NBA Mock Draft 1.0
The Knicks are on the clock again as they own the rights to the Mavericks’ first-round draft pick. After taking a defensive specialist at number 19 they take Tre Mann out of Florida with pick number 21.
The well-rounded point guard joins a Knicks guard rotation that could see the departure of multiple players this offseason, including Derrick Rose, Elfrid Payton Frank Ntilikina and Alec Burks.
This is a great value selection from the Knicks as they get a solid NBA combo guard at pick 21.
The Los Angeles Lakers saw their attempt to defend their NBA Championship fall well short this past season and they will be looking to make impact additions throughout the offseason. It starts with this pick and leads them to select Cameron Thomas from LSU.
Thomas is a scoring guard in every sense of the term and should see his scoring ability translate pretty well to the professional level. He put up 23 points per game for LSU last season. The Lakers are happy to bring in anyone that can help them score the ball over the course of an entire regular season.
Their focus is obviously going to be on being healthy once the playoffs roll around next season.
The Rockets are on the clock for the second time in the draft and they also own the pick after this one. First, they take Isaiah Jackson out of Kentucky. Jackson could be a force on defense in the NBA due to his ability to swat opponent’s shots.
At Kentucky, he made the SEC All-Defensive team behind his 2.6 blocked shots per game. He has a huge wingspan and just needs to add some muscle before he could be swatting shots all across the NBA.
Another huge swing is taken by the Rockets here, and rightfully so. They need to swing for the fences in these early stages of their rebuild and that’s exactly what they do by taking Roko Prkacin out of Croatia.
He is a solid-looking forward that can do a bit of everything, including shoot from behind the arc. The Rockets take him and now have an investment in both a defensive specialist and an offensive minder player at the power forward spot.
The Clippers could not be happier to see multiple teams in front of them select major project prospects. That allowed Sharife Cooper to fall to them and they pounced.
Cooper was a monster last season at Auburn in the limited games he actually played in. He dominated to the tune of 20.2 points, 8.1 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game. Although that was over the course of just 12 games it was enough to make a number of NBA front offices believers, including the Clippers.