2019 NBA Draft: 5 prospects who can help a team right now

With the 2019 NBA Draft being considered weak, it’s all the more important for teams to have faith that the players they draft can contribute. Here are five guys who can step into the NBA and do that from day one.

In the modern NBA landscape, where a drastic level of free agency upheaval has become an annual event, it’s more important than ever for teams to hit on their draft picks. The 2019 NBA Draft has been pooh-poohed by draft gurus for years now — even with the emergence of Zion Williamson as an otherworldly talent — but there are plenty of players who have the versatility to step into a multitude of situations and succeed.

Similar to what The Ringer’s Chris Vernon has dubbed as “guys I know won’t suck,” the five guys featured herein have the chops to immediately become a solid role player on an NBA roster — ‘role player’ being the key term in that sentence.

These guys are much more about their high floor than any hypothetical ceiling. It’s vastly unlikely that any of these guys will ever make an All-Star Game, but each could easily have a 10-year career.

With that considered, likely lottery talents are not included. Surefire lottery picks like Zion, De’Andre Hunter and Brandon Clarke will obviously help their teams from the outset, and even rawer prospects like R.J. Barrett and Darius Garland will get plenty of reps irrespective of their performance next season.

For teams that are a bench piece or two away from contending, these guys could go a long way toward filling that hole.