The 2025 NBA Draft Was STRANGE…

The 2025 NBA Draft Was STRANGE…

the 2025 NBA draft just has happened and it was definitely a weird one Coming into the night we had all these different questions about what’s happening with these Jaylen Brown trade rumors What’s going to happen with Ace Bailey at the top of the draft Seems like the Nets have five first round picks What are they going to do with all of them There was so much momentum building towards this being an unbelievable night for the NBA All these different rumors were swirling All these different stars were possibly available We thought we were going to get multiple trade-ups into the tops of the draft I’ve never seen as many rumors flying leading up to an NBA draft as we had tonight And I really felt like there were just so many questions flying around the league leading up to probably the most excited I’ve been for an NBA draft in a very long time And now we have most of those questions answered Of course starting at the top of the draft Cooper Fly goes first overall Dylan Harper goes second We pretty much knew that was what was going to happen going into the draft And we were decently sure that third overall was going to be VJ Edgecom talked about this a couple of days ago in a video where it just made a lot of sense for them to not deal with the Ace Bailey situation get someone that fits a little bit more as a complimentary player for them and then figure out the rest of the roster And once he got picked third overall and it became clear that the Sixers were staying at three they were not trading the pick then everything really opened up from there because what I thought was going to happen going into the night and as the draft was unfolding is I thought a team was going to move up to fourth overall in this draft and select Ace Bailey There’s been all this conversation about the fact that he’s one of the most talented players in the class but he hasn’t been working out with teams He’s been trying to force his way to particular teams presumably Washington maybe New Orleans and Brooklyn And once Edgecomb goes third I’m thinking okay we’re getting a trade here at fourth overall And then Charlotte goes and drafts Kanipple fourth overall So I’m thinking okay we’re either getting a trade in front of Washington at five from Utah or Ace Bailey’s going sixth overall from Washington And then the Utah Jazz just say “You know what Let’s go ahead and draft one of the most talented players in the entire class and Ace Bailey at fifth overall.” And it’s clear that’s not the outcome he wanted because not only did he not go to one of his destinations he wanted to New Orleans Washington and maybe New Orleans but also he lost out on some money by going fifth overall when if honestly if he’d handled the draft process normally he might have gone second or third overall in this class And now he ends up in Utah This is obviously great value for Utah And there’s some other things happening Utah there we can talk about here in a little bit but this is fantastic value for them And I really respect Danny Age in the front office just saying you know what we’re going to take the guy that we think is the best player We don’t care that he hasn’t worked out for us It’s not crazy by the way for teams to take players that didn’t work out for them Paulo Ban Carol pretty famously never worked out for the Orlando Magic a couple of years ago And they picked him first overall Like it’s not crazy that teams just say “You know what We think you’re really good We’ve watched you play in college We’ve been scouting you for over a year We don’t care if you never showed up for an individual workout.” And Utah knew when they made the selection that Ace Bailey didn’t want to go there and they made the pick anyway Now that might mean that this is just a value play for Utah and they’re going to look at moving him in the days past the draft That’s not totally uncommon Think about you know someone like Andrew Wiggins in the past getting traded for Kevin Love It’s not crazy to pick a guy in the top five and then trade him later on And there were definitely rumors during the day that Utah and Danny A were talking to some people in Boston about potentially a Jaylen Brown trade Maybe Ace Bailey becomes a central part of that But I think they just looked at the situation and realized what’s the best thing we can do for our team at fifth overall and that was take a high upside player like Ace Bailey and I don’t know if it’s going to work out for them but I can really really respect the fact that they just said you know what this is the best move for us And now Ace Bailey just has to deal with the consequences of dealing with the draft process the way that he did He was one pick away from going one of the places he wanted to which is Washington They end up going with Trey Johnson which I think which I think is going to be a really good fit for them And the story of the draft was pretty much settled there at fifth overall And then we got some fireworks later on because we got two pretty significant trades as we moved forward in the draft Phoenix was picking a 10th overall They end up going with Malawatch out of Duke a big guy And at that point I’m assuming okay cool that’s their center And at the exact same time they trade the 29th overall pick in this draft and a 2029 first that’s owed to like 17 different teams in exchange for Mark Williams Mark Williams the trade 2.0 finally happens from Charlotte He ends up getting moved to Phoenix and all of a sudden they went from having nobody at the five spot to two guys that they’re going to be able to develop over the next couple of seasons I like the value for Phoenix I like Malawatch a lot I really kind of hope the Nets were going to pick him up at eight before they took Igor Demon and then I think Mark Williams if healthy is going to be really productive and helpful for Phoenix Obviously you’re questioning how much value there is in having those two guys together but one of them is hurt all the time and the other is definitely a project So I can understand as they’re trying to figure out their team in the post Kevin Durant era here I really don’t mind that at all for Phoenix And also I like the fact that Charlotte’s getting value out of someone in Mark Williams that just probably isn’t in their long-term plans because of all the injury concerns But the craziest move of the entire draft happens at 13 overall The Atlanta Hawks have this selection They’re sitting at 13 They’re perfectly content making a pick And then New Orleans calls them and says “Hey we want to move up from 23.” Okay cool Let’s do that and they decide that they’re going to trade next year’s first round pick to move out from 23 to 13 and select Dair Queen No disrespect to Derek Queen We’re going to see how good he is ultimately This is one of the worst draft night trades I’ve seen maybe ever because the Pelicans despite trading for Jordan Pool in the middle of the week are not a very good basketball team and are always hurt Every single season half their roster is missing which results in like this year them having top seven top eight picks They selected Jeremiah Fierce early on in the draft in no disrespect to Queen and Fierce but I don’t see this Pelicans roster as a group that’s like guaranteed to be really good in a very tough Western Conference and they traded the more favorable of a 2026 pick between them and Milwaukee Essentially they traded their own first round pick to move up 10 spots from 23 to 13 They might have traded a top 10 a top five pick for next year They were at seven this year in exchange for moving up 10 spots and selecting Derrick Queen Obviously they really like Derrick Queen but I I I can never understand the concept of that and the value of that Just wait and pick your guy at 23 move around another way but moving up that much in a draft when you have no idea what’s going to happen with your pick next year when you’re always hurt when you’re a team that even when healthy hasn’t necessarily had a ton of success with this roster makes absolutely no sense whatsoever And hey maybe I’ll be wrong but this feels like a really aggressive move for a team in the Pelicans position It feels like a team completely misreading who they are as a team Some other trade stuff happened as well The Grizzlies ended up moving up from 16 to 11 Definitely some surprising picks here in the first round But I think the moral of the story for this draft nights was that there was definitely less movement especially in terms of players not just draft picks than we really expected I think people expected a lot more fireworks They expected a lot more movement And we’ve gotten that in the prior few days So much so that I haven’t made videos on things like the CJ McCollum Jordan pool trade I have made a video on the Chris Porzingis trade But I definitely expected there to be more things happening from a trade perspective tonight Like I said there were all kinds of rumors where the Jazz were looking at maybe trading the fifth overall pick and some other stuff in exchange for Jaylen Brown as part of a package for Jaylen Brown There were conversations had about Paul George getting dumped along with the third overall pick Low marketing potentially being available and a lot of that stuff has cooled down which to me means one of two things one either all these insiders that were calling for this crazy night of all these trades and a crazy offseason a bunch of trades are wrong or more likely all of that stuff is still on the table and maybe they were picks made with value in mind like someone like Ace Bailey at fifth overall where the Jazz are like “Hey this is just the best asset we can get at this pick and then maybe we’ll move it later on.” And also it probably means that there’s a bunch of teams out there that still see their rosters as very unfinished and see these young guys as projects and potential pieces moving forward but not the core foundation of their team And I think ultimately we are still going to get an extremely active NBA offseason There’s still going to be a bunch of moves in the Second Apron CBA era where all these teams are trying to save money We already saw that with the Celtics getting rid of Drew Holiday and Chris Porzingis We’ve seen already New Orleans making weird moves like trading for Jordan P which is a whole different conversation I think New Orleans just maybe needs to exist in a separate category right now when it comes to trade stuff But I do think we’re still going to see a bunch of moves I wouldn’t be surprised if we get some kind of resolution on the Giannis thing over the next couple of days There’s still a lot to look forward to for the offseason even though frankly the draft tonight was a little bit disappointing in terms of overall you know big newsmaking moves

The 2025 NBA Draft did not go as we expected, with Ace Bailey going to the Utah Jazz, a few surprising trades, and the Nets selecting 5 players in the first round.

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