Brooklyn Nets: The 16 prospects to consider in the 2019 NBA Draft

In the upcoming 2019 NBA Draft, the Brooklyn Nets must find prospects that will be a solid fit, and be available when they select. There are 16 prospects that check both boxes.

As teams prepare for the 2019 NBA Draft, I imagine there is a lot of focus on what players will fit best on the particular team. But the other, arguably equally important part, is forecasting what players will be available at a team’s particular draft spots.

This helps narrow the focus in terms of what players to evaluate. Of course, teams can trade up or down to alter their draft picks, but for the purpose of this exercise, let’s assume the Brooklyn Nets maintain their current picks of No. 17, No. 27 and No. 31. Using a variety of mock drafts, I tried to figure out both A) which prospects are likely to be available at each pick and B) which of these players make the most sense for the Nets.

The charts below reflect the most recent first round mock drafts for CBS Sports, NBC Sports, Bleacher Report, USA Today, and Sports Illustrated. There are countless mock drafts, but I felt comfortable this provided a solid sample.

Although the mocks had a variety of orders, most had the same players showing up somewhere in the first round. To be exact, there were 36 different players reflected across the five draft projections.

Since Brooklyn’s last selection is No. 31, I decided to use this group of 36 as the starting point for potential Nets picks. The team could take someone outside this group, but it makes sense to approach it this way.

Who will be available when Brooklyn picks?

Version 1.0

• Total prospect watch: 36
• Pick No. 17 prospect watch: TBD
• Pick No. 27/31 prospect watch: TBD

Next, I looked into which of the 36 players have a chance to fall to Brooklyn’s picks at 17, 27 and 31. To do this, I examined how often each player fell to a certain draft spot in each of the mocks.

I identified 12 prospects that did not fall to No. 17 in any of the drafts, and therefore are not likely to be in play for the Nets. I removed all of these players from consideration except for Romeo Langford, who had an average mock draft position of 14.4 — close enough to No. 17 that it’s conceivable he could be in play.

The 11 removed players are represented in “Tier 1” of the below table, which reflects the number of mocks in which prospects fell to the Nets’ draft slots at 17, 27 and 31. Twenty-five players are left for consideration.

Version 2.0

• Total prospect watch: 25
• Pick No. 17 prospect watch: TBD
• Pick No. 27/31 prospect watch: TBD

After narrowing down the field from 36 to 25, I focused on Tier 2. According to the mocks, these players have a slim, yet possible chance of falling to Brooklyn at No. 17. For example, one out of five mocks had Brandon Clarke falling to at least No. 17. I threw Langford into Tier 2 as well for the reasons above. It makes sense to consider these players for pick No. 17, but it seems inconceivable that they’d still be available at No. 27.

Version 3.0

• Total prospect watch: 25
• Pick No. 17 prospect watch: Romeo Langford, Brandon Clarke, PJ Washington, Nassir Little, Rui Hachimura (five total)
• Pick No. 27/31 prospect watch: TBD

Next, I moved on to Tier 3. This tier reflects the prospects that have a good chance of being available at No. 17, but like Tier 2, are extremely unlikely to be around at 27. I decided to put the five Tier 3 players into the “Pick No. 17 prospect watch” and left the “Pick No. 27 prospect watch” watch empty for now.

Version 4.0

• Total prospect watch: 25
• Pick No. 17 prospect watch: Romeo Langford, Brandon Clarke, PJ Washington, Nassir Little, Rui Hachimura, Bol Bol, Tyler Herro, Goga Bitadze, Cam Johnson, Keldon Johnson (10 total)
• Pick No. 27/31 prospect watch: TBD

It’s Tier 4’s turn now. These prospects were available at No. 17 in every mock and have a moderate chance of being there at 27. Since no projections have them going at or before 17, I didn’t include any Tier 4 prospects in the Pick No. 17 prospect watch. The Nets should be able to find someone better in the list of 10 we already have. However, I included all Tier 4’s in each No. 27 and No. 31 prospect watch, as there is a chance any of them could be available in this range.

Version 5.0

• Total prospect watch: 25
• Pick No. 17 prospect watch: Romeo Langford, Brandon Clarke, PJ Washington, Nassir Little, Rui Hachimura, Bol Bol, Tyler Herro, Goga Bitadze, Cam Johnson, Keldon Johnson (10 total)
• Pick No. 27/31 prospect watch: Matisse Thybulle, Grant Williams, Talen Horton-Tucker, Mfiondu Kabengele (four total)

Tier 5 includes 11 prospects that have a very good chance of being there at both 27 and 31. I put all of these prospects in each No. 27″ and No. 31 watch.

Version 6.0

• Total prospect watch: 25
• Pick No. 17 prospect watch: Romeo Langford, Brandon Clarke, PJ Washington, Nassir Little, Rui Hachimura, Bol Bol, Tyler Herro, Goga Bitadze, Cam Johnson, Keldon Johnson (10 total)
• Pick No. 27/31 prospect watch: Matisse Thybulle, Grant Williams, Talen Horton-Tucker, Mfiondu Kabengele, Dylan Windler, Luka Samanic, Carsen Edwards, Luguentz Dort, Ty Jerome, Bruno Fernando, Chuma Okeke, Nic Claxton, KZ Okpala, Daniel Gafford, Neemias Queta (15 total)

Which prospects are the best fit?

Now we have a general idea of which prospects will be available, but I wanted to filter down the prospects further based on what I deem to be the needs of the Nets’ roster. The team could experience several changes with free agency, but for the purpose of this analysis, I’m going to assume that D’Angelo Russell re-signs and that Brooklyn doesn’t land any superstar free agents.

The Nets have free agency decisions to make regarding DeMarre Carroll, Jared Dudley, Ed Davis and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson as well, but these decisions don’t make a huge impact on the evaluation of Brooklyn’s roster needs.

The Nets have plenty of guards that play on the ball: Russell, Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris LeVert and Shabazz Napier. What the team needs, however, is to improve its wing and interior positions. With Allen Crabbe, Joe Harris, Carroll, Dudley and Hollis-Jefferson, the wing position already isn’t a strength of the roster, and now Carroll, Dudley, and Hollis-Jefferson could all walk as free agents.

Crabbe is a fine player, but he only played 43 games last season due to injury and more problematically, is under contract one more season for a whopping $18.5 million. It’s possible Brooklyn will try to trade Crabbe and create more cap space. Harris is really the lone major bright spot at the wing position, shooting a blistering 47.4 percent from 3 last season. Overall, the wing position is extremely uncertain for the Nets.

Brooklyn is pretty thin on the interior with Jarrett Allen and Ed Davis as really the only options. At age 20, Allen has shown some signs, but is still developing. Davis has been serviceable, but is a free agent this summer.

To summarize, the Nets need wing and interior players. As a result, I decided to remove players from the “prospect watch” that are guards and/or have games built around handling the ball. If the Nets could draft an on-ball player of Ja Morant’s quality, then this would of course be fine, but I don’t think any of the available guards will be worth a pick. Therefore, I decided to remove Romeo Langford, Talen Horton-Tucker, Carsen Edwards and Luguentz Dort from consideration.

Version 7.0

• Total prospect watch: 21
• Pick No. 17 prospect watch: Brandon Clarke, PJ Washington, Nassir Little, Rui Hachimura, Bol Bol, Tyler Herro, Goga Bitadze, Cam Johnson, Keldon Johnson (nine total)
• Pick No. 27/31 prospect watch: Matisse Thybulle, Grant Williams, Mfiondu Kabengele, Dylan Windler, Luka Samanic, Bruno Fernando, Chuma Okeke, Nic Claxton, KZ Okpala, Daniel Gafford, Neemias Queta, Ty Jerome (12 total)

Next, I used some subjective evaluations to filter down the prospects further. The European prospects are all very talented. At 6’11”, 6’8″, and 6’11”, respectively, Goga Bitadze, KZ Okpala, and Luka Samanic could all potentially fill a need on the wing/interior.

However, I simply don’t feel confident enough in my knowledge of these prospects to give any a ringing endorsement. I hope they prove me wrong, but for these reasons, I had to remove them from the prospect watch.

Dylan Windler and Ty Jerome can both provide solid outside shooting, but I don’t trust they have the athleticism to translate to the NBA and hold their own on defense. I think Brooklyn needs a versatile wing that can guard the 3-4 spots, and I don’t think either guy can do it. I took them out as well.

Version 8.0 

• Total prospect watch: 16
• Pick No. 17 prospect watch: Brandon Clarke, PJ Washington, Nassir Little, Rui Hachimura, Bol Bol, Tyler Herro, Cam Johnson, Keldon Johnson (eight total)
• Pick No. 27/31 prospect watch: Matisse Thybulle, Grant Williams, Mfiondu Kabengele, Bruno Fernando, Chuma Okeke, Nic Claxton, Daniel Gafford, Neemias Queta (eight total)

The final “prospect watch” has 16 prospects: eight for the No. 17 pick and eight for the No. 27/31 picks. If I were Brooklyn, these are the 16 prospects I would be focused on. Each have their various strengths and weaknesses, but I think Nets supporters should be generally satisfied with any of them (as long as a No. 27/31 prospect doesn’t get picked at No. 17).

The below chart gives a statistical overview of the 16 prospects (note: part of the reason Bol Bol’s statistics look so good is that he only played nine games due to injury).

Although I focused on prospects that have a reasonable chance of being available, several will inevitably be off the board when the Nets pick.

This is why it’s important to have a group as big as 16 players under consideration.