Player comparisons are one of the most prevalent ways of talking about the potential of NBA Draft prospects. If done well, they’re a useful tool. Done poorly, they’re ridiculously misleading.
The NBA Draft is fun. Hope is never higher than in June, when 60 former college and international players are raffled off to NBA teams, helping to shape the landscape for the future of the NBA. Every year, there’s hope that a team will find the next big star, the final piece their core needs to solidify, or even a late-round lottery ticket that turns into a quality role player. Scouts work tirelessly throughout the year to evaluate and project players that could fit these billings, but because this is a bunch of humans evaluating other humans, it’s still a guessing game of fit, luck, health, and determination. That’s what makes it so great. A ranking of the best players from a draft never follows a linear path, meaning every team has a shot at finding a perfect match.
This hope means that every May and June, NBA fans flock to draft sites to quickly learn and digest as much as they can about this year’s prospects. Fans want to know the strengths, weaknesses, and outlooks for the players their teams are considering drafting. But this can get overly complicated for fans who aren’t as well-versed in the finer points of basketball scouting. What helps bridge the gap? Comparisons! Take the player’s strengths and weaknesses, and project them into a role the NBA fan is familiar with. Rather than worrying about how well the player fights over screens or creates separation, you take someone they’re familiar with and compare the two. This player plays like Kyle Korver. This next one plays like a less athletic John Wall. A third is a diet version of Zach Randolph. Seems easy, right?
In theory, this is a good practice. But too often, it devolves into specific comparisons that end up being hyperbolic, reductive, and sometimes, somewhat racially or xenophobically charged. The comparisons end up unfair in two ways — they’re unfair to the prospect, who is loaded with the unreasonable expectations of having to live up to the legacy of a star with a similar background. And they’re also unfair to the player being compared to, as it implies that any draft prospect can reach the level of greatness of some of the league’s truly unique talents.
The 2017 NBA Draft season has been unusually full of these wacky and flat-out incorrect takes. It might be one of the best classes of this decade, which has created a wild flurry of expectations for players in this draft. Rather than sticking to projecting players into roles, some have gotten over-the-top with comparisons to elite players.
Here are ten such comparisons that have been used in this draft cycle. When talking about these players, please project responsibly, and avoid the mistakes you’ll see on the following pages.