<![CDATA[Dub Nation HQ]]>https://dubnationhq.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yC5Y!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F768d73c0-a57a-4997-813a-a59d754fc9e5_1100x1100.pngDub Nation HQhttps://dubnationhq.comSubstackTue, 30 Jun 2026 22:10:52 GMT<![CDATA[With free agency ahead, the Warriors look to be major players]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/with-free-agency-ahead-the-warriorshttps://dubnationhq.com/p/with-free-agency-ahead-the-warriorsTue, 30 Jun 2026 15:57:23 GMT

Every June, right after the NBA season finally comes to rest, I do the same thing. I thank God it’s over and start plotting my getaway birthday trip immediately. This year I drove up deep through Northern California, new roads, new rooms, no real plan, just trying to get out of my own head for a minute. Ten years of covering this team will do that to you. You start needing the same reset they’re forced into every offseason.

And somewhere on that drive, probably staring at a coastline I had no business being that relaxed in front of, it hit me. I’ve been doing this for a decade. Not just the trip, but the writing and watching and creating content for a team from my own backyard.

Here’s the thing about being a Warriors fan that nobody warns you about going in: this team has never needed to be good to be worth your time. I think back to the lottery years, the ones where the record was ugly and the arena was half empty and there was still, somehow, something on the floor worth tuning in for. The Warriors have always found a way to give you a reason, even when the reason wasn’t winning.

So now here we are, ten years later after I started, and the team looks almost nothing like it did back then. That team was young, hungry, dominant, and the reward for a fan base that waited four decades for relevance. Now? We’re talking about how theyr’e older and a little more fragile. Dangerous in flashes, sleepy in stretches, occasionally banged up in a way that makes you wince watching them walk to the bench. The twilight is real, and pretending otherwise does nobody any favors.

But twilight isn’t the same as silence. Steph, Draymond, and the whole core are deep enough into their thirties that the conversation has shifted from “how good can this get” to “how much do they have left to say.” That’s the more interesting question to me right now. As long as a team still has something to say, you stay tuned in to hear it.

That’s where I am too, ten years into this. Not just asking what’s next for the Warriors but asking what’s next for me saying it.

One thing I’ve learned is that inspiration doesn’t really work as a solo act after a while. It needs other people in the room. You need that ping pong, that back and forth energy with people who scratch the itch in you to keep thinking, keep talking, keep showing up. Whether that’s family, the people you work with, your friends, or whatever hobby has its hooks in you, finding that fuel outside of yourself is what keeps the tank full.

That’s the real engine behind Dub Nation HQ. People walk in here and say what’s actually on their mind without flinching, and that honesty is contagious. One person’s take pulls a response out of someone else, and that response pulls out another one, and before you know it you’ve got a whole hive of thought moving in the same direction. There’s something genuinely beautiful about that. A community built on people who refuse to keep their basketball opinions to themselves.

That brings us to the actual basketball, because while I was out chasing vibes on backroads, the front office decided this was the week to remind everyone why this franchise never really sleeps. Draymond Green turned down his $27.6 million player option Monday morning, and that single decision tells you almost everything about where this front office’s head is at right now. Green doesn’t walk away from guaranteed money unless there’s a bigger plan already in motion, and league sources confirmed that’s exactly what’s happening. The Warriors are lining up a real pursuit of LeBron James in free agency, and they’re exploring a trade for Anthony Davis, all in the same week.

Ten years after I started covering this team in earnest, the front office is still operating with the same appetite for a swing that defined the dynasty years. Green, James, and Davis all share an agent in Rich Paul, which is the kind of detail that makes you wonder how much of this has been quietly choreographed behind the scenes for longer than anyone’s letting on.

The timeline gets even more interesting when you add Kristaps Porzingis back into the mix. Hours after the Green news broke, Porzingis agreed to a new two-year, $40 million deal to stay in Golden State, a move that locks in size and shooting but also tightens the financial runway for fully paying James the nontaxpayer midlevel exception. The front office still believes there’s a path to make it work, but it’s not a clean one anymore.

As for the LeBron piece specifically, Golden State’s interest isn’t new. Team sources have indicated for weeks that this courtship was coming, built on the read that James was probably headed back to the Lakers. That read is shifting as apparently negotiations between James and Los Angeles have stalled heading into Tuesday’s free agency, and that stall is exactly the kind of crack in the door this front office has been waiting on.

Then there’s Anthony Davis, which is where this gets genuinely fascinating. League sources believe Davis could function less as the primary target and more as the bait, a familiar championship partner from that 2020 Lakers title run who could help close the deal on James himself. Nothing concrete has moved on the Davis front yet, but if it does, the realistic version of that trade almost certainly has to include Jimmy Butler, who is still less than four months removed from ACL surgery and is set to make an expiring $56.8 million next season against Davis’s $58.4 million. Am I seeing that right, DNHQ?

Here’s where I want to be careful, because Butler isn’t just a trade chip in a spreadsheet. The organization has told him directly, dating back to the February deadline, that they want to keep him. Butler addressed the speculation himself last week, saying it’s good to know he’s wanted, and that if the front office finds a faster path to winning without him, that’s their job to pursue. His agent Bernie Lee echoed that the franchise, from ownership down to the medical staff, has stayed committed to supporting Butler through his rehab.

So that’s the basketball reality sitting underneath everything I said about twilight and inspiration. This roster, the one that’s older now, a little more fragile, occasionally banged up, just watched its locker room leader bet on something bigger. Whatever happens with LeBron or Davis or Butler, the appetite hasn’t changed. The hunger to add one more chapter is still very much alive. Which means just like you and I, the Warriors still very much have something to say.

Subscribe now

]]><![CDATA[Meet the new Warriors: Yaxel Lendeborg, LaJae Jones, Nick Boyd, Graham Ike, CJ Gunn]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/meet-the-new-warriors-yaxel-lendeborghttps://dubnationhq.com/p/meet-the-new-warriors-yaxel-lendeborgFri, 26 Jun 2026 19:02:09 GMT

Table of Contents

More detailed scouting reports on the new Warriors are below.

What to expect from the new signings

We should expect to see Yaxel Lendeborg, LaJae Jones, Nick Boyd, Graham Ike, and CJ Gunn all in Summer League (CA Classic and Las Vegas).

  • Yaxel has a guaranteed rookie scale contract (starts ~$6.1m / yr). He will almost certainly start the season coming off the bench on the NBA team.

  • It is not known what contract LaJae will have.

    • To keep his rights, the Warriors need to offer him a minimum guaranteed contract (~$1.3m).

    • However, many second round draft picks will sign for a two-way contract instead. (Quinten Post did this.) Indeed, the fact that Jones was drafted suggests he would be open to this. Players who won’t accept less than a minimum usually tell the team they won’t accept anything less than the qualifying minimum, so don’t draft them.

    • If LaJae signs a two-way, that means that if he eventually signs a minimum guaranteed contract, he will hit restricted free agency after two years (much like what’s happening with Quinten Post). If he signs his first contract as a rookie minimum, the contract will lock him in for 4 years (i.e. what’s happening with Will Richard).

  • The statuses of Boyd, Ike and Gunn are unclear, but likely they will all sign Exhibit 10 contracts, which give GSW the right to sign them as a two-way and, if the player plays for the G-League team in Santa Cruz, the player will get a tidy bonus.

  • The practical upshot is that Boyd, Ike and Gunn will be fighting it out with LJ Cryer and Malevy Leons (and anyone else excelling from summer league) for the three two-way contracts.

The re-newest Warrior: Al Horford

Al Horford plans to return to the Golden State Warriors next season, he told ESPN on Thursday.

Horford, 40, is declining his $6 million player option, with sources telling ESPN that he intends to sign a two-year, $14 million contract to return to the Warriors once free agency begins next month. Horford’s new deal will be fully guaranteed and includes a trade kicker, sources said.

…

“I want to see it through,” Horford said. “That [injury] kind of put a damper on things. Jimmy is a very special player, and he was doing so much for us. I feel like things were starting to turn.”

Yaxel Lendeborg, #11 pick

And here’s Old Man Horford on Yaxel:

The Warriors selected Michigan wing Yaxel Lendeborg with the 11th pick in the NBA draft Tuesday. Lendeborg, like Horford, is of Dominican descent, and Horford said his father, Tito, and Lendeborg’s father, Okary, played for the Dominican national team in the early 1990s.

“He’s already NBA ready,” Horford said of Lendeborg. “He’s a guy that has a big body that can score the ball, can get downhill, can put pressure on defenses. With him, with the guys we had last year, I expect that we should be in a pretty good place.”

LaJae Jones, #54 pick

The Athletic

54. Golden State Warriors

Lajae Jones | 6-7 | 22 years old | Florida State

Jones is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none wing who is probably most useful on the defensive end. He’s somewhat switchable and a solid playmaker with good hands. He’ll rotate across the weak side and get into passing lanes. The key for him will be the jumper, which just hasn’t quite been consistent enough over the course of his well-traveled collegiate career.

Hollinger’s analysis: The Warriors have done a great job scouting the bottom end of the draft in recent years, and Jones has a chance to be another find. He’s an NBA athlete who just needs to shoot more consistently and improve his decisions when he puts it on the deck. Grade: B+

Ersin Demir

There is much more at the linked section title.

Introduction

While scoring over fifteen points per game as a sophomore, Lajae Jones was crowned a NJCAA champion at Barton CC. Hereafter, made a big transfer up to St. Bonaventure as one of JUCO’s better defenders, putting up a 10.8 points per game scoring season while being a reliable volume shooter off the catch. These two years led to me putting Jones on my watchlist for this season, even mentioning him as a clear-cut NBA prospect in my ACC season preview last summer.

The defensive versatility on top of him maximizing his value in a more limited role made him a much-wanted commodity. He continued to show out defensively after transferring to Florida State, taking on a bigger role to where he has shown his role can scale at the next level. At close to thirteen points per game, he again had a good season showcasing his true NBA skill.

At the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament he kept showing out against his peers, making him one of the more underrated prospects in this draft pool. Jones is ready to take on a rotational role in the league, and this scouting report emphasizes what he can become in the future and how he will survive the first couple of NBA seasons.

Physical Profile

At 6’6.75” in shoes and 228 pounds, Jones is built like a rock with broad shoulders and a well-filled frame. He has a great core and fluid hips while showing good footwork. He’s a physical defender with the lateral pace to switch from finesse to sustaining an opponent’s speed. He’s a good athlete, mostly laterally while showing decent vertical pop as well.

At a 6’7.5” wingspan the length is limited, but that doesn’t hurt his profile as he’s more of a strength-based athlete instead of making an impact in the air. He’s physically more than ready to play a role immediately, which puts another added value to his profile.

Nick Boyd, undrafted free agent

Sam Vecenie, The Athletic

  • This is an excerpt from the Vecenie guide. There is considerably more detail in the original guide.

OVERVIEW

  • Height: 6 ft. 1 in.

  • Weight: 176 lbs.

  • Wingspan: 6 ft. 21/2 in.

  • Standing reach: 8 ft.

  • Birthday: April 23, 2001

  • Age: 25.2

  • Hometown: Garnerville, N.Y.

ANALYSIS

Boyd is a fascinating player; he was pretty complete as a lead guard this season at Wisconsin while running a well-spaced offense. He got the team in and out of its actions and pressured the defense going toward the rim consistently with his flexibility and tight handle in ball screens. He was one of the few guards who showed the craft to beat an opposing defender in isolation situations, and he also fights hard on defense while rarely turning over the ball.

I can see a way this works as a backup point guard in the NBA. But the fact that he’s already 25 and 6 feet 1 makes me much more comfortable betting on him as a two-way player than as a guaranteed contract player. Boyd might have been the most underrated player in the country this year, but the lack of size and strength could pose issues at the next level.

STRENGTHS

  • The easiest way to describe Boyd is that he’s a real hooper.

  • It’s hard to bother him with pressure off the dribble.

  • Puts serious pressure on the basket.

  • Part of the reason he’s such an effective driver is that he’s a capable shooter, especially off the catch.

  • Doesn’t have great in-between counters but can make a floater; he hit 42 percent of them, per Synergy.

  • Boyd isn’t an elite passer, but he makes his decisions quickly and generally keeps the offense flowing.

  • Despite his size, he has at least battled at the point of attack and tried to get underneath opposing players throughout his career.

AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

  • Boyd will be small for the NBA.

  • Boyd was a 24-year-old dominating younger players this season.

  • The size will come up most on defense.

  • He was not that disruptive off the ball on defense.

  • Offensively, two concerns pop up.

  • Boyd’s vision is not consistently elite.

NBA.com

Overview
Nick Boyd’s path to NBA draft consideration is one of the more unconventional in this class. The Garnerville, New York native spent four seasons at Florida Atlantic, including a redshirt year, before stops at San Diego State and finally Wisconsin, accumulating more big-game experience than nearly any 2026 prospect. He was a starter on FAU’s 2023 Cinderella team and scored 12 points in the Final Four loss to San Diego State, the same program he transferred to the following year. In his lone season with the Aztecs, Boyd earned Second-Team All-Mountain West honors. He saved the best for last, as Boyd averaged 20.7 points, 3.8 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game at Wisconsin on 48/37/83 shooting splits across 35 games, earning Second-Team All-Big Ten honors and helping the Badgers reach the Big Ten Tournament Championship, where he also earned All-Tournament Team recognition. He was a two-time Big Ten Player of the Week and put together a strong performance during the NBA Draft Combine scrimmages that drew significant attention from scouts.

Analysis
Boyd is a savvy, under-control offensive guard whose production only elevated as his competition improved. He plays with excellent pace, rarely forces plays and posted one of the better assist-to-turnover ratios among high-usage guards in the Big Ten this past season. His shooting efficiency as a senior, particularly from the mid-range and off the pull-up, suggests a player who has refined and polished his game over six college seasons. Boyd turns 25 before draft night, making him one of the oldest prospects in the class by a significant margin, and he lacks elite athleticism that would help him finish around the rim against NBA-caliber defenders. His three-point shooting is functional but not exceptional, and his defensive profile against bigger guards could be scrutinized.

Projection
Boyd’s age limits his ceiling in the eyes of most evaluators, but his production, winning resume and combine performance have pushed him firmly onto draft boards. His most realistic NBA archetype is a dependable backup point guard who manages an offense efficiently, similar to players like Cam Payne, Tyus Jones or Darren Collison, who are all mistake-averse floor generals. If the shooting tightens and he can hold up defensively, Boyd has the IQ and poise to stick in a rotation.

— Profile by RotoWire.com

Graham Ike, undrafted free agent

SI.com:

Shortly after the second round of the NBA draft concluded on Wednesday, Ike reportedly agreed to a deal with the Golden State Warriors. It was later reported the deal will be an Exhibit 10 contract, with Golden State keeping the option to add him as a two-way player later on. ….

The 6’9 big man was named an All-WCC First Teamer all three years with the Zags, finally earning conference Player of the Year in 2025-26 by averaging 19.9 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 2.4 assists while shooting 60.9% on twos and 33.8% from three.

He took over for Gonzaga following the season-ending knee injury to star forward Braden Huff, ultimately posting averages of 23.2 points,7.5 rebounds, and1.9 assists while playing a ridiculous 34.9 minutes per game. Despite a significantly increased workload, a not quite 100% ankle injury, and no help in the frontcourt, Ike actually shot better in those 15 games - hitting 64.2% of his two pointers and 38.1% from deep - along with an outstanding 86.7% clip from the free throw line….

The 6’9 big man should get every opportunity to prove himself in the NBA Summer League next month, and likely ends up spending a good chunk of time with the Santa Cruz Warriors in the G League this upcoming season.

Vecenie: Massive, long post player who needs to change play style for NBA.

CJ Gunn, undrafted free agent

SI.com

According to The Consensus NBA, DePaul small forward CJ Gunn is signing a contract with the Warriors.

Gunn played sparingly in two seasons with Indiana before trasnferring to DePaul. In his two seasons with the Blue Demons, he averaged 13.0 points, 3.9 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.2 steals.

He shot just 41.4 percent from the floor and 30.5 percent from three.

Carr has promising length with his 6’7” frame, but so does Warriors second-round pick Lajae Jones.

If it comes down to one two-way roster spot between Jones and Carr, expect Jones to get the nod.

Andy Thompson: “BREAKING: DePaul guard CJ Gunn has signed with the Golden State Warriors as an undrafted free agent, a source confirms to @TheDePaud. Gunn completed a workout with the team in the weeks leading up to the draft. He is believed to have upside as a perimeter piece.”

@Ary_Report: “Source: UDFA CJ Gunn agreed to a deal with the Golden State Warriors. Gunn, a 6-foot-7 wing out of DePaul, tested in the top 10% of the AIQ during the pre-draft process and impressed Warriors officials with his positional size, shooting ability, and long-term 3-and-D upside.”

The 2026 College Slam Dunk & 3-Point Contest tipped off Final Four weekend at Hinkle Fieldhouse on Friday as Sacramento State Hornets forward Shaqir O'Neal took home the dunk contest championship! O'Neal used back to back perfect scores to clinch the title, highlighted by leaping over two players and recreating Vince Carter's famous "Honey Dip" dunk. "It was a lot of pressure," O'Neal told the media. Meanwhile, DePaul Blue Demons guard CJ Gunn and Kansas Jayhawks guard Elle Evans won the men's and women's 3-point shootouts, proving they are among the most prolific shotmakers in the country.

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[NBA Draft 2nd round starts Wed 5:00pm PT]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/nba-draft-2nd-round-starts-wed-500pmhttps://dubnationhq.com/p/nba-draft-2nd-round-starts-wed-500pmWed, 24 Jun 2026 13:01:23 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020. The 2026 pagedescribes how the field was chosen, analyzes the relevance of BPM and other gory details.

The first round, summarized

I discussed the pick thoroughly yesterday:

And here from a fashion perspective is friend of the show Marisa Thinkmoo:

And here is Yaxel on himself (and his mother):

Before the second round

To know which player you hope will fall to GSW, here are 13 players potentially draftable at #54.

Here are the players that BPM and CHAWBPM have their eye on:

Confirmed workouts with GSW

  • Ugonna Onyenso, Virginia, C (#6 BPM, #76 CHAW)

  • Maliq Brown, Duke, Wing F (#7 BPM, #188 CHAW)

  • Dillon Mitchell, St. John’s, PF/C (#29 BPM, #217 CHAW)

  • Tamin Lipsey, Iowa State, Scoring PG (#34 BPM, #134 CHAW)

  • Emanuel Sharp, Houston, Combo G (#58 BPM, #50 CHAW)

  • Ja’Kobi Gillespie, Tennessee, Pure PG (#61 BPM, #37 CHAW)

  • Nate Bittle, Oregon, PF/C (#83 BPM, #30 CHAW)

  • Tucker DeVries, Indiana, Wing G (#126 BPM, #51 CHAW)

  • Quadir Copeland, NC State, Pure PG (#178 BPM, #49 CHAW)

No confirmed workouts with GSW

  • Bruce Thornton, Ohio State, Combo G (#18 BPM, #106 CHAW)

  • Rafael Castro, George Washington, C (#38 BPM, #98 CHAW)

  • Izaiyah Nelson, South Florida, C (#44 BPM, #97 CHAW)

  • Nick Boyd, Wisconsin, Scoring PG (#93 BPM, #39 CHAW)

If you are bored, you can dig into their statistics and video highlights yourself.

MDJ drafted players in the last two drafts whose team workouts had been kept secret., It would be just like him to draft one of the “no confirmed workouts” list.

My eye is on Bruce Thornton, a sweet shooting, downhill point guard, whose main issue is being a little short and a lot old. I’m not crazy about the bigs, as I think BPM overrates big man statistics. I do note that Onyenso has a crazy amount of blocks so maybe I could see him.

How to watch the Second Round

  • The second round will be on Wednesday, June 24 (5 PT, ESPN)*

  • *Fans outside of the US & Canada can stream both rounds on League Pass

It’s honestly a bit old-fashioned to (only) watch this on TV. If you want to be 5-10 minutes ahead of the televised draft, follow this comment section.

So, if you don’t want spoilers, turn off Bluesky and all social media, and avoid this comment section. Everyone is encouraged to post news here as soon as you have it from a reputable source.

  • In theory, the NBA made the Second Round a second day not just for ratings, but because teams requested more time to reflect on the first round and try to pull off deals.

  • In the same vein, second round picks will now have 4 minutes on the clock each (up from 2 minutes a couple of years ago).

  • The Warriors will have the #54 picks.

  • That means the #54 pick is estimated to be 24 x 4 = 96 minutes after start time (which is usually around 5:15).

Also, things may be shaken up with the announcement of trades changing which team is picking at which slot.

5:15-6:07. Picks 31 to 40

  • Other teams shuffle around and pick players.

  • (2025 pick #40 happened at 6:07pm.)

  • The Warriors MIGHT make a trade in the middle of the draft.

    • In 2025, GSW made a mid-draft trade: PHX gets #41, GSW gets #52 (Alex Toohey) and #59. Then GSW traded up from #59 to #56 to take Will Richard.

    • In 2024, GSW first traded #52 for Lindy Waters. Then they traded cash to get #52 (Quinten Post) back.

    • In 2023, GSW traded Patrick Baldwin Jr for the #57 (Trayce Jackson-Davis) pick.

6:07-6:51. Picks 41 to 50

  • (2025 pick #50 happened at 6:51pm.)

  • If you are a hardcore draft junkie, this round will be fascinating.

Otherwise…

6:51-7:07. Picks 51-53, then Warriors Pick 54

Let the future unfold!

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[GSW pick Yaxel Lendeborg at #11, the most-ready, best-fitting big man available ]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/gsw-pick-yaxel-lendeborg-at-11-thehttps://dubnationhq.com/p/gsw-pick-yaxel-lendeborg-at-11-theWed, 24 Jun 2026 03:40:42 GMT

Table of Contents

Draft Pick Analysis: Yaxel was inevitable

The Warriors selected Yaxel Lendeborg with the number 11 pick! If you wanted to pick a player that was most likely to help GSW in 2026-27, Yaxel would be the one. Yaxel in fact was the runner-up in our Draft Tourney behind Flemings, who was not available to pick. Therefore, Yaxel is the choice of DNHQ as well!

This pick has felt inevitable for over a year. I was tracking him carefully in the 2025 draft because he was an under-the-radar big whose statistical numbers absolutely popped. BPM loved him, and he was playing for a lower-tier team, so it seemed possible that he might slip to the Warriors.

As his 2024-25 season continued, his profile got higher and higher, and then he produced a stupendous statistical game in the National Invitational Tournament, which put him well out of reach of the second round and had him dreaming about the first round. A huge pot of Name, Image, and Likeness money was waiting for him at the University of Michigan, and so he went back to school and led that team all the way to the national championship a few weeks ago.

That made me hope that Yaxel would fall to the Warriors when they picked somewhere in the #15-#20 range.

But as the injuries piled up, GSW rocketed to the #11 spot. At this point, Dub Nation dared to dream a bigger dream than having Yaxel fall to them. At #11 there would be real prospects that you could dream about (and also choose disastrously as they lobby for more playing time and a bigger contract).

In the end, GSW couldn’t find a trade-down deal they liked and just grabbed Yaxel.

Yaxel eye test

Yaxel was a very good college defender and was able to switch onto smalls as well as bigs. He showed good hands. His height is 6-9, but his wingspan is a whopping 7-3. He shot a very respectable 37% from three this year and 36% last year, and shot 82% on free throws this year and 76% the previous year. He played hurt through the end of the year and through the NCAA Tournament because the team needed him.

I’ve included a lot of video and scouts from the Draft Tourney below.

Yaxel stats test

Have I mentioned that he’s a statistical god? RAPM loves him and ranks him in the 99th percentile of all players in college. BPM loves him and ranks him 12th out of 2,284 qualifying players. Even in 2025, he was already ranked #26.

I need to pause and remind us how much BPM has predicted Dunleavy’s draft picks.

  • Mike Dunleavy Jr has so far valued analytics much higher than Bob Myers. MDJ’s picks have been extremely highly ranked in BPM (out of all 5,000+ college players who played 40% of possible minutes):

    • #1 Trayce Jackson-Davis (#3 CHAW)

    • #11 Brandin Podziemski (#15 CHAW)

    • #31 Quinten Post (#12 CHAW)

    • #35 Will Richard (#284 CHAW)

    • and now… #12 Yaxel Lendeborg (#22 CHAW)

  • And the pattern holds even if you include undrafted free agents signed on draft night,

    • #39 Reese Beekman (#8 CHAW)

    • #70 LJ Cryer (#77 CHAW)

    • #79 Chance McMillian (#136 CHAW)

  • The one pick that doesn’t fit this pattern was Alex Toohey who had no NCAA track record so therefore no NCAA BPM. And we all saw what a miss that pick was.

Yaxel qualms

So after all that, why was my pre-draft vibe for Yaxel “Cautiously open minded”?

The famous issue is that Yaxel is 23.7 years old. For a simple comparison, #10 Brayden Burries is 20.8 yo and #12 Aday Mara is 21.2 yo. #1 pick Dybantsa is 19.4 yo.

That may not feel like a big age difference, but it’s quite large developmentally. The age difference has two big implications: projectability and upside.

Projectability concerns are that a 23 year old has a mature, built body playing against still-developing 19 and 20 year olds. Thus one has to take care in projecting their performance in the NBA compared to typical high-end rookies.

Upside concerns are that a 19 year old would have a whole four more years of improvement time, both for incremental progress and for the rare leaps in development that make a prospect into a star. On a smaller scale, you can consider the case of Moses Moody vs Chris Duarte in 2021. They were regarded as similar at draft time, but Duarte was around 24 yo. and Moses was 19 yo. Duarte was definitely more ready for the NBA, making the second-team All-Rookie team. But by 2024 Duarte was out of the league, and we know that Moody was continuing to improve as a borderline starter for GSW before his catastrophic injury.

Yaxel alternatives

Also available at the spot were Labaron Philon (fell all the way to #22) and Cameron Carr (#24). The next picks, if you want to wallow in FOMO, were

Yaxel conclusions

In the case of the Warriors, the team has definitely reached a crossroads where they have to decide whether to maximize the last two years of Steph Curry or maximize the possible stardom of a draft pick.

GSW clearly picked Steph-Curry-maxxing. The vast vast majority of rookies are negative contributors in their rookie year.

  • For a quick verification: there are 59 rookies of the 2025 NBA Draft. 6 of them had positive BPM. One of them was the older 23.5 year old big Ryan Kalkbrenner.

But since Yaxel is fairly mature, he has the best chance of being ready to contribute starting this season. Yaxel’s game doesn’t seem to rely on superior athleticism, so projectability might be less of an issue.

And upside is just not important when maxing Steph compared to being NBA-ready. By the way, we shouldn’t say that Yaxel is without any upside. Every player can bloom late and Yaxel also was a very late starter in the game of basketball. He only really played one year of top level college basketball. There are plausible reasons to think Yaxel may have more upside than his age.

But in the end, the Warriors could use a skilled defender who can guard bigs and smalls, pass some and maybe a shoot some 3s. Indeed it’s in the DNA of the Warriors that we are perpetually searching for a big man star and perpetually falling short. And this is very likely the best draft pick for Steph Curry’s success in the next two years.

Yaxel Lendeborg Scouting Report

Avg: 12.43 | Range: 12–14 | Draftballr | B-Ref

Height: 6-9 | Position: SF/PF | College: Michigan | PPG: 15.1 | RPG: 6.8 | APG: 3.2

Bleacher Report Pick 13

NBA teams won’t put much stock into Yaxel Lendeborg’s NBA combine performance or workouts. There is enough tape of his versatility and gradual improvement as a shooter and defender, and there is clearly enough evidence of high-impact minutes after his national championship run at Michigan.

ESPN Pick 12

The Thunder have a roster crunch to solve for this offseason, holding team options on Luguentz Dort, Isaiah Hartenstein and Kenrich Williams, as well as two first-round picks (they also have No. 17). Picking up all three would put them at 15 players, barring another consolidation trade. The Thunder figure to make at least one of those selections, adding cost-controlled young depth to their 64-win team.

Where Lendeborg hears his name called will be a fascinating case study of how NBA teams choose to factor in his age: Although he will be a 24-year-old rookie, he is a rare talent, given his center-sized dimensions, perimeter skill, and ability to guard all five positions. His trajectory as a late-blooming player who arguably has just begun to scratch the surface of his ability is another part of the evaluation. He will be in play inside the top 10 as an NBA-ready option, and might not make it out of the lottery.

The Athletic Pick 12

Even though Lendeborg gutted through an ankle injury in the Final Four, he led Michigan to a title and transformed his game. His counting numbers were down from his heights at UAB, but he averaged 15.1 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists while playing aggressive defense. He showcased serious switchability, often picking up lead ballhandlers at the point of attack as well as playing against power forwards when Mara or Morez Johnson Jr. would leave the court. He’s also an active help defender with excellent hands.

He drilled 37.4 percent of his 3s for the season, thanks to a hot streak at the end of the year in which he made 48.1 percent over his final 16 games — and that includes a 0-of-5 mark when he was clearly hobbled against UConn in the title game. Lendeborg tracks for Oklahoma City as a long, physical player with two-way acumen, something the Thunder are always on the lookout for. Don’t be surprised to see Oklahoma City try to consolidate some pick capital and move up in this class, either.

Apricot’s Live Commentary on Draft Night

  • Amick says GSW “did not see themselves as in the mix” for Trey Murphy III

    https://www.nbcsportsbayarea.com/nba/golden-state-warriors/trey-murphy-pelicans-offseason-trade-draft/1944913/

  • Ok, we need 2 surprises to have one of the Top 9 drop to GSW. We should definitely want that, even if you don’t like the faller, because that will make #11 more attractive as trade to other teams.

  • The reported intel on the draft is

    #1 WAS - Dybantsa

    #2 UTA - Peterson

    #3 MEM - Boozer, they are analytics-ish, remote controlled by Draft Twitter

    #4 CHI - Caleb Wilson

    #5 LAC - Wagler

    #6 BRK - ???

    #7 SAC - Acuff mutual interest between Acuff and the Kings

    #8 ATL - ???

    #9 DAL (hired U Mich coach) (Trying to trade down)

    #10 MIL - ???

    #11 GSW - ???

    Let’s see how good the intel is.

  • [on my intel being right so far[ well, I won’t crack open the box of dog biscuits until the actual pick comes...

  • I switched to the Bleacher Report YT live stream with Wasserman

  • They say the draft doesn’t really start until someone makes a surprise pick. Maybe only I say that. Anyway, the draft hasn’t started.

    √ #1 WAS - Dybantsa

    √ #2 UTA - Peterson

    √ #3 MEM - Boozer, they are analytics-ish, remote controlled by Draft Twitter

  • First moment of real uncertainty. Reports have been Wagler, but not nearly the lock that the Top 4 were.

    #5 LAC - Wagler

    #6 BRK - ???

    #7 SAC - Acuff mutual interest between Acuff and the Kings

    #8 ATL - ???

    #9 DAL (hired U Mich coach) (Trying to trade down)

    #10 MIL - ???

    #11 GSW - ???

  • FYI Jake Fischer says LAC will NOT trade the pick.

  • On the BR stream, Wasserman pointed out that Boozer had 5” more vertical than Boogie Cousins, despite the worries about athleticism. Note this was right to Boogie’s face.

  • #6 BRK is the first real mystery. Feels like most rate Acuff as best available. Does BRK do something wild like extort SAC for an asset to move up and take their beloved Acuff?

  • OK BRK, we need you to do something wild... like last year, when the Nets drafted 4 big point guards.

  • Wooo Mikel Brown Jr. A small surprise.

  • #7 intel is SAC has romance with Acuff...

  • COME ON KANGZ, PICK ALLEN GRAVES YOU COWARDS, LIGHT THAT BEAM

  • #7 SAC is Acuff.

    And Boogie says: I love this guy. Kings, please take care of the kid. We know how they [the Kings] are.

  • Conventional wisdom is Flemings is #8. But could see Burries. Praying #8 ATL goes with a Michigan big

  • #8 ATL, it’s Flemings... BOOOOO

  • (copium) this could be setting up a GSW Okorie pick

  • #9 probably Burries and I don’t think MIL will reach for Okorie...?

  • I’m okay with Philon too. I think Okorie’s stats are a little better.

  • #9 DAL... YO IT’S MOREZ. THE MICHIGAN COACH REALLY TOOK ONE OF HIS OWN.

  • (Hoping MIL will make a wild pick at #10)

  • FEAR THE DEER (PICK)

  • TAKE MARA YOU HORNED MAMMALS

  • BE BRAVE UNGULATE HERBIVORES

  • NOOOOOOOOOOOO

    Burries goes to herbivores


    Warriors on the clock.

  • HERE WE GO, HUMANS.

    Philon?

    Yaxel?

    Ament?

    Carr?

    Mara?

    Okorie?

  • I forgot: TRADE DOWN?

  • NEVER TOO LATE TO PANIC

  • Jake Fischer says GSW is fielding trade offers

  • ALWAYS CLOSE ENOUGH TO HURT™

  • btw even if there is a trade, we might not know about it until a few picks later

  • Yaxel. We don’t know if there’s a trade yet.

  • Brett Siegel says GSW wanted Burries or Yaxel.

  • Jonathan Wasserman says he heard this weekend that GSW wanted Yaxel because he was NBA ready.

  • I’m going to wait a couple of picks to wait for a possible trade to clear before I start emotionally adjusting to the Yaxel Era

  • OKC now going all in on Anti-Wemby technology: Mara

  • I’ve been predicting Yaxel since last draft, but it was interesting to see how the team dealt with a wide open choice

  • The debate is levels beyond age mattering as that’s the first thing anyone thinks of in the draft. It’s about team needs, projectability and upside.

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[2026 NBA Draft starts Tue 5:00pm PT; Round 2 Wed 5:00pm]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/2026-nba-draft-starts-tue-500pm-pthttps://dubnationhq.com/p/2026-nba-draft-starts-tue-500pm-ptTue, 23 Jun 2026 13:03:16 GMT

Here are the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020.

Before the draft

To know which player you hope will fall to GSW, check out the Apricot’s 2026 Draft Tournament. That lists 15 players most likely to be drafted by GSW at #11, along with 13 players potentially draftable at #54.

Not too late to say I TOLD YOU SO

  • DNHQ long timer void has kindly offered up a chance for you to register your Big Board for the Top 30 prospects. I’ve asked him if he can add a stripped down version with just the players in the tour

  • This is completely optional of course.

  • However, if you plan to brag about your wisdom in the future, it is not optional to record your draft preferences SOMEWHERE. So, why not record it at void’s site?

  • An honest thinker puts their forecasts down in writing, since everyone in the future can just cherry pick and say “oh yeah, look how smart I am, I had X over Y” which every braggart does.

  • Also, we forget over time what our ranking was and it’s good to remember your bad takes as well as the good.

How to watch the First Round

  • The first round will be held at Tuesday, June 23 (5 PT, ABC & ESPN)*

  • The second round will be on Wednesday, June 24 (5 PT, ESPN)*

  • *Fans outside of the US & Canada can stream both rounds on League Pass

It’s honestly a bit old-fashioned to (only) watch this on TV. If you want to be 5-10 minutes ahead of the televised draft, follow this comment section.

So, if you don’t want spoilers, turn off Bluesky and all social media, and avoid this comment section. Everyone is encouraged to post news here as soon as you have it from a reputable source.

  • As for when the actual picks start, history has the picks beginning about 10-15 minutes from the TV start time.

  • Each team has 5 minutes to choose for the 30 first round picks. The time of the official pick announcement sometimes seems to be longer than that.

  • In theory, the NBA made the Second Round a second day not just for ratings, but because teams requested more time to reflect on the first round and try to pull off deals.

  • In the same vein, second round picks will now have 4 minutes on the clock each (up from 2 minutes a couple of years ago).

  • The Warriors will have the #11 and #54 picks.

  • That means the #11 pick is estimated to be 55 minutes after start time, which is usually around 5:15. But if you have time, I would tune in earlier, as part of the fun is watching to see if your favorite pick might slip down to #11.

Also, things may be shaken up with the announcement of trades changing which team is picking at which slot.

5:15-5:35. First 4 picks

These should be in some order

  • Cameron Boozer

  • Darryn Peterson

  • AJ Dybantsa

  • Caleb Wilson

5:35-6:00. Picks 5 to 9

These will PROBABLY be in some order

  • Keaton Wagler

  • Darius Acuff Jr.

  • Kingston Flemings

  • Mikel Brown Jr.

  • Brayden Burries

6:00-6:05. Pick 10

  • Last chance for DAL to spoil our day.

  • DAL just hired Dusty May as head coach. May was recently the coach of the national champion Michigan team, which also had prospects Yaxel Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr., Aday Mara. It would not be surprising if DAL reached and took one of the UM prospects, which would potentially let any Top 9 prospects that slipped to #10 also slip down to #11.

6:05-6:10. Warriors Pick 11

We’ve extensively analyzed this. Let the future unfold!

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

If you have time to kill

Instead of having a nervous breakdown, consider listening to one of my all-time favorite podcasts from a couple of years ago. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the draft room from someone who was with the Suns during the Devin Booker draft…

Among the revelations:

  • there’s a special private chat with every team where the draft runs about 10 picks ahead of the broadcast, so there is time to pull off trades that depend on players being available. No, Woj is not in the chat; it’s ahead of even Woj.

  • the value and non-value of workouts

  • so by draft week, you’ve done your evaluations of prospects and have a Big Board. Your main work is evaluating trade offers, especially scouting current NBA players and projecting team success to properly value future draft picks

  • on draft night, half the league sends last minute trade offers for your pick

  • how he got Booker wrong (undervaluing him by overvaluing on-ball defense)

  • how to put together a summer league around your draft pick

  • and more

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[2026 Draft Tourney winner: Kingston Flemings; plus other Draft thoughts]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/2026-draft-tourney-winner-kingstonhttps://dubnationhq.com/p/2026-draft-tourney-winner-kingstonMon, 22 Jun 2026 13:03:09 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020. The 2026 page describes how the field was chosen, analyzes the relevance of BPM and other gory details.

The NBA Draft 1st round is Tue Jun 23, 5pm PT. 2nd round is Wed Jun 24, 5pm PT

Table of Contents

The 2026 Draft Tourney Winner is Kingston Flemings

Here are the finalists with their share of the vote.

  • Mikel Brown Jr 16%

  • Cameron Carr 8%

  • Morez Johnson Jr 4%

  • Yaxel Lendeborg 30%

  • Kingston Flemings 42% WINNER

It was a very close vote in the poll, but the comments had Kingston Flemings. Flemings is also my choice. While the others are all promising prospects, Yaxel is old; Morez is raw; Carr is not young and statistically doesn’t pop; Brown has injury questions and even though CHAW loves him, his BPM is very low. That leaves Flemings, an excellent two way player whose only negative might be that his wingspan is 6-3.5 and his height is 6-2.5 for only +1 wingspan.

The only thing really holding back Flemings from a bigger margin in the DNHQ vote is just skepticism that he will be available at number eleven. After all, he is mock drafted to be taken around number seven.

But here is some Copium for you:

  • belilaugh: #FLEMINGS. I said I wouldn’t vote for him in the future but now I am kinda wondering, have we heard his name attached to any of the top 10 teams as a player they are interested in? Feel like we hear more about Brown, Acuff, Wagler, Burries, Mara, even Ament. Maybe that is because a team like Dallas assumes Flemings won’t be there, but if all those guys I named go top 10, Flemings is there at 11. I don’t think it is likely to happen at all but just given the lack of predraft “intel” on teams that are hot on Flemings, I will break my plan from a few days ago and pick him.

    I think Flemings would be my best case scenario for the pick overall. Realistically with him out of the picture, I’d say “my guys” for this draft are Okorie, Graves, and Swain so naturally I’m rooting for a trade down. But there are other guys I’d be fine with too.

Reading the tea leaves

These Tourney players have been publicly announced as working out for the Warriors.

  • Brayden Burries

  • Yaxel Lendeborg

  • Cameron Carr

  • Morez Johnson Jr.

  • Hannes Steinbach

  • Bennett Stirtz

I note with some bitterness that Mike Dunleavy Jr. has made a habit of concealing the workouts with their favorite players in the last couple of years. For instance, both Quinten Post’s and Will Richard’s workouts were not announced.

My Emotional Draft Big Board

We’ve discussed this from an eye-test perspective with our scouting reports and an intense analytics perspective with Wyatt. After all that, here is my purely emotional reaction to imagining drafting the player at #11.

Ecstasy, but then we wake up and it was all a dream

  • Cameron Boozer

  • Darryn Peterson

  • AJ Dybantsa

  • Caleb Wilson

Great value for #11 but I’m worried

  • Keaton Wagler

  • Darius Acuff Jr.

Ecstatic

  • Kingston Flemings

Happy

  • Brayden Burries

  • Ebuka Okorie

Cautiously happy

  • Mikel Brown Jr.

  • Labaron Philon

Cautiously open minded

  • Yaxel Lendeborg

  • Allen Graves

  • Cameron Carr

  • Nate Ament

  • Morez Johnson Jr.

  • Aday Mara

  • Christian Anderson

  • Bennett Stirtz

Meh

  • Dailyn Swain

  • Hannes Steinbach

What are we doing here?

  • Karim López

  • Jayden Quaintance

  • Chris Cenac Jr.

Possible trade downs

There are a couple of straightforward trade-down possibilities. The Warriors have #11. The Charlotte Hornets have picks 14 and 18, and the Oklahoma City Thunder have picks 12 and 17.

However, by conventional wisdom calculations, either of those 2-for-1 trades would be a significant overpay for #11. It could only happen if a prospect that one of the teams was in love with did fall to #11, OR if GSW threw in extra value, like a future pick or a player.

According to the values above, a fairer trade would be GSW #11 (23.9 VORP) for OKC #17 (17 VORP) and #37 (8.1 VORP). In theory, that could give GSW a shot at Ebuka Okorie and one of the best seniors who ran out of eligibility (same type as Quinten Post, Trayce Jackson-Davis, and Will Richard).

The field for a second round Draft Tourney

We didn’t have time to do a proper draft tourney for the Warriors’ number 54 second-round pick. Just so you can cram a little bit before the final exam on Wednesday, here is the field of prospects that I would have picked for the tourney.

The methodology is pretty simple:

  • I took Tankathon.com mock draft players ranked number 40 through number 75 as these are the most likely to be available at #54 while also being a plausible draft pick and not someone to be signed as an undrafted free agent.

  • I filtered for players ranked by either BPM or CHAWBPM as 54th or above in the entire nation. Note that this would make them better than the 54th pick, as the rankings would include all college players, not just the ones who declared for the draft.

    • If you look at last year’s tournament page, I discuss why we use BPM to select good prospects. In fact, Mike Dunleavy Jr has so far valued analytics much higher than Bob Myers. MDJ’s picks have been ranked in BPM (out of all 5,000+ college players who played 40% of possible minutes):

      • #1 Trayce Jackson-Davis (#3 CHAW)

      • #11 Brandin Podziemski (#15 CHAW)

      • #31 Quinten Post (#12 CHAW)

      • #35 Will Richard (#284 CHAW)

    • And the pattern holds even if you include undrafted free agents signed on draft night,

      • #39 Reese Beekman (#8 CHAW)

      • #70 LJ Cryer (#77 CHAW)

      • #79 Chance McMillian (#136 CHAW)

    • The one pick that doesn’t fit this pattern was Alex Toohey who had no NCAA track record so therefore no NCAA BPM. And we all saw what a miss that pick was.

    • And notably the undrafted FAs even had worse BPM than the draft players.

  • I filtered out players chosen by BPM that did not appear in the top 250 CHAWBPM prospects and also filtered out CHAWBPM selections that did not appear in the top 200 BPM players.

Here is the list of selected players:

Confirmed workouts with GSW

  • Ugonna Onyenso, Virginia, C (#6 BPM, #76 CHAW)

  • Maliq Brown, Duke, Wing F (#7 BPM, #188 CHAW)

  • Dillon Mitchell, St. John’s, PF/C (#29 BPM, #217 CHAW)

  • Tamin Lipsey, Iowa State, Scoring PG (#34 BPM, #134 CHAW)

  • Emanuel Sharp, Houston, Combo G (#58 BPM, #50 CHAW)

  • Ja’Kobi Gillespie, Tennessee, Pure PG (#61 BPM, #37 CHAW)

  • Nate Bittle, Oregon, PF/C (#83 BPM, #30 CHAW)

  • Tucker DeVries, Indiana, Wing G (#126 BPM, #51 CHAW)

  • Quadir Copeland, NC State, Pure PG (#178 BPM, #49 CHAW)

No confirmed workouts with GSW

  • Bruce Thornton, Ohio State, Combo G (#18 BPM, #106 CHAW)

  • Rafael Castro, George Washington, C (#38 BPM, #98 CHAW)

  • Izaiyah Nelson, South Florida, C (#44 BPM, #97 CHAW)

  • Nick Boyd, Wisconsin, Scoring PG (#93 BPM, #39 CHAW)

If you are bored, you can dig into their statistics and video highlights yourself.

Following the most cynical view of MDJ, since he’s picked a player whose workouts were concealed the last two drafts, it would be just like him to pick one of the “no confirmed workouts” list. My eye is on Thornton, a sweet shooting, downhill point guard, whose main issue is being a little short and a lot old.

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[Apricot's NBA Draft Tourney Finals: Mikel Brown Jr, Cameron Carr, Morez Johnson Jr, Yaxel Lendeborg, Kingston Flemings]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-finalshttps://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-finalsFri, 19 Jun 2026 13:02:21 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020. The 2026 page describes how the field was chosen, analyzes the relevance of BPM and other gory details.

Why do we do this Draft Tournament?

The tournament is designed for people who are not draft experts to catch up at a casual pace on prospects in the Warriors range. For this reason, I have sliced it up into a series of smaller votes instead of a massive 16+ player scouting report. These will be spaced out over the next few weeks until the NBA Draft.

The ultimate goal is for you to develop opinions and attachments about the different prospects, so you can

  • argue with others,

  • dream about the future,

  • enjoy the draft with more suspense and emotional investment,

  • be angry that your favorite wasn’t selected,

  • and then in the future tell everyone how you had it right and the drafters were a bunch of idiots.

Despite our stellar track record, it’s unlikely we’ll guess exactly whom the Warriors will draft.

And yes yes everyone always wants to trade the pick for someone ready to contribute. Please don’t be obvious and boring and suggest that.

The reason we don’t contemplate this possibility is that there is absolutely no good way to tell trades are possible and what is fan fantasy. I have a low opinion of people making up trades and complaining they haven’t happened.

The Finals

Our Finalists, the winners of your votes, are listed as follows, along with Sam Vecenie’s final mock position and Jonathan Wasserman’s last mock.

  • Kingston Flemings: Vecenic mock #7, Wasserman mock #7

  • Mikel Brown Jr: Vecenic mock #10, Wasserman mock #8

  • Yaxel Lendeborg: Vecenic mock #9, Wasserman mock #14

  • Morez Johnson Jr: Vecenic mock #11, Wasserman mock #17

  • Cameron Carr: Vecenic mock #18, Wasserman mock #13

To me this shows that DNHQ collectively has taste, as we pulled the 7, 9, 10, 11 mocked from Vecenie, and possibly would have elevated #8 Burries if he’d been in the weak group with Carr.

Here is the series so far, with the tabulated votes.

Scouting reports are at the links.

I also marked my own picks for each group. In short, I think GSW should be swinging for the fences with this pick and I’d rather go with a higher risk player with a chance to be a star. Most rookies, even good ones, are negative in their rookie year, so we can’t expect any of them to contribute to a Win Now For Steph team. I’m also not that big on specifically getting a tall rookie. I’d love to have Boozer, but once you’re in the Johnson / Mara tier, they don’t have priority for me over an upside guard. Off the dribble shot creation been a glaring issue for a couple of seasons now.

How To Vote

Simply vote in this embedded poll. If you are moved, you can make a COMMENT VOTE that counts as 10 votes. However, I will not count any vote unless it has

  • some justification of your vote

  • exactly one hashtag with the last name of your candidate, like #CURRY, #GREEN, #THOMPSON.

    • I know many of you are very creative, but any deviations from these instructions will make my life harder and annoy me. Please channel your creativity elsewhere.

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[Apricot and Wyatt vote on the Draft Tourney]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricot-and-wyatt-vote-on-the-drafthttps://dubnationhq.com/p/apricot-and-wyatt-vote-on-the-draftWed, 17 Jun 2026 13:01:21 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020. The 2026 pagedescribes how the field was chosen, analyzes the relevance of BPM and other gory details.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Wyatt is the creator of CHAW BPM, which is a tuned version of BPM for college that is supposed to give you a little more insight into how these players might be as pros.

BPM is a very well-known all-in-one statistic based on box score data. It’s widely available, through basketball-reference.com and also barttorvik.com, so it is useful even though it is limited.

What Is CHAW BPM?

Eric: Can you tell me a little bit about why CHAW BPM is different from BPM?

Wyatt: CHAW BPM, it will take in things that BPM doesn’t take in, like directly talking about height, in contrast to BPM which uses position. It takes age into account to try and rate people as prospects. And it takes into account different players’ teams that they play on and their conference to estimate how difficult their games might be compared to other players.

C stands for conference adjusted. H is height controlled. A stands for age. And I just added W because that’s the first letter of my name.

Eric: For trademark purposes.

Wyatt: And then, like originally it started off as just WBPM where I was using these like linear regression coefficients that I found online for box score stats to the NBA. And it worked out pretty well to try and figure out how much of each stat can be explained when translating to the NBA, just only using what can be explained for BPM. And then I added on all the other stuff like conference, height, and age.

Eric: So these coefficients, are they correlations between college statistics, like a specific college statistic and the equivalent NBA statistic?

Wyatt: Yes.

Eric: And it’s restricted to players who end up playing in the NBA.

Wyatt: Yes, I believe so.

Eric: I know that your formula only takes into account box score statistics and maybe some generated things that Bart Torvik can come up with, and that’s a good thing about its design that we know what the limitations are.

One side note is that CHAW BPM is only for people who play college in America, right? There’s no overseas pros, overseas leagues, overseas schools.

Wyatt: Yes, like Karim Lopez, for instance.

Eric: Well, CHAW 2, you can do some kind of translations between leagues and figure out, solve that difficult problem, right? International translation.

Wyatt: I wonder though, ‘cause all the international players that are like low first round, whatever, are gonna just be taking NIL in college like for the rest of history. So will there even be that many that are coming straight to the NBA out of their respective leagues?

Eric: That’s true. Karim could probably be paid more in American college than in the Australian League.

Draft Tourney Format

Eric: For the draft tourney we picked 15 players that are very likely to be in the Warriors range at #11. And then they were randomly put into five groups, and so people were asked just to select which of the three prospects in each group was gonna be the best to pick.

Group 1: Mikel Brown Jr., Allen Graves, Hannes Steinbach

Wyatt: Well, CHAW BPM actually has Mikel Brown Jr. as the number four prospect in the entire class.

Eric: Oh my god.

Wyatt: In general, CHAW is a very big fan of his expected points and how it can translate to the NBA, his scoring. And he has some very good assist numbers. He is not too bad in blocks, and he’s actually a little bit positive in steals, which has some good correlation with good positive defensive things. He is six foot five, listed six foot five, which is of course a positive thing.

His turnovers and rebounding are generally big negatives. However, as a guard, going from college to the NBA, it does turn out that having a lot of turnovers isn’t that big of a deal, and instead it generally means that the player is just on ball a lot of the time.

Similar players to Mikel Brown Jr. according to CHAW, there’s players like Anthony Edwards that pop out from college as highs, Coby White as maybe like a middle ground, and then maybe as like a floor type of thing... Javon Small.

Eric: Okay, so maybe we have to stop for a second. So you also have an algorithm to find similar players, and can you explain how that works?

Wyatt: Yeah, it’s like a cosine similarity between the players in their respective components of CHAW BPM. Major ones are their shot diet, general box scores, assists, turnovers, rebounds, steals, blocks, and then also their free throw percentage.

Eric: Is each statistic normalized into a Z-score or something like that?

Wyatt: Yes, it is normalized into a Z-score.

[FYI This is a lot like how my old Clunky Comps algorithm worked. - EA]

Eric: Mikel Brown Jr., I noticed that at the NBA combine, according to this report, he actually measured six three and a half. Now, it made me curious about two things. One is what it would look like if you change your formula to six three and a half. But then in some ways that’s unfair because everyone else on your chart probably has inflated stats, in some sort of somewhat random way.

Wyatt: Well, Mikel Brown Jr., I can plug it in right now and see what he’d look like…. Okay, so after taking the low end of his height, he is number seven on the board.

And is now zero point one CHAW Z scores ahead of Allen Graves. So I would probably take those two as even with each other given the six foot three height.

Eric: But I’d have to also check how Allen Graves measured out in the combine. It’s a little unfair just to punish Brown for the height reduction.

… And Allen Graves is measured at six foot seven and a little bit extra.

Eric: Okay. He’s listed as six foot nine, so he lost an inch.

Wyatt: So changing his height, Allen Graves drops one spot. And he’s still within 0.2 Z scores of Mikel Brown.

Eric: So I was shocked that Mikel Brown Jr. was rated above Allen Graves. To me, that’s some high praise because I know BPM just loves, loves, loves Allen Graves. And CHAW BPM loves Allen Graves a little less but still loves him, right?

Wyatt: Yeah, but the interesting thing about Mikel Brown Jr. is his BPM is 5.4.

Eric: That’s so low actually.

Wyatt: And CHAW BPM has him at three Z scores higher than BPM has him.

Eric: Wow. so CHAW BPM is betting the bank that Mikel Brown Jr. is better than BPM thinks.

Okay, well why don’t we talk a bit about Allen Graves? So why is he such a analytics darling? Allen Graves seems like an unassuming prospect, clearly very good at defense, very heady, but he didn’t even start on his Santa Clara team, so it’s very—what are the statistical things that are making BPM and CHAW BPM love him?

Wyatt: Well, Allen Graves, he kind of has like a... from just the things that stand out about him are very, very, very low turnovers with completely normal assist numbers. Extremely good offensive rebounding, above average defensive rebounding, and extremely, extremely good steals. And then like the things that he’s negative at—assists, projected scoring, and three-pointers made—he’s really not that much negative at all. And just all of the other stuff, all of the auxiliary non-scoring stuff, he just stands out so unbelievably much, and that’s the main reason why he pops out.

Eric: So in addition to steals, his blocks—how are his blocks?

Wyatt: His blocks are above average. Compared to the NBA drafted players. So he’s about 0.7 Z scores higher than average NBA draftees.

Eric: Okay. All right. any opinion about Hannes Steinbach? Big guy, skilled, played at Washington, actually measured six foot ten at the combine, seven foot two wingspan, so a lot of people are salivating at his shape, but how does CHAW BPM feel about the statistics?

Wyatt: Steinbach has completely normal scoring projections for a center. Still, CHAW BPM projects him at twenty-fifth in the class, which is very low compared to Mikel Brown and Allen Graves, but it’s not like he’s necessarily a bad prospect. Of course, like you said, he’s very tall and he has very good rebounding numbers. His turnovers were good, but weren’t very good considering that he is a big man with low assists. And he didn’t really shoot threes at all, and his free throw percentage is actually above average probably for centers, I’d say 76%, which is potentially a positive, but lack of three-point volume or a lot of the self-creation stuff with long twos are why he gets punished a lot. And like, at the end of the day, he only really stands out in rebounding, and there’s a lot of people that can rebound that are tall.

Eric: Okay. Yeah. he was considered by some the best rebounder in the draft, but to me I’m not sure that that’s a lottery pick feature.

Group 2: Jayden Quaintance, Cameron Carr, Karim Lopez

Wyatt: Okay, so, Jayden Quaintance, I believe actually does not meet the playing time thresholds for this year.

He played four games. However, last year there is stuff for him as a freshman, where he was put at 66th in overall CHAW BPM among all college players last year.

Eric: That doesn’t sound that high to me.

Wyatt: Yeah, it isn’t that high. As a freshman, negative projected scoring. A lot of turnovers given the fact that he did not have basically any assists, no three-pointers, slightly above average rebounding for a big man but not really anything impressive, although he did get quite a lot of blocks. In general, it’s not the most supportive of him.

Eric: And a steal rate?

Wyatt: Steals are very slightly above average.

Eric: Okay.

Wyatt: And CHAW gives a lot of bonuses to younger players, and to be a freshman and like, he just didn’t really have any production to make the bonuses mean anything.

Eric: I think people are wowed by his seven foot five wingspan and his athleticism and jumpiness and defensive explosiveness. But I’m a little surprised and sad for him that even as a freshman he was rated pretty low in statistics. And then you throw in this ACL tear, and you have no idea what you’re going to get with him.

Well almost by default that means that Cameron Carr is going to win this group.

Wyatt: Well, Cameron Carr is at 45th in CHAW BPM.

Eric: Oh my god.

Wyatt: He’s actually good overall projected scoring stuff, but low assists for a guard, whatever rebounding, and then probably what I’d call negative steals and blocks. And pretty good above average shooting stuff, however it’s not that heavily backed up. he had a good amount of threes taken, definitely above average amount of threes taken, at 80% free throw percentage, which is definitely fine. But it’s not really outstanding in any way. And to top it all off, he’s a sophomore doing this. Playing in a fine place, but as a sophomore it’s kind of expected to do better, especially compared to some of the other standout guards that CHAW loves a lot more than him in the class.

Eric: It makes me feel like CHAW agrees with this very glib idea “never draft a shooting guard because shooting guards are either a bad point guard or an undersized wing.” And it’s almost like CHAW’s believing that, because it feels like Carr is a really prototypical shooting guard, almost three-and-D-ish kind of guy, and CHAW’s just not all that impressed by him.

Wyatt: Yeah, he’s slightly on the smaller side and doesn’t really get that many steals or blocks or rebounds. So I think, at least just looking at the box score, it’s hard to project being a good defender in any notable way.

So basically out of the three, it’s like pick zero out of them.

Eric: Okay, so CHAW abstains from this group. Well, Cameron Carr has a huge fan base in Dub Nation, so this is not going to be happy news. So Carr will advance, but I can see he’s not gonna win in the next round.

Group 3: Morez Johnson Jr., Bennett Stirtz, Nate Ament

Wyatt: There’s a lot of people that are not big Nate Ament fans, but he is the number one player box-score-wise out of those guys. But it’s not that impressive.

Just looking at people who are in the draft, Nate Ament is at number 14. Stirtz is at number twenty. And Morez Johnson is at number 46.

Eric: Ouch. All right, so CHAW loves Nate Ament most.

Wyatt: Yes. But not that much. Nate Ament, of course, is a freshman that is tall and fairly athletic. He has—although he did not shoot very well from anywhere in college, his free throw percentage on a very good amount of attempts suggests that he can be a lot better at shooting than he was. He has good projected scoring. And then alongside the strengths of his body and age and projected scoring, he doesn’t really have any other weaknesses. he is above average, although very slightly, in rebounding, slightly below average in the defensive metrics, and about average in both assists and turnovers. It is maybe a little bit worrying to think about someone that’s that tall and supposedly that athletic not being able to get that many steals and blocks, although there are other players in the draft that are ranked higher than him that are similarly athletic that have struggled in similar ways, and at some point it’s not something that it seems like that many people care about.

Eric: So I see that he was measured at the combine at six foot nine point five, which was taller than people expected, so that was good for him. So I’m getting the sense that CHAW thinks of him as a good player, but really young, so there’s potential there, and so it gives them a bump.

Wyatt: Well, I think that the best match prospect-wise for him, for the super Nate Ament believers, is Jayson Tatum. Who also was similarly very average or negative actually in all of the box score stuff. And he struggled from shooting from a lot of the floor, but he had an 85% free throw percentage. Of course we know he learned how to shoot. And of course he had the size to be able to be a very, very, very, very, very good player in the league.

Given the filtering, actually the closest projection for him is Jabari Smith Jr.

Eric: Oh, okay. So somewhere between Jabari Smith Jr. and Jayson Tatum.

Wyatt: Yeah. And then Harrison Barnes, Maxime Reynaud, and Paolo Banchero are the next ones.

Eric: Whoa, those are very different players, so we should be cautious about similarity measures…

So Bennett Stirtz was a real BPM darling last year. He played for I think Drake. And then there’s this question whether he could stay a BPM darling playing at Iowa in a more powerful conference, and he did pretty well.

Wyatt: Well, I was looking in 2025, Bennett Stirtz was 44th out of all college players. 2026 Stirtz is 31st out of all college players, which was a bump up.

Eric: Okay. in general the biggest knock on him is just that he’s a senior. How does CHAW feel about him compared to BPM?

Wyatt: CHAW is 0.2 Z scores higher on him.

Eric: Oh really, higher than BPM? You’d think his being a senior would bump his stock down, but there’s something else that CHAW recognizes?

Wyatt: He’s obviously a very good three-point shooter. At least he took a lot of them, which is—that’s a good thing. Like being able to take a lot of threes is a very good thing.

Eric: Yeah, it signals that a coach let you do that.

Wyatt: Yeah, and 85% free throw shooter and on a good amount of attempts. it’s just good shooting, good shooting overall. He also has both above average assist numbers and above average turnover numbers.

Assist to turnover, which is good as a lead guy. Low rebounding numbers probably are the thing that makes him a lot lower. If he had like net neutral or neutral rebounding numbers, then I would guess that he’d probably be somewhere in like the top 15. But he’s actually very, very, very low in rebounding. And then he’s like fine, fine defensive stuff, fine steals and blocks.

Eric: Okay. That’s interesting. But in general, like he has good things about him, bad things about him. The biggest problem is just that he’s a senior and he’s not really standing out in any of these things.

Okay, what about Morez Johnson? So he had a good combine and he measured six foot nine barefoot and had good agility and vertical and all that kind of stuff. And his reputation is that he’s not all that skilled creatively on offense, but...

Wyatt: Okay. Well, Morez Johnson is 131st out of all college players in CHAW BPM.

Eric: How rude.

Wyatt: His projected scoring is bad. Negative assists.

Eric: Yeah. Okay. I think we’ve given up on his offense here.

Wyatt: negative threes, negative steals. Above average rebounding, above average blocks. In general, he’s a tall guy, six foot nine, but as a sophomore. And I guess he’s like a fairly strong free throw shooter, but like his shot diet is not exactly a self-creation type of thing. Listed at six foot nine, not being a self-creator is kind of sketchy, which is not necessarily a downside. It’s not something that CHAW takes into account, him being six foot nine and not this, but it’s like his playstyle comparisons are all players that are tall. Like he plays like a center, except he’s six foot nine.

Eric: Yeah, I think he kinda has to be a small ball center if he’s not gonna create anything. But that’s really low. So, people in theory love his defense. So how do his blocks look?

Wyatt: Above average.

Eric: It’s a little surprising to me too because I feel like BPM in general overrates bigs. So for CHAW BPM to be putting a big at 131st, that’s a mega red flag.

Wyatt: Well, I don’t know if CHAW BPM overrates bigs. I think in a lot of ways CHAW BPM overrates wings, is what I’d say.

Eric: Okay. But CHAW likes Zach Edey and Donovan Clingan, right?

Wyatt: So, yeah. But like, those guys are kinda special. Are they not? I guess it also likes Caleb Wilson.

Eric: Yeah, sadly that’s not relevant to our little tourney, but it is cool that Caleb Wilson is doing well statistically.

So the winner of that was Nate Ament, but not all that enthusiastic from CHAW. But CHAW thinks that Nate Ament is a very fair pick to be picked at #11 where the Warriors are picking.

Wyatt: I think that CHAW would be very disappointed in Morez Johnson being picked.

Eric: Okay. We have to have an avatar for CHAW. It has to be some old cowboy chewing tobacco. Looking sad at the Warriors’ pick.

Group 4: Yaxel Lendeborg, Brayden Burries, Ebuka Okorie

Wyatt: So Brayden Burries and Yaxel Lendeborg are at 22nd and 23rd. Out of players in the draft. Out of players overall, Burries and Lendeborg are at 33rd and 34th.

Eric: Okay.

Wyatt: And Ebuka Okorie is at number nine.

Eric: Whoa, what a shock! Because Lendeborg has fairly godlike BPM, I think.

Wyatt: He does.

Eric: But you just discount the heck out of that because he’s very ancient.

Wyatt: Yeah, and he’s ancient. Like the amount discounted is 2.42 Z scores less. Just to summarize, slightly above average projected scoring, solid assists and turnovers, very middling rebounds for a big and fairly middling defensive stats for someone who’s supposed to be athletic, above average three-point scoring. Definitely—now that sounds pretty good overall. Pair that with the fact that he’s also an 82% free throw shooter. Sounds all pretty good, but then like he is really old. Like he’s really old. Which is just a struggle to believe in.

Eric: Brayden Burries?

Wyatt: So Brayden Burries, of course, he’s a lot younger. But Brayden Burries is, he’s just like compared to the other guards in the class, like Brayden Burries just looks like a run-of-the-mill guard, right? Like CHAW has him at the end of the first round, which is not—it’s not necessarily means that CHAW thinks Brayden Burries is some terrible player or whatever. But it’s like slightly above average scoring projections, and then middling assists and turnovers, negative rebounding, probably above average steals and blocks with not being a super standout three-point shooter. Just doesn’t really add up to being a standout top 15 player.

Eric: As a little side question, it’s interesting that you bring up rebounding repeatedly with CHAW. I know rebounding is supposed to carry over pretty well and be a good indicator of general productivity. And so the uber example is our guy, Brandin Podziemski. So how did CHAW rate Podziemski in his draft?

Wyatt: …. Podziemski was 23rd and Podziemski was rated as number 14 in his class.

Eric: Okay, so CHAW thought Podziemski was a solid, even slight steal at number 19.

Wyatt: Although that doesn’t count for all the overseas players, but yes. It was of course Wembanyama at number one, and then it was three G League Ignite players with Scoot and then the Thompson twins.

Eric: Ha, so that would put Podziemski right at #19.

Okay, let’s talk about Okorie who is a real cult figure. Some people absolutely love him, and he is a creator. He is short, but not that short. Like six-two.

Wyatt: Well, that is pretty short, I would say. I’ve listed at 6-2. The combine has him at six one and a half.

Eric: That is definitely short.

Wyatt: And that’s a lot of the negatives about him. Because he’s a freshman. He’s projected to be a very good scorer according to CHAW. He has very good assist numbers while being very, very, very notably good at turnover numbers for someone that’s handling the ball as much as he is. He had an assist to turnover of about two. Then his rebounding numbers are not good. Okay. His steals are definitely above average. His blocks are meh, and his three-pointers are definitely above average. And with the notable scoring, super notable scoring projection alongside assist-to-turnover, it all evens out to make him a CHAW-considered definitely good individual player, and then bumping up that from his low height and age… those two cancel out in a sense as a prospect.

Eric: Right. So his age, well, I have here he’s twenty and a half years old. He’s not of course very young compared to the other freshmen, which is definitely a knock on him, but he’s more like a sophomore.

Wyatt: Even if he’s not literally. As a sophomore, if he was listed as a sophomore with just like the extra year of experience, he’d probably be closer to the other guys, Yaxel and Brayden, but he’s solidly above them. And so he would still be above them but maybe maybe not top ten.

[Note the comment from Evan Z that the age is wrong (there was confusion early in the draft cycle) and he’s 19.5 y.o.]

Group 5: Labaron Philon, Kingston Flemings, Aday Mara

Eric: And our last group is Labaron Philon, Kingston Flemings, and Aday Mara.

Wyatt: Okay. Well, Aday Mara is listed as number twenty among all college players. And number fifteen out of all drafted players.

He’s not a scorer. He shot 56% from free throw, which is not good. His points per possession or expected points is negative, and negative turnovers given not very much assists. Above average rebounding of course, negative steals, super good blocks, but also negative three-pointers. There’s not really anything that’s like middle of the pack at. He’s either just super positive at stuff or super negative at stuff, and overall not the best projection. Although of course I have him listed here at seven foot three.

Eric: I have here that it is seven three barefoot. Yeah, so that is really tall.

Wyatt: Yeah, that is hecka tall. That is quite tall, and especially being talented at getting blocks. It’s not like he’s a necessarily bad prospect. Again, out of drafted players, number fifteen doesn’t mean he’s a very great prospect either.

Eric: One reviewer really likes his blocks, his big blocks plus good assist percentage.

Wyatt: Good relatively but not great turnovers at the same time. It feels like not great turnovers. A twenty percent turnover percentage.

Eric: Alright. what about Labaron Philon?

Wyatt: Labaron Philon is number eleven in CHAW BPM. He is the highest rated non-freshman.

And just going through the things that he’s good at. Philon is projected to be a good scorer. He had a lot of good self-creation stuff. 80% free throw shooter, which is fine. 40% three-point percentage, which is a little bit better, and he shot a bunch of threes. Very, very, very a lot of assists, not very much turnovers, just overall good playmaker. Negative on the rebounds, like most guards. And then negative on the steals and blocks, which is worrying to some extent, but then also very good threes, like I mentioned earlier.

So offensively, I don’t even know if there’s a player that, disregarding age, has straight up better numbers than him. Maybe Darryn Peterson or Darius Acuff. But being among those two who seem to be projected top five, top six, is definitely not a bad thing.

Struggling defensively and being a sophomore are not positives, but he is six foot four listed here. Is that what you have?

Eric: Yeah, I have six two and a half in the combine. Plus four wingspan.

Wyatt: Yeah. Although, one thing to note about him was that he was projected 30th in CHAW 2025, which is something that I like to personally think about.

Eric: Because it means that his profile’s been improving each year?

Wyatt: Well not only that his profile been improving each year, but he’s not a sophomore that just suddenly had some standout season. It’s like he had some credibility as a playmaker last year maybe, and then this year he improved a lot in scoring, which made him jump up a lot despite getting older, which is very, very good. But just very good offensively. Definite question marks defensively, especially with height.

Eric: And what about Kingston Flemings?

Wyatt: And then Kingston Flemings is the CHAW BPM number three prospect in the entire draft.

Eric: In the entire draft. So Kingston Flemings is projected to score a little bit less than Philon. But very positive assist numbers, good turnover numbers, assist to turnover of almost three as a freshman playing for Houston, extremely notable. 85% free throw shooter is very good. Took a good amount of three-pointers. Negative on the rebounds. However, his steals actually are very, very, very solid. Blocks are negative but not negative for a young point guard.

Eric: So when you say solid, do you mean like above average?

Wyatt: His steals are a Z score above average.

Wyatt: Okay. That’s pretty good. Okay. Again, it’s box score whatever, but being projected to be scoring well and assisting well, and his weaknesses are really not that notable when taking him overall, just taking in overall. you can say, well, whatever defensive concerns about the blocks, he’s a standard deviation up on steals. And I have him here at six foot four listed.

Eric: So I do have see that in the combine he measured small at six foot two and a half with just plus one wingspan. But his athletic testing was good. Yeah, so I don’t know how that would even out.

Wyatt: I think that when I did put some stuff together for combine data, which I’m not reading off of since not every player has it. But the combine data stuff was still positive on him. Maybe not number three, but I think it’s top five.

And playing in competitive games like he went pretty far in the tournament.

Eric: Is that taken into account in CHAW BPM?

Wyatt: Only just through games played. Which also I don’t think is taken into account except for in very certain cases, but like filtering and things like that. But yeah, Kingston Flemings is definitely the number one prospect out of that group.

Final Rankings & Wrap-Up

Wyatt: Alright. So so far advancing to the final, we have Flemings, Okorie, Ament, Carr, and Mikel Brown Jr.

Eric: So of those prospects, who is the number one according to CHAW BPM?

Wyatt: Flemings is at number four with the adjustment and he’s not that much higher than Mikal Brown or Okorie. They’re all within 1 CHAW BPM of each other or 0.3 CHAW BPM Z scores.

And then Allen Graves is also right there. But of course he got knocked out earlier.

Eric: Okay, so CHAW puts Flemings, Brown, Okorie, and Graves roughly in the same tier.

Eric: And Philon as well.

Wyatt: Those guys, all of those guys according to CHAW projected top eleven.

Eric: I don’t know why, but when you were talking about Philon, it seemed more negative than that. I didn’t realize he was really in the same tier.

Wyatt: Maybe because he’s a sophomore. That’s just what it is. The other guys just have another year to grow, although of course you said Okorie is older than the rest, but right. He’s a year older maybe. He’s like a sophomore.

Eric: And then poor Cameron Carr is not even in the running.

Wyatt: Well, Cameron Carr is like yeah, he’s just not in the running. Nothing nothing bad. He got a lucky group.

Eric: So and in reality, probably Mikal Brown is not gonna fall to number eleven. Philon, Flemings. Flemings is not gonna fall probably to number eleven. Philon, outside chance that he’ll fall. But Okorie I figure’s gotta be there. Unless something weird has happened to his rep.

I wonder what the most recent batch of mocks is doing. I trust The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie the most (in terms of draft conventional wisdom and predictions), and then second to that is Jonathan Wasserman.

Wyatt: The Athletic has Flemings going at number seven. And then Mikal Brown going at number 10.

Eric: Oh, so close. I would have been okay with Brown. And then Okorie, Graves, Philon will definitely all be there. Okay, it’s never gonna be Graves.

Wyatt: Just to shout out CHAW BPM a little bit. Meleek Thomas and Christian Anderson are the next two in that range as well. Nothing wrong with Nate Ament as well.

Eric: It’s very tempting to try to trade down to get Okorie and someone else if you can.

So I’ll give you the last word. So the top four, Dybantsa, Peterson, Boozer, Wilson, that’s the consensus top four. What does CHAW BPM think that the order should be?

Wyatt: Boozer number one, Caleb Wilson number two, Darryn Peterson number three, and Kingston Flemings number four.

Eric: And where is Dybantsa?

Wyatt: Only number six, just behind Flemings and Acuff.

Eric: Thank you for playing the tourney with me and I can’t say I’m feeling that encouraged by who we’re gonna get at number 11 unless someone falls. But I know it’s gonna be a good player.

Wyatt: Mikal Brown, Flemings, like all those people are generally in the same range.

Eric: But it feels like those guys are all gonna be gone.

Wyatt: Only ten of them can be gone.

Eric: That is true.

Wyatt: True. Trade your pick down with OKC to get to pick up both Allen Graves and Okorie!

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[Apricot's NBA Draft Tourney Group 5: Labaron Philon Jr., Kingston Flemings, Aday Mara]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-group-e35https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-group-e35Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:02:20 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020. The 2026 page describes how the field was chosen, analyzes the relevance of BPM and other gory details.

Why do we do this Draft Tournament?

The tournament is designed for people who are not draft experts to catch up at a casual pace on prospects in the Warriors range. For this reason, I have sliced it up into a series of smaller votes instead of a massive 16+ player scouting report. These will be spaced out over the next few weeks until the NBA Draft.

The ultimate goal is for you to develop opinions and attachments about the different prospects, so you can

  • argue with others,

  • dream about the future,

  • enjoy the draft with more suspense and emotional investment,

  • be angry that your favorite wasn’t selected,

  • and then in the future tell everyone how you had it right and the drafters were a bunch of idiots.

Despite our stellar track record, it’s unlikely we’ll guess exactly whom the Warriors will draft.

And yes yes everyone always wants to trade the pick for someone ready to contribute. Please don’t be obvious and boring and suggest that.

The reason we don’t contemplate this possibility is that there is absolutely no good way to tell trades are possible and what is fan fantasy. I have a low opinion of people making up trades and complaining they haven’t happened.

How To Vote

Simply vote in this embedded poll. If you are moved, you can make a COMMENT VOTE that counts as 10 votes. However, I will not count any vote unless it has

  • some justification of your vote

  • exactly one hashtag with the last name of your candidate, like #CURRY, #GREEN, #THOMPSON.

    • I know many of you are very creative, but any deviations from these instructions will make my life harder and annoy me. Please channel your creativity elsewhere.

The scouting reports

Labaron Philon Jr.

Avg: 14.14 | Range: 13–16 | Draftballr | B-Ref

Height: 6’4” | Position: PG/SG | College: Alabama | PPG: 22.0 | RPG: 3.5 | APG: 5.0

Bleacher Report Pick 14

Teams considering Labaron Philon will be drawn to his creativity. It’s also difficult to find any worrisome holes in his statistical profile after he improved his shooting and finishing.

He could slip to late lottery behind the young guards who may look more like natural playmakers. But unless Philon’s slower release affects his three-point shot, there’s a high likelihood his scoring ability will translate.

ESPN Pick 13

Philon measured comparably to the other top guards at the combine, at 6-2½ with a plus-4 wingspan, solid dimensions for a ball handler. He had an outstanding season at Alabama and proved himself as a potent scorer who can generate offense in spurts, helping him earn looks in the back half of the lottery. He can be polarizing for scouts, with questions about his ability to run a team in the half court. The impressive point guard depth in this class makes him more of a target in this range, with a potential domino effect depending how many ballhandlers are selected in the top 10.

The Athletic Pick 13

Philon returned to school at the last minute last May, and he took advantage of his extra year. He stepped into Alabama’s lead guard role and averaged 22 points, 3.5 rebounds and five assists per game while shooting 50 percent from the field, 39 percent from 3 and 80 percent from the foul line. Though his defense took a step back from last season, when he was terrific while playing next to Mark Sears and only sharing the on-ball responsibilities, he was one of the best offensive players in the country.

So why is he not higher? First, this class is loaded with truly elite point guards like Brown, Acuff and Wagler. Second, teams worry about his frame and that he seemingly has not put on much mass this year after returning to school. Third, Alabama’s scheme is clearly favorable to him and gives him the space and time he desires to operate, both in half-court and transition settings.

Kingston Flemings

Avg: 7.86 | Range: 6–13 | Draftballr | B-Ref

Height: 6’4” | Position: PG | College: Houston | PPG: 16.1 | RPG: 4.1 | APG: 5.2 | 3PT%: 37.6

Bleacher Report Pick 7

Kingston Flemings’ measurements were disappointing, as he came in just a half-inch taller than Darius Acuff (who’d been considered undersized) with four fewer inches of length. But he surprised by leading the NBA combine in the three-point star drill (overtaking Alex Karaban), making 19-of-25 shots. He also hit 15-of-25 spot-ups threes, encouraging signs for a guard whose bread and butter in college was separating into mid-range jumpers.

Flemings then finished top five in the max vertical (40.5”), pro lane agility test, shuttle run and sprint time.

He showed at Houston that he can efficiently initiate offense or play with another ball-handler (Milos Uzan), which should prevent teams with point guards from worrying too much about fit or logjams.

ESPN Pick 7

The Kings drew a short straw on lottery night but will have an opportunity to address their need for a point guard at this spot, with Acuff frequently tied to them, and Flemings and Mikel Brown Jr. also potentially still on the board. In what order Sacramento prioritizes those players -- and whether they value Acuff enough to consider moving up to get him -- remains to be seen, but it was a point of speculation from other teams at the combine.

Flemings measured smaller than his listed 6-4, at 6-2½ barefoot with just a plus-1 wingspan, but he unsurprisingly tested quite well athletically. Though the size factor might not help him as lottery teams split hairs among the guards, the feedback was positive on his interview process, reaffirming the intangibles that helped make him successful at Houston.

The Athletic Pick 7

Flemings is a wildly explosive and powerful lead guard, using a lightning-quick first step to get by defenders with ease. Despite playing in an offense in which he had precious little space around him, he averaged 16.1 points and 5.2 assists while shooting 47.6 percent from the field and 38.7 percent from 3. You can see his burst every time he touches the court. He’s also an excellent decision-maker who improved defensively throughout the season.

The main concerns revolve around his jumper consistency and the way that he scores. Flemings’ percentages dropped in Big 12 play. In his final 14 games, he shot just 41.3 percent from the field and got to the line only three times per game. Scouts wonder if he can consistently get to the rim. Houston’s rim pressure this season was among the worst in the country, and Flemings only averaged 51.2 percent at the rim in half-court settings, per Synergy. Was that a function of Flemings settling, or is it a flaw in his game? Flemings needs to improve his footwork on his gathers around the rim, but scouts should still be excited about how his speed and decision-making will translate to the next level, where he will get the kind of pace and space that will transform his game.

Flemings would make perfect sense as a speedy De’Aaron Fox replacement in Sacramento.

Aday Mara

Avg: 9.71 | Range: 8–12 | Draftballr | B-Ref

Height: 7’3” | Position: C | College: Michigan | PPG: 12.1 | RPG: 6.8 | APG: 2.4

Bleacher Report Pick 12

After measuring 7’3” barefoot with a 9’9” standing reach, Aday Mara has started to look unique with nearly unmatchable advantage-creating physical traits.

The numbers at Michigan backed up that idea—Mara finished fourth in the nation in box plus-minus with a rare combination of 12.0 block percentage and 19.0 assist percentage. Mara separates himself from the other unicorns his size with high-level passing to complement the rim protection, high-percentage finishing and sound footwork.

ESPN Pick 8

The Hawks’ shrewd decision to trade the No. 13 pick (Derik Queen) in last year’s draft for this one -- the better of New Orleans’ and Milwaukee’s selections -- didn’t result in a top-four pick, but still moved them up five spots in a stronger draft. They will look at the bevy of young guards at this slot, a long-term need after moving on from Trae Young. If they want to upgrade at the five -- where they lack size and depth -- Mara has positioned himself as the likely first center off the board.

Mara has built momentum on the heels of Michigan’s title run and is viewed by teams as a lock to hear his name called in the lottery. His massive dimensions help back up the argument for him as a player with an outlier-level mix of size, coordination and skill. He could wind up as the first Michigan player to hear his name called, above Yaxel Lendeborg.

The Athletic Pick 11

Mara, by far, helped himself the most in the NCAA Tournament. I had a vote for Final Four Most Outstanding Player and chose Mara because of how he dominated the semifinal against Arizona (going off for 26 points, nine rebounds, three assists and two blocks) and how he completely changed the geometry defensively against Connecticut with his ability to guard Tarris Reed Jr. on an island while also shutting down the interior for drivers.

Mara combines two skills NBA teams seek in their centers: the ability to shut down the paint and read the court out high as a passer. Opponents shot 54.5 percent at the rim this season when Mara was on the court compared to better than 60 percent when he was off it, per CBB Analytics. Opposing teams also shot just 36 percent on 2-pointers from the paint when Mara was on the court. On offense, Mara is terrific at using his height and feel for the game to dissect what is happening and make the right passing reads, be it a simple handoff or a more complex reaction to find a cutter at the rim. He dished out 2.4 assists per game and shot 66.8 percent from the field. Mara’s hands can be an issue with bobbles and turnovers, and his lateral foot speed is concerning.

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[Apricot's NBA Draft Tourney Group 4: Yaxel Lendeborg, Brayden Burries, Ebuka Okorie ]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-group-cdehttps://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-group-cdeSat, 13 Jun 2026 13:01:58 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020. The 2026 page describes how the field was chosen, analyzes the relevance of BPM and other gory details.

Why do we do this Draft Tournament?

The tournament is designed for people who are not draft experts to catch up at a casual pace on prospects in the Warriors range. For this reaso…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Apricot's NBA Draft Tourney Group 3: Morez Johnson Jr., Bennett Stirtz, Nate Ament]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-group-bcbhttps://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-group-bcbTue, 09 Jun 2026 13:01:39 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020. The 2026 page describes how the field was chosen, analyzes the relevance of BPM and other gory details.

Why do we do this Draft Tournament?

The tournament is designed for people who are not draft experts to catch up at a casual pace on prospects in the Warriors range. For this reaso…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Apricot's NBA Draft Tourney Group 2: Jayden Quaintance, Cameron Carr, Karim Lopez]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-group-582https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-group-582Sat, 06 Jun 2026 13:02:15 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020. The 2026 page describes how the field was chosen, analyzes the relevance of BPM and other gory details.

Why do we do this Draft Tournament?

The tournament is designed for people who are not draft experts to catch up at a casual pace on prospects in the Warriors range. For this reaso…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Apricot's NBA Draft Tourney Group 1: Mikel Brown Jr., Allen Graves, Hannes Steinbach]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-grouphttps://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-nba-draft-tourney-groupThu, 04 Jun 2026 18:56:48 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020. The 2026 page describes how the field was chosen, analyzes the relevance of BPM and other gory details.

Why do we do this Draft Tournament?

The tournament is designed for people who are not draft experts to catch up at a casual pace on prospects in the Warriors range. For this reaso…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Apricot's 2026 NBA Draft Tournament: "We're going to get a good player.... That guy has to play."]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-2026-nba-draft-tournamenthttps://dubnationhq.com/p/apricots-2026-nba-draft-tournamentThu, 04 Jun 2026 18:56:24 GMTHere are all the Draft Tournaments and Live Draft Day threads since 2020.

This is the index page for the series, in reverse time order. Comments are turned off.

Announcing the 2026 Draft Tournament

  • The 2026 NBA Draft will take place on June 23-24, 2026.

  • The Warriors will have the #11 and #54 picks.

  • I have selected a field of candidates for the #11 pick. In the next three weeks, I will offer them up in small groups for you to vote on.

  • Don’t worry, this series is for everyone, not just draft experts.

  • This article will serve as the main index for the entire tournament.

Inspirational verse from Steve Kerr on the draft

USA Today:

“I’ve talked to Mike (Dunleavy),” Kerr said, via ESPN’s Anthony Slater. “I mean, I don’t know the draft, but he feels really strongly that we’re going to get a good player. It could be a 19-year-old. It could be someone older. It’s obvious where we are with the injuries to Moses and Jimmy. You look at our depth on the wings. That guy has to play, and he’s got to earn it, you know. But we’re committed to the development of our young players and trying to do this thing in a way that allows for success down the road, down the road meaning, the end of next season and and beyond. We’re excited about that.”

The field

The 15 players are grouped by random draw.

Group 1

  • Mikel Brown Jr.

  • Allen Graves

  • Hannes Steinbach

Group 2

  • Jayden Quaintance

  • Cameron Carr

  • Karim Lopez

Group 3

  • Morez Johnson Jr.

  • Bennett Stirtz

  • Nate Ament

Group 4

  • Yaxel Lendeborg

  • Brayden Burries

  • Ebuka Okorie

Group 5

  • Labaron Philon Jr.

  • Kingston Flemings

  • Aday Mara

I may add players to the field on request.

Why do we do this Draft Tournament?

The tournament is designed for people who are not draft experts to catch up at a casual pace on prospects in the Warriors range. For this reason, I have sliced it up into a series of smaller votes instead of a massive 16+ player scouting report. These will be spaced out over the next few weeks until the NBA Draft.

The ultimate goal is for you to develop opinions and attachments about the different prospects, so you can

  • argue with others,

  • dream about the future,

  • enjoy the draft with more suspense and emotional investment,

  • be angry that your favorite wasn’t selected,

  • and then in the future tell everyone how you had it right and the drafters were a bunch of idiots.

Despite our stellar track record, it’s unlikely we’ll guess exactly whom the Warriors will draft.

And yes yes everyone always wants to trade the pick for someone ready to contribute. Please don’t be obvious and boring and suggest that.

The reason we don’t contemplate this possibility is that there is absolutely no good way to tell trades are possible and what is fan fantasy. I have a low opinion of people making up trades and complaining they haven’t happened.

How have past Draft Tournament winners done?

Our past five Draft Tourneys are preserved on the Internet (with comment threads about lots of different prospects and the live agony of each Draft Night). Some highlights from the past:

  • 2020. Wanting Tyrese Haliburton over James Wiseman at #2. This is the called shot that will cast reflected glory on the Draft Tourney for years.

  • 2021. Top choices were Moses Moody and Alperen Sengun at #7, along with Scottie Barnes and Jonathan Kuminga in the “won’t fall to us” special election.

  • 2022. DNHQ wanted eventual All-Rookie First Team Jalen Williams (but by then it was clear his stock had skyrocketed past #28) and wanted E.J. Liddell (who promptly tore his ACL, sorry)

  • 2023. Top two DNHQ picks at #19 were Dereck Lively II and Jordan Hawkins, two decent choices. I took a rare personal victory lap for basically predicting by name that GSW would draft Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jaime Jaquez or Brandin Podziemski.

The last two drafts haven’t looked great for the overall vote of the Tourneyans (though my own picks have been great, haha). But to be fair, this was at the very very bottom of the draft which is super hard to predict and project.

  • 2024. Jalen Bridges was the winner of the Tourney. He got buried in the 2024 PHX G-League and then the 2025 BOS G-League, so it’s too soon to tell about this choice, but it’s not looking great.

  • 2025. John Tonje was the Tourney winner and he promptly got buried in the Jazz G-League and then was traded to the Celtics G-League, where he stayed on a two-way. Time will tell if he sticks in the NBA.

    • My own Top 3 for the #41 pick, as recorded in our public picks were

      • Amari Williams. #46 ORL, signed two-way with BOS, made roster with 2 year minimum. We’ll consider that a hit.

      • Sion James. #33 CHA, played all 82 games, #8 in class in Win Shares. Bullseye hit.

      • John Tonje. discussed above.

How did you pick the field?

In past Tourneys, I’ve analyzed the field carefully through the lens of BPM, doing very clever cut-offs, and looking carefully at who the Warriors worked out. I’m not doing that this year for reasons I will explain in an Appendix.

I chose 7 mock draft sources1 for being conventional, as we’re trying to figure out the most likely draft picks not the actual best players available. I then looked at every player whose draft range2 intersected the range [9, 14].

Here are the results:

Too Good To Fall

  • AJ Dybantsa

  • Darryn Peterson

  • Cameron Boozer

  • Caleb Wilson

  • Keaton Wagler

  • Darius Acuff Jr.

Projected to be in range of #11

  • Mikel Brown Jr.

  • Kingston Flemings

  • Aday Mara

  • Brayden Burries

  • Nate Ament

  • Yaxel Lendeborg

  • Karim Lopez

  • Labaron Philon Jr.

  • Hannes Steinbach

  • Cameron Carr

  • Morez Johnson Jr.

  • Jayden Quaintance

Requests

I added a few players by commenter request.

  • Ebuka Okorie

  • Bennett Stirtz

  • Allen Graves

That gives us a starting field of 15 players.

The field for a second round Draft Tourney

We didn’t have time to do a proper draft tourney for the Warriors’ number 54 second-round pick. Just so you can cram a little bit before the final exam on Wednesday, here is the field of prospects that I would have picked for the tourney.

The methodology is pretty simple:

  • I took Tankathon.com mock draft players ranked number 40 through number 75 as these are the most likely to be available at #54 while also being a plausible draft pick and not someone to be signed as an undrafted free agent.

  • I filtered for players ranked by either BPM or CHAWBPM as 54th or above in the entire nation. Note that this would make them better than the 54th pick, as the rankings would include all college players, not just the ones who declared for the draft.

    • If you look at last year’s tournament page, I discuss why we use BPM to select good prospects. In fact, Mike Dunleavy Jr has so far valued analytics much higher than Bob Myers. MDJ’s picks have been ranked in BPM (out of all 5,000+ college players who played 40% of possible minutes):

      • #1 Trayce Jackson-Davis (#3 CHAW)

      • #11 Brandin Podziemski (#15 CHAW)

      • #31 Quinten Post (#12 CHAW)

      • #35 Will Richard (#284 CHAW)

    • And the pattern holds even if you include undrafted free agents signed on draft night,

      • #39 Reese Beekman (#8 CHAW)

      • #70 LJ Cryer (#77 CHAW)

      • #79 Chance McMillian (#136 CHAW)

    • The one pick that doesn’t fit this pattern was Alex Toohey who had no NCAA track record so therefore no NCAA BPM. And we all saw what a miss that pick was.

    • And notably the undrafted FAs even had worse BPM than the draft players.

  • I filtered out players chosen by BPM that did not appear in the top 250 CHAWBPM prospects and also filtered out CHAWBPM selections that did not appear in the top 200 BPM players.

Here is the list of selected players:

Confirmed workouts with GSW

  • Ugonna Onyenso, Virginia, C (#6 BPM, #76 CHAW)

  • Maliq Brown, Duke, Wing F (#7 BPM, #188 CHAW)

  • Dillon Mitchell, St. John’s, PF/C (#29 BPM, #217 CHAW)

  • Tamin Lipsey, Iowa State, Scoring PG (#34 BPM, #134 CHAW)

  • Emanuel Sharp, Houston, Combo G (#58 BPM, #50 CHAW)

  • Ja’Kobi Gillespie, Tennessee, Pure PG (#61 BPM, #37 CHAW)

  • Nate Bittle, Oregon, PF/C (#83 BPM, #30 CHAW)

  • Tucker DeVries, Indiana, Wing G (#126 BPM, #51 CHAW)

  • Quadir Copeland, NC State, Pure PG (#178 BPM, #49 CHAW)

No confirmed workouts with GSW

  • Bruce Thornton, Ohio State, Combo G (#18 BPM, #106 CHAW)

  • Rafael Castro, George Washington, C (#38 BPM, #98 CHAW)

  • Izaiyah Nelson, South Florida, C (#44 BPM, #97 CHAW)

  • Nick Boyd, Wisconsin, Scoring PG (#93 BPM, #39 CHAW)

If you are bored, you can dig into their statistics and video highlights yourself.

Following the most cynical view of MDJ, since he’s picked a player whose workouts were concealed the last two drafts, it would be just like him to pick one of the “no confirmed workouts” list. My eye is on Thornton, a sweet shooting, downhill point guard, whose main issue is being a little short and a lot old.

Appendix. What happened to your complicated BPM analysis from past year?

In the last two years, I cooked up an approach to selecting a field which combined looking at strong BPM statistics with tracking which players the Warriors brought to work out for them.

We’re not doing that this year because the last two years were about predicting draft picks in the 50s. When you’re drafting #11, the eye test matters more than ever, and the draft consensus captures that perspective.

Also, the Warriors have made the unusual step of lying by omission about which players they were working out. Most painfully, I would have included Quinten Post and Will Richard in my draft board if I knew that the Warriors were working them out, but despite my best efforts to track the announced workouts, the Warriors in fact secretly worked out those two players and never announced them.

In coming up with a field of possible picks for the second round pick at #54, I will certainly pay more attention to BPM and workouts. (See above.)

So why are you de-emphasizing BPM?

First, let’s be grateful that BPM is publicly available.

  • BPM not necessarily my favorite measure, but thanks to BartTorvik.com, I can look at the BPM of every college player since 2008.

    • Even beyond the limits of all context-less analytics, I do find BPM over-rates big men and (perhaps related) is worse at evaluating defense since box score stats for defense are bad.

  • Thanks to Basketball-Reference.com, we also have BPM for NBA play.

  • For the sake of this study, I’ll use BPM as a proxy for whatever cool advanced analytics the Warriors use in-house.

However, BPM is more predictive of NBA drafts for older players.

  • Intuitively, this should make sense. Young players you draft on tools, older players need proven track records since their growth potential is less.

  • It does correlate to draftability. I analyzed the BPM ranking for players in the last 2023 and 2024 drafts as follows.

  • For 1 and 2 year college players, BPM rank distribution is pretty spread out. At this young age,

    • drafters can bet on athleticism, strong fundamentals, or other tools developing for players who didn’t play well in college,

    • young players may improve / get a bigger role within a single season and the total BPM may not reflect that,

    • young players may be playing in not their NBA position or role

  • For 3+ year players, BPM settles in. I did a similar analysis and found:

    • Almost every prospect drafted has a BPM of #150 or above.

    • At this age, if you aren’t racking up positive stats, then you aren’t likely to make the NBA.

    • Many drafters (including GSW clearly) will take long shots in the second round based on good stats, as indirectly reflected in BPM.

  • If these histograms seem similar, pay closer attention to the difference in scale of each axis.

Dub Nation HQ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

1

2

Draft range is simply the interval from the highest mocked position to the lowest mocked position. So if a player’s draft range includes 11, that means somebody mocked them at above #11 and someone else mocked them at below #11.

]]><![CDATA[Spurs vs Knicks Game 1 sets the tone for which roster construction will take center stage]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/spurs-vs-knicks-game-1-sets-the-tonehttps://dubnationhq.com/p/spurs-vs-knicks-game-1-sets-the-toneThu, 04 Jun 2026 00:57:44 GMT Read more

]]><![CDATA[NBA changes lottery rules; tanking being heavily discouraged]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/nba-changes-lottery-rules-tankinghttps://dubnationhq.com/p/nba-changes-lottery-rules-tankingFri, 29 May 2026 17:34:04 GMT Read more

]]><![CDATA[Knicks learn that playing James Harden deep in the playoffs is the best omen]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/knicks-learn-that-playing-james-hardenhttps://dubnationhq.com/p/knicks-learn-that-playing-james-hardenThu, 28 May 2026 00:47:18 GMTLet’s be clear about something before we start.

I don’t want to talk about the Western Conference Finals right now. OKC and San Antonio can wait. Yeah yeah I know, best NBA matchup possible, two franchises shaped by the Warriors’ dynasty, playing for a trip to the Finals. And yet I genuinely do not care at this moment because something more important jus…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Can Harden redeem himself in Game 2 vs Knicks?]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/can-harden-redeem-himself-in-gamehttps://dubnationhq.com/p/can-harden-redeem-himself-in-gameFri, 22 May 2026 00:26:59 GMT Read more

]]><![CDATA[The Warriors changed the NBA. Thunder vs. Spurs will decide what comes next]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/the-warriors-changed-the-nba-thunderhttps://dubnationhq.com/p/the-warriors-changed-the-nba-thunderThu, 21 May 2026 00:31:50 GMTLet’s get the history right first, because it matters.

Back in May of 2016, the Oklahoma City Thunder walked into Oracle Arena and stole Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals from the defending champion Golden State Warriors. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook overwhelmed a 73-win team on its own floor. By the time OKC grabbed a 3-1 series lead, the ba…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Cavaliers' James Harden has a major mountain to climb vs Knicks]]>https://dubnationhq.com/p/cavaliers-james-harden-has-a-majorhttps://dubnationhq.com/p/cavaliers-james-harden-has-a-majorWed, 20 May 2026 00:39:24 GMTNobody told me I was supposed to care about this series.

Knicks-Cavaliers. Eastern Conference Finals. No LeBron. No Patrick Ewing. Just Donovan Mitchell and a bunch of guys I’d normally file under “solid team, wrong era.” Pass the remote.

And then I looked at the roster and saw the name.

James Harden.

Read more

]]>