Apricot's NBA Draft Tourney Group 2: Jayden Quaintance, Cameron Carr, Karim Lopez
You vote, I count, they draft
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.
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
Cameron Carr
Avg: 16.71 | Range: 14–21 | Draftballr | B-Ref
Height: 6’5” | Position: SG | College: Baylor | PPG: 18.9 | RPG: 5.8 | APG: 2.6
Bleacher Report Pick 14
A projected first-round pick entering the combine, Cameron Carr bet on himself by choosing to scrimmage and likely earned himself more money. His 30 points further strengthened his projection as a surefire NBA scoring wing with translatable shotmaking firepower and athleticism. He was able to separate with ease over defenders and convert, both as a shooter and finisher.
Throw in the plus-eight-inch wingspan, giving him 7 feet of length.
The extreme, high likelihood of a three-and-D floor outcome should put Carr in play at the back end of the lottery.
ESPN Pick 15
Carr, ESPN’s highest-ranked player to participate in scrimmages last week, was unsurprisingly the biggest winner of the combine, turning in a memorable showing with 30 points and six 3-pointers in one game. His type of profile tends to rise in the predraft process, and he backed that up with his physical testing, measuring with a plus-6¼ wingspan and recording a 42.5-inch max vertical. His coveted profile of athletic traits and 3-point shooting could see him come off the board in the teens.
Chicago can go a number of directions with its second first-round pick, but it has a need on the wing and could see Carr as a viable fit, assuming the Bulls wind up with Boozer or Wilson earlier in the draft.
The Athletic Pick 15
Carr had a nuclear hot start to the season and then largely settled in as one of the best high-major scorers in the country. He averaged 18.9 points per game while shooting 49.4 percent from the field, 37.4 percent from 3 and 80.1 percent from the foul line. Carr is a terrific shooter with great straight-line slashing instincts, using his long strides and length to cover ground quickly before getting to the rim.
It’s very difficult to find players who are in the ballpark of 6-6 with incredibly long arms like Carr’s who can shoot. His lack of physicality and his high waist show up defensively, as he still doesn’t impact the game unless he’s rotating across for a weak-side contest. Carr needs to keep putting on weight and getting stronger and also has to work on playing with more bend and accessing leverage better. New Bulls’ head of basketball operations Graham played a big role in drafting Trey Murphy III in New Orleans, and there are some real points of comparison that can be made between he and Carr due to Carr’s length and athleticism.
Karim Lopez
Avg: 13.71 | Range: 9–20 | Draftballr | B-Ref
Height: 6-8 | Position: PF | College: New Zealand Breakers
Bleacher Report Pick 10
Age, NBL production, a 6’8”, 221-pound frame and expanding versatility could suggest Karim Lopez can offer both effective, immediate minutes and long-term upside.
He’d be a good fit for teams that have available roles and see a valuable archetype with Lopez’s potential to provide physicality at the 4, spot-up shooting and ball-screen playmaking.
ESPN Pick 14
Charlotte, which also holds the No. 18 pick, has an opportunity to keep building through this draft after successfully taking a step forward this season. The Hornets have room to upgrade long term along their frontline, with veteran Miles Bridges entering the final year of his contract and former two-way signing Moussa Diabate profiling better long term as a rotation player than as a starter. Lopez would give them a younger, perimeter-oriented option at the four with developmental upside.
Lopez was helped by his combine measurements, with visible dimensions for both forward spots and tying for the largest hands among players at the combine (9.5-inch length and 11-inch width). Regarded as the top international-based prospect, Lopez has a chance to help himself in predraft workouts, where teams will gain a better sense of his physical traits and skill level coming off a positive year in the NBL. He will receive looks higher than this, but much depends on how the board falls ahead of him.
The Athletic Pick 20
Lopez’s numbers look in line with past lottery picks coming out of Australia’s NBL Next Stars program, as he’s averaging 12 points, six rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block per game. He has excellent hands, is very skilled with the ball and often operates as essentially a mismatch hybrid forward for the Breakers. He’s a physical bowling ball who can play in screens and short rolls. He can attack in a straight line from the perimeter, and he is a solid finisher.
The 3-point shooting has been up and down in his two years in New Zealand (32 percent), but he looks to have good touch and should work through any concerns there at some point. The bigger questions come on defense, as his lateral speed isn’t particularly good. He doesn’t have much shake on the ball offensively; on defense, his hips don’t flip quickly enough, and he can be beaten by faster guards. If he improves in those two areas as he ages, he’ll be an excellent rotation player.
Jayden Quaintance
Avg: 18.86 | Range: 14–25 | Draftballr | B-Ref
Height: 6’11” | Position: PF/C | College: Kentucky
Bleacher Report Pick 15
Jayden Quaintance’s draft stock will be heavily tied to medical reports after last year’s ACL tear and this year’s lack of availability.
He measured exceptionally well in Chicago with a 7’5” wingspan. And there is enough tape dating back to high school to buy a special defensive prospect.
He didn’t participate in athletic testing, but he threw down explosive dunks during his pro day without any restrictions.
Quaintance may have one of the wider draft ranges, which is due to enticing theoretical upside and uncertainty around his health and development.
ESPN Pick 20
Quaintance remains one of the biggest wild-card picks in this class, with teams waiting to learn more about the health of his knee. Though he looked explosive and in good shape at his pro day, several NBA observers in the stands noted that he appeared to be favoring his right leg. Quaintance has an excellent frame with extreme length and real defensive talent, but the fact that he played only four games at Kentucky has made his draft case a bit more complicated. Many teams remain in wait-and-see mode, but in this range of the draft, the perceived risk is more palatable (pending a clean bill of health).
San Antonio is heavy on perimeter talent and should be considering younger frontcourt depth with this pick. The Spurs have the advantage of being able to effectively pair Victor Wembanyama with nearly any big up front, with his shooting and rim protection enabling a wide range of lineups. Quaintance could create a fearsome defensive pairing here in a best-case scenario.
The Athletic Pick 19
Quaintance only played in four games this year, as he attempted to return early from a torn ACL he suffered late last season. He looked like a potential defensive anchor for a Kentucky team that desperately needed one on the interior and played really well in the team’s win over St. John’s in his first game back. His mobility and defensive instincts jumped off the page when he was a 17-year-old at Arizona State and made the Big 12 All-Defensive team while averaging 1.1 steals and 2.6 blocks per game.
Projecting Quaintance is a fool’s errand until we get answers at the combine on his medicals and whether he can make a full comeback by the time the NBA season starts. If he were fully healthy this year, I think he’d be the 10th pick in this class, as he reminds me a lot of Robert Williams III, who made an All-Defensive team for the Boston Celtics. But the range is extremely wide for Quaintance. For the 76ers, he ticks a lot of the boxes that they tend to value in terms of youth versus production, even with the injury history.