The NBA season is over, which means it is now draft season! Draft rumors are heating up as teams are finally conducting workouts and interviews with players, and will only heat up over the next month as the November 18 draft date approaches. The Clippers have only the 57th pick in the draft, and seemingly don’t have much room on their roster to buy their way into another pick, so there’s not much information out there on the Clippers and what they might be looking for in the draft. Sites like Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, and the Ringer are doing mock drafts as well, but none of them are extending to the 2nd round (yet). In a couple weeks, there might be more mock drafts to parse. That said, here’s an NBA mock draft roundup, mid-October edition.
The Athletic
Kenyon Martin Jr. – SF/PF, IMG Academy
Sports Illustrated
ESPN
ESPN’s mock draft remains unchanged, though they did release an abundance of intel recently regarding updates mostly centered around lottery teams. As for the others, Hagans and Martin are both interesting picks. Hagans is a point guard, a position of need for the Clippers but also one where no rookie is likely to get time. He’s also one of those unusual young-ish (21 years old and a sophomore) Kentucky players whose stock failed to rise in college. This is probably largely due to his inability to shoot threes, and his fairly high turnover rate. I’m not really a huge fan of Hagans, but at 57, it’s hard to really complain.
Martin Jr., meanwhile, the son of former Clipper Kenyon Martin (boy do I feel old), is even more unusual in that he skipped college entirely. That path is becoming more common, but most of those players are going to the G-League or overseas, not opting for a 5th year of prep school. Martin Jr. was not a particularly noteworthy prospect in his draft class, and was committed to Vanderbilt, not a blue blood college basketball program. The issue with Martin is that he plays like a SF/PF tweener (think Derrick Williams), but is undersized for the role. Still, he possesses athleticism every bit as fearsome as his father, and that alone makes him a fringe NBA prospect.
There’s still not a ton to go on here, and really, very few mock drafts can hold up at all as late in the draft as the Clippers are picking. Still, the lack of consensus on what type of player (young or old) or position that the Clippers might be interested in is possibly telling. Really, the biggest surprise is that nobody has projected that they will go for a stashed player in Europe to save a roster spot. The modern front office with Lawrence Frank has not done so (David Michineau being the infamous 2nd round stash of the 2016 NBA Draft), but in this draft and with the Clippers current roster, a stash makes a great deal of sense.
Stay tuned for more on the draft as mock drafts start becoming more frequent and have better intel, and stay tuned for further updates on the Clippers’ new coaching staff.
213Hoops is an independently owned and operated L.A. Clippers blog by Clippers fans, for Clippers fans. If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our Patreon. Subscriptions start at $1 a month and support from readers like you goes a long way towards helping us keep 213Hoops sustainable, growing, and thriving.
