NBA Mock Draft 2017, Week 13: Malik Monk to Sacramento
By Chris Stone
New order, new destinations. This is our latest mock 2017 NBA Draft.
The college basketball season is headed towards March and each passing week seems to give us a little more information to go on when it comes to ranking prospects. Both Duke’s Luke Kennard and Kentucky’s Malik Monk put up monster numbers this week to help solidify their draft positions while De’Aaron Fox continues to struggle through an injury. The Wildcats also played a prospect-laden game with Kansas as part of the Big 12-SEC Challenge that gave us an opportunity to see some of these players in the same place if you’re interested in a replay to catch up on.
If you’re looking for prospects to watch this weekend, tune into Arizona at Oregon on Saturday. The Wildcats feature a potential lottery pick in Lauri Markkanen surrounded by a slew of athletic wings while the Ducks have a few interesting second rounders like Dillon Brooks and Chris Boucher.
The draft order this week was once again determined by using 538’s projections for end of year records after simulating the remainder of the season. Lottery teams are listed in order of finish and not randomized.
Markelle Fultz
PG, Washington
Washington’s Markelle Fultz is the best prospect in the 2017 NBA Draft by a decent margin. Although his team as a whole is not performing well — similar to Ben Simmons’ LSU squad — Fultz has been magnificent in what is sure to be his lone season of college basketball. When adjusted for pace, the 18-year old freshman is averaging 24.9 points, 6.5 assists and 6.5 rebounds per 40 minutes. He has a true shooting percentage of 55.9 and has made better than 40 percent of his 96 3-point attempts. The lone statistical knock is his poor free throw shooting (65.7 percent).
Fultz plays with a sort of effortlessness that allows him to find his way into the teeth of opposing defenses where he’s capable of scoring on his own or setting up his teammates. At 6-foot-4, he’s able to handle the physical demands of attacking the rim where he has made 57.7 percent of his non-transition layups or dunks this season, per Hoop-Math. Fultz will need to make improvements defensively because he doesn’t play with the necessary effort on that end, but because of his size, he should be relatively easy to hide if the situation calls for it.
The Celtics obviously have plenty of guard talent on their roster, but it’s nearly impossible to turn down a potential franchise changing talent like Fultz. Take the best prospect and sort the rest out later.