2026 NBA draft thread

[F Gump]

I think on the court performance is a much bigger impact to player evaluation than combine.

This ^.

Every actual NBA scout and draft evaluator says that the Combine is something they regard as more of a singular data point and less of something decisive to rank players by. For the most part, they have been watching these top guys for YEARS and have MANY prior facts that have already framed a working evaluation. The measurements are new info, but maybe not as much to the scouts as to us. 

My analogy: in the high school race to determine a valedictorian, the final exam in the last semester counts, and a really good or bad one might move you up a bit or down a bit, but it doesn't outweigh everything else prior to that date.  

I suspect there's a ton of knee-jerk - or maybe even misdirection - in what we are getting fed this week, about who is impressing and who is falling, and by how much.