2025 NBA Draft: What Anonymous Scouts Said About BYU's Egor Demin

With the 2025 NBA Draft only one week away, most of the speculation is starting to settle with everything falling into place. We already know Duke's Cooper Flagg is the consensus top pick and is most likely headed to Dallas to take over where Luka Doncic left off. 

But past the four five picks, everything starts to get rocky. The Athletic's David Aldridge interviewed several coaches, scouts, and executives for his annual NBA Draft Guide. There were three quotes gathered on BYU's Egor Demin, who comes into next week as a fringe lottery pick. Here's what an opposing college coach, NBA scout, and NBA executive said anonymously to Aldridge. 

College assistant coach No. 4 (his team played BYU): The first thing that stands out is you walk out there and he’s 6-8 1/2. (ED: Demin measured slightly shorter – 6-8 1/4 – in Chicago.) He’s tall. He’s frail, but he’s tall and he’s long. When we played them, our whole thing was we were going to get up and pressure him, pressure him, pressure him. He can make all the reads, all the passes, both hands. He’s got all that down, especially when he sees the same coverages over and over. … We were like, let’s attack him. Trap the ball screen, go under. We kept switching it up. He struggled a little bit with that. 

I think he’s a good player, the Josh Giddey-ish type guy. I think he’s going to end up shooting it better. The NBA guys were asking me, “Well, what worries you?” It’s so physical (in the NBA). He’ll have to get adjusted to that, because he’s light in the ass that way. I think he’s going to just have to figure that out. Once he (does) that, he’ll be fine. Probably will wind up being a backup point guard for some years, because he’s got size, he can make shots. And he can really pass.

Eastern Conference scout No. 2: Egor shot the ball well in Chicago in that one-on-none; but the game’s played at 7, with people in the stands.

Western Conference Executive No. 3: His vision and passing stuff, he’s not (Luka) Dončić. But this kid can pass it and has size and can play in an NBA game, because he can think on his own. He doesn’t need a script and look at it and has to learn it. He understands flow, who needs touches, time management, already. He’s mature beyond what he would be as a rookie. At worst, (he’s Josh) Giddey, in that hemisphere of a clone. 

The shooting piece, I’m not concerned with. He’ll figure that out. … Overall, he may be getting a little undervalued. When I saw him early, I figured if he played 34, 36 minutes a game, he could come close — I’m not saying he would — to averaging a triple-double. And I don’t think he was playing with that great (a group) of guys around him. How many other guys from that team are going to be pulling down a pro paycheck, except for maybe one or two of them?

BYU's last top ten pick was Jimmer Fredette in 2011. Demin will be in the green room at the Draft in Brooklyn next week. He's been projected anywhere from No. 10 to the Houston Rockets to No. 20 to the Miami Heat, according to the latest mock drafts.