2025 NBA first round mock draft: Intrigue starts at pick No. 3

Duke’s Cooper Flagg is the best American basketball prospect since Zion Williamson, drawing comparisons to some of the best two-way players in NBA history, such as Scottie Pippen and Kevin Garnett. He’s a no-brainer for the Mavericks here, giving the franchise an unbelievably lucky reprieve following their unconscionable trading of Luka Doncic.

Regardless of which team is making this pick, Dylan Harper appears to be the clear-cut second pick of the draft. Harper had flashes of brilliance, like his 37-point game against Alabama and 36-6-6 game against Notre Dame, but also had some impressive measurements at the NBA Combine: 6-foot-4.5 without shoes with a 6-foot-10.5 wingspan makes him a huge point guard. He could have Cade Cunningham potential, and that’s too good to pass up.

This pick could definitely be moved for the right veteran, but if Philly keeps it, then the explosive wing from Baylor is the move. He has similar upside and is less likely to bust than the other player often projected at three: Ace Bailey. Edgecombe is a physical specimen and projects to be a high-end two-way player and would fit nicely long-term alongside the Sixers’ young guards, Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain.

Drafting Ace Bailey is like playing Russian Roulette for a front office. When kids learn to play basketball, they’re taught to catch the ball in triple-threat position – so they can shoot, pass or dribble. Well, Bailey apparently stopped listening after the “shoot” part because that’s literally all he does. That said, credit where credit is due: he is a highly gifted shot-maker and routinely hits difficult shots a la Kobe Bryant. However, Kobe was also elite at just about every other facet of the game. Ace is not. Which makes him more like MarShon Brooks or a shorter Michael Porter Jr. than Kobe. Can he round out the rest of his game? Front office jobs will depend on it.

If there’s a superstar hiding in plain sight in this draft, it’s Jeremiah Fears. Fears has a tremendous combination of athletic ability and feel for the game as a lead guard. He’s also one of the youngest players in the draft. The one hole in his game is his shooting, but his form looks fine, and his free-throw efficiency (85.1 percent) should ease those concerns. If the Jazz aren’t ready to draft a point guard in the first round for the third straight season, look for other point guard-needy teams behind them in the lottery to try to trade up to this spot.

Lots of options for the Wizards at six, but I’d go with the best basketball player available: Kon Knueppel. Tre Johnson may have a deeper bag; Khaman Maluach may have a higher upside; but Knueppel is easily the best hooper available here. He’s an elite shooter (64.8 percent true shooting and 48-41-91 shooting splits) and has a lot of secondary playmaker ability for a wing prospect. He might not be a future All-NBA player, but the Wizards can peg him to be a very good offensive player for the next decade.

With Dejounte Murray on the shelf with an Achilles injury, and CJ McCollum getting up there in age (and being more of a shooting guard than point guard), the Pelicans could really use a point guard of the future. Enter Illinois’ Kasparas Jakucionis, a big, crafty Lithuanian point guard with excellent vision. Jakucionis will fit into the Pelicans’ future no matter what that looks like.

The Nets end Tre Johnson’s brief slide and select the talented scoring guard from Texas. Johnson put up impressive numbers as a freshman, averaging 19.9 PPG with 43-40-87 shooting splits. The Nets are essentially a blank-slate roster with lots of cap space and a good coach in Jordi Fernandez, so a high-upside prospect like Johnson would be a good choice here.

Khaman Maluach could be an absolute steal for the Raptors at nine. The Duke big man is an absolutely massive human being – standing nearly 7-foot-1 barefoot with an almost 7-foot-7 wingspan and 9-foot-6 standing reach – and should, at the very least, be a good rim deterrent in the NBA. If he continues to develop offensively, he’d be on the Derek Lively–Tyson Chandler type of trajectory.

There’s a decent chance that the Rockets will make a big move this offseason, and this pick may end up in the hands of another team. But if it doesn’t, expect the Rockets to continue building on their defensive identity and select a player like Collin Murray-Boyles – a Julius Randle–type of athlete who will make his initial impact in the NBA on defense, where his toughness, huge wingspan, and ability to guard multiple positions should make him a favorite of coach Ime Udoka.

With a young roster full of emerging talent, the Blazers’ arrow is pointing up, so they shouldn’t be afraid of taking a big swing on a prospect like Noa Essengue. Essengue is, interestingly enough, sometimes compared to Blazers forward Jerami Grant with his length on the wing and ability to make straight-line drives and basket cuts.

The Bulls have been wandering aimlessly in the dregs of the NBA’s lower-middle class for over a decade: never bad enough to be in position to select the next superstar prospect; never good enough to make any noise in the postseason. Thus, they might as well take big swings on boom-or-bust players like Derik Queen in hopes that they land a late-lottery gem. There’s a lot to like about the 20-year-old big man’s game – he’s got a doughy build reminiscent of Nikola Jokic’s, but has great feet, soft hands, and an awesome feel for the game on the offensive end. He could very well be an offensive hub similar to Alperen Sengun or Domantas Sabonis… or he could struggle to stay in shape or have the requisite motor it takes to thrive in the NBA and have a Jahlil Okafor–type of career.

Thomas Sorber was one of the bigger winners of the NBA Combine on the measurements front, standing over 6-foot-9 barefoot and recording a pterodactyl-like 7-foot-6 wingspan. With Clint Capela potentially moving on in free agency, the Hawks will continue to build a team of young, athletic, and rangy forwards and bigs to surround Trae Young with and select the standout Georgetown big man, who was an All-Big East team performer in his sole college season.

This is an ideal fit between the Spurs and Arizona’s athletic wing, Carter Bryant. Though Bryant’s college stats were extremely pedestrian (6.5 PPG, 4.1 RPG in 19.3 MPG), he flashed elite three-and-D potential, especially with his defensive activity, playing for a good, veteran-heavy squad. Under the right program, such as the one in San Antonio, he could develop into an outstanding wing who can guard three or four positions at a high level and knock down corner threes with his fundamentally sound stroke.

The Thunder love them some long, versatile, skilled players, and BYU’s 6-foot-9 jumbo guard, Egor Demin, certainly fits that bill. If Demin develops a jump shot, look out – he could be a super version of Josh Giddey and give the Thunder an elite playmaker to input into their already unselfish team. Demin averaged 10.6 PPG and 5.5 APG in his only year in college.

The Magic have been one of the worst three-point shooting teams seemingly forever, including finishing dead last in three-point efficiency last season (31.8 percent). Jase Richardson, the sweet-shooting son of two-time dunk champion Jason Richardson, is coming off an outstanding freshman season where he averaged 12.1 PPG while nailing 41.2 percent from deep for Michigan State. He would be an ideal fit.

After beginning his career in Division III, Cedric Coward has rapidly improved to the point where he has a legitimate chance of going in the top 20. The rangy wing shot 40 percent from three last season at Washington State and has a freakish 7-foot-2 wingspan that fits exactly what the Timberwolves need with their upcoming salary cap issues, which will likely cause them to lose Nickeil Alexander-Walker to free agency.

Georgia’s Asa Newell is the type of super-active big man who is constantly putting pressure on the defense and hitting the boards hard. The 6-foot-9, 224-pound lefty projects as a high-end role player with a bit of upside if he can parlay his decent-looking shot into a legitimate three-point stroke someday and/or protect the rim and play the five. He’d be a solid fit next to Alex Sarr.

Once thought to be a surefire lottery pick, Liam McNeeley has seen his draft stock take a bit of a hit after a slightly disappointing, somewhat injury-plagued season at UConn. That said, as a Huskies fan who watched every one of his games, I can say he was the most talented player and suffered a high ankle sprain right when he was starting to emerge as the go-to guy on the team. When he returned, the reintegration was sloppy and the team faltered. Had that injury not occurred, he’d still be a lottery pick. The Nets get a steal here at 19.

Once considered to be a top-five prospect in this draft, French point guard Nolan Traore’s stock has fallen off a cliff this season, in large part due to poor shooting. That said, he just turned 19 and still has the physical attributes and skill set to be a lead guard in the NBA, so it would make sense for the Heat to nab a player with some serious upside and hope they can develop Traore into their point guard of the future.

The Jazz have a ton of prospects already on their roster, so there’s a chance that they try to package this pick with the fifth pick and another asset to move up in the draft. However, if they stay put, why not take a shot on one of the weirder prospects in recent memory: Michigan’s Danny Wolf. Watching Wolf will make you do double- and triple-takes when you see a slow-footed, seven-foot white guy running pick-and-rolls as the ball handler and shooting step-back threes off the dribble. Why not see if Jazz coach Will Hardy can figure out what to do with Wolf at the next level?

The Hawks have a fairly deep roster at the wing position, so they’ll look to add some guard depth behind Trae Young here by selecting a guard who can shoot the cover off the ball in Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. After drawing comparisons to the likes of Steph Curry and Shabazz Napier during his magical March Madness run, Clayton projects to be a spark plug scoring guard in the NBA at the very least — and maybe a bit more.

Nique Clifford was the “it” wing that was shooting up draft boards before Cedric Coward stole his thunder. No matter — Clifford is still a stud who came into his own in his fifth and final college season, averaging 18.9 PPG, 9.6 RPG, and 4.4 APG with efficient 50-38-78 shooting splits. While he doesn’t have the upside of some of the other wings in this class, he can contribute immediately for a Pacers team that should be a contender for the rest of the decade.

The Thunder will soon be paying max or near-max salaries to the likes of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren. Therefore, they’re going to continue to need cheaper roster talent, as they’re not going to always be able to pay a premium for role players like Isaiah Hartenstein. Stanford’s Maxime Raynaud is a seven-footer who improved every year in college, culminating in him posting a 20 and 10 stat line last season while also displaying some ability to shoot it from deep.

The Magic desperately need shooters to surround Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, so why not take the best shooter in the draft here, a little early in Koby Brea? While the 22-year-old wing leaves something to be desired with his athleticism and quickness, you can’t teach shooting like this – the dude shot 49.8 percent from downtown two years ago at Dayton and proved he could do it on a bigger stage last season, shooting a scintillating 43.5 percent from three at Kentucky.

Armed with picks 8, 19, 26, and 27, the Nets will almost assuredly package some of these picks for a veteran player or to move up in the draft. If they are unable to do so, expect them to continue to go after the project-type of players who can be difference-makers if they pop. Will Riley, a talented 6-foot-8 wing with scoring prowess, will need to bulk up his slender 185-pound frame before contributing at the next level.

Another pick for the Nets, another big swing. Ben Saraf’s highlight reel gives off immediate Goran Dragic vibes – he’s a left-handed showman of a point guard, who has been putting up impressive numbers in Europe for such a young guard (12.8 PPG and 4.6 APG in EuroCup league play). The Nets could bring him over and throw him into the fire immediately or let him continue to develop in Europe.

With Jayson Tatum likely missing all of next season recovering from an Achilles rupture, the 2025–26 season could be a bit of a reset in Boston, and many of their expensive veterans could be traded. That would open the door for some real raw but uber-talented prospects like UNC’s Drake Powell to get some run. Powell, who was a five-star recruit, had a rough season in Chapel Hill, but could be a hidden gem given his excellent athleticism (43-inch vertical at the NBA Combine) and length at the wing position (7-foot wingspan).

Rasheer Fleming is an athletic power forward with a nearly 7-and-a-half-foot wingspan. He plays like Montrezl Harrell – cutting, rolling, and dunking everything in sight with authority. But he also can shoot three-pointers and knocked down 39 percent on decent volume last season at St. Joseph’s. The Suns are going to be a mess the next couple of seasons, so they’re basically taking the best player available here and hoping he hits.

With the final pick in the first round, the Clippers take this draft’s mystery man, Hugo Gonzalez. The 6-foot-7, bouncy Spanish wing was once thought of as an elite prospect and made Real Madrid’s roster as a 16-year-old in the 2022–23 season, but has essentially been glued to the bench ever since. There’s also a good chance that his team is still playing in the weeks leading up to the draft, so he won’t get to work out for many NBA teams, if any. That makes him a perfect pick for the Clips to take a swing on.