Trail Blazers' Draft Projections Murkier Than Ever
With two weeks left before the draft, national projections are all over the place—even more so than usual.
The two weeks before the NBA Draft are peak misinformation season. That’s true every year, but especially in this one, when there’s less consensus than ever about who the best players are and who’s going to be picked where.
If it feels like there hasn’t been much to write lately, it’s because there hasn’t been much worth updating. The Trail Blazers, along with every other team, have been bringing prospects into their building for predraft workouts.
Some of these have been publicized, with us media members even getting to talk to the players for a few minutes (but not watch the actual workouts). Others, at the behest of certain agents trying to control the process, are guarded as closely as the nuclear codes. This is silly—most of the teams picking in the same range are looking at the same general group of players, and bringing someone in for a workout is not a legally binding agreement to draft them. Teams can, and do, draft whoever they want even if they don’t get them in for a workout.
The major media outlets covering the draft put out new mocks every so often, and those don’t offer any more clarity on teams’ plans than the workouts do. The projections have changed week-to-week, some doing so several times before any of the lottery-level prospects even started their private workout schedules. Nobody can agree on what the Blazers will or should do with their two lottery picks, which are Nos. 7 and 14 overall.
For example: