NBA Draft 2025 Winners & Losers: The Mavs get their man, the best-laid plans of Ace Bailey ... and a Special K

Many learned scholars of NBA basketball have said you can’t judge a draft until at least five years down the line. But as I am not a learned scholar — I am, in fact, Just Some Guy — I say, with all due respect:

“Go outside, nerd. Get out. Go. I ain’t got time to be distracted by your worthless chime-ins. Go on.”

What follows is a stab at a first draft of history — a thumbnail sketch of who had a pretty good first night of the 2025 NBA Draft and who might wind up looking back at the evening wistfully, with some regret, perhaps while looking out contemplatively at a body of water.

There will be more winners than losers, because for one thing, hope should spring eternal on draft night, and for another, I am a big ol’ kindhearted softy. (Also because, if we’re being honest, I can only feel so comfortable speaking with authority about a group of young people I have yet to see play NBA basketball.)

We begin where the stars at night are big and bright (clap-clap-clap-clap):

Let’s venture out together on a fairly sturdy limb: I think it was a pretty good call to draft Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft.

Flagg is the kind of über-prospect franchises dream of landing: a 6-foot-8, 221-pound forward who was the best player in college basketball at just 18 years of age; a bona fide two-way player whose measurables, motor and play style have drawn comparisons to the likes of Scottie Pippen, Grant Hill, Andrei Kirilenko, Kawhi Leonard and Jayson Tatum; and a well-rounded Swiss Army knife whose statistical profile projects him as one of the highest-impact draft entrants of the last two decades. He seems almost purely additive, in ways that teenagers — hell, that veterans — rarely are; capable of getting in where he fits in and elevating the talent around him, of scaling up his individual production when called upon, and of eventually growing into the kind of all-around offensive hub you can build a title contender around.

Adding Flagg is enough to earn Dallas our first W of the evening. What makes the Mavericks an even bigger winner of draft week, though, is the pair of moves they made with incumbent members of their roster.

First, Dallas extended center Daniel Gafford for an eminently reasonable three years and $54.3 million — the most the team could give him while still being eligible to trade him between now and February’s trade deadline if the right opportunity presents itself. Then, Nico Harrison and Co. got star point guard Kyrie Irving to decline his $43 million player option for next season in favor of a new three-year deal that guarantees him $119 million, but will start at a lower, sub-max salary. That got the Mavs under the second apron and created enough financial flexibility for them to be able to use the $5.7 million taxpayer midlevel exception, which they can now earmark to go shopping for a stopgap primary playmaker while Irving continues rehabbing his surgically repaired left ACL. (Longtime NBA insider Marc Stein’s hearing it might be D’Angelo Russell.)

You can’t unring a bell like the Luka Dončić trade. But coming out of draft week with a brand new bright young thing, with your frontcourt depth fortified, with increased trade and financial flexibility, and with more avenues to add talent to a team that never really got a chance to see what it could be after Anthony Davis’ arrival … well, it at least gives things a chance to quiet down a bit in Dallas, and for Harrison’s front office to get focused on putting the team back in position to make the right kind of noise.

(Mallory Bielecki/Yahoo Sports illustration)

The Rutgers standout canceled a planned visit with the Philadelphia 76ers, holders of Wednesday’s No. 3 pick. According to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Shams Charania, Bailey was “the only U.S.-based prospect [who didn’t] visit any clubs” and “declined invitations from multiple teams in his draft range” — an attempt to steer himself to a team willing to furnish him “with ample minutes and usage to maximize his full potential” in pursuit of “a clear path to stardom.”

Bailey was widely reported to believe those minutes, that usage and that path would come from either the Wizards at No. 6, the Pelicans at No. 7 or the Nets at No. 8.

He went fifth to the Jazz — a team that “was not one of his preferred destinations,” and that he had “no idea” was interested in him. One prospective way to gauge a team’s level of interest in you? Meeting with them. Alas!

He’s the No. 5 pick in the NBA Draft, which means he’s about to earn $41.2 million, which doesn’t seem much like losing to me.

And if you want to talk about a team that needs a big shot-maker and explosive athlete who can soak up minutes, usage and opportunities to expand his offensive repertoire … well, the Jazz just finished 24th in offensive efficiency, 27th in the share of their shots that come at the rim, 23rd in team 3-point accuracy, 23rd in half-court scoring efficiency and 21st in transition scoring efficiency. Utah’s desperate for some offensive juice, and they like Bailey’s chances of offering it … and Ace himself certainly doesn’t seem to lack confidence that he can provide it in spades.

Color me impressed with the vision.

First, Atlanta went shopping at the Celtics’ luxury tax fire sale to come away with Kristaps Porziņġis — a higher-level stretch-5 than Trae Young has ever played with, and an increasingly efficient switch-punisher as he’s aged in the league — for the cost of, really, only Georges Niang (imported from Cleveland at the 2025 trade deadline in the De’Andre Hunter deal), thanks to involving a third team by plopping Terance Mann (a fine wing, but somewhat surplus to requirements, especially with $47 million due over the next three years) into Brooklyn’s yawning chasm of cap space.

On top of that, the Hawks paid Mann’s freight with Wednesday’s No. 22 pick — the worse of the two first-rounders they controlled. That left them with the 13th overall selection … which they were able to flip to New Orleans to move back 10 spots in exchange for an unprotected 2026 first-rounder — whichever is higher between New Orleans (which, lest we forget, was terrible this year) and Milwaukee (which, lest we forget, will be without their second-best player for most if not all of next season) — and still land ace Georgia defensive big man Asa Newell, whom they’d reportedly been considering taking had they just stuck and picked at 13 anyway.

The Hawks, then, come out of the first night of the draft with All-Star-caliber talents in Young, Porziņġis and Jalen Johnson, All-Defensive dynamo Dyson Daniels, rising sophomore Zaccharie Risacher, solid two-way big Onyeka Okongwu and possibly a re-signed Caris LeVert, with Newell joining Mouhamed Gueye and Dominick Barlow in an athletic young frontcourt rotation, while adding a potentially extremely valuable 2026 first-round pick, and still having nearly $29 million of breathing room under the luxury tax line, with multiple traded-player exceptions (headlined by a $25.3 million whopper from offloading Dejounte Murray) and the $14.1 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception to use in searching for more help in the backcourt. That’s … pretty damn good!

Devastating postseason injuries to Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton threw the top half of the Eastern Conference into chaos. The Hawks, led by newly minted lead executive Onsi Saleh, are clearly looking to use that chaos as a ladder. And if Porziņġis can stay mostly healthy — granted, a big if — and the corps of big, long, athletic youngsters continues to develop around Young, Atlanta could climb awfully high, awfully fast.

OK … so … hmm.

First, the Pelicans sent the Pacers’ top-four-protected 2026 first-round pick — originally sent to Toronto as part of a package for Pascal Siakam, then redirected to New Orleans as part of the Brandon Ingram deal — back to Indiana, so that the Pels could get the No. 23 pick in Wednesday’s draft.

Then, they flip C.J. McCollum, Kelly Olynyk and a future second-round pick to Washington for Jordan Poole (younger and under contract for an additional year beyond McCollum), Saddiq Bey (who missed all of last season rehabbing a torn ACL) and a second-round pick — a deal that created some present-tense flexibility in exchange for taking on more future money, with your evaluation of its efficacy likely depending on how much you like Poole as a primary backcourt scorer with Dejounte Murray still working his way back from a ruptured Achilles tendon.

Then, after taking Oklahoma point guard Jeremiah Fears — reportedly hell on wheels with the ball in his hands, with a jumper that still has a ways to go — with the seventh overall pick, the Pels give up either their unprotected 2026 first-rounder or the Bucks’ unprotected 2026 first-rounder, whichever one is better, to move up 10 spots to draft Maryland’s Derik Queen. The book on Queen: He’s a super gifted undersized center with phenomenal hands and playmaking/scoring touch on the interior, but with a suspect jumper and concerns about how he’ll fare defensively at the NBA level. The Pelicans, who finished dead last in the NBA in points allowed per possession last season, would seem to be looking to put him next to Zion Williamson, who has an awfully similar top-line scouting report.

Between the additions of Poole, Fears and Queen, and holdovers like Williamson, Murray (when healthy), Trey Murphy III, Herb Jones, Jose Alvarado, Jordan Hawkins and rising sophomore big man Yves Missi, I love the talent the Pelicans have accumulated. I’m just not sure I believe it’s all going to fit together well enough and consistently enough to produce a no-doubt playoff team next season … and that’s if everyone stays healthy, which, if you’ve watched the Pelicans these last few seasons, is a Godzilla-sized “if.” That makes the potential downside risk of giving up an unprotected 2026 first-rounder absolutely massive.

The new front office led by Joe Dumars and Troy Weaver clearly felt compelled to make their presence felt in their first draft at the helm in New Orleans. Not all feelings are great, though. Like, for example, the pain at giving up a high lottery pick the year after you took over.

If the game is half as cold as the jewelry, forget everything I just said. New Orleans is going to be fine.

After topping .500 just once in the past decade and seeing recent top picks LaMelo Ball, Mark Williams and Brandon Miller all miss significant time due to injury early in their careers, the Hornets need talent all over the roster, but also players capable of fitting into the hard-charging culture that second-year head coach Charles Lee is trying to build. And hey, if they can shoot — Charlotte finished dead last in team effective field-goal percentage last season — well, so much the better.

Enter Kon Knueppel, a 6-foot-5 swingman who shot 40.6% from 3-point range and an ACC-leading 91.4% from the free-throw line at Duke as a freshman. It’s reasonable to wonder whether Knueppel’s ceiling is as high as some of the players picked shortly after him — most notably Bailey, who went immediately after him — but his combination of shot-making, complementary pick-and-roll playmaking and high-level feel for the game seem like a good fit between Charlotte’s other top-of-the-draft perimeter incumbents.

In addition to taking Knueppel, the Hornets also finally consummated a Mark Williams trade — we think; if anyone’s seen any medical report disputes, holler at me — sending the 7-footer to the Suns for a pair of first-round draft picks: No. 29 this year (used on UConn swingman Liam McNeeley) and a top-five-protected 2029 first from either the Jazz, Cavaliers or Timberwolves (whichever lands latest). It’s a haul with less upside than an unprotected 2031 Lakers first, a 2030 L.A. pick swap, Dalton Knecht and Cam Reddish, I’ll grant, but if Charlotte had decided it wanted to be out of the Mark Williams business after seeing him play just 106 games across three professional seasons, winding up with two more bites at the apple doesn’t seem like a half-bad bet.

You poor, stupid fools. Of kourse, they all do.

I understand the Suns were bottom-10 in the NBA in defensive efficiency, opponent field-goal percentage at the rim and total rebounding rate, and right around league average in blocked shots, points allowed in the paint and on second-chance opportunities, and they spent most of last season trying to make some combination of Jusuf Nurkić, Nick Richards, Mason Plumlee, Bol Bol and various small-ball looks work at center. I understand they needed a center, and all the pre-draft reporting suggested they were planning to come away with one at No. 10, the prize pick they landed from the Houston Rockets in the Kevin Durant deal.

So I understood it when they picked Duke center Khaman Maluach — a massive rim protector and pick-and-roll dive man whose ascent in the four years since he picked up the game has been meteoric. I understood it a little less when they also traded a pair of picks for the inarguably talented but oft-injured Williams, effectively spending three first-round picks on a new center rotation … while already having all of those other centers (besides Nurkić) on the roster. And even less than that when I realized they were now out of tradable first-round picks, which seems like they’re going to make further deals to either shed salary or remake a shooting-guard-heavy roster (though they did pick up five second-round selections in the Durant deal).

If Williams stays healthy and Maluach continues his rapid development arc, they could wind up being a fantastic tandem in the middle — think Gafford and Dereck Lively II in Dallas. Combine that with bounce-back seasons from Devin Booker back in full-time Point Book mode and Bradley Beal in a higher-usage offensive role post-KD, and hopefully more consistent playmaking from Jalen Green, and … maybe you’ve got something?

I don’t know — I just keep looking at this …

… and wondering if the change is actually … y’know … good? And very unsure it’s good enough to justify the ongoing wearing of the second apron.

In four years’ time, this young man went from paying $25,000 to play at Division III Willamette University to the No. 11 pick in the NBA Draft. “Bet on yourself” stories are rarely this damn literal.

The Grizzlies paid up to get Coward, sending Wednesday’s No. 16 pick (later used on Chinese center Yang Hansen), a 2028 Orlando Magic pick that came over in the Desmond Bane deal and a pair of future second-rounders to the Portland Trail Blazers to move up five spots. They did it because they’ve been trying to find the right fit between Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. on the wing for years, and they think that Coward — 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot-2 wingspan, a 39% 3-point shooter across three D-I seasons who also has great touch on the interior, athleticism and defensive versatility across perimeter positions, with the tools and opportunity to potentially develop into an on-ball star — just might wind up being it.

It’s a big bet … but then again, so was paying 25 grand to get on a Division III roster, and that one worked out pretty all right.

We’ve been begging for Orlando to find some shooters for, oh, I don’t know, a decade? Longer? In their first two acts of the 2025 offseason, they swung the huge deal for Bane — a 41% career 3-point shooter on more than six attempts per game — and then landed Michigan State guard Jase Richardson, an excellent interior finisher and midrange marksman who knocked down 41.2% from the college line on five attempts per 40 minutes at Michigan State, with Wednesday’s 25th pick. Give Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner some guards with juice, and that Magic offense could stand a chance of not only getting above league-average for the first time since Dwight Howard left town, but of actually propelling Orlando to a deep playoff run in the chaotic and shuffled-up East.

How do you wind up a winner of the first round of the draft without making a pick? By turning your pick into Kevin Durant.

Houston finished last season tied for 11th in non-garbage-time offensive efficiency — a pretty surprising mark based primarily on the strength of its offensive rebounding, turnover avoidance and transition play. Ime Udoka’s club was just 22nd in half-court scoring and tied for 24th in isolation scoring, though, and struggled mightily to consistently generate good looks against the Warriors in the first round of the 2025 playoffs.

Well, in terms of answers to the existential question, “What do we do when offensive rebounding and points off turnovers dry up?” go, one pretty friggin’ good one is, “Throw the ball to KD, because he’s on your team now.”

The Rockets come out of draft week having added Durant to a 52-win team for the relative bargain-bin price of Green (who had the worst on-court/off-court differential among Houston’s rotation players), Dillon Brooks (more helpful than anyone tends to want to admit, but made somewhat more expendable by the presence of Amen Thompson and Tari Eason), the No. 10 pick in Wednesday’s draft (Maluach) and five future second-rounders. They also got rock-steady point guard Fred VanVleet to agree to turn his one-year, $44.9 million deal into a two-year, $50 million deal — the kind of jaw-dropping generosity that might make an observer prone to cynicism wonder if there’s some sort of wink-wink-nudge-nudge going on with what might be coming Freddy’s way after that second-year player option. VanVleet’s haircut lowers Houston’s 2025-26 payroll by enough to open up the opportunity to use the full $14.1 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception, allowing Rafael Stone and Co. to go hunting for another contributor (Nickeil Alexander-Walker? Bruce Brown? Malik Beasley?) to add to the rotation in free agency.

There’s still work to do to catch up to the newly crowned champions in Oklahoma City. But the Rockets had a very productive couple of days leading up to the draft in pursuit of doing that work … even if they haven’t come away with any new rookies yet.

Evidently, San Antonio’s braintrust didn’t see any issues with drafting Dylan Harper No. 2 overall despite already having an All-Star/All-NBA point guard in De’Aaron Fox and the reigning Rookie of the Year in Stephon Castle. As it turns out, adding a killer pick-and-roll creator with a knack for maneuvering through tight spaces, getting to the rim, finishing with craft, and getting to the free-throw line to an already talented backcourt as you look to put as many awesome young players around Victor Wembanyama as possible … well, that sounds like one of them good problems.

After taking Harper with the evening’s second pick, the Spurs came back at the end of the lottery to snag Arizona wing Carter Bryant, a central-casting modern wing who moves without the ball, knocks down 3-pointers off the catch, and has the frame, the tools and the havoc-wreaking touch to become a perfect role player next to Wembanyama. Both Harper (6-foot-6 with a 6-foot-10 wingspan) and Bryant (6-foot-7 with a 7-foot wingspan) fit neatly into the overarching build in San Antonio, with positional size and plus length at virtually every position — a good way to give yourself a head start on building a good defense sooner rather than later. (The Spurs have finished 21st and 25th in points allowed per possession in the last two seasons, but defended at top-eight levels with Wembanyama on the court in both of them.)

The million-dollar question with Harper is whether he’s going to develop enough as a shooter to become a great fit next to Wembanyama, especially on a roster already populated by no shortage of questionable marksmen. The Spurs clearly like both his chances long-term and what he might be able to provide as a facilitator and downhill rim-pressure threat in the interim; at this stage in the construction process, just getting the highest-end talent in the door is a win in and of itself.

WINNER: Respect for Draft History

I didn’t know there was such a thing as Raymond Felton cosplay. The world is a beautiful place and I am no longer afraid to die.

Barring a repeat as NBA champions, everyone knew that the Celtics were likely headed toward at least modest cost-cutting this offseason to pare down a total salary-and-luxury tax bill north of a half-billion dollars. Once Tatum went down at Madison Square Garden, though, a drastic restructuring went from likely to certain; hence, parting ways with Porziņġis and Jrue Holiday in deals that reportedly chopped that salary-and-tax outlay by nearly $238 million.

I don’t care all that much about saving the money of Boston’s owners, old or new. But steering into the post-Tatum skid by not only moving off of the final two years and $72 million owed to the 35-year-old Holiday, but getting both a dice-roll on a talented high-volume 3-point shooter in Anfernee Simons and a pair of second-round picks was a nice piece of work. Ditto for getting out of the Porziņġis business after he’d missed 65 games in two seasons in Boston and was waylaid by a mysterious viral illness in the playoffs, and ducking below the second apron in the process, easing some of the roster-management restrictions that have plagued the C’s since they spent big to win Banner 18.

It’s not the most inspiring set of victories ever seen around these parts, but it — along with taking a flyer on Real Madrid wing Hugo González with the 28th overall pick — represents a tidy bit of business all the same.

The jury’s very much still out on how well the record-setting five prospects the Brooklyn Nets selected in the first round will wind up fitting together. Skeptics might point to some prospective redundancy in the skill sets of Egor Demin, Nolan Traoré and Ben Saraf — three ball-handling playmakers with size and iffy jumpers — and to the possibility that the trio of international point guards, along with North Carolina wing Drake Powell and Michigan big man Danny Wolf, all came off the board a bit earlier than they’d largely been projected in mock drafts. Believers will credit Sean Marks and Co. for having the courage of their convictions, building their board not based on consensus, but on their belief in having positional size, feel, passing touch and ball-handling ability across every position.

Who’s got the right bead on Brooklyn’s bunch? Time will tell. What we do know for sure, though, is that the front-office folks certainly seemed to be having a hell of a good time making the picks every time the cameras captured them. And isn’t that what we’re all here for, really? A bunch of guys in team-issued polos having fun on camera?

The champs already have 15 players under contract for next season, so even though they entered the draft with a pair of first-round picks, they had (and still have) some maneuverin’ to do. They handled part of their not-really-a-big-problem by flipping the 24th overall pick to Sacramento in exchange for a top-16-protected Spurs 2027 first, kicking the can down the road a couple of years to increase their flexibility. They stayed put and picked at No. 15, though, taking Georgetown center Thomas Sorber — 6-foot-10 with a 7-foot-6 wingspan and 263 pounds, a draftnik favorite for his screen-setting, soft-touch finishing, interior playmaking and defensive feel …

… which sounds an awful lot to me like a potential eventual stylistic successor to Isaiah Hartenstein in the years to come, as OKC’s young championship core becomes increasingly expensive.

Turning Poole and Bey into McCollum and Olynyk ensured that the Wizards’ only non-rookie-scale contract on the books past the end of next season belongs to shooting wing Corey Kispert — who’s slated to make $27 million in 2026-27 and 2027-28 combined.

In the short term, McCollum, Olynyk, Khris Middleton and Marcus Smart should provide the Wiz kids perfectly respectable models of professionalism to work to emulate as they move through the early stages of their careers. Mostly, though, that veteran quarter comprises $99 million worth of contracts that expire at the end of the 2025-26 season. That puts Washington in position to have a frankly staggering amount of financial flexibility, with some projections pegging the Wizards with nearly $120 million of room before hitting the ’26-27 first apron line to use to rent out in trades for more assets or to target players to sign in free agency.

The Wizards’ brain trust made it clear heading into last season that they still viewed the franchise as being in the “deconstruction phase” of the franchise overhaul they undertook when they assumed control in the spring of 2023. “We are now down to almost exclusively expiring contracts and rookie-scale guys” — including No. 6 pick Tre Johnson, reputedly the best shooter in the 2025 draft, and rangy Illinois wing Will Riley, taken 21st overall — is about as deconstructed as it gets; hopefully, Wizards fans will soon get a better look at how an actual, rather than theoretical, basketball team built in the images of lead execs Michael Winger and Will Dawkins might look and play.

I knew that Penn State’s Yanic Konan Niederhauser was big: 7 feet tall with a 7-foot-3 wingspan, the kind of frame that screams “developmental rim runner and shot-blocker.” I didn’t know how well he could move, though, until the L.A. Clippers took a shot at him with the 30th and final pick of the first round … and he had to sprint out of the luxury box at Barclays Center, wend his way through the hallways to get down to the bowl, and descend the stairs to make his way to the stage to dap up Adam Silver:

Looks like he gets around pretty good for a big fella. Tyronn Lue can work with that.

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NBA Draft 2025 Winners & Losers: The Mavs get their man, the best-laid plans of Ace Bailey … and a Special K

WINNER: Respect for Draft History

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