The 2025 NBA draft is still 16 months away, but teams already have begun the process of building out files to identify and monitor next year's top prospects.
ESPN NBA draft insider Jonathan Givony has been doing the same for the past few years too, spending considerable time traveling to FIBA junior national team tournaments, college games and practices, elite high school and grassroots showcases, USA Basketball camps, NBA Academy events and other international basketball settings where future lottery picks have been expanding their résumés.
The NBA has gradually loosened rules permitting teams to more closely evaluate the progress of high-school-aged players, making the 2025 NBA draft's elite prospects the most thoroughly scouted crop to this point.
That process will continue this spring with the high school All-Star game circuit -- which includes the McDonald's All American Game, the Nike Hoop Summit and the High School Basketball Nationals -- in March and April.
2025 NBA mock draft
The draft order is based on ESPN projections and reflects the current state of picks owed and owned:
FIRST ROUND
Cooper Flagg | Duke | SF/PF | Age: 17.1
Airious "Ace" Bailey | Rutgers | SG/SF | Age: 17.5
Khaman Maluach | NBA Academy Africa | C | Age: 17.4
Jalil Bethea | Miami | PG/SG | Age: 18.1
Hugo Gonzalez | Real Madrid B | SF | Age: 18.0
Dylan Harper | Rutgers | PG/SG | Age: 17.9
7. Houston Rockets (via Brooklyn Nets)
VJ Edgecombe | Baylor | SG | Age: 18.5
8. San Antonio Spurs (via Toronto Raptors)
Tre Johnson | Texas | SG | Age: 17.9
9. San Antonio Spurs (via Atlanta Hawks)
Egor Demin | Real Madrid B | PG/SG/SF | Age: 17.9
10. Utah Jazz
Drake Powell | North Carolina | SG/SF | Age: 18.4
11. Oklahoma City Thunder (via Houston Rockets)
Liam McNeeley | Indiana | SG/SF | Age: 18.3
Michael Ruzic | Joventut | PF | Age: 17.3
Isaiah Evans | Duke | SG/SF | Age: 18.2
14. Atlanta Hawks (via Sacramento Kings)
Nolan Traore | Pole France | PG | Age: 17.7
15. New Orleans Pelicans (via Los Angeles Lakers)*
Motiejus Krivas | Arizona | C | Age: 19.2
16. Oklahoma City Thunder (via Miami Heat)
William Riley | Undecided | SG/SF | Age: 18.0
17. Brooklyn Nets (via Phoenix Suns)
Flory Bidunga | Kansas | C | Age: 18.7
18. Orlando Magic
Ian Jackson | North Carolina | SG | Age: 19.0
19. Indiana Pacers
KJ Lewis | Arizona | SG | Age: 19.5
Derrion Reid | Alabama | SF/PF | Age: 17.6
21. Dallas Mavericks
Carter Bryant | Arizona | SF | Age: 18.2
22. New York Knicks
Kanon Catchings | Purdue | SF | Age: 18.5
23. Utah Jazz (via Cleveland Cavaliers)
Noa Essengue | Ratiopharm Ulm | PF | Age: 17.1
24. Utah Jazz (via Minnesota Timberwolves)
Karter Knox | Undecided | SG/SF | Age: 18.7
25. Oklahoma City Thunder (via Philadelphia 76ers)
Johann Grunloh | Rasta Vechta | C | Age: 18.5
26. LA Clippers
Milan Momcilovic | Iowa State | SF/PF | Age: 19.4
27. New York Knicks (via Milwaukee Bucks)
Adou Thiero | Kentucky | SF/PF | Age: 19.7
28. Brooklyn Nets (via Oklahoma City Thunder)
Joson Sanon | Undecided | SG | Age:18.1
29. Orlando Magic (via Denver Nuggets)
Rocco Zikarsky | Brisbane | C | Age: 17.6
30. Boston Celtics
Tyrese Proctor | Duke | PG | Age: 19.8
*New Orleans will have the Lakers' 2025 first-round pick if they elect to defer.
SECOND ROUND
Aday Mara | UCLA | C | Age: 18.8
Dailyn Swain | Xavier | SF | Age: 18.6
33. Sacramento Kings (via Portland Trail Blazers)
Trey Alexander | Creighton | PG/SG | Age: 20.8
34. San Antonio Spurs (via Chicago Bulls)
Kylan Boswell | Arizona | PG | Age: 18.8
Elliot Cadeau | North Carolina | PG | Age: 19.4
36. Boston Celtics (via Detroit Pistons)
Dink Pate | G League Ignite | SG | Age: 17.9
37. New York Knicks (via Brooklyn Nets)
JT Toppin | New Mexico | PF/C | Age: 18.6
38. Dallas Mavericks (via Toronto Raptors)
Kanaan Carlyle | Stanford | PG/SG | Age: 19.4
39. Portland Trail Blazers (via Atlanta Hawks)
Bronny James | USC | PG/SG | Age: 19.3
40. Minnesota Timberwolves (via Utah Jazz)
Zvonimir Ivisic | Kentucky | PF/C | Age: 20.5
41. Houston Rockets
Caleb Foster | Duke | PG | Age: 19.6
42. Boston Celtics (via Golden State Warriors)
Berke Buyuktuncel | UCLA | PF | Age: 19.4
43. Oklahoma City Thunder (via Memphis Grizzlies)
Sam Walters | Alabama | SF/PF | Age: 19.6
44. Sacramento Kings
Aaron Bradshaw | Kentucky | C | Age: 19.7
Collin Murray-Boyles | South Carolina | PF/C | Age: 18.7
46. Brooklyn Nets (via Miami Heat)
Kwame Evans Jr. | Oregon | PF | Age: 19.5
47. Washington Wizards (via Phoenix Suns)
Jaxson Robinson | BYU | SG/SF | Age: 21.2
48. Orlando Magic
Alex Toohey | Sydney | SF/PF | Age: 19.8
49. Indiana Pacers
Zacharie Perrin | Antibes | PF/C | Age: 19.4
50. San Antonio Spurs (via New Orleans Pelicans)
Andrija Jelavic | Mega MIS | PF/C | Age: 19.7
51. Dallas Mavericks
Trentyn Flowers | Adelaide | SG/SF | Age: 18.9
Hansen Yang | Qingdao | C | Age: 18.6
53. Atlanta Hawks (via Minnesota Timberwolves)
Dillon Mitchell | Texas | F/PF | Age: 20.3
54. Charlotte Hornets (via Philadelphia 76ers)
AJ Storr | Wisconsin | SG/SF | Age: 20.4
55. Los Angeles Lakers (via LA Clippers)
Judah Mintz | Syracuse | PG/SG | Age: 20.6
56. Cleveland Cavaliers (via Milwaukee Bucks)
Mark Mitchell | Duke | PF | Age: 20.4
Jonathan Mogbo | San Francisco | C | Age: 22.3
58. Denver Nuggets
K.J. Adams Jr. | Kansas | PF | Age: 21.8
59. Orlando Magic (via Boston Celtics)
Jamir Watkins | Florida State | PG/SG | Age: 22.6
The Knicks forfeited their 2025 second-round pick.
Duke commit Cooper Flagg does it all with 23 points, 10 rebounds and nine blocks in Montverde's easy win.
Who will go No. 1?
NBA teams were telling us a year ago they feared the 2024 NBA draft lacked star power at the top in a major way, something that appears to have proved correct based on what we've seen thus far.
Teams don't have any of the same concerns for 2025, as we've already seen two franchise-caliber talents in Cooper Flagg and Ace Bailey emerge. Both are drawing considerable excitement and should make the race for the No. 1 pick extremely interesting.
Flagg was originally slated to graduate high school in 2025 (and be in the 2026 NBA draft). But he elected to speed up his timeline and enroll at Duke this upcoming summer, making him NBA draft eligible in 2025 thanks to his Dec. 21, 2006, birthday, beating the cutoff by 11 days.
The most hyped high school prospect in some time, Flagg is in the midst of an outstanding senior season at undefeated Florida's Montverde Academy, ranked No. 1 in the country. Known for his lockdown defense, explosive finishing, transition scoring and unselfish play, Flagg keeps adding skills to his game. He is shooting 39% from 3 and 80% at the free throw line through 22 games with a sparkling 2.6-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, per the DraftExpress database.
His ballhandling is making strides. He has grown and added bulk to his outstanding frame -- and he might not be done yet considering he turned 17 three months ago. Flagg's motor, defensive versatility and increasingly dynamic perimeter shooting give him a very high floor as a prospect, but that he's still so young means he has considerable upside to grow into. Just how much of a go-to scoring option he projects to be in the NBA is likely the main question scouts ultimately will be asking, something we'll learn a lot more about before June 2025. He might be the youngest player in college basketball next season and will be under incredible scrutiny at Duke, which wouldn't be easy for any 17-year-old to handle. Nevertheless, Flagg is wired to win and has exceeded expectations at every turn, making him the easy pick to project at No. 1 early on.
Flagg's primary competition at No. 1 -- the Rutgers-bound Bailey -- is a prospect some NBA executives feel has an even higher ceiling to grow into, thanks to the coveted role he plays as a 6-foot-9 point guard for McEachern High School in Powder Springs, Georgia. Bailey can pass off a live dribble, change gears smoothly out of hesitation moves, pull up from well beyond NBA range, finish with explosiveness around the basket and generate rebounds, steals and blocks in bunches due to his frenetic energy and outstanding competitiveness.
Bailey is nowhere near as polished a decision-maker as Flagg, as Bailey can be somewhat of a roller coaster on both ends of the floor and still needs to find more discipline with his shot selection and all-around consistency -- partially because he needs to do so much for a McEachern team that doesn't have anything approaching the same talent as Montverde.
Teaming up with projected No. 6 pick Dylan Harper at Rutgers next season, Bailey will be coached hard and challenged on both ends of the floor in the highly demanding Big Ten conference. Also young for his class -- as he won't be 18 until mid-August, Bailey has a world of talent at his disposal and has made considerable progress over the past six months, with plenty more room to grow still, making him a real threat to unseat Flagg at No.1 depending on how their college campaigns play out.
Who could be coming back to school?
It will take some time to get a fuller picture of what the 2025 draft class looks like. History suggests there will be several hundred college and international players entering their names in the 2024 draft in April, the majority of whom will end up withdrawing at the NCAA and international deadlines in May and June to focus their efforts on the 2025 draft.
A dozen of the players currently projected as first-round picks in 2024 were eligible to be picked in 2023 but elected to wait and attempt to better their standing with another year of seasoning, a decision that appears to have panned out richly for prospects such as of Kyle Filipowski, Donovan Clingan, Zach Edey, Kevin McCullar Jr., Devin Carter and Dalton Knecht.
With the proliferation of name, image and likeness deals, college basketball has become financially competitive with the NBA's (non-guaranteed) two-way contracts, making the decision of whether to develop in the NBA G League or via the NCAA much more complicated.
The NBA has become increasingly cutthroat with declining team options or waiving young players on rookie-scale deals. Thirty-four of the 80 players (43%) selected in the top 40 of the 2020 or 2021 NBA drafts already have been shown the door by the team that drafted them or were never signed to a standard NBA contract to begin with, with more players likely to see that fate this summer. With the NBA introducing a second tax apron in the 2023 collective bargaining agreement while ushering in a new second-round salary cap exception, teams are increasingly under pressure to find value with their draft capital in the form of cost-controlled rookie contracts, likely leading them to seek out older, more proven commodities.
In compiling this 2025 mock draft, we did not consider any prospect currently slated to be picked in our latest 2024 mock draft. Nevertheless, there will undoubtedly be several players currently slated in that group who ultimately elect to withdraw or not even enter the 2024 draft, depending on how their season ends or the feedback they receive: Reed Sheppard (Kentucky), Stephon Castle (UConn), Jared McCain (Duke), Yves Missi (Baylor), Izan Almansa (G League Ignite), D.J. Wagner (Kentucky), Johnny Furphy (Kansas), Kyshawn George (Miami), Carlton Carrington (Pitt), Ulrich Chomche (NBA Academy Africa) and many more.
Who will be the Keegan Murray, Jaden Ivey or Bennedict Mathurin of the 2025 NBA draft -- players who bet on themselves and ended up propelling themselves into being the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 picks in the 2022 draft on the heels of outstanding seasons?
Check out some highlight plays from Rutgers commit Dylan Harper, the No. 2 player in ESPN's 2024 rankings.
How is this draft class shaping up as compared to 2024's class?
Outside of Flagg and Bailey, there's still quite a bit left to be determined regarding how the rest of the 2025 draft will look. We currently only have five returning college players projected as first-round picks, a number we know will end up being much higher once the dust clears from the 2024 draft.
Recruiting analysts have significant disagreements regarding who the best prospects in the class are outside of the top handful of names, indicating a relatively flat distribution of talent that should lend itself to considerable movement as more reliable information (players' college or pro seasons in 2024-25) flows in over the next year plus.
We continue to see a steady stream of international players projected atop the draft. Fans will soon be very familiar with the names of Khaman Maluach, Hugo Gonzalez, Egor Demin, Michael Ruzic, Nolan Traore, Noa Essengue, Johann Grunloh and Rocco Zikarsky. We're currently also projecting two juniors in high school -- Canadian player Will Riley and Haitian-American player Joson Sanon -- as potential reclass/one-and-done candidates, should they choose so.
There will be many new faces and names emerging this year who we don't know very well right now or didn't think of as first-round caliber prospects. Nikola Topic, Tidjane Salaun and Reed Sheppard were nowhere to be found in our first 2024 projection, but they are now firmly considered lottery picks a year later.
As difficult as we anticipated the 2024 NBA draft being to forecast, it's worth noting that the top three players in our initial projection last February -- Matas Buzelis, Cody Williams and Zaccharie Risacher -- are now ranked first, third and fourth.
Jonathan Givony is an NBA draft expert and the founder and co-owner of DraftExpress.com, a private scouting and analytics service used by NBA, NCAA and international teams.