We are only a couple of weeks removed from the 2021 NBA draft and it’s silly to publish a mock draft for next year. But let’s do it anyway.
Because frankly, far away as though it may seem, ten months can go by fast. Although a lot is going to change, some things stay the same. For example, I published my first mock draft of the 2020 cycle in May 2019 and all three of the first projected picks heard their names called within the first three picks nearly fifteen months later. Much of the rest, of course, is utterly wrong and embarrassing. But it is still helpful to track progression and regression.
Before we discuss the next crop of future NBA talent, however, let’s address the elephant in the room. You have probably noticed that the headline said this mock draft highlights 59 picks. No, that isn’t a typo.
Allow me to explain. The Milwaukee Bucks have forfeited the rights to their second-round pick in the 2022 NBA draft due to violating league rules regarding an attempted transaction made back in Nov. 2020. While it sucks for the additional person who is going to go undrafted, undrafted free agency isn’t the worst thing.
Otherwise, the order of this draft was determined by reversing the NBA futures odds courtesy of Tipico SportsBook. The teams whose odds fell outside the eight best in each conference composed the projected lottery. Meanwhile, all picks involved with previous trades were included in the order as well.
Another quick housekeeping note: My mock drafts tend to be fairly data-driven. But that can sometimes lead to some blind spots for evaluating prospects playing outside the NCAA (e.g. high school, AAU, FIBA, etc.), which made pre-season mock drafts particularly difficult.
That’s no longer the case thanks to the help from our fantastic new partners over at Cerebro Sports, a stats and analytics resource that scrapes box scores to determine how top basketball prospects have stacked up against all their previous competition.
With all that in mind, far away as we may be from draft night on June 22, here is how I see everything shaking out just based on what we know so far: