The top of the 2023 NBA Draft is more or less set. Regardless of who wins the NBA Draft lottery on May 16, Victor Wembanyama will be the first pick. Similarly, Scoot Henderson is fairly locked into second while Brandon Miller and Amen Thompson will go third and fourth in some order. In this sense, the intrigue this year really begins with the fifth pick, which the Portland Trail Blazers are now projected to hold as a reward for their brazen, shameless lottery rigging to end the season. As such, the Trail Blazers decisions at the draft could have massive implications for the rest of the league (that is, if they even keep the pick); their pick will be the inflection point for the entire league, signaling both their immediate and long-term intentions. Here are the three players the Trail Blazers should target if they end up with the fifth pick in the draft.
1. Ausar Thompson, City Reapers (Overtime Elite)
While Ausar isn't quite as good as his identical twin brother Amen, the differences are more in degrees than in kind. Ausar is a freakish athlete, but he'll merely be a top 20 athlete in the NBA, compared to Amen who might be the most athletic guy in the league. He's a great passer for a wing, even if he lacks his brother's knack for air-bending skip passes. Still, Ausar is probably the more projectable NBA player than his brother because he's good in more conventional ways. Namely, he's become a markedly better shooter during the last two years.
For better or worse, Ausar's game harkens back to a generation of single-minded early 2000s wings, focusing on one-on-one domination. He wants to score on you and stop you from scoring on him—and he's great at both ends of the equation. It's admittedly a little tough to parse Ausar's stats because of the uncertain quality of competition he's faced with OTE, but the surface numbers are very impressive. Per 36 minutes, he averaged 21.3 points, 9.1 rebounds and 7.9 assists; his team went 14-1 and Ausar hit the game-winning three-pointer in the championship game; he won OTE MVP for a reason. If the Trail Blazers use this year's draft as an opportunity to launch a rebuild, Thompson would be a piece worth building around.
2. Jarace Walker, Houston
Whereas Ausar Thompson spent the last year developing in an experimental, structureless environment, Jarace Walker spent his pre-draft year playing within some of the most solid structure in all of college basketball. Despite being a five-star recruit who could've waltzed into a high-usage role at just about every school in the country, Walker opted for Houston's grindhouse. Playing alongside three veteran guards, Walker assumed a more auxilliary role, devoting himself to playing stifling defense and filling in the gaps on offense. Accordingly, Walker should easily slot in alongside ball-dominant guards like Damian Lillard and Anfernee Simons if the Trail Blazers maintain their spot after the NBA Draft lottery.
Defensively, Walker might be as good as any non-Wembanyama prospect in the draft; he's huge (6'8, 240 pounds), fast and smart, making him the all-terrain defensive destroyer that every NBA team covets. Walker could walk into any NBA playoff game tomorrow and instantly be one of the better defenders on the floor.
The thing that makes him so fascinating as a prospect, though, is his promise with the ball. Although he didn't get much of a chance to delve into his bag at Houston, he still demonstrated a startlingly quick first step and soft shooting touch that belied his wonky form. It's very rare that a guy this size dusts a defender off the dribble and then lofts a delicate floater over the help defender, yet Walker would do so just about every game. Walker's defense ensures that he'll be a good player; his offense portends that he might someday be a great one.
3. Cam Whitmore, Villanova
One of the most highly touted freshmen entering the season, Whitmore receded into the background as Villanova trudged through their worst season in a decade. Nonetheless, he displayed the same immense talent that made him the FIBA u18 World Cup MVP in 2022 and breakout star of the McDonalds All-American game that same year. Averaging 12.5 points on 57.1 percent True Shooting despite missing the first month of the year, Whitmore would be an excellent consolation prize for the Trail Blazers team if they can't move up in the NBA Draft lottery. At his best, Whitmore plays with the same floor-rearranging force and athleticism of Anthony Edwards—no player in college basketball could stop Whitmore from getting to the rim when he put his head down. His dunk tape is outrageous.
With Whitmore, the difficulty is properly weighing his special moments from his ordinary ones. For every play where Whitmore overwhelmed a defender with his explosiveness and strength, there's a time where he couldn't generate enough separation with his dribble and had to settle for a jumper. The outline of an All-NBA player is there—the highlight dunks, unstoppable quickness, ballsy shotmaking—but it's an open-ended question whether Whitmore can ever refine his game enough to manifest it.
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