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Both the NCAA Tournament and NBA regular season are now over, so it's now for the real fun to begin: NBA mock draft season. While the top of the 2023 NBA Draft is pretty calcified at this point (Victor Wembanyama is guaranteed to be the first pick), it gets really weird really quick. Is Nick Smith better than Keyonte George? Is Anthony Black better than Cason Wallace? Are any of the three Dookies (Dereck Lively III, Kyle Filipowski and Dariq Whitehead) even that good? Who can say! The joy of this year's draft is how open to interpretation it is. With the pre-lottery draft order mostly set, here's our pre-postseason 2023 NBA Mock Draft.
Previous 2023 NBA Mock Drafts: Mid-March | Pre-Tournament | Christmas | Preseason
1. Detroit Pistons: Victor Wembanyama, Metropolitans 92
Victor Wembanyama defies the limits of polite conversation; it's impossible describe him without sounding at least a little bit crazy. He's 7'5 with an 8'0 wingspan and is one of the shot-blockers on earth. Except he's also a slithery ball-handler who can work his way into step-back threes. Oh, and he's also so mobile and explosive that he can get a putback dunk in traffic on his own missed three-pointer. He's the number one pick in every 2023 NBA mock draft and he'll be the number one pick in the real one too.
2. Houston Rockets: Scoot Henderson, G League Ignite
2023 NBA mock drafts that say that Henderson has struggled this year and imperiled his spot as the clear #2 pick are just bored—Scoot Henderson is still that guy, a supreme athlete with a savvy basketball mind and a rapidly improving jumper. In a way, it's the ultimate testament to him that putting up 17.6 points, 5.1 rebounds and 6.6 assists as a 19 year-old is considered a disappointment.
3. San Antonio Spurs: Brandon Miller, Alabama
On the basketball court, Brandon Miller has a unique ability to not get stuck in the wrong place in the wrong time. He's among the draft's most skilled shooter (38 percent from three on huge and varied volume), who complements his shooting with clever, predictive passing and solid all-around defense. A shaky NCAA Tournament has dampened some of the hype around him after some NBA mock drafts had him jumping Scoot Henderson for #2, but he's still the best prospect from the college ranks.
4. Charlotte Hornets: Amen Thompson, Overtime Elite
Amen Thompson is athletic in ways that make other excellent athletes look unathletic. He's like all the family members of The Incredibles jammed into one basketball player. He's incredibly strong like Mr. Incredible, absurdly flexible like Mrs. Incredible, fast like Dash and can manipulate defenses in ways that look downright telekinetic like Violet. Even if there are some concerns about his age (20 years old) relative to his competition (high school level), the tools and court sense are special enough to assuage any and all of them.
5. Portland Trail Blazers: Jarace Walker, Houston
At 6'8, 240 pounds, Jarace Walker has that dog in him. Within the Houston grindhouse, Walker became the rare five-star, NBA lottery pick who embraced the unglamorous side of the ball. Playing alongside veteran guards like Marcus Sasser and Jamal Shead, Walker ceded the spotlight, committing himself on defense while playing a connective offensive role. In the NBA, though, Walker has latent potential to emerge as a dangerous scorer and creator—he has feathery touch around the rim that should translate to his jumper and a sudden first-step to beat defenders off the dribble.
6. Orlando Magic: Cam Whitmore, Villanova
Think: a slightly less refined Anthony Edwards. Like Edwards, Whitmore is a monstrous athlete whose explosiveness makes getting to the rim (and subsequently dunking) seem like an inevitability. Outside of Wembanyama and maybe Henderson, no prospect in this class has a better mixtape from last season than Whitmore and Whitmore only started 19 games as he returned from thumb surgery. His shooting is a bit suspect (34.3 percent from three and 70.4 percent from the line) and his assist numbers are very low, but the overall athleticism and shot-creation is so special that everything else almost doesn't matter
7. Washington Wizards: Ausar Thompson, Overtime Elite
Whereas Amen is an alien point guard, Ausar is a much more legible and traditional shooting guard. A slightly worse athlete than his twin brother, Ausar compensates by also being a better shooter. To wit, he plays with a vigor that's at least Mamba Mentality-adjacent. For Ausar Thompson, each matchup seems personal—he wants to hang a lot of your head and he wants to shut you down. In this sense, he's a better bet to be a good player than his brother but has a smaller chance of being a great one.
8. Indiana Pacers: Gradey Dick, Kansas
Gradey Dick is this year's resident swaggy white guy. A knockdown shooter, Dick nailed 40.3 percent of his threes and 85.4 percent of his free throws. As a result, he was the second-leading scorer on a Kansas team that earned a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and was ranked in the top five almost the whole year. From the moment he enters the league, Dick will be a productive and impactful offensive weapon—his shooting alone guarantees a high floor and he's shown more juice off the dribble than most guys in this mold usually do. Naturally, he'll be picked on defensively by virtue of being a dirty blonde white guy named Gradey, but he's sneakily a better athlete than people assume—he dunked 15 times last year, more than putatively better athletes like Keyonte George, Cason Wallace and Jett Howard.
9. Utah Jazz: Cason Wallace, Kentucky
Outside of rim protecting bigs, Cason Wallace might just be the best defensive player in the draft. At 6'4, 185-pounds, Wallace is a big point guard and uses his size to alternately corral smaller guards and hang with bigger ones. Like Jrue Holiday, he has an ideal blend of quickness and chestiness—he's fast enough to slide with guards and strong enough to repel them. Offensively, his role is a bit more nebulous. Although Kentucky famously suppresses guard production, Wallace doesn't seem explosive enough to be a star on-ball or a good enough shooter to be a star off it. Still, an elite defensive guard who's average offensively is a very good player and Wallace should immediately be a major part of a team's rotation.
10. Dallas Mavericks: Taylor Hendricks, Central Florida
Can he dribble? Not really! Can he drill threes, guard just about every position and be one of the freakier athletes in the draft? Absolutely!
11. Oklahoma City Thunder: Jett Howard, Michigan
For a 6'8 teenager, Jett Howard is an awesome shooter. Despite playing on a disappointing Michigan team, Howard had problems getting buckets for himself, averaging 14.3 points while drilling nearly 37 percent of his 7.3 three point attempts per game. With a smooth handle and a smoother jumper, Howards totally looks like a future NBA star. For a 6'8 forward, though, Howard is abysmal at just about everything else. He doesn't rebound (2.8 per game), finish at the rim (49.6 percent two-point shooting) or play defense (0.7 blocks and 0.4 steals per game).
12. Orlando Magic (via Chicago): Anthony Black, Arkansas
If Jett Howard struggles at everything besides shooting, Black only struggles at shooting. At 6'7, he's a massive point guard, able to make every pass over or around the defense. Similarly, he's a big and fluid athlete who erases large swathes of the court with his length on defense and even has the vertical pop to contest shots at the rim. At times, he looks like Josh Giddey drank Captain America super serum. At others, he's such an awkward ball-handler and clunky shooter that defenses barely care that he's on the court.
13. Toronto Raptors: Brice Sensabaugh, Ohio State
If the entire draft class had a one-on-one tournament, Sensabaugh would probably win; his scoring touch from all levels of the floor is that good. Still, a player can't sustain on points alone and Sensabaugh doesn't bring much to the table outside of his scoring. As such, he seldom ever passes and might be the worst defensive player to be regularly featured in NBA mock drafts; his body is kind of a weird shape. Nevertheless, scoring and shooting are the most important skills in basketball and Sensabaugh has them both in spades.
14. New Orleans Pelicans: Jalen Hood-Schifino, Indiana
By the eye test, Hood-Schifino is a star. He's big and smooth, gliding into uncontestable pull-up jumpers and slinging live-dribble passes with either hand. Against then #3 ranked Purdue, Hood-Schifino practically morphed into Michael Jordan, dropping 35 points on 14/24 shooting to secure an upset on the road. While he's visually very impressive, Hood-Schifino's statistical profile is somewhat concerning—his 53.9 percent finishing at the rim is very bad; his 18.9 percent free throw rate is even worse. Optimistically, Hood-Schifino could be the kind of defense busting pull-up shooter that every team desperately wants. More cynically, he's a bootless mid-range merchant who doesn't have the efficiency to threaten a defense.
15. Atlanta Hawks: Nick Smith, Arkansas
Widely considered a probably top five pick heading into this season, Smith struggled to stay healthy or productive during his year at Arkansas. Only playing 25.8 minutes per game across 25 contests, Smith averaged just 12.5 points, 1.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists on putrid 37.6 percent shooting. Most damningly, he was benched for the second half of Arkansas' comeback win against Kansas in the NCAA Tournament, signaling that even his own team didn't consider him a winning player. Smith is still a tremendously talented player—his playmaking instincts are sharp and his touch is superlative—but it's just that that talent might not be as tremendous as people thought.
16. Utah Jazz (via Minnesota): Jordan Hawkins, UCONN
An absolutely bonkers off-ball mover and shooter, Hawkins is like a slightly less refined version of Dick. Even as he keyed most of the perimeter scoring for the Huskies during their championship season, Hawkins never seemed wholly comfortable creating off the dribble or scoring inside. In the NBA, that won't necessarily be a problem—Hawkins will fill a very specific role (shooter) and will rarely have to deviate beyond his expected responsibilities (shooting). Still, relying on a guy like Hawkins is inherently a little risky—since he doesn't offer much value besides his shooting, he needs to be one of the very best shooters in the entire world to justify his lofty position in our 2023 NBA mock draft.
17. Los Angeles Lakers: Dariq Whitehead, Duke
Like AJ Griffin, Whitehead is a hugely pedigreed prospect who dominated the AAU and showcase circuit all through high school. Like AJ Griffin, Whitehead arrived at Duke with expectations to be The Man, before injuries forced him to miss the start of the season, shunted him out to the fringes of the gameplan and knocked down 2023 NBA mock draft boards when he returned. And, like AJ Griffin, Whitehead can shoot the ever-loving piss out of the ball, nailing nearly 43 percent of his threes at Duke. So naturally, like AJ Griffin, Whitehead will be a massive steal as the 17th pick.
18. Miami Heat: Dereck Lively II, Duke
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The number one recruit in the country last year, Lively was an atypical five star freshman. For starters, he was nearly useless offensively, contributing almost nothing beyond a few open dunks a game. Conversely, he was a super-hero on defense, the rare center who can play any kind of coverage. In any draft, there are a few bigs who can anchor a drop-coverage heavy scheme and a few who are fast enough to play more aggressive hedging and switching styles; Lively is one of the only few prospects in recent memory who is this good at both.
19. Houston Rockets (via Clippers): Keyonte George, Baylor
Known as a high-scoring combo guard, George sneakily is better when he's a less hungry and indulgent scorer. While George can pull from a rich palette of crossovers and stepbacks, the things that make him most impressive are his heady passing and defense—that is, when he chooses to show them off. Short of him becoming a supernova shooter, it's kind of hard to imagine him making his mark in the NBA purely as a scorer because he's too short and slow to reliably get his shot off against the best defenses. Instead, it be the interplay between his secondary playmaking, sturdy on-ball defense, and comfort as a pick-and-roll ball handler that makes him an interesting prospect.
20. Golden State Warriors: Kyle Filipowski, Duke
The next-gen Warriors already have a talented guard (Jordan Poole), wing (Moses Moody) and forward (Jonathan Kuminga). Filipowski could be the big man that they've been looking forward. Unlike previous lottery flameout James Wiseman, Filipowski's game is built more around skill than strength. Despite not being a great shooter (which seems fundamentally wrong when you look at him), Filipowski's offensive repertoire is vast and varied. For a seven-footer, he's an abnormally fluid passer and dribbler, which would theoretically make him a nice fit for Golden State's read-and-react offense.
21. Brooklyn Nets (via Phoenix): Kobe Bufkin, Michigan
At the risk of getting a little hot takey: excluding forward-sized guys like the Thompsons and Anthony Black, Kobe Bufkin is the second best guard in the 2023 NBA Draft. Look into your soul and you know it's true. Over the last 12 games of the season, Bufkin put up 17.4 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game while shooting 45.1 percent from three. There's no real flaw in his game—his shooting is lethal; his finishing, excellent; his passing, more than good enough; his defense, very sound. He should be a lottery pick in every single NBA mock draft and whoever lands him outside of the top 20 is getting the steal of the draft.
22. Brooklyn Nets: Rayan Rupert, New Zealand Breakers
By dint of playing in New Zealand and not being especially flashy, Rupert is largely anonymous outside of the deeper recesses of the 2023 NBA Draft world. But he's still very good! He makes his bones on defense, where he tortures ball-handlers with his 7'3 wingspan and nose for the ball; if you needed one of these guys to match up with Lebron James or Kevin Durant or Luka Doncic in the playoffs next week, Rupert would be your guy. As long as his jumper comes around, he'll be the ready-made role player every team needs and his physical tools even give him an outside chance of becoming something more.
23. Portland Trail Blazers (via New York): Leonard Miller, G League Ignite
For better or worse, Leonard Miller is the funkiest player in our NBA 2023 mock draft, marking the midpoint between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Kenneth Faried. After playing high school basketball in Canada, Miller is now getting exposure to real high-level basketball for the first time during his stint with the G League Ignite. For the most part, it's going well—18 points and 11 rebounds per game on 64.5 percent True Shooting is serious business. There are still concerns about his shooting (bad) and defense (spacey), but the overall package of raw talent and actual, genuine production is too good to pass on.
24. Sacramento Kings: Jaime Jaquez, UCLA
During his senior year with the Bruins, Jaquez was arguably the best player in college basketball. In the NBA, Jaquez certainly won't be the ball-dominant, mismatch hunting force that he was in college, but all his secondary and tertiary skills translate just fine. Airtight team defense, connective passing, outrageous toughness: all traits that NBA teams value extremely highly. While his jumper is still a little suspect, it's nothing that an NBA team's army of shot doctors and player development coaches couldn't fix. There's a reason that good teams always have guys like Jae Crowder or Grant Williams or Kenrich Williams on their teams and it's the same reason that Jaquez will be playing 18 minutes per game in next year's postseason.
25. Memphis Grizzlies: Brandin Podziemski, Santa Clara
Last year, Santa Clara guard Jalen Williams rose from relative obscurity to become a lottery pick and then cemented himself as a future star once he reached the league. This year, Podziemski will try to do the same. A sophomore transfer from Illinois, Podziemski exploded with the Santa Clara Broncos. He led the team in scoring (18.8 points per game), rebounding (8.8), assists (3.7), three point makes (2.5), three point percentage (43.8 percent) and steals (1.8). Athletically, he's a little slower and shorter (6'5) than you'd ideally hope for a wing, but his statistical profile alone portends that he should be a good player.
26. Indiana Pacers (via Cleveland): Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
As the son of a former Pacer and one of the most productive players in Indiana University history, it's only right that Trayce Jackson-Davis stays close to home in our 2023 NBA mock draft. His stats with the Hoosiers were massive—20.9 points, 10.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.9 blocks per game in his senior season. And unlike hordes of other mega-productive upperclassmen college bigs, it's easy to imagine his skills translating to the NBA. His passing will make him an asset to any offense, giving him optionality as both a lob threat and short roller in the pick-and-roll. His athleticism will enable him to play in a variety of lineups, either as a sole big or alongside another center. There's no need to overthink a guy this good, especially this late in the draft.
27. Charlotte Hornets (via Denver): Colby Jones, Xavier
In his junior year, Colby Jones tightened up his jumper and spearheaded the best Xavier team in recent memory as a result. Averaging 15.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.4 assists, Jones teamed up with fellow All-Big East guard Souley Boum to form one of the best backcourts in the country. To wit, Jones finally became a good enough shooter (37.8 percent from three) for the rest of his phenomenally well-rounded game to shine through. At 6'5, 200-pounds, he's big for a guard and used his size to ward off defenders and carve out enough space for his patented floaters.
28. Utah Jazz (via Philadelphia): Max Lewis, Pepperdine
Placing Max Lewis within a 2023 NBA mock draft requires holding two true and contradictory statements in your mind at the same time. He was great on an individual level, averaging 17.1 points per game and showcasing his smooth shooting stroke and explosive athleticism. He was terrible on a team-wide one—the Pepperdine Waves went 9-22 and Lewis visibly didn't care for the last half of the season.
29. Indiana Pacers (via Boston): DaRon Holmes II, Dayton
A full list of college players in the last 15 years to have more than 80 dunks and an assist rate over 10 percent: Deandre Ayton, Obi Toppin, Trayce Jackson-Davis, and DaRon Holmes II. In other words, a former number one pick, a former lottery pick and two of the most underappreciated bigs in this year's draft. It can be hard to predict which non-shooting bigs have the right combo of athleticism, skill and court-sense to succeed in the NBA, but the criminally under-appreciated Holmes seems like a very safe bet to be a good player for a long time.
30. Los Angeles Clippers (via Milwaukee): GG Jackson, South Carolina
On a purely statistical level, GG Jackson might've been the worst player in the SEC, if not all of college basketball. After reclassifying up a year to forego his senior year of high school and join a putrid South Carolina team, Jackson was clearly overwhelmed by the responsibility of being the lead guy of a power conference team. With that said, he also showed remarkable promise—the list of 6'9 guys with his shot-creation skills and athleticism is very small and comprised almost entirely of very good NBA players. Jackson belongs in the first round of 2023 NBA mock drafts not for what he is, but for what he could be.
