At Athletic latest edition of their 2024 NBA Mock Draft, Sam Vecenie repeated a common refrain: Recruiters don’t trust the upside of any prospect. He notes comparisons to the infamous 2013 draft, when Anthony Bennett was surprisingly taken first. However, he also made his concerns more concrete, giving a stark comparison to his draft levels over the previous two years.
At the top, this class is clearly considered the weakest of the last decade. Last year, I had five players in my Tier 1 or Tier 2: Victor Wembanyama, Scoot Henderson, Cam Whitmore, Brandon Miller and Amen Thompson. The year before, I had four of these players: Chet Holmgren, Paolo Banchero, Jabari Smith Jr. and Jaden Ivey, so I’m not particularly stingy with these grades. No player in this draft class even reached the Tier 2 level for me.
This also leads to a rare situation, sure to spark much debate, where a team can rightly focus on selecting a player based on need, as opposed to the typical “best player available.” In a year where they likely want to avoid drafting another guard, this could be advantageous for Rip City. Vecenie treated this mock draft accordingly and took a round of the lottery to choose the team’s placement. And you wouldn’t know it? The lottery drew lots Portland Trail Blazers as the number one choice.
1. Portland Trail Blazers: Zaccharie Risacher | 6-8 wing/front | 19 years old | JL Bourg
Risacher remains number 1 for the moment. It may very well not end up that way, and workouts will play a vital role in the process. The NBA is constantly looking for big wings/forwards who can knock down shots, defend at a reasonable level, and play with the ball in their hands. This makes Risacher the favorite right now to become No. 1; more teams will view his game as one that can fit into a valuable, flexible role for their teams. The race is WIDE open at #1, but handicapping it now, I think Risacher would be more teams’ choice than any other prospect.
It’s not the first time Portland has been linked to Risacher in a mock draft. He is currently the closest to a top 5 pick in the draft. With Golden State’s record improving and lottery position dropping, Portland found itself with a late lottery pick for its second pick.
14. Portland Trail Blazers: Ja’Kobe Walter | 6-5 wings | 19 years old | Baylor
Walter has been up and down this season, averaging 14.7 points and 4.5 rebounds per game. A lot of his struggles can be explained by his inconsistent shooting. Walter was a solid sharpshooter in high school, but has made just 33.9 percent of his 3s so far this season. In the Big 12 this year, Walter made just 40 percent of his 2-point shots and 29.1 percent of his 3-pointers. It’s hard. He also hasn’t been as good defensively as expected.
However, returning to the level situation, it is first helpful to define the levels. Unfortunately, it’s quite relative, there is no real definition of each level. For the purposes of this article, it is relatively reasonable to roughly define these levels:
Level 1: consensus top choice in many drafts; future All-NBA player and possible Hall-of-Famer
Tier 2: NBA All-Star level player, maybe third team All-NBA in the right year.
Tier 3: A quality rotation player who could reach an All-Star game in the right scenario
Level 4: Rotation player in the NBA
Level 5: Marginal rotation player but good enough to be on the bench.
You can set your levels a little differently. But that leaves the Blazers and fans with the big question:
Will the talent level in 2024 NBA Draft really so low that there are no tier 1 or 2 prospects?
Mock drafts placed the same prospects all over the draft with little sign of consensus, a concept almost unknown in previous versions. Could this also lead to some players being underestimated? Even in the 2013 draft, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert, and CJ McCollum all became highly successful NBA players. It’s hard to ignore that significant potential could be missed, and many teams could be slapping themselves in the face in two years.
But in the meantime, you can provide your players’ rankings and levels in the comments.
