If you have ever watched a future NBA player in high school, it is clear that they are playing on another level. Once you have watched a player score 100 points in a game, or another knock down 10 threes, in the first half, it is clear they are playing on another level. High school basketball scouts do the best they can to predict which players are headed to the Hall of Fame. But after years of scouting players before they even get a diploma, I wanted to know if the scouts actually get it right about which players will hear their names called on draft day?

To answer this question I looked at every single player listed on NBADraft.net who was projected in the first and second rounds of the 2023 NBA Draft. I compared this with what their ESPN basketball recruiting ranking was when they were coming out of high school. The truth is that all of the players in the draft fall in to three categories, the ones they got right, the ones they got wrong, and then you have the flukes. The players whom they never would of saw coming, even if you gave them binoculars.

The top recruits fell off hard! 

In a typical draft year, the top five high school basketball recruits are players who will also become high NBA draft picks. Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett are proof of this in the past few years. Years ago those names were John Wall, Anthony Davis, and even Kyrie Irving. But in this year’s draft not 1 player who was ranked in the top 5 of their recruiting class is projected to go in the top 10. Dereck Lively is the only exception to this, but he didn’t play well at Duke during his freshman year, after being the number 1 recruit in 2022. NBA scouts still believe in his potential, so now he ended up knocking on the door of the lottery. However, that is a difference between making over 9 million dollars as the top pick, and around 4 million by the time you are looking at the 10th pick.

Some of those top 5 players became projected into the second round, like Amari Bailey, Dariq Whitehead, and of course Emoni Bates. But Jazian Gortman has fallen down the most, after being the fifth ranked recruit in his class, and playing with Overtime Elite, he was projected as a late second rounder. The only logical reason they might even take him at all, is because he was one considered a top recruit in high school. Normally if the scouts bailed on you that hard, like they did with Isaiah Briscoe years ago, you’re probably not going to have a long career in the league. However, I am not a basketball scout, I am actually just a guy with access to Google.

25% of the Draft are players who were UNDERRATED!

Amongst the 2023 draft class are 15 players who are projected to hear their name called, but were not even ranked in the top 100 high school prospects a few years ago for their class. Some of these players barely missed out on being in the top 100, because 7 of them were 4 star recruits that just didn’t make the 100 cut list. Of all those guys it is Maxwell Lewis of Pepperdine who was projected to get drafted the highest, as a late first rounder.

The thing is a lot of players are underrated, and although most of those guys are second rounders, 3 players were originally ranked worse than number 300 in the nation. However by staying in college for several years, Marcus Sasser, Kris Murray, and Ricky Council became likely to get drafted. Yet five players in total were entirely unranked, basically the equivalent of a 1 star recruit, who grinded their way into second round consideration. With Ben Shepard from Belmont University, projected to sneak into the first round.

Most of the players drafted are who we though they were

The other two thirds of the draft are players that the scouts knew could make it to the league. They were ranked inside the top 100 and found a pathway to the draft. The issue is that it is clear that high school scouts had no real idea who the best players among them actually were. Some players fell from being top 10 or 15 in their class, all the way into the second round like Jordan Walsh of Arkansas. He went one and done at Arkansas, but will probably spend most of his next season in the G league, hopefully on a two-way contract. Others like Jordan Hawkins played their way into consideration for the lottery. He was originally ranked 59th in the nation, but after leading UConn to a national championship, it is safe to say he has proved the doubters wrong.

All that being said, the scouts figured out quite a bit, they knew that Brandon Miller, Jarace Walker, Gradey Dick, Anthony Black, Scoot Henderson, and the Thompson twins were headed to the league, likely as first rounders. The order doesn’t really matter, because once you get out of the Top 5, players 6 through 20 are basically a roll of the dice on who is legit or not. But what is clear is that at least on draft night, those players are, exactly who we thought they were. 

The Bottom Line

The first pick in the draft didn’t go to high school in America. Victor Wembanyama is a once in a generation talent, whom the NBA had to find from halfway around the world. But most of the players drafted are homegrown talent, and we have been watching them up close and personal for years. The NBA is waiting to see who can really play with the best. It is possible that their scouts don’t know much more than the ones ESPN hired. If that is true, we will have to wait and see just a little bit longer if all of this year’s highly ranked players were simply overrated, or if the scouts gave up on them just a little bit too quickly. Because if you get it right in the second round, you could be looking at an all-star, whom some of the scouts were right about, all along.

KNOW THE GAME. WIN THE GAME.

Use my FREE recruitment guide to get templates, checklists, and answers to all of your recruiting questions.