Looking Back: 2018 Draft Grades
Posted: June 2nd, 2025, 4:18 pm
No one else seems particularly interested in collecting these very generous article boni, so *twiddles fingers like a fat guy looking at a box of free donuts in the office* don’t mind if I do. Bringing back an article I wrote in October of 2023, so this one is original (enough)!
The last one of these focused on the marquee draft of that generation, the 2003 draft – this article will focus on what many NBA pundits consider the marquee draft of the 2010s, the 2018 draft. 7 years later, we’re pretty sure we know what these guys are (and what they aren’t), so felt like a good time to check in.
Looking Back: 2018 First Round Draft Grades
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander -- Bucks
Current team: Hawks
History: Drafted by the Bucks, traded for Tyreke Evans, Lu Dort, a pick, some garbage and some RP.
Current ratings: B- A C+ A C
Grade: A-. SLN Shai is very fun and considerably less of a shameless free throw merchant than his real life counterpart. He’s a little sloppy with the ball and only an average rebounder, but he delivers on both ends of the floor – blocks at the PG spot will always have a special place in my heart. He mostly just doesn’t get an A because the next guy on this list was also available at #1, it turns out.
2. Luka Doncic -- Bulls
Current team: Bulls
History: Drafted by the Bulls, drank zero beers in the offseasons, worked out a ton, and kept A potential through his first like 9 camps, which correlated with him going like +25 overall or something completely dumb like that.
Current ratings: Lebroncic
Grade: A+++. Best player in the league. Barely even fat at all. Never hear him bitch to the refs. Probably still nice at COD. Solid selection for Chicago I’d say.
3. Jalen Brunson -- Sonics
Current team: Sonics
History: After the Sonics got the 7th pick for like the fifth time, Nick sent texts to just about every team in the top 5 hawking his wares until someone wore down and gave in. In fairness, Wes had like 9 top 3 picks over the course of 4 drafts (courtesy of the CP3 trade) so he was willing to deal. The Sonics sent #7 and 3 other firsts for #3 to take Brunson.
Current ratings: C+ A- B- B D+
Grade: A+. The king of “mediocre looking ratings with gallons of juice under the hood.” Stellar move here by the Sonics, who got one of the best and more TO efficient scorers in league history.
4. Trae Young -- Bullets
Current team: FA
History: Has been on 6 teams in 8 years in the league, and each time he gets traded his new GM tries him out as a starter to see if he’s not complete ass starting at the 1, and they are sorely disappointed.
Current ratings: B B+ A C C-
Grade: C+. Had a couple good years in Dallas and Milwaukee, though those years seem to be behind him at the ripe old age of 28. Relegated to backup roles by age 25 and played 28 games last year, averaging 4.6 minutes (note: this is what the Hawks should do with real life Trae Young). I probably would have rather had Brunson at #4 here if I were the Bullets lol.
5. Jaren Jackson Jr. -- Trailblazers
Current team: Hornets
History: Much like Trae, JJJ’s been a journeyman, with 5 teams in 8 years. Unlike Trae, he has never been a useful starter, or really useful in any capacity.
Current ratings: B B C- A- C+
Grade: FFF. Forgot that this guy was the 5th overall pick til I did this article – big time yikes. He could probably be OK at the 3…unfortunately, his only stip was that he can’t play the 3. Bad offense, atrocious rebounding for a big, and minimal stocks to speak of. Oh brother, this guy STINKS
6. Miles Bridges -- Lakers
Current team: Jazz
History: Traded to the Pacers in his second year, where he mostly toiled as a multi-positional backup.
Current ratings: B B+ C- B B
Grade: C. The good news is he has pretty much the same ratings as Semi Ojeleye. The bad news is he has just about zero of Semi Ojeleye's production. Pretty negligible offensive impact but salvages some value with his defense and rebounding. Alas, scraping 15 inefficient points a game in your prime on one of the worst rosters in the worst conference in history does not a lottery pick success make.
7. Deandre Ayton -- Bullets
Current team: Suns
History: Drafted by the Bullets, traded to the Nets in his 3rd year, sucked extremely hard for his first 3 years and then broke out in his 4th, when he was then traded to the Suns to join his Inside brethren.
Current ratings: A- C+ C- B A
Grade: A-. Though he might struggle a bit in Outside oriented teams, Ayton has found a highly productive home in Phoenix and has developed into one of the best rebounders in the file. Very glad there are still folks out there running Inside and Balanced so that fellas like this don’t fall through the cracks.
8. Michael Porter Jr. -- Hornets
Current team: Kings
History: Drafted by Charlotte, promptly traded along with 3 picks and some other prospects to the Raptors for Boogie. Jwoo claimed to be considering maybe possibly trading him I don’t know, we’ll see how my team looks, I really like him, and then ultimately did trade him to the Rockets. The floundering Lakers traded two of their own firsts for him so that they could flip him back to 100 potential with the Big Baller lottery prize…and then 2 seasons later traded the 100 Potential version of him back for one of those Lakers picks. stonks
Current ratings: A- A- C- A- B
Grade: B. Hard to separate this grade from the fact that he was reset to 100 potential…but am I crazy to say that post-upgrade MPJ looks a lot like pre-upgrade MPJ?? A solid, not great shooter, excellent rebounder at the 3, and renowned turner-over of the ball despite having what I assume must have been zero passing to start his career.
9. Marvin Bagley -- Nuggets
Current team: Suns
History: Traded to Phoenix after the Nuggets signed him to a very friendly 2nd deal.
Current ratings: A- C+ C- B- B+
Grade: A. Another fella who just needed at Inside offense to shine – has shot 51% from the floor for 5 straight seasons, gets to the line, rebounds well and doesn’t turn it over – a 90th percentile outcome for the back end of the lotto.
10. Mikal Bridges -- Sonics
Current team: Warriors
History: Traded to the Spurs on his rookie deal as part of the Jaylen Brown deal, then sent to Golden State for Denzel Valentine (a better version of Mikal Bridges??) and a GSW 28 pick.
Current ratings: B+ A- C B+ C
Grade: B. This grade also just applies to Bridges’ career, rating set, pretty much everything about him. He’s kinda OK at everything and doesn’t overtly suck at anything, so he’s fine to fill some minutes as a fifth starter. The highest production floor and lowest production ceiling combo you’ll find.
11. Josh Okogie -- Heat
Current team: Rockets
History: Drafted by the Heat, had a monster couple camps and then was traded along with the corpse of Dwade for the corpse of Carmelo Anthony. Traded to the Kings for John Henson and Julius Randle’s salary and then traded to the Rockets for an absolutely massive haul that included 2 top lotto picks.
Current ratings: B- A- D A C
Grade: A. Phenomenal pick here, Okogie clearly had tons of potential and a delightful combo of high stocks and zero passing. Unfortunately, Miami didn’t get to realize the benefit of one their franchise’s best picks, who broke out shortly after leaving South Beach as a rookie.
12. Mo Bamba -- Warriors
Current team: Warriors
History: Resigned cheap for a few years and then didn’t in the most recent FA – Clint made a deal with the devil to make sure every cap team used their cap on non-Bamba people and got him back on a nice 7-year deal. Clint was prepared to forfeit his own picks to keep him and has been offered multiple lottos for him multiple times and turned them all down, so I’m guessing GSW are going to end up paying every dollar of this salary.
Current ratings: C C+ C- B A-
Grade: A. Excellent big butt who doesn’t shoot or turn it over. Broken on a minimum salary, now probably getting paid closer to what he’s worth.
13. Wendell Carter -- Raptors
Current team: Hawks
History: Traded in almost every season he’s been in the league, now with his 6th team and still 270 pounds of wasted space.
Current ratings: B C+ C- B B
Grade: D+. Below average at everything you would want your big man to do. He seems like he maybe has a nice personality?
14. Collin Sexton -- Clippers
Current team: FA
History: Traded to the Cavs as part of a big stack of mostly garbage for the biggest mountain of garbage himself, Jared Sullinger.
Current ratings: B- A- C C C-
Grade: B-. He was actually incredible as a first year player after coming out of the NDL, putting up 23 and 5 with only 2 Tos on 47/42/84, but then got hit in the head with the Benjamin Button / Ron Mercer stick and sucked progressively more and more as his career went on.
15. Mitch Robinson -- Sonics
Current team: Kings
History: Traded to the Spurs as a rookie as part of the JB deal, then sent to the Kings when the Spurs flipped to a tank.
Current ratings: B- D+ D B+ B+
Grade: A. Exceptional find at 15 – despite his ratings having ticked up and down a bit, he’s had stellar production throughout his career. A humble big butt answering the mail day in and day out.
16. Anfernee Simons -- Celtics
Current team: FA
History: Came up through the Celtics org, then traded with 3 lottos for Lonnie Walker to the Kings, who then flipped him to the Grizzlies before he made his way to Indiana. Has had a few stints as a starter to varying degrees of success.
Current ratings: B+ A C+ B- C
Grade: B. Simons has the ugly TO bug. Some GMs have figured out how to squash it – those that have, have gotten to enjoy the merits of his borderline A+ outside and 49% shooting – those that haven’t, traded him with 3 lotto picks for Lonnie Walker.
17. Deanthony Melton -- Nets
Current team: I literally can’t find him, he’s not in the FA file and I think he was most recently on the Mavs.
History: Uhh…FBB itself has determined that he’s not worth thinking about. I can only assume that the game engine pulled him out of the file and gave him a one-way ticket to the glue factory.
Current ratings: Unclear. Probably something short of spectacular
Grade: Not great, Bob
18. Donte Divincenzo – Warriors
Current team: Bucks
History: Signed away from the Warriors in FA.
Current ratings: C+ A- B B C+
Grade: A-. He might not score a ton, but he’s an elite rebounder for his position, boasts positive stock to TO, and is reasonably efficient on the shots he does take. I believe the Dubs let him walk so that they could fit the Blue Jeans King of Moscow, Egor Denim, onto the cap sheet.
19. Rob Williams -- Bulls
Current team: Bucks
History: Traded as one of the key pieces, alongside Dillon Brooks, for star SF Otto Porter.
Current ratings: C+ C- D+ B A-
Grade: B. As a Celtics fan, I really wanted Bob to be incredible. As a person with working eyeballs, I can see that he is not. Pretty good rebounder who scraped out 2:1 stock to TO if he’s lucky.
20. Kevin Knox -- Celtics
Current team: FA
History: Traded to the Heat as part of the Gortat deal, picked up as a leftover FA by MIN a few years later.
Current ratings: Not certain, he seems to have been sucked into whatever shitty player black hole got our boy Melton.
Grade: C. Really nice notes. Some pretty nice camps. Some pretty goddam poopy production. Then some pretty bad camps. Then drowns in the FA pool. The circle of life, beautiful.
21. Isaac Bonga -- Kings
Current team: Mavs
History: The perfect PG for the Inside-focused Suns, Bonga was traded to Phoenix during his rookie season after a quality pump-and-dump Skillz job; sniped in FA by Miami, then sniped again in FA by Dallas for $90M after Miami declined his resigning offer.
Current ratings: C+ C+ B B B
Grade: A+. Mama was queen of the mambo, papa was king of the Congo, deep down in the jungle Skillz was scouting Isaac Bonga. Another outstanding weirdo pick from Sacramento. Although Bonga’s ratings have barely improved since his second or third season, his production has been incredible since his rookie season. Yet unclear where he is most usefully deployed; wherever it is, he gonna STONK.
22. Lonnie Walker -- Cavs
Current team: Celtics
History: Started with the Cleveland Charge before getting traded to Sacramento, where he popped in a couple camps. Traded to Boston for a King’s ransom.
Current ratings: A- A- C- B C-
Grade: A-. Can’t ask for much more than a solid starter at the 22nd overall pick. Good efficiency and scoring volume to TO numbers, just doesn’t do much stocking or rebounding for ya. Remains very humbly compensated, a good man.
23. Mo Wagner -- Bullets
Current team: FA
History: Dumped from a bunch of teams to a bunch of others as salary, has never scraped 20 mpg.
Current ratings: B C+ C- C B-
Grade: D. Actually giving Mo Wagner 20 mpg should probably be a criminal offense, so I’m glad I don’t need to call the cops on anyone.
24. Grayson Allen -- Clippers
Current team: Sixers
History: Bounced around both conferences as a journeyman after showing some promise in Miami, the team to which he was first traded.
Current ratings: B- B+ C C+ C-
Grade: B-. An average outcome at this spot in the draft – actually managed to put together a 20ppg year on OK splits with the Heat, then started to decline by his late 20s, much like myself.
25. Jared Vanderbilt -- Magic
Current team: FA
History: Whole buncha teams, typically the 11th or 12th guy on any team he’s been on.
Current ratings: C C C- C+ A-
Grade: C+. To his credit, he’s almost always one of the top 6 or 7 guys claimed in the leftover FA thread. He does get you A- rebounding, but if you’re desperate enough to play him significant minutes, you probably have bigger problems than the number of rebounds you get from Jared Vanderbilt.
26. Alonzo Trier -- Blazers
Current team: FA
History: I’m not sure where these guys keep disappearing to, but I can’t even find Trier in last year’s teams.
Current ratings: Who cares
Grade: D. I really hope anyone didn’t spend any of their hard earned RP on camping this bum.
27. Aaron Holiday -- Bucks
Current team: FA?
History: As I’m going through this, I’m thinking it’s more than likely that a few of these guys were sent to the NDL abyss AKA Tre Jones’ Locker when no one resigned them after their rookie deals.
Current ratings: Unknown
Grade: D. Part of the ship, part of the crew. DO YE FEAR DEATH-AH, AYE MR. TURNER
28. Devontae Graham -- Lakers
Current team: FA
History: Last seen in 24-25 as a member of the Clippers, where he was (you guessed it) pretty bad.
Current ratings: C- B A- C C-
Grade: D+. Never cracked double digit minutes, but also made sure he couldn’t get any NDL gains by having A- handling early on.
29. Duncan Robinson -- Sonics
Current team: Kings
History: Traded to the Spurs after an illustrious NDL career, then to the Blazers briefly before being picked up in FA by Sacramento.
Current ratings: xx
Grade: A-. Just about as good as you could hope for for the first round’s Mr. Irrelevant. Doesn’t do anything but score, as is the plight of many of the pastier players in the file, but score he does! Career 44% from 3 is a nice depth add to any bench.
The last one of these focused on the marquee draft of that generation, the 2003 draft – this article will focus on what many NBA pundits consider the marquee draft of the 2010s, the 2018 draft. 7 years later, we’re pretty sure we know what these guys are (and what they aren’t), so felt like a good time to check in.
Looking Back: 2018 First Round Draft Grades
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander -- Bucks
Current team: Hawks
History: Drafted by the Bucks, traded for Tyreke Evans, Lu Dort, a pick, some garbage and some RP.
Current ratings: B- A C+ A C
Grade: A-. SLN Shai is very fun and considerably less of a shameless free throw merchant than his real life counterpart. He’s a little sloppy with the ball and only an average rebounder, but he delivers on both ends of the floor – blocks at the PG spot will always have a special place in my heart. He mostly just doesn’t get an A because the next guy on this list was also available at #1, it turns out.
2. Luka Doncic -- Bulls
Current team: Bulls
History: Drafted by the Bulls, drank zero beers in the offseasons, worked out a ton, and kept A potential through his first like 9 camps, which correlated with him going like +25 overall or something completely dumb like that.
Current ratings: Lebroncic
Grade: A+++. Best player in the league. Barely even fat at all. Never hear him bitch to the refs. Probably still nice at COD. Solid selection for Chicago I’d say.
3. Jalen Brunson -- Sonics
Current team: Sonics
History: After the Sonics got the 7th pick for like the fifth time, Nick sent texts to just about every team in the top 5 hawking his wares until someone wore down and gave in. In fairness, Wes had like 9 top 3 picks over the course of 4 drafts (courtesy of the CP3 trade) so he was willing to deal. The Sonics sent #7 and 3 other firsts for #3 to take Brunson.
Current ratings: C+ A- B- B D+
Grade: A+. The king of “mediocre looking ratings with gallons of juice under the hood.” Stellar move here by the Sonics, who got one of the best and more TO efficient scorers in league history.
4. Trae Young -- Bullets
Current team: FA
History: Has been on 6 teams in 8 years in the league, and each time he gets traded his new GM tries him out as a starter to see if he’s not complete ass starting at the 1, and they are sorely disappointed.
Current ratings: B B+ A C C-
Grade: C+. Had a couple good years in Dallas and Milwaukee, though those years seem to be behind him at the ripe old age of 28. Relegated to backup roles by age 25 and played 28 games last year, averaging 4.6 minutes (note: this is what the Hawks should do with real life Trae Young). I probably would have rather had Brunson at #4 here if I were the Bullets lol.
5. Jaren Jackson Jr. -- Trailblazers
Current team: Hornets
History: Much like Trae, JJJ’s been a journeyman, with 5 teams in 8 years. Unlike Trae, he has never been a useful starter, or really useful in any capacity.
Current ratings: B B C- A- C+
Grade: FFF. Forgot that this guy was the 5th overall pick til I did this article – big time yikes. He could probably be OK at the 3…unfortunately, his only stip was that he can’t play the 3. Bad offense, atrocious rebounding for a big, and minimal stocks to speak of. Oh brother, this guy STINKS
6. Miles Bridges -- Lakers
Current team: Jazz
History: Traded to the Pacers in his second year, where he mostly toiled as a multi-positional backup.
Current ratings: B B+ C- B B
Grade: C. The good news is he has pretty much the same ratings as Semi Ojeleye. The bad news is he has just about zero of Semi Ojeleye's production. Pretty negligible offensive impact but salvages some value with his defense and rebounding. Alas, scraping 15 inefficient points a game in your prime on one of the worst rosters in the worst conference in history does not a lottery pick success make.
7. Deandre Ayton -- Bullets
Current team: Suns
History: Drafted by the Bullets, traded to the Nets in his 3rd year, sucked extremely hard for his first 3 years and then broke out in his 4th, when he was then traded to the Suns to join his Inside brethren.
Current ratings: A- C+ C- B A
Grade: A-. Though he might struggle a bit in Outside oriented teams, Ayton has found a highly productive home in Phoenix and has developed into one of the best rebounders in the file. Very glad there are still folks out there running Inside and Balanced so that fellas like this don’t fall through the cracks.
8. Michael Porter Jr. -- Hornets
Current team: Kings
History: Drafted by Charlotte, promptly traded along with 3 picks and some other prospects to the Raptors for Boogie. Jwoo claimed to be considering maybe possibly trading him I don’t know, we’ll see how my team looks, I really like him, and then ultimately did trade him to the Rockets. The floundering Lakers traded two of their own firsts for him so that they could flip him back to 100 potential with the Big Baller lottery prize…and then 2 seasons later traded the 100 Potential version of him back for one of those Lakers picks. stonks
Current ratings: A- A- C- A- B
Grade: B. Hard to separate this grade from the fact that he was reset to 100 potential…but am I crazy to say that post-upgrade MPJ looks a lot like pre-upgrade MPJ?? A solid, not great shooter, excellent rebounder at the 3, and renowned turner-over of the ball despite having what I assume must have been zero passing to start his career.
9. Marvin Bagley -- Nuggets
Current team: Suns
History: Traded to Phoenix after the Nuggets signed him to a very friendly 2nd deal.
Current ratings: A- C+ C- B- B+
Grade: A. Another fella who just needed at Inside offense to shine – has shot 51% from the floor for 5 straight seasons, gets to the line, rebounds well and doesn’t turn it over – a 90th percentile outcome for the back end of the lotto.
10. Mikal Bridges -- Sonics
Current team: Warriors
History: Traded to the Spurs on his rookie deal as part of the Jaylen Brown deal, then sent to Golden State for Denzel Valentine (a better version of Mikal Bridges??) and a GSW 28 pick.
Current ratings: B+ A- C B+ C
Grade: B. This grade also just applies to Bridges’ career, rating set, pretty much everything about him. He’s kinda OK at everything and doesn’t overtly suck at anything, so he’s fine to fill some minutes as a fifth starter. The highest production floor and lowest production ceiling combo you’ll find.
11. Josh Okogie -- Heat
Current team: Rockets
History: Drafted by the Heat, had a monster couple camps and then was traded along with the corpse of Dwade for the corpse of Carmelo Anthony. Traded to the Kings for John Henson and Julius Randle’s salary and then traded to the Rockets for an absolutely massive haul that included 2 top lotto picks.
Current ratings: B- A- D A C
Grade: A. Phenomenal pick here, Okogie clearly had tons of potential and a delightful combo of high stocks and zero passing. Unfortunately, Miami didn’t get to realize the benefit of one their franchise’s best picks, who broke out shortly after leaving South Beach as a rookie.
12. Mo Bamba -- Warriors
Current team: Warriors
History: Resigned cheap for a few years and then didn’t in the most recent FA – Clint made a deal with the devil to make sure every cap team used their cap on non-Bamba people and got him back on a nice 7-year deal. Clint was prepared to forfeit his own picks to keep him and has been offered multiple lottos for him multiple times and turned them all down, so I’m guessing GSW are going to end up paying every dollar of this salary.
Current ratings: C C+ C- B A-
Grade: A. Excellent big butt who doesn’t shoot or turn it over. Broken on a minimum salary, now probably getting paid closer to what he’s worth.
13. Wendell Carter -- Raptors
Current team: Hawks
History: Traded in almost every season he’s been in the league, now with his 6th team and still 270 pounds of wasted space.
Current ratings: B C+ C- B B
Grade: D+. Below average at everything you would want your big man to do. He seems like he maybe has a nice personality?
14. Collin Sexton -- Clippers
Current team: FA
History: Traded to the Cavs as part of a big stack of mostly garbage for the biggest mountain of garbage himself, Jared Sullinger.
Current ratings: B- A- C C C-
Grade: B-. He was actually incredible as a first year player after coming out of the NDL, putting up 23 and 5 with only 2 Tos on 47/42/84, but then got hit in the head with the Benjamin Button / Ron Mercer stick and sucked progressively more and more as his career went on.
15. Mitch Robinson -- Sonics
Current team: Kings
History: Traded to the Spurs as a rookie as part of the JB deal, then sent to the Kings when the Spurs flipped to a tank.
Current ratings: B- D+ D B+ B+
Grade: A. Exceptional find at 15 – despite his ratings having ticked up and down a bit, he’s had stellar production throughout his career. A humble big butt answering the mail day in and day out.
16. Anfernee Simons -- Celtics
Current team: FA
History: Came up through the Celtics org, then traded with 3 lottos for Lonnie Walker to the Kings, who then flipped him to the Grizzlies before he made his way to Indiana. Has had a few stints as a starter to varying degrees of success.
Current ratings: B+ A C+ B- C
Grade: B. Simons has the ugly TO bug. Some GMs have figured out how to squash it – those that have, have gotten to enjoy the merits of his borderline A+ outside and 49% shooting – those that haven’t, traded him with 3 lotto picks for Lonnie Walker.
17. Deanthony Melton -- Nets
Current team: I literally can’t find him, he’s not in the FA file and I think he was most recently on the Mavs.
History: Uhh…FBB itself has determined that he’s not worth thinking about. I can only assume that the game engine pulled him out of the file and gave him a one-way ticket to the glue factory.
Current ratings: Unclear. Probably something short of spectacular
Grade: Not great, Bob
18. Donte Divincenzo – Warriors
Current team: Bucks
History: Signed away from the Warriors in FA.
Current ratings: C+ A- B B C+
Grade: A-. He might not score a ton, but he’s an elite rebounder for his position, boasts positive stock to TO, and is reasonably efficient on the shots he does take. I believe the Dubs let him walk so that they could fit the Blue Jeans King of Moscow, Egor Denim, onto the cap sheet.
19. Rob Williams -- Bulls
Current team: Bucks
History: Traded as one of the key pieces, alongside Dillon Brooks, for star SF Otto Porter.
Current ratings: C+ C- D+ B A-
Grade: B. As a Celtics fan, I really wanted Bob to be incredible. As a person with working eyeballs, I can see that he is not. Pretty good rebounder who scraped out 2:1 stock to TO if he’s lucky.
20. Kevin Knox -- Celtics
Current team: FA
History: Traded to the Heat as part of the Gortat deal, picked up as a leftover FA by MIN a few years later.
Current ratings: Not certain, he seems to have been sucked into whatever shitty player black hole got our boy Melton.
Grade: C. Really nice notes. Some pretty nice camps. Some pretty goddam poopy production. Then some pretty bad camps. Then drowns in the FA pool. The circle of life, beautiful.
21. Isaac Bonga -- Kings
Current team: Mavs
History: The perfect PG for the Inside-focused Suns, Bonga was traded to Phoenix during his rookie season after a quality pump-and-dump Skillz job; sniped in FA by Miami, then sniped again in FA by Dallas for $90M after Miami declined his resigning offer.
Current ratings: C+ C+ B B B
Grade: A+. Mama was queen of the mambo, papa was king of the Congo, deep down in the jungle Skillz was scouting Isaac Bonga. Another outstanding weirdo pick from Sacramento. Although Bonga’s ratings have barely improved since his second or third season, his production has been incredible since his rookie season. Yet unclear where he is most usefully deployed; wherever it is, he gonna STONK.
22. Lonnie Walker -- Cavs
Current team: Celtics
History: Started with the Cleveland Charge before getting traded to Sacramento, where he popped in a couple camps. Traded to Boston for a King’s ransom.
Current ratings: A- A- C- B C-
Grade: A-. Can’t ask for much more than a solid starter at the 22nd overall pick. Good efficiency and scoring volume to TO numbers, just doesn’t do much stocking or rebounding for ya. Remains very humbly compensated, a good man.
23. Mo Wagner -- Bullets
Current team: FA
History: Dumped from a bunch of teams to a bunch of others as salary, has never scraped 20 mpg.
Current ratings: B C+ C- C B-
Grade: D. Actually giving Mo Wagner 20 mpg should probably be a criminal offense, so I’m glad I don’t need to call the cops on anyone.
24. Grayson Allen -- Clippers
Current team: Sixers
History: Bounced around both conferences as a journeyman after showing some promise in Miami, the team to which he was first traded.
Current ratings: B- B+ C C+ C-
Grade: B-. An average outcome at this spot in the draft – actually managed to put together a 20ppg year on OK splits with the Heat, then started to decline by his late 20s, much like myself.
25. Jared Vanderbilt -- Magic
Current team: FA
History: Whole buncha teams, typically the 11th or 12th guy on any team he’s been on.
Current ratings: C C C- C+ A-
Grade: C+. To his credit, he’s almost always one of the top 6 or 7 guys claimed in the leftover FA thread. He does get you A- rebounding, but if you’re desperate enough to play him significant minutes, you probably have bigger problems than the number of rebounds you get from Jared Vanderbilt.
26. Alonzo Trier -- Blazers
Current team: FA
History: I’m not sure where these guys keep disappearing to, but I can’t even find Trier in last year’s teams.
Current ratings: Who cares
Grade: D. I really hope anyone didn’t spend any of their hard earned RP on camping this bum.
27. Aaron Holiday -- Bucks
Current team: FA?
History: As I’m going through this, I’m thinking it’s more than likely that a few of these guys were sent to the NDL abyss AKA Tre Jones’ Locker when no one resigned them after their rookie deals.
Current ratings: Unknown
Grade: D. Part of the ship, part of the crew. DO YE FEAR DEATH-AH, AYE MR. TURNER
28. Devontae Graham -- Lakers
Current team: FA
History: Last seen in 24-25 as a member of the Clippers, where he was (you guessed it) pretty bad.
Current ratings: C- B A- C C-
Grade: D+. Never cracked double digit minutes, but also made sure he couldn’t get any NDL gains by having A- handling early on.
29. Duncan Robinson -- Sonics
Current team: Kings
History: Traded to the Spurs after an illustrious NDL career, then to the Blazers briefly before being picked up in FA by Sacramento.
Current ratings: xx
Grade: A-. Just about as good as you could hope for for the first round’s Mr. Irrelevant. Doesn’t do anything but score, as is the plight of many of the pastier players in the file, but score he does! Career 44% from 3 is a nice depth add to any bench.