Apricot's NBA Draft Tourney Finals: Mikel Brown Jr, Cameron Carr, Morez Johnson Jr, Yaxel Lendeborg, Kingston Flemings
You vote, I count, they draft maybe
Here 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.
Apricot and Wyatt vote on the Draft Tourney This wide ranging discussion looks at the statistical profiles of every single player in the Tourney.
Group 1: Mikel Brown Jr., Allen Graves, Hannes Steinbach
Mikel Brown Jr. 49% WINNER (& Apricot pick)
Allen Graves 11%
Hannes Steinbach 40%
Group 2: Jayden Quaintance, Cameron Carr, Karim Lopez
Jayden Quaintance 7%
Cameron Carr 75% WINNER (& lukewarm Apricot pick)
Karim Lopez 18%
Group 3: Morez Johnson Jr., Bennett Stirtz, Nate Ament
Morez Johnson Jr 74% WINNER
Bennett Stirtz 5%
Nate Ament 21% (Apricot pick)
Group 4: Yaxel Lendeborg, Brayden Burries, Ebuka Okorie
Yaxel Lendeborg 45% WINNER
Brayden Burries 31%
Ebuka Okorie 24% (Apricot pick)
Group 5: Labaron Philon Jr., Kingston Flemings, Aday Mara
Labaron Philon Jr 8%
Kingston Flemings 48% WINNER (& Apricot pick)
Aday Mara 44%
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.