Ouija Wonderings Volume 5: 9/17-10/22
Rowan's back with another volume, focusing on his draft board, with a particular focus on Nolan Traore, Karter Knox, Ben Saraf, Hunter Sallis, Milan Momcilovic, and many others!
Who knew that all it took to get the fire back was to dial back on the gas? Going full bore is great in bursts, but I was burning my wick way faster than I could fan the flame. After filling up my tank, I’m ready to erupt into this draft cycle…
And that’s enough. Fire jokes aside, it’s good to be back. I still don’t have a great rhythm for when Ouija Wonderings will come out, but maybe that’s better. Instead of keeping myself to a set cycle for a column that flows organically, I’ll let it flow when it’s ready.
Maybe I just needed to switch up what I was working on. A two-week deep dive on Karter Knox reignited my excitement for this upcoming draft cycle and made me look forward to watching more basketball. I can’t wait to find new favorite prospects, watch my Ouija Board evolve, and chat it up with the rest of the No Ceilings crew alongside all of you reading!
But like I promised in the last volume, it’s time for me to take a deeper look at my preseason board. Who is where, and why? What do I see changing? What will I be looking for in the first month? Read on and find out more!
My Process, Briefly:
At this stage in the cycle, I’m in a bit of a holding pattern. I worked from July until September to watch as many games and prospects as possible. Most of my film-watching led to a more complete understanding of each player while also helping to get an initial sorting of players. After that first list, I started to tinker.
The players ranked highest on my board have the highest star potential. The entire purpose of the NBA draft is to distribute talent to moribund teams and change the fortunes of the worst teams to one day be the best. While it’s on their shoulders to make the right choice, the top of my big board, like virtually all others, includes who I think has the best upside.
From there, it becomes a meticulous back-and-forth of production versus potential. I often lean a bit more toward the potential side, ranking players higher based on what they can one day be instead of what they’re doing today. This has led to my overlooking of some older prospects who were statistical stalwarts while also overrating some younger boom-or-bust prospects, but given my feelings about the purpose of the upper tier of the draft, I continue to stick by my bias.
The next tier of my board is where I get into players that I feel can one day be solid players on a team. This again tends to skew in a few key directions: freshmen, specialists, and returners I ranked last year. Age is a key predictor of a prospect’s future success, so I’m bullish on a productive youngster versus a slightly more productive player who is two years older.
Being a specialist in the NBA is hard these days, given the need for versatility, but the best specialists in college often have skills that are already NBA-caliber. That gives them a leg up on some jacks-of-all-trades, an archetype I love to watch but one that is more contextual to scale. Finally, just like every year, a few players that I loved the year before happen to return to their college or pro teams, which leads them to land in a similar spot on my board as last year.
By this point in my board, we’re through potential players I would take in the first round. Some years, that number is in the 20s; other times, like this year, it dips toward the low 30s. I don’t have a set number because every year is different. The same logic applies to the top of the draft. Last year, there weren’t any players in the same echelon as Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren, or Paolo Banchero, so there were no top-tier prospects.
This year is different. Four players are in that tippy-top tier, with more in the next potential cornerstone range. That’s followed by a longer FRP-worthy list, with a lengthy section after. Credit that to watching more films or just like this draft class a lot; I’m not sure which one it is yet. Hopefully, as I watch more basketball this fall, I’ll be able to give you a better idea.
This volume was powered by…
Listening to Tommy Richman’s short-but-solid album
Winning a game in my men’s Sunday basketball league
My yearly Stevie Wonder and Rolling Stones binges
Attending a Seahawks game in person with my dad (don’t ask who won)
My 27th birthday
Who I Watched, What I Thought:
Early Movers and Shakers
With much of the scouting world waiting with bated breath for college basketball to start, it’s easy to forget that a handful of players have already started their seasons overseas. Four players in my lottery have already played a few games and…so far, they haven’t moved the needle either way. Nolan Traore has alternated poor performances with stellar showings, which mostly speaks to his inconsistency without a pull-up. That won’t lead to a drop, but it does make me feel more validated in his place below the four above him. The same is true for Gonzalez and Zikarsky, neither of whom have played much for their respective teams. The lack of minutes means a lack of perceptible growth and nothing to knock either for, so each stays toward the top of the lottery where they were before. The biggest beneficiaries of this early time were Noa Essengue and Ben Saraf, who played for Ratiopharm ulm. Both have shown their youth with some inconsistent and streaky play, but each has shown that they can reliably contribute at a high level to winning basketball, which can’t be ignored. I may be a bit of a prisoner of the moment with Saraf, given no one else is playing well enough to overshadow him in my mind, but there’s little to say this will be the only ascent up my board for him this year.
Tough Times in the Teens
Although my lottery is not static, I am solid about who will start there on my official Ouija Board. Further down the board, in the range of the teens? That’s where I feel most iffy. There are a lot of prospects that I like, probably too many to fit in these slots, but any of them could either spring back up the board or topple down with their early season play. It’s half freshmen (Egor Demin, Karter Knox, Tre Johnson, and Drake Powell) and half returners (Collin Murray-Boyles, KJ Lewis, and Alex Karaban) and all of these players, in theory, could have such a good year that they could threaten into the lottery. It hasn’t pushed too much of a needle for me to hear that Demin has been lights out behind closed doors or to see that Powell didn’t play particularly loudly in the most recent UNC scrimmage versus Memphis; there’s so much noise that goes on in the preseason that it can clutter the airwaves. I’ll keep a keen eye on all of these guys, not just because I recently wrote a profile on Knox but because this range has the most fluidity on my board. That makes it the most volatile and exciting to watch, and I’ll be tuning in for several games for each prospect in the first few weeks of college basketball.
The Three Returnsketeers
A few returners are higher on my board than other No Ceilings boards or the most consensus offerings. Hunter Sallis is the biggest name and the least controversial, mainly because he made the surprising decision to stay at Wake Forest. After ending in the 30s on my Ouija Board last year, Sallis is up to #22 to start the year and is the fourth-ranked returning college player on my board. Another season of validating last year’s eruption into a lead offensive option who could hit threes and impact the game with his length would cement his status as a first-round prospect. I was also surprised that Nique Clifford chose to return to school, as were other NC writers, but Clifford now gets to show different sides to his game at Colorado State. Without Isaiah Stevens running the show, more of the offense can flow through Clifford, which will give scouts just what they’ve been waiting for a real test of what he can do offensively outside of making the right small play and hitting timely threes. Speaking of hitting threes, another prospect I have in my first-round consideration outside of the norm is Milan Momcilovic. He was a stellar shooting freshman big last year, showing off a buttery stroke that may have been one of the best mechanically in the nation for a player of his size, but Momcilovic left a lot wanting with the rest of his game. I have faith in T.J. Otzelberger and the staff at ISU to help instill some better team defense and rebounding tenets into Momcilovic, which will take him from “intriguing offensive flier” territory into more of a well-rounded realm of player.
Quintessential Quintet
Five freshman players have a chance to make this initial Ouija Board look like a scary sight sooner than later. All of them are within the 25-40 range on the board, but with a few good breaks and positive play, any one of them could contend for lottery consideration. The most obvious is Kon Knueppel, who has received rave offensive reviews from most newsbreakers in college basketball. Where there’s smoke, there’s often fire, but I still worry a bit about Knueppel’s physicality and defense translating enough to warrant his first-round standing. I have similar concerns about Will Riley, even though his game is wildly aesthetically different, because he is an offensively-minded wing with other issues. I’m even more worried about Riley’s weight than Knueppel’s, but weirdly, I find myself more bullish on Riley’s potential freshman impact due to how Illinois runs their five-out system and the freedom he’ll have to play with this season in the Big Ten. For Joson Sanon, Darren Harris, and Flory Bidunga, as I’ve touched on before, the situation is different; unless any of this trio makes a marked in-season improvement, they’ll likely play a lesser bench role for teams. Sanon has the easiest route to playing time and touches, but Arizona State brought in a handful of transfer guards. Harris may be the best, but he’s buried on Duke’s depth chart. Bidunga should be the backup center to Hunter Dickinson, but it would be eye-watering to watch the two try to play together from a spacing perspective. Thus, although any quintet could burn me early, I’m willing to start low on them and wait until they put substance behind their hype.
My Early Guys
Finally, although it’s still early in the cycle, there are a few guys that I’ll happily buy real estate for their islands before the market heats up. The first is Sion James, who I liked at Tulane last year due to his physical profile as a wing and his all-around game. While the counting stats could go down at Duke, he’ll have a bigger platform to show off his jack-of-all-trades attitude to NBA scouts in marquee games while also getting his skills sharpened playing against better competition in practice every day. I loved Johnell Davis last time, which explains why he’s on my top 60 Ouija Board. His rugged combination of defense, driving, and shooting for FAU should translate similarly to Arkansas, where he will be relied upon to generate much of his offense. It’ll carry more weight if he can do so at the SEC level over the AAC. Finally, with my biggest swing out of left field, I have Zeke Mayo ranked highly on my board heading into the start of the season. Last year, Mayo was a bit undersized but did so well from the lead guard position from a sneaky-good South Dakota State team. Now that he’s back playing for his home team, it won’t be easy to get minutes, especially in a crowded backcourt, but Mayo has the shooting and playmaking chops to deserve draft attention.
What’s Next
With only a few weeks until the college basketball season, I’ll use some of this time to catch up on some international film to buttress my preseason board. On my unofficial docket are Ratiopharm ulm, Brisbane Bullets, Perth Wildcats, and Qingdao Eagles to see a range of international prospects.
Then, for the opening salvo of college games, I’m hoping to watch some combination of Missouri vs Memphis, Texas A&M vs UCF, Texas vs Ohio State, Baylor vs Gonzaga, Washington vs UC Davis, Kansas vs UNC, Santa Clara vs Arizona State, UCLA vs New Mexico, Montana vs Oregon, Louisville vs Tennessee, Baylor vs Arkansas, Auburn vs Houston, Michigan vs Wake Forest, and Gonzaga vs Arizona State in the first week (phew). Wish me luck!