Possibly unbeknownst to Jay Wright and Mike Krzyzewski, the Wildcats and Blue Devils are in a fierce battle to have the most first-round picks in today’s draft.
This is pretty much the only time to bet on your favorite players beyond March Madness. Looking for online betting sites that provide a bit of variety when it comes to NBA/ NCAA bets, BetOnline’s sportsbook indicates there’s roughly a 50/50 chance that Nova will have three or more players selected in the first round, and that math checks out.
Mikal Bridges, Nova’s hyper-athletic 3-and-D wing, is a lock to go in the lottery, while title-game hero Donte Divincenzo is likely to be a top-20 pick and all but certain to be a first-rounder. Then there’s junior point guard Jalen Brunson and freshman big Omari Spellman.
Brunson has a decent chance to be a top-30 guy, especially after his Villanova predecessor Josh Hart’s solid rookie season in the NBA. About half of the mock drafts out there have him in the first round.
Spellman is a longer shot, but 6’9 power forwards who shoot 43.3% from three fit nicely into the modern NBA. He’s generally projected in the 35-45 range, and the odd mock has him in the first round.
Can Duke do in the draft what it couldn’t do during the season and finish head of Villanova?
The Blue Devils have two of their own first-round locks. Once in the conversation for first overall, Marvin Bagley III is still a guaranteed top-four pick, while his front-court mate Wendell Carter Jr. will be a top-ten selection.
After that, it gets a lot more dicey.
The lightning rod that is Grayson Allen was, at one point in his Duke career, a sure-fire first round pick, but he elected to stay in school, year after year. Then he started tripping people and didn’t make up for the on-court issues by developing the rest of his game. However, the 6’5 guard can still score the ball efficiently (53.5 Effective Field Goal %), and he’s still a high-energy, high-level athlete at a position of need for most teams. His status in mock drafts varies wildly, from mid-20s to mid-40s.
You can say some of the same things about Gary Trent Jr. The 6’6 wing is a great shooter (averaging over 40% as a freshman) with good hustle. While he has a youth advantage over Allen, he’s not the athlete that Allen is, and he ranges from late first-rounder to mid second-rounder in most mocks.
The longshot is freshman point guard Trevon Duval. A top-ten recruit coming out of high school, he’s uber-quick but lacks the range to succeed in the NBA, at least right now. Unless a team is convinced it can develop his shot, his game is just too limited to be worthy of a top-30 pick these days, when three-point shooting and floor spacing is more valuable than ever. Expect him to go late in the second.
Even though Duval has the worst prospects for being a first-round pick, Duke nonetheless has the edge to have the most first-round picks. Effectively, both teams have two guarantees: Bridges & Divincenzo for Nova, and Bagley & Carter for Duke.
But where Villanova has Brunson as a toss-up and Spellman as a longshot, Duke has two toss-ups, for all intents and purposes, in Allen and Trent. So while Villanova may have stolen the spotlight March, the Blue Devils will get June.
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1 ping
Hokie Mark says:
June 21, 2018 at 7:14 am (UTC -5)
Nice analysis.