and Tom Izzo still develops pros," one assistant GM said.

However, in talks with NBA insiders, it's clear a new crop of coaches is stepping up. These are the names who came up most.

Jon Scheyer, Duke

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Though still early in his tenure, Duke Blue Devils head coach Jon Scheyer has quickly impressed NBA evaluators since succeeding Krzyzewski in 2022.

"It's one thing to recruit top talent," one longtime NBA executive said. "But he's proved he's a guy who can optimize talent. Not only do his players develop, but they also play on both ends of the floor."

Since taking over in 2022, three of his Duke players have been drafted. Two—Dereck Lively II and Jared McCain—have exceeded expectations.

Lively, the 12th pick in 2023, played a pivotal role in the Dallas Mavericks’ playoff run. McCain, last year's No. 16 pick, was a Rookie of the Year front-runner before a knee injury in December.

This year, Duke is coming off a Final Four appearance and could have three lottery picks: Khaman Maluach, Kon Knueppel and Cooper Flagg.

"Guys like Bruce Pearl, Kelvin Sampson, they're not trying to coach teenagers or develop pros," the agent said. "They want fifth-year seniors who are adults and can win."

NBA teams aren't opposed to be taking guys from mid-tier programs. "But we do factor in team success a bit when doing our evaluations," a second NBA executive said.

These days, nobody does more winning with top prospects than Scheyer.

Dan Hurley, UConn

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Throw this past season out the window and Hurley might be the only other coach in the nation doing what Scheyer does in terms of running a program that wins with lottery-level talent.

Since arriving in Connecticut in 2018, eight of Hurley's players have been drafted—including last year’s lottery picks, Stephon Castle and Donovan Clingan. The former is the current Rookie of the Year favorite, while the latter looks like a future star.

NBA teams like that Hurley uses a pro-style system and coaches his players hard.

"We all know how crazy Hurley is," an NBA scout said. "When you have players that come from that type of program and show that they can handle that type of coaching, it makes an impression."

Forward Liam McNeeley is the only current UConn player projected by Bleacher Report NBA draft expert Jonathan Wasserman to go in the first round this year.

However, junior forward Alex Karaban—currently tipped as a late second-rounder by Wasserman—could climb draft boards.

Nate Oats, Alabama

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NBA teams like Nate Oats' players for some of the same reasons they like Hurley's.

"The way they play is similar to the way a lot of our teams play," an NBA executive said. "Alabama emphasizes things like spacing and getting either rim attempts and threes and not mid-range shots."

The topic of styles and system came up often during Bleacher Report’s conversations with NBA scouts and executives.

"We view guys from schools like Wisconsin and other slow-paced teams differently," one of the executives said. 

"I'd much rather see these kids in pick-and-rolls and playing man defense than running old-school floppy actions from the '80s and sitting back in a zone," another executive said. 

Oats' teams don't just chase numbers, though. They also win games.

Since the 50-year-old took over the program in 2019, Alabama has made two Sweet 16s, one Elite Eight and one Final Four. Over that period, he has sent six players to the NBA—as many as Alabama had produced in the 18 years before his arrival. 

Perhaps most impressive is that Brandon Miller and JD Davison were the only ones from this group to arrive as blue-chip recruits.

Oats' greatest success has been Herbert Jones, a wing drafted by the New Orleans Pelicans in the second round of the 2021 draft who has become one of the league’s top role players.

John Calipari, Arkansas

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No conversation about the college-to-NBA pipelines is complete without John Calipari.

Nobody has done a better job over the past two decades of recruiting NBA-level talent. During his 15 years at Kentucky, he produced 37 first-round picks, 25 lottery picks and three No. 1 overall selections. Many went on to become stars. 

What NBA executives and scouts are split on, though, is the role Calipari played in these players' careers. Is he great at turning blue-chip recruits into NBA stars, or is it simply that he's a great recruiter with a good eye for talent? 

"Nobody developed at Kentucky," an NBA executive said. "The majority of those Kentucky players would have been drafted at the same spot had they gone to the NBA straight out of high school."

Others disagree. "He does a really good job with guards," one assistant GM said. "Just look at John Wall, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray."

"Sometimes those guards didn't have great years there, but then you realize it's because those Kentucky teams had so much talent," an executive from a third team said. "Guys like Tyrese Maxey, Immanuel Quickley, even Devin Booker, they were playing with, like, six other first-round picks and weren't always promoted the way you'd see top guards at other schools. But then they would get to the league and excel."

Now at Arkansas, Calipari enters a new chapter. He doesn't have any projected first-rounders this year, but he is coming off a Sweet 16 run and has two McDonald's All-Americans—Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas—set to join the program next season.

Yaron Weitzman is an award-winning NBA writer and the author of Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports. Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.