Final 2018 Draft Rankings

Draft day is finally here, which means all of the rankers we know and love so much have finalized a final top-60 or top-100, and we can look at those rankings to once again recalibrate heading into the big night. The reason to rely on the rankings of experts, at least as a baseline, is that they’re, well, experts. The people whose work I’ll cite below focus on college ball and the draft as their primary gig, and while I personally love to watch the NCAA and spend a lot of time once the playoffs end trying to catch up with video and reading and talking to people around the league, they’ve all spent far more time, tracked the prospects for years in some cases, and will have the benefit of more in-person viewings, meetings, and impressions from within the NBA. There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you don’t know and letting the expertise of intelligent people guide your own research. (Or so I tell myself.)

The big takeaway from tracking these rankings over the last few weeks is that there remains a ton of volatility and a wide range of opinions on most prospects. Considering how wide open the draft is – “flat” if you prefer, especially outside of the lottery – that stands to make things quite unpredictable. It seems likely that some will see several picks (or undrafted players) as really undervalued, as well as the opposite. For Toronto, without a pick, this presents a real opportunity either to buy in and land someone they like or to roll the dice that players they like slide undrafted altogether.

To help give an idea of who the Raptors looked at, here’s a refresher on the 21 names they brought in to BioSteel Centre who are still in the draft (two pulled out). It’s just a small part of the process and doesn’t at all mean this is the list they’re drawing from, especially given how difficult it was to get players in without a pick. Instead, the Raptors will rely on their season-long scouting, agency camps, their work at the combine, and so on. Still, the names they brought in might at least tip us to their thinking at least a little. Here’s the list, and where those players show up on different rankings, if at all (links to follow):

As a look back, here are our workout notes from each session. (As a side-note, no player came in for a second workout this year, at least not that was noted publicly.)

• N/A – Jalen McDaniels (withdrew)
• May 9 – Kostas Antetokounmpo, Joe Chealey, Alan Herndon, Giddy Potts
• May 24 – Jon Elmore (withdrew), Marcus Foster, Nana Foulland, Marcus Lee, Jairus Lyles, Dakota Mathias
• June 6 – Jacobi Boykins, Cameron Reynolds, Kassius Robertson, Andrew Rowsey, Darius Thompson, Justin Tillman
• June 14 – Hayden Dalton, Wenyen Gabriel, Zach Lofton, Theo Pinson, Desi Reodriguez, Jared Terrell
• It seems extremely likely that the Raptors worked out or at least interviewed several other players under the radar without announcing so publicly.

And here’s an updated look at the rankings from around the web. I amalgamated these from ESPN, The Ringer, The Stepien, Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, and multiple draft models. In all, I included 14 sources in coming up with a high, low, and mean ranking. These are measures of player quality, not mocks. There are 131 names that showed up on a qualitative ranking (and a bunch more I cut that only showed up on statistical models). Here you go:

A live thread will go up shortly, and we’ll track any major rumors, mocks, or changes in perception there throughout the day (these rankings won’t be updated).