Hornets out on Cooper Flagg, will land Big Ten star in 2025 NBA Mock Draft

The 2025 NBA Draft early entry list has been released. While the Charlotte Hornets will be hoping to luck out for Duke's Cooper Flagg, the initial mock draft by The Athletic believes the to pick will go to the Washington Wizards.   

"This year's early entry list is much less substantial than what we’ve seen in the past," according to The Athletic's Sam Vecenie. "Mainly because of the proliferation of the name, image and likeness (NIL) marketplace in college basketball, there are only 106 early entrants to the NBA Draft, a drastically lower number than the 195 who entered last year and the 242 who entered the year before. This peaked in 2021, when 353 early entrants declared for the draft."

Charlotte is projected to land Rutgers Forward Ace Bailey with the No. 5 pick. Most believe this is a stretch with the 6-foot-10 big man being a top three talent. 

"He remains quite polarizing and has seemed to have borne the brunt of the blame from NBA personnel for Rutgers’ poor season," according to Vecenie.  "Yes, he averaged 17.6 points and seven rebounds while shooting 46 percent from the field and 34 percent from 3. But his style of play did not seem wildly conducive to winning basketball. He settles for a lot of long jumpers because he struggles to get all the way to the rim (he has a high handle and high center of gravity that gets knocked off its line a bit too easily). Defensively, he wasn’t always particularly engaged in help situations unless he saw an opportunity to go get the basketball.

"And yet, it’s worth noting that Rutgers was a catastrophe when he wasn’t on the court. Even in Big Ten play, they lost Bailey’s minutes by only three points per 100 possessions. When he was off the court, they lost those minutes by 23 points per 100, per CBB Analytics. His presence was clearly helpful, and I think that’s what tracks most for me. Bailey is enormous, he’s long, he is a real shooter and he showed some defensive moments that were very positive in switch situations. I can’t really get him outside of the top five, and I think it would be very reasonable to take him at No. 3. It’s just that both Portland and New Orleans in this exercise at No. 3 and No. 4 are loaded with big wings right now." 

The Hornets have back-to-back picks in the second round at No. 33 & 34. Vecenie believes UAB forward Yaxel Lendeborg and Marquette guard Kam Jones will complete the draft for Charlotte. 

The 2025 NBA Draft is on Wednesday, June 25 at 8 p.m. ET.