The draft lottery has come and gone.
In one of the most anticipated draft events of the last decade, Washington was awarded the first overall pick with Utah, Memphis and Chicago rounding out a top-four widely expected to include AJ Dybansta, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer and Caleb Wilson in some order. In the midst of a dominant championship defense, the Oklahoma City Thunder was included in Sunday’s festivities, landing the No. 12 pick via the Los Angeles Clippers.
Loaded with high-end talent and depth, it’s a great draft to have multiple top-20 picks in and OKC will likely stay at No. 12 and No. 17 via the Philadelphia 76ers. With those two picks and a bevy of tradable contracts, future assets and roster spots up for grabs, it’s tough to tell exactly what OKC will do come draft day, but here, we’ll have you covered on which prospects would fit with OKC in the event of a trade up, staying in the late lottery and picking at 17.
The guys at No. 12
This is where OKC is in the draft after the lottery, making it their most likely place of picking. In the past, the 10-14 range has been a mixed bag for Presti, who found Jalen Williams at No. 12 but also picked the likes of Ousmane Dieng, Cole Aldrich and Cameron Payne. But, this isn’t most drafts and there are likely to be prospects who could flirt with top-five slots in most drafts available in this range, so who fits?
The easier answer is which players don’t. I’m looking squarely at guys like Nate Ament, Morez Johnson and Bennett Stirtz as players who could be mocked in this range that don’t make sense for OKC, but there’s a handful of ones who do, although many fans and analysts have a favorite, me included.
Yaxel Lendeborg F/C — Michigan
Not a different take, I know, but Lendeborg is a perfect fit for the Thunder in virtually every way outside of age.
At 6-9, 240, Lendeborg is the ideal four in the modern NBA. He brings an intriguing blend of shot creation and playmaking, along with plus defense. He’s a bouncy in-game athlete who is aggressive in looking for his shot and has played every role imaginable over a long and storied college career. After being the man and a possible late first-rounder in last year’s draft after two seasons at UAB, Lendeborg transferred to Michigan instead, where he played a team-first role that led to decreased shot attempts. He exceled in that role, too, helping the Wolverines to an NCAA championship as perhaps the best player on the team.
Lendeborg also had a perfect quote to sum up why he’d be such a good fit in OKC.
“(The NBA) wanted to see a lot more three-pointers and a lot more versatility in my defense,” Lendeborg said. “I tried to be more of three, because in the NBA, I’m not gonna be the superstar. I’m gonna be playing next to somebody like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and he doesn’t need me to score for him. He needs me to get stops. I just tried to figure out my role and do whatever I can to get there.”
What’s one of the things that made OKC so good, so soon? Role acceptance.
Lendeborg is understanding and building toward his NBA role before he even gets there. He also said, “I hope so,” when the idea of being selected by OKC was floated to him by a fan at an autograph signing.
On the court, Lendeborg’s fit is obvious. OKC has almost everything a team could want. A superstar, two second-tier stars who excel at things that perfectly complement one another, defensive superstars, as Andrew Schlecht has coined them, in Dort, Caruso and Wallace, 3-point specialists in Isaiah Joe and McCain and prospects in Topic and Sorber.
But, they only have one big wing. Worth their weight in gold, there isn’t a more valuable role player archetype in the NBA right now. See Toumani Camara, Jabari Smith Jr. Ausar Thompson and Rui Hachimura as examples of this. Jalen Williams plays bigger than he is at 6-6 and fits this role well, but OKC could use another like him for depth and injury reasons. I think a better Hachimura could be Lendeborg’s NBA destiny.
At Michigan last season, Lendeborg shot 37% from 3-point range in his highest-volume season, taking nearly four 3s per game. His athleticism in the break is perfect for OKC’s second unit as well, which already boasts Wallace, one of the best transition players in the NBA regardless of role. Jalen Williams is also great on the break and OKC’s calling card is forcing points off turnovers. Well, Lendeborg averaged 2.2 stocks per game last season playing the three.
He also brings tremendous rebounding, one of OKC’s few weaknesses, and with Hartenstein’s contract nearing a decision point, adding someone to help fill the shoes he may leave would be a good move, whether OKC locks Hartenstein in for the future or not. He uses his size and athleticism well on the defensive end, too, where he averaged nearly two blocks per game in his first year at UAB, where he played down low, and he stayed with guys on the perimeter in maybe the best conference in college basketball last season.
The only real knock on Lendeborg is his age. Due to an unusual path to Ann Arbor, Lendeborg will be 24 when the season starts. That’s the only reason I could see Presti passing on him at 12, but at the same time, it’s the only reason a player like him would have any chance of being there at 12. In past years, Presti has picked Mitchell, Jalen Williams and Jaylin Williams, so there’s precedent for him to do it, but it’s something that could easily knock him a few spots down on OKC’s board.
Brayden Burries G/F — Arizona
The reality of OKC’s situation is that one of Dort, Joe or Aaron Wiggins will likely be elsewhere next season. McCain was a great get at the deadline for an always opportunistic OKC team and even more minutes for Mitchell and Wallace isn’t a bad thing, but Caruso is good for about 40 games in the regular season and through no fault of his own, Topic hasn’t proven he can be useful in the NBA yet.
Burries likely won’t be there at 12, but OKC could easily make a move up the board like it did to secure Wallace a few years ago if it sees reason to do so, and Burries is plenty of reason. In one season at Arizona, Burries averaged 16 points per game on what was either the first or second-best team in the nation for most of the year. He’s a three-point sniper whose game is reminiscent of McCain’s, although Burries is much better on defense and has a higher ceiling.
He’s also a tad bigger, which he uses to his benefit and creates space with his broad shoulders to score in the midrange. He uses his 39% 3-point shooting to draw in opposing defenders and moves to the midrange to get free jumpers, a skill that will only get better when he’s surrounded by offensive teammates who draw more attention than those in college.
His style of defense would also allow him to thrive in OKC. He’s not the sturdiest one-on-one defender, but he’s smart and tenacious in team defending scenarios, and he does hold up one-on-one. He’s also only 19 and was a highly thought of prospect out of high school, something you can trace back to several Presti selections (Perry Jones, Holmgren, Terrance Ferguson, Darius Bazely).
I believe OKC would use Burries in a similar fashion in which it uses Joe, but Burries has more of a willingness to make defenders pay when they overcommit to the closeout, although Joe has grown greatly in that area this season.
Like Wilson, I think the case is pretty cut and dry for Burries. He’s a terrific shooter, a connective playmaker and active defender who uses his body to create shots all over the floor. Those guys rarely fail in the NBA and I think the floor for Burries could be what we’ve seen from McCain so far this season, with the ceiling being tough to forecast due to some of the untapped skills that could come with Burries playing in an NBA system.
Aday Mara C — Michigan
This isn’t my favorite prospect for OKC, but he’s often a target of the Thunder’s in mock drafts and I do see why.
An interesting player, Mara started as a reserve for UCLA before transferring to Michigan and anchoring the Wolverines’ dominant defense en route to their championship last season. He’s gigantic, standing at 7-3 and has unique playmaking ability and uses his size well on the defensive end to serve as a true deterrent at the rim. He has great touch at the rim and moves well for his large, stalky build, but I do think some of what he does on offense could fall by the wayside by nature of the way the NBA plays.
The passing is undeniable. At 7-3, Michigan would often let Mara operate as a passer wherever he was on the court. He showed great versatility, passing to fellow bigs in Lendeborg and Johnson in cutting situations and also shining as a skip passer, always finding the open man in the corner if the play allowed it. With the increased spacing of the NBA, it’s reasonable to think that we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg of what Mara could do as a passer.
Mara’s passing naturally leads to his terrific touch down low, where he has an advanced post-game in an era that has largely forgotten that part of the sport. He has a bevy of moves around the rim that may be the best in the class, but there lies the issue. His strengths on offense don’t lend themselves to the modern NBA, and he has zero shooting upside that is trackable through data, as he shot 56% from the free-throw line and 30% from 3 on only 10 attempts over the whole season.
His passing is special and he’s a force around the rim on the defensive end, but he’s never played more than 23 minutes per game in a season, and he often looked gassed at the end of heavy-minute games through my eyes.
There are things to like about Mara, but I think OKC could do better to find someone with a higher ceiling at this pick as opposed to the high-floor Mara, who reminds me a lot of Zach Edey with far better passing skills.
Top-four prospects
Cameron Boozer F/C — Duke
In a top four loaded with all-star talent, each team will have the foursome of Boozer, Dybasnta, Wilson and Peterson in a different order. Personally, I have Boozer fourth of that group due to having a slightly lower ceiling than that of the Tracy McGrady regen Dybasnta, the mysterious, Anthony Edwards-like flashes of Peterson and the rangy, otherworldly athleticism of Wilson.
That said, Boozer has a game made for the thinking man. While not the bounciest athlete, he’s more than capable in that area and his game in the post is well developed for someone who has guard-like passing skills and a dependable 3-point shot that went in 39% of the time in his lone season at Duke.
Perhaps his best trait? His productivity.
Oftentimes, even the best of freshmen won’t have jaw-dropping stats. The college game isn’t designed to inflate individual numbers; it’s played at a slower pace on a tighter floor with little chemistry with teammates. The first third of the season can sometimes be spent establishing roles, which is an issue that came into the equation with Peterson at Kansas. There were no such questions for Boozer. He was the alpha from day one in Durham.
His hyper-productive year at Duke is certainly one of the reasons why he checks a lot of boxes in what Sam Presti and OKC have looked for in past years (ie. Jalen Williams at Santa Clara, Chet Holmgren at Gonzaga, Ajay Mitchell at UCSB, Thomas Sorber at Georgetown), but what are the other things that make him “Thundery”?
Boozer’s passing ability is special for his position. Specifically, he’s a terrific passer to his fellow bigs, a tentpole skill in OKC’s typical big. Isaiah Hartenstein’s passing speaks for itself. Chet Holmgren is an elite connector and lob thrower for his position. Jaylin Williams plays a similar role to Hartenstein when he’s on the floor and while we haven’t seen it yet, Sorber was regarded as a high-level playmaker as a prospect. Boozer’s passing shines through in the box score more than any of those guys due to his high-usage role at Duke and that ability would only be highlighted more when surrounded by high-level cutters like Jalen Williams and knockdown shooters like Jared McCain.
His shooting upside is also a major plus for any team drafting him, but it would be particularly dangerous in an OKC system where he could serve as a threat as a passer and shooter from the center position while flanked by soon-to-be two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and two other All-NBA guys in Holmgren and Jalen Williams. Along with shooting 39% from 3 in a Blue Devils jersey, Boozer shot 79% from the free-throw line, well over the 70% indicator that evaluators look for when establishing whether or not a player can learn to shoot from deep. All of those indicators point to the fact that Boozer could become an elite outside shooter, which would add another wrinkle to an offense that gets better and better with each season in OKC.
Boozer also excels at getting to the foul line, averaging over 12 attempts per 100 possessions and 7.4 per game at Duke.
The concerns with Boozer are as clear as his strengths.
He had the ball a ton at Duke and at every step of his basketball journey, which is a positive if you think he’s en route to becoming a 1A option on a good team. I’m more on the side of thinking that Boozer would be his best on a team like Indiana, Dallas or OKC, where he’s a stalwart of what goes on, but he’s not THE guy. Playing with a Gilgeous-Alexander, Flagg or Haliburton will be an adjustment for Boozer, but playing with a standout twin brother and being raised by a former NBA all-star in Carlos Boozer, this concern isn’t a large one.
His lack of elite burst is. In a lot of years, Boozer’s strengths would be the focus and his few weaknesses would fly under the radar, but with a top-four of this quality, he’s more under the microscope than he normally would be.
Before we go into this, let’s get something straight. Boozer is fine athletically, I don’t think it’s enough of a concern to truly question if he can become a really good NBA player, but it does put him behind the three elite athletes that sit at the top of this class in Dybansta, Peterson and Wilson. He’ll throw down some poster dunks here and there, but he lacks that twitch that you typically see in MVP-caliber prospects, which is who Boozer is being evaluated against. This concern would be limited next to a player like Holmgren, who can erase some of his shortcomings defensively, but it’s still a situation to monitor when you don’t pair him with any specific team.
The last and possibly most restrictive concern with Boozer is his lack of elite size. He’s listed at 6-foot-9, which throughout basketball history means he’s probably closer to 6-foot-8 or 6-7.5. He’s thick and has a strong lower body, so he’s not going to get pushed around on the glass like a taller, but skinnier prospect may (Holmgren, Wembenyama), but he’s also a below-average rim protector for someone who’s played a ton of center in his college and prep careers.
In the end, I think that Hartenstein plus a 40% 3-point shot is a good comp for Boozer with his effectiveness as a passer and PnR ball handler, but with how productive he’s been, the ceiling could be even higher than that. So, Thunder fans, imagine if those once in a blue moon 3-pointers that Hartenstein shoots and misses came about five times a game and actually went in, plus a much deeper offensive bag in the mid-range and down low. Seems like an A+ fit to me in every way imaginable.
Caleb Wilson F/C — UNC
Wilson actually fits the historical profile of a Presti prospect more than Boozer does.
Nearly as productive as Boozer with 20 points and 9 rebounds per game, Wilson lags behind Boozer in his basketball iq and passing, but he’s in a different stratosphere as a defensive prospect, with comparisons to Scottie Barnes coming often. His one season at UNC was shortened due to injuries, which took away the opportunity for him to shine down the stretch, but the flashes he showed as an athlete were scary for other teams.
He’s a hungry and dangerous transition defender, constantly posing a threat with his lanky 6-10 frame to stop a fast break or come out of nowhere for a chase-down block. That athleticism makes him a weapon on the break on offense. Overall, Wilson’s game on both sides is still mostly predicated on his athleticism, but his prowess in getting to the rim and drawing fouls makes him a high-upside offensive player in general.
The thing with Wilson being such an athletic outlier is that there’s just not as much to evaluate as there is with a player like Boozer. With his athletic gifts, his game is less developed than Boozer, who had the benefit of an NBA father, along with not being blessed with alien-like athleticism like Wilson.
A strength of Wilson is, like Boozer, his fit on a good team is clear right away. He’s great as a roller and looks to score at the rim with bounce and verticality, which could be the preference of some teams over the playmaking lean of Boozer. He dunks everything when he’s close to the rim, which helped him shoot 58% at UNC.
Few bigs are going to be the level of Boozer as a passer, but Wilson did show flashes in that area and he is by no means a weak playmaker. He didn’t have a supporting cast as good as his cross-state rival and he saw heavy ball-pressure when he got the ball in the midrange in many circumstances. Despite that and the lack of a consistent jumper, Wilson had progressed into a problem-solver when doubled by the time he was injured.
The biggest question with Wilson is his jumper, which came and went throughout the season. His go-to move since high school has been a turnaround jumper from 16-20 feet, which, if he could turn it into a consistent weapon, could be a swing factor for Wilson to go from really good to great. But the 3-point shot was poor, with Wilson shooting 26% from deep on only one attempt per game. Not only was Wilson inefficient from deep, but he also wasn’t willing to take them, which is almost as damaging as the poor percentage when the ball finds a player as much as it did Wilson. He also shot just over that 70% threshold from the line on a lot of attempts (7.5 per game).
With the smooth turnaround that Wilson has in his bag and that 71% rate from the line, he could turn into a shooter, and the jumper looks clean enough to be worked with, but the stats don’t suggest Wilson ever being a knockdown shooter. In the particular case of OKC, it could be a long-term issue with below-average shooters like Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, Lu Dort, Hartenstein, Sorber and Nikola Topic likely to be on the court with him.
It sounds lazy, but there just isn’t much to evaluate with Wilson as there is with Boozer. His different-making trait is that he would walk into the NBA as one of the best athletes in the NBA, and if everything else can come together, he could be a true franchise-changing No. 1 option. I think a realistic comp for Wilson is Barnes, who, like Wilson, was seen as just a fraction of what he could be while at Florida State.
Those in the know are aware that OKC showed a lot of interest and was linked to Barnes back in the 2021 draft, which was confirmed by a Barnes social media post where he was in OKC for a workout just before the draft. Barnes, of course, went No. 4 to Toronto and OKC landed Josh Giddey at No. 6, but it’s clear that OKC likes this type of player.
If Wilson can follow in Barnes’ footsteps and serve as a dominant rookie after going fourth in the draft, he could be a steal, even at a pick as high as No. 4.
No Dybansta or Peterson?
I’ll keep this one short.
I think these are the two best players in the class. Many others and I have already compared Dybansta to McGrady and I think Peterson would be a sure-fire No. 1 pick if he didn’t have questions surrounding his cramping and odd behavior throughout last season at Kansas.
But, should OKC make a bold move up the board, I don’t see either of them as a fit for the NBA’s best team. Dybasnta was THE MAN at BYU, and I don’t see how his game scales down to being a supporting cast guy without taking away a lot of what makes him so special. Peterson’s personality and weirdness feel like things that Presti will avoid mixing into the OKC locker room, which he’s so meticulously put together to be one in constant harmony.
Moreso, Presti has done well to draft players who understand the pecking order at a young age, leading to no questions regarding role behind the superstardom of Gilgeous-Alexander. I think that, despite their greatness and my belief that both have a chance to be MVP candidates in the NBA if all goes well, Dybansta and Peterson both present questions about that expertly crafted culture in OKC.
That said, Dybansta has joked about wanting to come to OKC in videos that have gone around on social media, so maybe he’d be fine learning and waiting to become his best self to play in basketball heaven.
Pick 17 and late first-round guys
Joshua Jefferson F —Iowa State
I’m higher on Jefferson than most, but I think he screeches OKC on and off the floor.
First off, he fits the big wing mold that OKC is lacking in at 6-9, 240. He’s a phenomenal passer for his position, as he averaged more than three assists in each of his last two seasons at Iowa State and 4.8 last year before suffering an ankle injury that held him out for most of the Cyclones’ Sweet 16 run. He’s great on the defensive end, uses his size well to hold up opposing ball handlers and rebounds extremely well.
The weaknesses are also evident. Jefferson suffered a knee injury in his final season at St. Mary’s and his ankle injury in the NCAA Tournament this season was serious enough that he was likely to miss the duration of the tournament had ISU avoided elimination. His shooting has been inconsistent in his career, but he is over the 70% free-throw mark in three of four of his seasons and he got his 3-point mark to 34% last season.
The injuries aren’t related and there is no reason to think either will lead to long-term effects, but injuries are injuries and for an older prospect, it’s something to keep an eye on.
But, for my money, Jefferson is the most Thundery guy in this class. The basketball character is high, he fits what they do on defense and as a connector and has enough indicators to convince yourself he can turn into a solid outside shooter who won’t bog down the offense. He’s been consistently mocked lower than this, but if OKC sticks at 17, watch Jefferson as a potential surprise pick that comes off the board 10 or so picks higher than expected based off nothing but how much he feels like a Thunder guy to me when I watch him.
Allen Graves G/F —Santa Clara
Why not add another Bronco to the mix?
Graves is in the transfer portal and could well pull a Lendeborg and go back to school in hopes of improving his NBA skills while making a lot of money to do it. But, should he come out, he could be a riser in this predraft process similar to former Santa Clara standouts Jalen Williams and Brandon Podzemski.
Advanced stats love Graves, who was the nation’s leader in BPM for nearly half the season as he broke onto the scene. He shot 41% from 3 and his volume steadily increased throughout the season. He’s a solid rebounder, averaging 6.5 last season and he has good size at 6-9, 225. His passing improved throughout the season as well.
Its tough to say too many positives and negatives for players in this range, but should Graves come out, I think he could make sense as a potential big wing for OKC with untapped upside that could see him dramatically outproduce his draft slot.
