In breaking down the 2020 NBA Draft, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton, Mike Schmitz and Jonathan Givony – the latter two of DraftExpress – recently looked at the guards in the draft class. In comparing them, each was picked to name the best guard of the class. Each of the trio picked Ball over Edwards as the best guard with Givony the most optimistic of the bunch.
“…I’m a believer in Ball’s talent and long-term outlook. His frame will need to continue to evolve, and whichever team picks him will certainly need to hand him the keys to the franchise over in order to maximize his strengths. Surely there will be growing pains early on in terms of turnovers, problematic shot selection and blown defensive assignments. I think the positives outweigh the negatives, but I understand why he’s divisive. Part of that is due to his father’s past antics, which I think are overblown by now.
Ball is not only the top guard in the class, he’s the top overall talent, and it’s not particularly close in my mind.”
Schmitz and Pelton each offered comparisons to players in the NBA, Schmitz making the case for a Trae Young comparison.
“While not the same caliber shooter, he reminds me a little bit of a 6-foot-7 Trae Young — another confident, high-usage guard who faced questions about whether his style would translate to the NBA. Like Young, you have to build around Ball completely and live with some wild shots to get to his genius, but he’s special enough to do it if surrounded by shooting and athletic defenders.”
Pelton, meanwhile, compared him to Kyrie Irving, but not necessarily as a professional player. Instead, he compared Ball’s abbreviated season to Irving’s abbreviated season with Duke in 2010.
To some extent, I’d compare Ball’s season to Kyrie Irving’s one campaign at Duke, which saw him play just 11 games due to injury. Despite that limited sample, Irving still shot near the top of my projections because of his high usage rate (27% of Duke’s plays) and assist rate (7.5 per 100 plays).
In much the same way, Ball’s usage (28.5%) and assist (9.2 per 100 plays) stood out in the National Basketball League. Unlike Irving, Ball wasn’t competing against other top prospects aside from two meetings with fellow possible lottery pick RJ Hampton. At the same time, Ball was playing against much older and more experienced fringe NBA players such as Bryce Cotton and Casper Ware, who have improved from their college days.
It’s interesting that each of the three feels Ball is the best guard in the draft, yet Ball is not considered the clear-cut choice over Edwards to be taken with the No. 1 pick by the Timberwolves. Part of it is Ball’s fit next to Russell, but given his talent, it seems like he should be the easy choice for the No. 1 pick.