The 2025 NBA Draft was over for approximately 14 seconds before the 2026 NBA Draft lookaheads to Cameron Boozer, Darryn Peterson and AJ Dybantsa began, but there are real lessons that can be gleaned from a draft cycle that featured way more than just the Cooper Flagg Sweepstakes.
Let’s dive into how college basketball programs will react to the NBA Draft.
RJ Luis’ market fizzles
Luis was the lone college player on the NBA’s early-entrant list who wound up going undrafted even amidst a watered-down second round. Alabama’s Labaron Philon, UAB’s Yaxel Lendeborg and Auburn’s Tahaad Pettiford all had more NBA Draft buzz than Luis and chose to return to school. Luis did not, instead choosing to bet on himself in the pre-draft process and eschew the lucrative seven-figure offers from transfer portal suitors.
The Big East Player of the Year was unable to raise his stock considerably, as questions about his jumper remained unanswered.
Going undrafted is not a death sentence, especially after multiple NBA decision-makers hinted that numerous agents spent Day 2 of the NBA Draft asking for their respective clients not to be picked in the second round in lieu of a better undrafted free agent offer. That could be the case with Luis, who signed a two-way deal with the rebuilding Utah Jazz. Luis is expected to team up with Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton Jr. in the Las Vegas-held NBA Summer League, which gets underway in less than two weeks.
2026 NBA Mock Draft: BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa soars to top of way-too-early lottery projection
Gary Parrish
Luis, already 22 years old, remained steadfast throughout the process that he wanted to parlay his massive junior season at St. John’s into a professional career. If he’s able to play his way into a guaranteed contract, the risk was worth the reward, but a two-way deal with Utah is a shaky proposition for a big-name college basketball star who passed on real, guaranteed money that the college ranks could provide, even though returning to school would not have guaranteed any different outcome in the 2026 NBA Draft.
“It’s more than just the money,” an extremely confident Luis told CBS Sports last month at the NBA Draft Combine. “Say I go back to college, I get a large amount of money, but then what? I’m going to be a year older. Still going to have to do the process again. It’s more about finding the right time to go into this. I think this is my moment.”
From five stars to the first round
There were 20 players in the exclusive five-star category in 247Sports’ Class of 2024 rankings. A year later, 13 of them became first-round selections in the 2025 NBA Draft.
Not too shabby.
247Sports RankingNBA Draft selection Duke’s Cooper FlaggNo. 1No. 1 Rutgers’ Ace BaileyNo. 2No. 10Rutgers’ Dylan HarperNo. 3No. 2Duke’s Khaman MaluachNo. 4No. 10 Baylor’s VJ EdgecombeNo. 5No. 3 Texas’ Tre JohnsonNo. 6No. 6 UConn’s Liam McNeeleyNo. 10No. 29UNC’s Drake PowellNo. 11No. 22 Maryland’s Derik QueenNo. 12No. 13 BYU’s Egor DeminNo. 16No. 8Duke’s Kon KnueppelNo. 18No. 4 Georgia’s Asa NewellNo. 19No. 23 Illinois’ Will RileyNo. 20No. 21
The preseason predictions that freshmen would start to flex their muscles again in a grizzled college basketball ecosystem were on point, as the Class of 2024 easily separated in almost every category from the previous three cycles.
2025 NBA Draft: 13 of 20 (65%) five-star freshmen from the Class of 2024 became first-rounders.2024 NBA Draft: Seven of 17 (41%) five-star freshmen from the Class of 2023 became first-rounders.2023 NBA Draft: 10 of 25 (40%) five-star freshmen from the Class of 2022 became first-rounders.2022 NBA Draft: Nine of 29 (31%) five-star freshmen from the Class of 2021 became first-rounders.
Transfer portal shows path to the draft
There were 13 players from the 2024 transfer portal cycle who became NBA Draft picks. It’s easily the most in any class of the portal era.
Cedric Coward, from EWU to Washington StateDanny Wolf, from Yale to MichiganYanic Konan Niederhauser, from NIU to Penn StateJavon Small, from Oklahoma State to West VirginiaMicah Peavy, from TCU to GeorgetownAmari Williams, from Drexel to KentuckyKoby Brea, from Dayton to KentuckySion James, from Tulane to DukeAdou Thiero, from Kentucky to ArkansasChaz Lanier, from North Florida to TennesseeAlijah Martin, from Florida Atlantic to FloridaKobe Sanders, from Cal Poly to NevadaJohn Tonje, from Missouri to Wisconsin
This rise is undoubtedly fueled by the extra money that is available in the college ranks, which helped retain more young college studs who could have been deserving of second-round picks. But there were a lot of smart basketball decisions that were rewarded by NBA decision-makers.
Wisconsin pivoting to an injured Tonje who was committed to New Mexico? Great move. Mark Pope making an extra flight to make sure Williams did not reopen his Kentucky commitment after the ‘Cats landed fellow center Brandon Garrison?
Worth it.
Georgetown circled an analytics darling who could not shoot in Peavy and breathed confidence into him that he could be way more than just a defensive menace.
They were right.
West Virginia outlasted Kansas’ last-ditch effort to flip Small and watched as he transformed into one of the elite point guards in the country. Duke and Florida don’t make the Final Four without James and Martin, respectively. The standard for mid-major transfers at Tennessee was so high after Dalton Knecht, and the sweet-shooting Chaz Lanier didn’t seem fazed by it one bit.
But the biggest portal winners are Wolf, Niederhauser and Coward. At this time last year, if you were picking three guys from the 2024 portal cycle who would become first-round picks, you could have gotten the Wolf, Niederhauser and Coward trio at a million-to-one odds. Dusty May’s vision and ingenuity helped Wolf transform into a first-round pick. Niederhauser was Penn State’s “Moneyball” addition out of Northern Illinois. That was a heck of an evaluation and development win for Mike Rhoades, assistant coach Brent Scott and the rest of the Penn State staff. Coward’s utterly absurd rise from Division III to the green room was well-documented by CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander.
Such is life in the wacky portal where the range of outcomes is remarkably wide.
Sidenote: I haven’t decided who my three first-round picks from the 2025 portal haul will be yet, but I do know that UNC’s Henri Veesaar will be one of them! For now, put Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg and Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz in there as placeholders, too.
The case for the role player
Oklahoma City does not win the West and eventually, the Finals, without excellent play from role players like Lu Dort, Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins. Indiana does not win the East without outstanding play from role players like Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, T.J. McConnell and Obi Toppin.
A team is rudderless without its stars, but soulless without selfless role players.
The 2025 NBA Playoffs showed just how crucial those role players have to be to survive and advance, and that was carried over into the NBA Draft, where role players like Duke’s Khaman Maluach went No. 10 to Phoenix, Arizona’s Carter Bryant became the No. 14 pick by San Antonio and James was an early second-round selection by Charlotte.
Opportunity and role are two different things. Duke provided Maluach and James with an opportunity, but they had to embrace low-usage roles behind Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel. Arizona helped, not hurt, Bryant’s stock by speeding up his shot mechanics and utilizing him as a complementary, 3-and-D wing. It’s easy to see how San Antonio could use a similar role to weaponize Bryant early in his NBA career.
Even though Jahmai Mashack cracked double figures just 14 times in his 137-game Tennessee career, Memphis gave him a shot in the second round thanks to his defensive brilliance and winning intangibles.
There’s proof in the pudding that buying into being an elite role player can still earn you a spot in the NBA.
