There's a new prospect that NBA teams might want to tank for, not named Cooper Flagg

The brunt of the 2025 NBA Draft focus has been on Cooper Flagg, and understandably so. He's the most exciting prospect in years — a 17-year-old, 6-foot-9 forward operating as the primary fulcrum of college basketball's most venerated program.

The Duke freshman has earned his flowers, too, averaging 15.9 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 3.6 assists while supplying absurd defensive versatility in the frontcourt. It's rare to find a high-level prospect who plays as hard and as relentlessly as Flagg. He's constantly mucking up possessions with quick hands and sharp rotations.

Factor in his heavy usage rate (29.3), which is the third-highest among high-major freshmen, and Flagg deserves immense credit. He was never the most advanced on-ball creator in high school, but Flagg has had his hands in everything Duke runs, processing the floor quickly and weaponizing his athleticism to collapse the defense and create for teammates. The only freshmen with higher usage rates are Dylan Harper and Jeremiah Fears, two lottery-projected point guards.

So, the Duke freshman is legit. There's no way around it. That said, only one team can win the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes in the end. There will be a single No. 1 pick on draft night. What should encourage NBA bottom-dwellers is the volume of talent at the top of the board, which includes another tank-worthy prospect in Illinois freshman Kasparas Jakucionis.

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Illinois guard Kasparas Jakucionis is flying up NBA Draft boards

At just 18 years old, Kasparas Jakucionis has taken the bull by the horns and commandeered the Illinois offense. He is running point at 6-foot-6, operating confidently out of pick-and-roll actions and generating advantages one-on-one with a compelling blend of strength and craft. He doesn't have elite foot speed, but Jakucionis does an excellent job of mixing speeds and playing angles.

You simply won't find another freshman who can match Jakucionis' combined shot-making variety and playmaking competence right now. He's coming off a dominant 24-point, five-assist performance against Wisconsin. The highlights are juicy. There may or may not be a James Harden-esque step-back a few clips in that got yours truly out of his seat.

There are a lot of exciting prospects, but Jakucionis is probably the closest to eliciting some variation of that Vince McMahon meme on a nightly basis. Illinois has become appointment viewing, and Jakucionis is undoubtedly drawing eyeballs from front offices in the NBA Draft lottery range.

It wasn't just the Wisconsin game, either. He has been on a heater of late, becoming just the second D-I freshman in the last 10 years to net at least 80 points, 25 rebounds, 20 assists, and 15 made 3s in a four-game span. The other? A talented young Oklahoma point guard by the name of Trae Young.

That is excellent company for Jakucionis to keep. He isn't perfect — no teenage point guard is — but the well-roundedness of his skill set is hard to come by. Jakucionis is a gifted processor and passer, a potent pull-up shooter, and a fairly dependable defensive playmaker (1.4 steals per game). There are defensive gaps left for him to fill, primarily working on ball, but his positional size is a huge plus. The turnovers are a mild concern — 3.7 per game, compared to 6.0 assists — but time and strength development should help him. Jakucionis wasn't always a full-time point guard in Europe, where he came up in the high-profile FC Barcelona program. He's still growing into these massive shoes, but man, what we've seen so far is special.

Jakucionis ranked No. 3 on our first NBA Draft Big Board of the season. There is stiff competition this season, but I'm not ruling out another bump in those rankings before all is said and done.