ESPN released its final player rankings for the 2024 NBA draft on Friday, and two Duke basketball players cracked the upper echelon of the rankings.
[autotag]Jared McCain[/autotag] and [autotag]Kyle Filipowski[/autotag] both finished inside the top 25, with McCain up in 15th and Filipowski quickly behind in 21st.
Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo, who combined to write the rankings, pointed out McCain’s shooting (41.4% on his 3-point attempts as a freshman) and basketball IQ as his highest selling points, but his 6-foot-3, 200-pound frame gives him a disadvantage at the next level.
Other publications have pointed out that the former five-star prospect improved mightily as the season went along, and the ESPN duo thinks that elevates his status as a prospect.
“He’ll need to continue to evolve as a ball handler and perimeter defender,” Givony and Woo wrote in the story. “But the growth he showed and his intangibles suggest he’ll find ways to contribute to winning at the next level.”
Final Top-100 prospect big board on ESPN today, with scouting reports on every player. Breezy 14,000 word read. https://t.co/2LkCdp9zlV
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) June 21, 2024
On the other hand, Filipowski’s biggest positives come from his combination of being 7 feet tall and a positive ball-handler (2.8 assists per game last season). However, ESPN’s scouting team bemoaned his consistency as an outside scorer.
“Filipowski has no shortage of offensive talent and carried the Blue Devils when he put everything together over the past two seasons,” they wrote. “Just how consistent he can be on that end could go a long way toward assuaging concerns about his presence on defense.”