With Victor Wembanyama, Brandon Miller, Scoot Henderson and the rest of the 2023 class off to the NBA, it's time to shift our attention to next year's group.
The 2024 NBA draft is 12 months away, but we've had our eyes on these players for quite some time, posting our first mock draft in February. We've watched the class' best prospects grow up in high school, AAU, USA Basketball and FIBA events, as well as other all-star settings in the past two years, and will continue that process this summer and fall.
NBA teams still have a lot to learn about this group, especially at the top, where the sense among scouts is that things are completely wide open. This class is considered to be one of the weakest of graduating high school seniors we've seen in years, with no clear top prospects -- leaving a lot of uncertainty regarding the landscape of the 2024 lottery.
New players will undoubtedly emerge both in the college ranks and around the globe, and unlike in previous years, there are rare opportunities for less-heralded players to move into the top-five portion of the draft.
In comparison, our 2023 mock draft a year ago correctly predicted four of the top five picks who eventually heard their names called Thursday (similar to what we saw in 2022 and 2021), something we don't expect to happen for 2024.
G League Ignite and the Australian NBL are becoming increasingly important evaluation platforms in the NBA scouting world, as evidenced by the fact that six of the top 25 players projected to be drafted are signed there currently, including the top-two players in our mock draft, who are slated to play for Ignite.
Expect there to be significant movement as unknown players emerge and other, more highly regarded prospects inevitably stagnate or drop as they are heavily scrutinized throughout the season by NBA scouts.
Let's look at the way our mock sets up at this early stage, and the top storylines to follow into 2024.
The 2024 draft order is based on ESPN projections and reflects the current state of picks owed and owned: