The RTRS 2025 NBA Draft Guide
Complete with everything you need to know before Wednesday night.
At long last, the NBA Finals are over, and the NBA Draft is here.
And though Sixers fans might not have expected it at the beginning of the 2024-25 season, the latter ended up being far more relevant than the former to the team this year. With Philly holding both the No. 3 and No. 35 overall picks both a generational prospect and several players flying up the board as others return to college, there’s a lot to dissect and break down.
Thus, a full 2025 NBA Draft Guide is in order — with statistical and physical information on nearly every player who could hear their name called on either Wednesday or Thursday night, as well as some more in-depth breakdowns on what each guy does best.
Starting on with the biggest piece of the guide, the overview table with information on 97 players in the draft class, a few notes:
On both desktop and mobile, it is sortable, so by clicking on the column title, you can sort the list of 97 NBA Draft prospects by height, weight, BPM, or whatever you prefer.
The “search in table” function can:
Immediately pull up a prospect’s row in isolation by typing their name into the search bar
Be used to filter out just a couple of basic things. (i.e. Typing in “left” will make it so that only left-handed prospects are visible. Likewise, typing in a certain school/team will show all the prospects available from that specific school/team.)
Height is what prospects were recorded as without shoes during the NBA Draft Combine (players lower down the board could have less accurate measurements, since theirs are harder to track down).
Rookie Scale compiles a consensus NBA Draft Big Board each season, which is extremely helpful, and was used for base rankings in this table.
Every player who did not make the top 85 of the Rookie Scale consensus board is listed as 86 for simplicity’s sake.
Most of the listed stats (Points per game, 3PT%, FT%, TS%) are self-explanatory, but Box Plus-Minus (BPM) is also there since it’s probably the best all-in-one metric that can be tracked for college basketball players. Unfortunately, it’s not available for players in overseas leagues + the G-League, so that column is blank for those players.
Alright, that’s enough bullet points. Here’s the draft table:
If you’re looking for something more in-the-weeds than just the basic numbers and data shown up above, look no further than the eight different scouting reports I’ve written for the Ricky this calendar year on several different draft prospects. Some are very possibly going to be wearing a Sixers’ uniform, while the others are more just fascinating players to take a look at.
All of those are linked here down below:
Scouting Report Articles
Additionally, for anyone wanting to read about Ace Bailey, MOC wrote on the case for and against him being the Sixers’ pick at No. 3 overall back in May. You can read his breakdown of the Rutgers’ wing with this link right here.
Last but not least (actually the complete opposite of that), here are some draft superlatives, with rankings of which prospects are the absolute best at a certain skill in this 2025 NBA Draft class, along with some honorable mentions.
Draft Superlatives
Best Prospect: Cooper Flagg (Forward, Duke)
Surprise, surprise. Flagg came into the draft cycle head and shoulders above the rest, and has only risen further above during his lone college season. The questions about him were less whether he should be picked first overall and more about whether he was the best freshman in college basketball since Anthony Davis.
He’s somehow all of this while also being by far the youngest player in the class, as he won’t turn 19 till late December.
All of the hype is real, he really is that good.
Best Shooter: Koby Brea (Guard, Kentucky)
Simply put, Brea’s consistency as a three-point shooter over a long timespan is unmatched. He shot 43.4% on 730 total attempts over five college seasons at Dayton and Kentucky, including an insane campaign in 2023-24 where he shot a near NCAA-best 49.8% from three. He’s a sharpshooter, plain and simple.
This isn’t to say Brea is without flaws as a prospect. He’ll already be turning 23 in November, and is one of just two prospects in that above table that measured in with a wingspan shorter than his height without shoes. Still, for any team looking to add a deadeye marksman in the second round, it’s hard to argue there are many better choices than Brea.
Honorable mention for best shooter includes star freshmen Tre Johnson, Kon Knueppel, and Jase Richardson, as well as Yale’s John Poulakidas (the best lefty shooter in the class), and Villanova’s Eric Dixon, who is the tallest of the sharpshooters at nearly 6-foot-6.
Best Defender: Cooper Flagg (Forward, Duke)
It’s still Flagg. He’s that good. However, there are some closer options for second here, including his own teammate in Khaman Maluach who projects as a phenomenal rim protector at the next level.
Other honorable mentions here include South Carolina’s Collin Murray-Boyles, who probably has the strongest defensive hands in the class, and Arizona’s Carter Bryant, who flashed incredible mobility at while standing at nearly 6-foot-7 without shoes despite only playing 19.3 minutes per game for the Wildcats.
Best Dunker: VJ Edgecombe (Guard, Baylor)
While this was a pretty tough category to decide on, this monster poster from Edgecombe really seals the deal:
There are some very understandable concerns about Edgecombe’s offense in the halfcourt, but give him a running start and there are few more dangerous players in basketball. Additional candidates for this superlative included, of course, Flagg — as well as Arkansas’s Adou Thiero, and Florida State’s Jamir Watkins.
Here are three of their best dunks if you’re interested:
Best Passer: Kasparas Jakucionis (Guard, Illinois)
This was by far the hardest one to decide on. So much of passing is also tied into how defenses react to a player’s scoring threat, and how much they’re actually able to capitalize on their passing skill in reaction to how opponents try to guard them.
BYU’s Egor Demin has incredible passing skill, maybe the best in the class, yet also struggled to fully access it later in the season once defenses got more physical with him and forced him more and more to his weaker left hand. Flagg and Knueppel both honestly have a case here as the most reliable and successful pick and roll decision makers among their peers (though that was also helped by how successful Duke was in general).
Michigan’s Danny Wolf shredded defenses all season with the 4-5 pick and roll he ran next to teammate and fellow potential draftee Vlad Goldin. Ben Saraf of Ratiopharm Ulm is an extremely creative lefty ball handler who was never afraid to go for home run passes with high degrees of difficulty. Likewise, Colorado State’s Nique Clifford should enter as one of the most NBA-ready prospects in the class and is a very creative jump passer while standing over 6-foot-5 without shoes.
Ultimately, I gave the title to Illinois point guard Kasparas Jakucionis, who’s both a creative and ambitious decision maker, while also a decently steady hand in pick and roll action. Regardless, this is by far the most tightly contested category amongst the prospects.
Best Wingspan: Cedric Coward (Forward, Washington State) and Rasheer Fleming (Forward, Saint Joseph’s)
This one is factual rather than subjective. Both Coward and Fleming measured with wingspans that eclipsed their height by nine inches, fitting for two wings who have both risen a great deal throughout the draft process.
Honorable mention goes to Georgetown’s Thomas Sorber with a +8.75 wingspan, as well as too Mohamed Diawara and Oumar Ballo, who might not hear their names called on draft night, but measured in with remarkable +7.75 wingspans.
Best Potential Options for the Sixers at Pick 35:
Adou Thiero (Wing, Arkansas)
Drake Powell (Wing, UNC)
Alex Toohey (Wing, Sydney Kings)
Jamir Watkins (Wing, Florida State)
Johni Broome (Forward/Center, Auburn)
This one is obviously very specific. The Sixers seem set to take a guard or smaller wing with their lottery pick, meaning that a bigger wing who can play the 4 would be the desirable option at 35.
Thiero is an incredible athlete and defender who might be available in the second round, and if so should be a prime candidate for the Sixers. Likewise, UNC’s Drake Powell could be scooped up before 35, but is also a potential high-outcome player that’s rarely available so late in the draft. He entered the college season as a high RCSI prospect projected to go much earlier in the first round before a rough statistical year with the Tar Heels hurt his stock, yet the talent is still very visible when studying his tape.
Alex Toohey has spent two seasons with the Sydney Kings in Australia’s NBL and has performed quite well. He’s monstrous force in transition, getting out and running at every opportunity, and has one of my favorite highlights of the entire draft cycle:
He’s a big wing who makes a ton of intuitive and high-energy plays that could greatly strengthen any five-man lineup for an NBA team.
Watkins, as shown earlier with his dunk, is a strong and explosive athlete who could come in ready for the physicality and speed of the NBA on day one.
Johni Broome didn’t wow anyone with his physical testing at the draft combine, yet has been one of if not the best player in college basketball over the past two seasons, and has prototypical power forward size at over 6-foot-9 without shoes.
Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.
“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.