Where Experts Predict Top 2025 NBA Draft Prospects Are Headed Post-Lottery
The NBA held its annual draft lottery on Monday night, and the Dallas Mavericks emerged with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 draft.
The San Antonio Spurs, Philadelphia 76ers, Charlotte Hornets and Utah Jazz were awarded the second, third, fourth and fifth picks, respectively.
Dallas' prize for "earning" the top slot, presumably, will be Duke star Cooper Flagg. The 18-year-old phenom has remained at the top of draft boards pretty much throughout the pre-draft process to this point.
A strong freshman season and run to the Final Four did nothing to diminish Flagg's NBA expectations.
"Flagg's open-floor athleticism, passing IQ and defensive court coverage have looked every bit as advertised," Bleacher Report's Jonathan Wasserman wrote in March. "His shotmaking may have exceeded expectations. ...His ball-handling and creation continue to evolve as well, with Flagg having tremendous success attacking ball screens or separating into mid-range jumpers or fallaways."
John Hollinger of The Athletic ranked Flagg in a tier of his own in his recent pre-draft rankings. Hollinger's Tier 2 consisted of Rutgers guard Dylan Harper and Baylor guard V.J. Edgecombe.
Harper and Edgecombe were also the second- and third-ranked players on Wasserman's pre-March Madness big board.
You'll be hard pressed to find a mock that doesn't have Flagg going No. 1—especially since Dallas could use some positivity following the it's oft-criticized trade of Luka Dončić—and Harper and Edgecombe are likely to follow.
USA Today's Bryan Kalbrosky mocked Harper and Edgecombe to the Spurs and Sixers, respectively. Rutgers forward Ace Bailey and Oklahoma guard Jereamiah Fears rounded out his top five.
Flagg, Harper and Edgecombe also went first, second and third in the post-lottery mock of SI.com's Draft Digest Staff. Bailey went fourth in the SI mock, while Texas guard Tre Johnson went fifth to the Jazz.
On3's James Fletcher III provided a little more intrigue in his mock of the top 14 selections, with Edgecombe falling to No. 4 and Bailey entering the top three (third to Philly), though Flagg and Harper still went No. 1 and No. 2.
Yahoo Sports' Kevin O'Connor also mocked Flagg, Harper, Bailey and Edgecombe in the top four with Bailey going No. 3. Duke's Kon Knueppel rounded out O'Connor's top five and was a top-10 selection in each of the other mocks we examine.
Maryland center Derik Queen and Duke center Khaman Maluach were also popular top-10 mock selections.
While Flagg is clearly the top prize in this year's draft, he wasn't the only reason teams were eager to land a lottery pick. As Hollinger noted, the influx of NIL money in college has caused several quality draft-eligible prospects to return to school. This leaves a lot of uncertainty about prospects selected in the mid-to-late first round.
"We still have the same highly rated one-and-dones at the top of the draft board that we always have," Hollinger wrote. "And we still have all the college seniors who have used up their eligibility. What we don’t have, in any meaningful way, are all the guys in between."
This is precisely why we'll likely see teams continuing to tank, even if the strategy rarely pays off for the league's very worst teams.
We're likely to see some level of consensus about the top four or five picks emerge between now and June 25. Things will probably be much more unpredictable after that, though, and the second round could be largely devoid of high-upside talent.
Future stars are waiting to be plucked at the top of Round 1, however, and we can expect the draft's opening night to begin with Flagg having his name called by the Mavericks as the first overall selection.
