The Ringer's 2025 NBA Draft Guide

As we head into draft season, Flagg is waiting patiently to stroll up to whichever team lands the top pick in the lottery, extend his hand, and in his best Arnold voice, say, “Come with me if you want to win.”

Flagg is the big prize of the 2025 draft, but he’s also just a hardwood pup—he turned 18 years old in late December and reclassified two summers ago to enter college a year early. He doesn’t yet have one elite skill, but his ability to do a bunch of things well puts him in rarefied air. He’s a twitchy, long, and bouncy athlete, yet he likely won’t break the scale in any one category. He also doesn’t have a significant weakness. So even if a team already has a high-usage prospect in place, Flagg likely won’t struggle to find his way—in fact, he projects as the type of player who will elevate superstars to another level. He’s a capable shooter off the catch and never bails out the defense with inactivity or misguided movement. His sense for whether to attack or vacate space, depending on where the ball happens to be, is very advanced for his age, and he torments defenses with his opportunistic passing and scoring once he’s made those choices. He also relishes defensive challenges on or off the ball. He ends possessions and quickly creates and finishes in transition. It’s a holistic basketball experience.

But what’ll really bake the league’s noodle is the possibility that Flagg could become an above-average offensive hub. Flagg’s handle is a work in progress, but not in a discouraging way. He’s evolving by the minute in that sense and has shown that he’s quick from a standstill and has blossoming technique at the elbows or facing up out of a post-up. Duke’s staff has worked to create on- and off-ball opportunities for Flagg, in an effort to keep defenses from packing the paint and bothering his live dribble in traffic. This has included bringing him off pindowns to the middle of the floor and isolating or posting him up near the elbows. That said, they haven’t shied away from showcasing him as a scorer and playmaker in meat-and-potatoes middle ball screens, either. Flagg has responded to whatever the team throws his way by unraveling the college game and upping his points-per-possession pick-and-roll efficiency with each passing month of the regular season. More than anything, Flagg is adaptable—he can digest big downloads of data and apply the information quickly. 

On Bart Torvik’s advanced stats site, which tracks college box plus-minus dating back to the 2007-08 season, eight freshmen have posted a single season in the top 50 for that stat—we’re talking future All-Star-level guys like Anthony Davis and Zion Williamson; Flagg ranks 11th overall and is by far the youngest player on the list. Starting points matter when it comes to projecting who a player will be by their 25th birthday, and Flagg’s starting point is remarkable. His hand is out, ready to bring an entire franchise along with him. All that’s left is determining which franchise reaches for him.

To get a clearer sense of where Harper is headed, watch his feet—but have the pause button ready. He is one of the jewels of the draft, with the full modern tool kit: Euro-steps, stepbacks, spins, and step-throughs. Harper plays a patient game, and while he lacks top-end speed, he parcels out his short-area quickness in small, syncopated bursts. There is always an intent behind his dribbles, his footwork, his feints and hesitations. Harper’s body control, in conjunction with his ballhandling ability, grants him unique ways of throwing defenders off. He’s constantly placing the emphasis on a different syllable every time he goes down the floor. 

His on-ball command—manipulating ball screens, decisively splitting hard hedges out of the pick-and-roll like it’s second nature—ought to be illegal at his age; he only recently turned 19. And once that four-on-three advantage is created, Harper has all the live-dribble passing talent and lob touch necessary to bend defenses past their breaking point. The same command of timing Harper has on drives, he demonstrates in his facilitating—he has a knack for allowing creases to form in an overcommitted defense, getting the ball to his open man at the very last second, when the window is widest. If there is a worry, it’s that he might overrely on screens—his possessions in isolation don’t paint an overly compelling picture of a player who can create advantages all by himself. For all the acclaim Harper has gotten this season, that is a real concern for his ultimate ceiling as a shot creator, especially one without great foot speed. He’s shown himself to be a promising spot-up threat from 3, but his pull-up consistency isn’t quite where it needs to be. But give him even a half step to get his defender on his hip, and you get a glimpse of what makes Harper special.

Getting to the rim is the hallmark of Harper’s game. It also helps to be able to finish in the paint. Luckily, Harper is one of the best at that in recent NCAA history. If you strictly looked at his at-rim shooting percentage, you’d think he was a rim-running big man. 

Harper has the instincts and pedigree to be a good defender. He’s strong, with excellent pattern recognition, but he’s also a consensus top-two prospect playing for a massively underwhelming Rutgers squad. As such, the effort isn’t often there—though it sometimes isn’t for high-usage omni-guards in the NBA. Being the engine of an NBA offense is one of the most taxing commitments in team sports. It can take years to find the balance, if it ever comes at all. But if there’s that potential outcome for Harper’s career, he’s a risk worth taking.

Bailey is among the most talented pure shotmakers to come through college basketball in the past decade. He looks more like an NBA wing than perhaps anyone else in this draft, with the height and wingspan to thrive at the next level, but it’s his head-to-toe flexibility that truly makes his scoring stand out. He’s lean and rubbery and has narrow shoulders, and although his hands are on the smaller side, he has nice mobility for his size. Altogether, his physical tools should make him a high-level finisher in the NBA—he can best defenders on the ground with creative footwork, or in the air by contorting his way to difficult angles. 

The shot looks smooth: His release point is high, he has zero problem elevating over the top of the defender, and he has good touch and consistent and repeatable shot mechanics. The jumper is Ace’s ace in the hole in any given situation, and he’s gone to it repeatedly this season at Rutgers, typically in the midrange. He had to push that easy button frequently because hardly anything was easy within that Scarlet Knights offense; beyond Dylan Harper, his team was not exactly teeming with playmakers or offensive threats who could draw attention away from him. 

The book on bothering Bailey at this point is to crowd him, and it hit the bestseller list in Big Ten play. You can be the wiggliest, most athletic player in the world, but the ball has to come to you. Against pressure his handle was often wobbly on his hand and rolling up his wrist, and as a result his decision-making plummeted. This led to some abysmal assist-to-turnover and assist-to-usage numbers and also kept him away from the rim and the free throw line. Yet, somehow, he was still able to wow us—splashing right-shoulder spins in the midrange, one-dribble pull-ups with two and three defenders draped over him, overhand short-range runners or hooks. I don’t know that he’ll ever evolve into a dynamic hub of offense, but with some added strength and weight, he should put up points well into his career.

The worries about Bailey’s limitations in the face of pressure will be lessened if he creates a positive trade-off on the defensive end. Luckily, he’s already started on that path. He can really contort and sit as low as necessary to move with smaller handlers while also extending to dissuade would-be shooters as he’s closing on them. His supplemental rim protection is rare for a player of his size and offensive potential. Ace may be best suited to follow the example of Jaden McDaniels and leverage his physical tools to become a defensive terror—only, with  much, much more to offer on offense. He still has the upside to develop into a primary option on offense, but if that doesn’t pan out, becoming a rangy merchant of havoc isn’t a bad fallback option.

The smooth, frictionless explosion off one or two feet. The sheer elevation. The paraglider hang time. Edgecombe’s run-jump ability is a sight to behold—there may be only a handful of players in the NBA who can match his blend of dynamic athleticism. He has absolute trust in his physical gifts, which grants him a certain level of on-court freedom not afforded to most players. Under those auspices, Edgecombe has honed an anticipatory sixth sense most commonly seen in shutdown cornerbacks. He has the skills, motor, and reaction speed to become one of the best shot-blocking guards in the NBA, to go along with his passing-lane ball hawking. And he has more of a proof of concept than most NCAA players his age, having shown off these abilities at some of the highest levels of international competition. Edgecombe was, at worst, the third-best player on the Bahamian national basketball team in the 2024 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament, on a roster that also featured Deandre Ayton, Buddy Hield, and Eric Gordon. 

As ever for a player of his ilk, shooting will be the most important swing skill. It was a shaky start from the long range for Edgecombe in nonconference play, but since the New Year, his numbers have rebounded dramatically. His 3-point shooting efficiency from a standstill seems like a fairly safe bet, but the true ceiling of Edgecombe’s game will be determined by what he can do with his shot on the move, both on and off the ball. There have been glimpses of Edgecombe drilling shots off curls and some fascinating shot creation off the dribble, but his broader offensive skill set remains a work in progress.  

Edgecombe succumbs to the plight of all hyper-athletes who graduate to a higher level of competition: Wild explosiveness isn’t enough if it can’t be harnessed. Especially since he is already on the small end of acceptable wing size. His leaping ability can get him into trouble at times when he’s trying to create his own opportunities off the dribble. He has a tendency to leap too early on drives, neutralizing any advantage he’s created with his speed by having to adjust and contort in midair. Edgecombe is an unselfish player and has a solid feel for getting the ball to his teammates, but there are discrepancies between action and intent. He is faster and more explosive than his handle is consistently capable of supporting, which leads to some awkward moments when he’s caught in no-man’s-land trying to make a play happen for himself and others. But his effort, tenacity, and raw physical tools can’t be taught. Edgecombe has the ceiling of a two-way star, but he’ll need to erase the lag time between his body and mind to get there.