Image via NBA.com

Tweet

2023 NBA Draft Preview

By Zach Hales, CouchGM on June 22, 2023

It’s NBA Draft day, and here’s CouchGM’s analysis of the draft class.

CouchGM’s philosophy for scouting NBA draft prospects is that the most important skills are, in order, 1) shooting, 2) shot creation, and 3) defense. Shot creation includes both creating shots for teammates (playmaking) and for oneself (getting buckets). Using the Ringer’s NBA Draft Big Board, we evaluated each of the top-30 prospects for these skills to determine whether each prospect could be a Day 1 positive contributor, a potential future contributor, or a non-impactful player.

We went through a similar exercise in 2020 when we identified Tyrese Haliburton as our favorite prospect, with Saddiq Bey and Devin Vassell as next favorites. Other recent CouchGM draft prospect favorites include Keegan Murray and Jalen Williams.

Let's get into it.

Shooting

The red reference line is the NBA league-wide average for three point percentage (0.361), and the yellow reference lines are the NBA averages for free throw percentage (0.782) and three point attempt rate (0.387), respectively, per Basketball-Reference.

Players in the top-right quadrants (Miller, Hendricks, Howard, Dick, Podziemski, etc.), those that shot above league average on threes AND free throws, or above league average shooting percentage on above league average volume, are the players I’d expect to be Day 1 impactful shooters.

A few others (Colby Jones, Wembanyama) were above one of the NBA averages but not both (top left or bottom right quadrants), or were pretty close to both (Jalen Hood-Schifino, Murray). These guys have a reasonable chance at being positive shooters in the future, though some I'd be more confident about than others. I'd buy George and Murray, due to their high three point volume, near league average three point percentage, and > 70% free throw shooting (> 80% in George's case). I don't buy Jones as much, even though he shot better than league average from three, because of the relatively low volume and only 65-ish% free throw shooting (10 percentage points worse than average). He also shot less than 30% his first two seasons in college, so this year's 37-ish percent feels like an exception rather than the rule.

Everyone else shot below both NBA averages (bottom left quadrant). In general I would not bet on this group ever becoming above-average NBA three point shooters. The farther away from the red and yellow lines, the less likely the improvement becomes. Notable prospects in this group include Scoot Henderson and the Thompson Twins, though Scoot is the most promising among those three based on his near league-average free throw shooting.

Day 1 Impact Shooters	Potential Future Shooters	Non-Shooters
Brandon Miller	Victor Wembanyama	Scoot Henderson
Taylor Hendricks	Cam Whitmore	Ausar Thompson
Gradey Dick	Keyonte George	Amen Thompson
Brice Sensabaugh	Cason Wallace	Jarace Walker
Jett Howard	Jalen Hood-Schifino	Anthony Black
Brandin Podziemski	Kobe Bufkin	Bilal Coulibaly
Jordan Hawkins	Noah Clowney	Dereck Lively II
Dariq Whitehead	Colby Jones	Nick Smith, Jr.
	Olivier Maxence-Prosper	James Nnaji
	Leonard Miller	Trayce Jackson-Davis
	Sidy Cissoko
	Kris Murray

Creation: Playmaking

The red reference line is the NBA league-wide average assist-to-turnover ratio (1.78).

The Thompson twins and Scoot Henderson are the best playmakers in the class and should be instant contributors as passers.

There’s another two players (Cason Wallace, Colby Jones) that, based on high assists and assist percentage and greater than league-average assist-to-turnover ratio, I’d expect to be impactful from day 1. Another handful (Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jalen Hood-Schifino, Brandin Podsiemski, Anthony Black, Kobe Bufkin, Keyonte George) all had either relatively high assists per game or assist percentage and are next most likely.

Olivier-Maxence Prosper and Cam Whitmore, on the other hand, are black holes

Day 1 Impact Playmakers	Potential Future Playmakers	Don't like to share
Scoot Henderson	Victor Wembanyama	Taylor Hendricks
Ausar Thompson	Brandon Miller	Cam Whitmore
Amen Thompson	Jarace Walker	Gradey Dick
Cason Wallace	Anthony Black	Bilal Coulibaly
Colby Jones	Keyonte George	Brice Sensabaugh
	Jalen Hood-Schifino	Dereck Lively II
	Kobe Bufkin	Noah Clowney
	Nick Smith, Jr.	Olivier Maxence-Prosper
	Jett Howard	Leonard Miller
	Brandin Podziemski	James Nnaji
	Sidy Cissoko	Jordan Hawkins
	Kris Murray	Dariq Whitehead
	Trayce Jackson-Davis

Creation: Getting Buckets

The red line is the NBA league-wide average effective field goal percentage (eFG%, 0.545).

Several players shot above this eFG% average, but few did so with a high usage rate. Brice Sensabaugh is really the only player that jumps out as a possible Day 1 bucket-getter, as the only player with a usage rate above 30% and an eFG% above NBA average. The dude was a really good off-the-dribble scorer this year.

That’s not to say that he’s the only player in this draft class that can create his own shot. He’s just the only one that I would bet on being able to do it efficiently right away. Others that could become good self-creators include Trayce Jackson-Davis, who had above average eFG% with near 30% usage, or Victor Wembanyama and Keyonte George, who had below average eFG% but greater than 30% usage. I'm sure you've seen a bunch of highlights of Wemby, but what about George?

He wasn't particularly efficient, but he's smooth and certainly looks like an NBA scorer.

A handful of others could get there, but these three seem most likely. Again, I’m looking for guys that are going to do it often AND do it efficiently, guys that’ll be above-average.

Day 1 Bucket-Getters	Potential Future Scorers	Assisted scorers
Brice Sensabaugh	Victor Wembanyama	Jarace Walker
	Brandon Miller	Anthony Black
	Scoot Henderson	Cason Wallace
	Ausar Thompson	Kobe Bufkin
	Amen Thompson	Dereck Lively II
	Taylor Hendricks	Noah Clowney
	Cam Whitmore	Jett Howard
	Keyonte George	James Nnaji
	Gradey Dick	Sidy Cissoko
	Jalen Hood-Schifino	Dariq Whitehead
	Bilal Coulibaly
	Nick Smith, Jr.
	Colby Jones
	Olivier-Maxence Prosper
	Leonard Miller
	Brandin Podziemski
	Jordan Hawkins
	Kris Murray
	Trayce Jackson-Davis

Defense

There are 2 prospects that both the advanced and counting stats love: Trayce Jackson Davis, with nearly 4 combined steals and blocks per game, and Dereck Lively II, just under 3 and the highest DBPM (defensive box plus-minus, an advanced defensive impact stat based on box score data) of the projected first round prospects. The advanced defensive stats aren't perfect,and aren't as readily available for international and/or G-League/Overtime Elite prospects, but can be a good starting point.

Average positional heights were collected here. Length indicates inch difference in wingspan vs height.

Positional size can give some indication of potential defensive versatility. Wembanyama’s otherworldly build and nearly 4 blocks per game indicate that he should be an intimidating rim protector right away. The Thompsons also have the physical tools and defensive effort to be positive defenders from day 1.

Some others may not have produced as much statistically, but have either great positional length (Scoot Henderson, +7 inch / 6’9” wingspan) or size (Anthony Black, +3 inches vs positional average for guards).

Nick Smith, Jr., Olivier-Maxence Prosper, and Brice Sensabaugh don’t inspire much confidence.

Day 1 Impact Defenders	Potential Future Defenders	Sieves
Victor Wembanyama	Brandon Miller	Keyonte George
Ausar Thompson	Scoot Henderson	Brice Sensabaugh
Amen Thompson	Cam Whitmore	Nick Smith, Jr.
Taylor Hendricks	Gradey Dick	Jett Howard
Jarace Walker	Jalen Hood-Schifino	Olivier-Maxence Prosper
Anthony Black	Kobe Bufkin	Leonard Miller
Cason Wallace	Bilal Coulibaly	Jordan Hawkins
Dereck Lively II	Noah Clowney
Trayce Jackson-Davis	Colby Jones
	James Nnaji
	Brandin Podziemski
	Sidy Cissoko
	Kris Murray
	Dariq Whitehead

Summary

My favorite prospects are those with either multiple Day 1 impact grades or 0 non-impactful grades. There are 11 such prospects this year, with varying degrees of risk. Of these, my favorites are Brandon Miller, Taylor Hendricks, and Brandin Podziemski. Even though he does have one glaring weakness (defense), I also like Keyonte George. I’ll buy the potential to be a positive shooter, playmaker, and bucket-getter, something along the lines of Tyrese Maxey. To be clear, I don’t necessarily expect these to end up as the four best players in this class. I do, however, expect three of the four to be instant impact shooters, plus Hendricks should be an instant impact defender. Keyonte George is my dark-horse choice to be an all-star from this draft class. Miller and Podziemski could become positive contributors as creators and defenders, too. Next to Wembanyama, I think Miller is the best prospect in the class.

If I were in charge of drafting in the top-3 (Miller), lottery (Hendricks, George), or late-first round (Podziemski), these are the players I would target.

back to blog