That’s as true as ever heading into a 2020 NBA Draft without a ton of consensus on who the best players are and with some doubts about the overall upside of this draft class. Normally the draft would’ve taken place in June and rookies would already be playing their first season, but COVID-19 has provided months to speculate on who might bust without much added evidence to make those calls any clearer.
The inclusion of every player on this list, including top-three pick candidates LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards, isn’t necessarily to say they’ll play three games and then flame out of the NBA. All the players below are projected to go in the first round of most mock drafts — they’re all good basketball players. But for various reason, the guys on this list have a bit more risk surrounding them than initially meets the eye, risk that could cause them to be a draft regret five years down the road.
Mostly, this is our way of presenting the players that have a higher chance of failing to reach their median outcome, let alone their best outcome. It’s not an indictment of talent, which guys like Ball and Edwards are full of, but rather a questioning of whether this year’s elongated evaluation process has truly made all of the right calls.
NBA MOCK DRAFT 2021:What will Timberwolves, Warriors do with their picks amid trade rumors?
2020 NBA Draft bust candidates
LaMelo Ball, guard, Illawara Hawks (Australia’s NBL)
Ball brings with him the at-times negative connotation of the Ball family name. The sports world dealt with years of his father, LaVar, being the loudest voice in proclaiming outrageous levels of stardom for his sons. The boisterousness also appears at times in Ball’s game, with highlights showing him pulling up from much too far beyond the 3-point arc or displaying poor shot selection among the reasons he has bust concerns.
The largest bust worries with Ball are on the defensive end, where he hasn’t shown much of an interest at all so far in his basketball career. Part of that can be attributed to having so much work to do on the offensive end as an extremely gifted scorer and passer.
A team that picks Ball likely doesn’t have a total bust even in the worst-case scenario because of how good a passer he is. But there’ll certainly be an attention-storm surrounding whichever team Ball is on, and teams might weigh whether Ball is worth that.
Anthony Edwards, guard, Georgia
Edwards, like Ball, doesn’t promise to be a total bust. He’s too natural an athlete and scorer to flame out entirely. But with a top-three pick comes increased pressure for a team to make the right call.
If Edwards turns out to be Andrew Wiggins, a bucket-getter on a bad team, that’s somewhat of a bust outcome. His 19 points per game on a bad Georgia team could point to Edwards averaging a similar total on a shaky Minnesota team, for example.
The flip side of Edwards, like with Ball, is great upside. He could turn into one of the league’s great two-way guards. But Edwards’ skillset has yet to turn into team results in his young basketball career, which will leave some concerned.
Jaden McDaniels, forward, Washington
McDaniels might have the most intriguing highlight reel of any player in the draft. At 6-9 but super skinny, he can remind a viewer of Kevin Durant with a silky smooth jumper that’s basically unblockable.
The problem? McDaniels was inefficient at Washington (40.5 FG%) and was moved out of the starting lineup for the Huskies by the end of the season while leading the PAC-12 in technical fouls. He’s a huge risk, because if he doesn’t bulk up or score more efficiently or get the technical-fouling nature out of his game, he’ll bust.
A team will still take a chance on McDaniels in the first round, though, because his upside is too high to ignore in a draft generally devoid of such exciting possibilities.
Killian Hayes, guard, Ulm (France)
There’s always some uncertainty for basketball fans in the United States when an international player is taken. With Hayes, The Athletic writes that the concern should be two-fold: “First, he’s extremely left-hand dominant to the point that it’s actually a problem in his ability to make plays. Second, he’s not a super athlete. There is some concern that he won’t be able to get separation from NBA-level defenders despite his skill level and polish.”
In an NBA so heavily based on athleticism, it’s easier to envision how the quickest and shiftiest point guards fit in. A left-hand heavy non-elite athlete will have to do everything right from a basketball skills standpoint to make it work.
That’s not to say Hayes won’t work, but if he goes in the lottery ahead of more athletic, better shooting point guards, it could turn out to be a bust.
MORE: Biggest sleepers to know in the 2020 NBA Draft
R.J. Hampton, guard, New Zealand Breakers
Hampton is a scorer who NBA teams weren’t able to compare in that role to this draft’s other top bucket-getters who spent at least a year in the NCAA. His similar route to Ball means that Hampton’s offensive role was subdued in the NBL while playing with grown men.
He managed to average 8.8 points per game as a teenager in one of the world’s top leagues, so that’s not nothing. But Hampton is simply tougher to gauge than some of this draft’s other players, meaning it’d be easier for an NBA team to miss entirely in their evaluation of him.
Precious Achiuwa, forward, Memphis
At first glance, Achiuwa seems like the type of player who would never bust. And he may not, at least entirely.
This is an energizer-bunny of a small-ball center who took over in the middle for Memphis after James Wiseman’s season ended prematurely. He averaged 15.8 points and 10.8 rebounds for the Tigers in his lone season on campus.
The big concern with Achiuwa is the shooting. All but the most dominant interior centers in the modern NBA can shoot, and Achiuwa really can’t. He shot 32.5 percent from 3-point range and below 60 percent from the foul line, which doesn’t indicate that he has a natural shooting stroke waiting to be tapped into. Achiuwa’s role may never be large in the NBA unless he finds a shooting touch.
Josh Green, guard, Arizona
Green will likely be the type of player who hangs around the NBA for a while as a defensive wing with good athleticism who doesn’t quite cut it on the offensive end. There are concerns about his shooting, including with The Athletic saying he needs to “work through some mechanical tweaks.”
It’s probable that Green goes in the back half of the first round and turns into a solid rotation piece. His placement on this list is more to dampen any excitement about your team taking this great athlete in the draft, because it might not all translate to trackable offensive production in the NBA.
