NBA Draft: Which Player Is Most Undervalued?

The most important thing to remember about NBA draft night is not who the best players are, but who the best executives are. Because this is a night that makes and breaks the careers of scouts, talent evaluators and general managers.

But the focus is always on the players, and there is some player out there who is undervalued. And in the sports gambling world, the trick is to figure out if there is money to be made. With a couple of the legal U.S. sportsbooks setting odds on who will go in the Top 10, that is where our focus will be.

The reigning NCAA Defensive Player of the Year is +5000 to go in the top 10, and the guy who recruited him, Chuck Person, said center Walker Kessler would be an especially perfect fit for the Indiana Pacers, who are already picking sixth and might get a second Top 10 pick if they trade Malcolm Brogdon and/or Myles Turner, as has been rumored. Another former Auburn player, Chris Morris, compared him to Kevon Looney of Golden State.

So it is “thinking out of the box” time?

First, a little NBA journalism secret: Aside from the Top 3, most Mock Drafts are no better than clickbait. Not all, but most. So if you are using them as your guides, rip up that strategy and start over. 

Got it?

NBA scouts and executives are all under tremendous pressure because a year’s worth of work comes down to one single night in which it is tremendously stressful to play hit-or-miss when careers and legacies and future employment opportunities are all on the line.

NBA draft gurus who work in the print media are also under a lot of pressure to produce volumes and volumes of Mock Drafts along with the accompanying scouting reports. But nobody ever comes remotely close to nailing the entire first round, much less the second, in those Mocks.

Heck, if the draft folks were all as super-savvy as some of us have been led to believe, wouldn’t two-time defending MVP Nikola Jokic have been chosen sooner than 41st?

Back to Kessler in a moment. Let’s examine some of the underlying themes of the draft.

Teams that have not enjoyed success in ages are under particular pressure. This year, that includes the New York Knicks, the Sacramento Kings and especially the Orlando Magic, who are due to select first. 

Each and every one of those teams has incredibly long odds to win the 2022-23 NBA championship, and it is not the draft picks that will increase or reduce the championship odds of the teams with short odds. 

Rather, it will be the trades that are made on what traditionally is a busy night of wheeling and dealing, much of it preemptively related to the June 30 start of free agency when Bradley Beal, Zach LaVine, Jusuf Nurkic, Jalen Brunson, Montrezl Harrell, Mitchell Robinson and Bruce Brown are the top unrestricted free agents, and Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and a bunch of other bigger names could join them if they decline their player options, which remains to be seen. 

Only five teams, Orlando, Detroit, Indiana, Portland and San Antonio, will have sizable salary cap space with which to pursue free agents. So that makes draft night all the more important because the other 25 teams have financial restraints that will limit their choices in July, but not so much this coming Thursday.

With Sacramento picking fourth and shopping the pick, there is a good chance that a trade by the Kings at No. 4 sends every other NBA team scrambling to adjust. And that is when you want to be sitting on a wager for someone to jump into the Top 10 or the first round.

So who will be the most active team? 

“The Sacramento Kings and Portland Trail Blazers have been the most active teams in trade talks leading up to the draft. Sacramento is open to moving the fourth overall pick for a player who can help the team win now and help the team end the NBA’s longest playoff drought in history. Portland is searching for an impact player now to help franchise cornerstone Damian Lillard compete in his prime,” said Michael Scotto, lead NBA columnist for HoopsHype.com. “There are several players who are underrated in the draft that could become key contributors for an NBA team down the line. Overseas players that come to mind are Ousmane Dieng and Nikola Jovic. Some American players that are being slept on include Kennedy Chandler. Jake LaRavia, Patrick Baldwin Jr. and Wendell Moore,” Scotto said.

“Dieng can handle the ball and has great length. Jovic can put the ball on the floor well for a forward his size. Chandler’s biggest knock is his size, but he’s been a top recruit and winner wherever he’s gone throughout his journey. LaRavia is a versatile forward who can shoot, create for others and defend. Baldwin Jr. had a down year due to injuries but was a top-five recruit based on his skill set and shooting ability as a forward. Moore was a versatile role player on Duke’s Final Four team and could star in that role for the right NBA team.”

So how can sports gamblers try to take advantage?

One way is laying the day-after-the-draft championship futures market if you have the stomach to wait almost an entire year to see if your wager pays off. And while we can the reasoning behind setting particularly long championship odds on teams such as the New Orleans Pelicans (+4000), Minnesota Timberwolves (+5500), Atlanta Hawks (+6500), Toronto Raptors (+5500), Charlotte Hornets (+12000) and San Antonio Spurs (+35000) – all of whom finished top 10 in their conferences and made either the playoffs or the play-in tournament – there is no telling what types of trades they might make Thursday night that could immediately shoot them up into the ranks of legitimate title contenders.

This is one of the reasons why the week of the draft and the first few days of free agency draw the heaviest interest from NBA fans looking for some measure of hope for their favorite teams. And in cities where championship droughts have lasted nearly forever (49 years for the Knicks, for example), the interest is extreme. And yes, that is why Web sites publish Mock Drafts. People read them like crazy over the course of draft week. 

Another way to try to profit is through draft prop bets, which you have to discern in part by looking at who will be the most active team. And then by looking at who has a college or international 

track record that is both legit and being undervalued in the Mock Drafts. 

Jovic is on the board at +2700 to be a Top 10 pick. But in a survey of the NBA’s top general managers prior to the 2021-22 season, the 6-foot-11 combo shooting guard/small forward was among those receiving votes as the best international player not currently competing in the NBA. 

In that very same survey, nobody picked Scottie Barnes of Toronto as Rookie of the Year, 72 percent of GMs predicted the Brooklyn Nets would win the 2022 NBA Finals (they were swept in the first round), and another 17 percent said the Los Angeles Lakers would win (they missed the playoffs).

Makes you wonder whether NBA general managers really have a handle on their own league. But as we said earlier, they are often wrong on draft night and in their offseason predictions, which is why they are on the spot so much this Thursday night. 

ESPN draft guru Jonathan Givony also believes the Sacramento Kings are prime trade candidates as they look to end the 16-year playoff drought. 

Aside from Jovic, Kessler is another player that may be worth a wager: He was the NCAA’s Defensive Player of the Year for Auburn, and he is being looked at as a traditional low-post player, unlike the modern NBA center who can shoot 3s. 

“Well, he has range all the way out to the 3-point line. Auburn just did not use him that way,” Person said in a phone interview. “He also has massive size, he can defend smaller players who cannot defend him, and he is exactly the type of energy and character and good hands guy I would want to have on my team.

“Whoever gets him is going to have a gem on their hands.”

In order to crack the Top 10, Kessler may have to leapfrog Memphis freshman Jalen Duren, who many predict will be the No. 9 pick by San Antonio. But again, remember that Mock Drafts are guessing games beyond the top three picks, and certain players will see their stock rise or fall tremendously in the final 72 hours prior to the draft based upon workouts and in-person interviews.

Kessler led the nation in blocks with 155 in his sophomore season at Auburn, while Duren had 61 for Memphis. Kessler averaged 11.4 points and 8.1 rebounds while Kessler averaged 12.0 points and 8.1 rebounds. Nearly identical, eh? 

But Duren is -115 to go in the Top 10 to Kessler’s +5000. Mark Williams of Duke also is expected to be a Top 10 pick, so how do his college numbers stack up? He averaged 11.2 points, 7.4 rebounds and had 110 blocks while being named ACC Defensive Player of the Year. His odds of going in the Top 10 are only +250. Is there some reason why Duren and Williams and Kessler can’t all make Top 10?

Just some food for thought on the three highest-rated centers in this draft not named Paolo Banchero. 

Wager at your own risk.

Also, one other guy to keep in mind is Bennedict Mathurin, the Pac-10 Player of the Year from Arizona whose stock has been rising quickly as is currently projected to go somewhere in the 6-12 range. But Sacramento picks fourth and has reportedly been in trade talks with the Detroit Pistons, who pick fifth. Both could use exactly this type of player, and it would not be the worst flier in the history of wagers to bet Mathurin going at No. 4 (+8000 at Caesars) and operate under the assumption that either the Kings want him (new coach Mike Brown was an assistant at Golden State under Arizona grad Steve Kerr), or somebody else will want him so badly that they’ll trade with Sacramento to leapfrog the Pistons and prevent Detroit getting him at No. 4.

We’ll be back in our next column with a post-draft analysis and what the Rookie of the Year futures market and the championship market look like after what should be an eventful Thursday night.