NBA Draft: How did the experts do evaluating the 2020 Draft?

Evaluating the NBA Draft experts: Kevin O’Connor

Kevin O’Connor has been covering the NBA Draft for years at The Ringer, and every year puts out an interactive draft guide that is absolutely worth your time. His final pre-draft rankings are listed here.

What he got right: “KOC” was correct to highlight the deficiencies in Isaac Okoro’s offensive game and ranked him the lowest of the group at 11. Similarly, he pegged Onyeka Okongwu as the 10th-best player and not the 4th or 5th as the rest of the group. To complete the trifecta, he slotted Obi Toppin at 12th, when the next lowest was Vecenie at 8th. All three rankings were closer to where the player should be ranked a season later.

O’Connor also was high on Desmond Bane (19th) and Jaden McDaniels (24th); while both were too low he was tied for the highest in the group on both. Finally, he was aggressive in ranking Aleksej Pokusevski 13th, which may turn out to be prescient and at the least identifies the value in swinging for the fences with the right kind of prospect.

What he got wrong: KOC went on two massive limbs compared to consensus, and both look shaky a season later. First, he ranked Killian Hayes first overall, which was aggressive then and looks misguided now. Even if Hayes rebounds from his rookie season and shows massive growth, the distance he would have to cover to pass Anthony Edwards, let alone LaMelo Ball, is tremendous.

Hayes at one was a reach, but at least the rest of the community saw him as a top-10 prospect and he went seventh overall, even if he would drop in a redraft. The more bold take was ranking Stanford guard Tyrell Terry at eighth overall. It was the outlier of outliers at the time; Vecenie was the next highest at 20th, and Terry wasn’t drafted until 31 and would likely go even lower in a redraft. There is still plenty to like about Terry, but it’s unlike he ends up a top-10 player from this class.

O’Connor was also a little too high on Deni Avdija, Jalen Smith and Precious Achiuwa. His ranking of Smith at 17 represents the late move up draft boards for the Maryland center, who ended up going 10th to the Phoenix Suns. He has barely played and been fairly bad when he has played and is unlikely to go in the first round if the draft was redone today.

Grade: B-; I love that KOC doesn’t stick to consensus and goes out there, and sometimes it pays off and other times it doesn’t.