It’s no secret that the ACC is in a rough spot right now. Over the past couple of years, the conference’s quality of play has suffered, and the NCAA Tournament selection committee has taken notice, giving the power conference only four at-large bids in each of the past two years.
Now, we’re seeing the lull carry over to the NBA draft. A conference that typically sees one of its own go off the board within the first four picks had to wait until the 12th pick in 2023. In fact, that was the only lottery pick for the conference.
So it stands to reason that there isn’t a lot of hope for this ACC class of incoming NBA players, but stranger things have happened. As we just saw with the champion Denver Nuggets, even a diamond in the rough on draft night can turn into a franchise-altering player. It could happen again with one of these players: