My 2026 NBA Draft Scouting Process

I want to show you how it goes

My Background

Before I get started with my draft process this year, I want to tell you a little bit about my NBA Draft history. I first got into the NBA Draft during high school through watching Adam Spinella’s videos. This is when I started coming up and writing my own content, where you could see it down below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t_DqDqm8n34qpoT0qn2wYzQfVzkalbpj2SLk1wJpbQI/edit?tab=t.0

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16SCbyXfPEjI7uhjqlAG5kS_WEdC7b-oyHJrB0R6z5sI/edit?tab=t.0

Uhhhh… that was embarrassing. It looked like someone high on meth made that list. I was obsessed with shooting to the point where I would ignore other flaws from that kind of profile. I needed to take a break and redo my scouting process. I took 2022 and 2023 off for that reason(minus one article) so that I could re do my process.

Here was my 2023 article. I focused on mainstream evaluation while doing very little research: https://medium.com/@aramster2003/2023-nba-draft-grades-f136e1e9ab8

2024 was when I got serious about draft content again. I found barttorvik, hardwood hoops, and cashiggy. I spent hours and hours looking at YouTube videos. I was planning on having a board, or at least a list. I even wrote a whole thing about how my process changed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NBA_Draft/comments/1c05gb4/what_i_learned_from_my_draft_errors/

Then… my grandma died. That was a huge shock to me. The draft didn’t matter to me. I tried to get back into it, but my summer job made it too difficult. BUMMER. Opportunity missed.

I was really gunning hard to do something for 2025. I spent a ton of time doing pre draft rankings over summer. I watched more film and looked at BartTorvik a lot. However, the combination of college graduation, worsening depression, and needing to find a job made it extremely difficult to do so.

Regardless, life gave me another chance and now I’m here. I’ve long desired to do one more draft board before I feel mentally done with sports, and this year is time to strike while the iron is hot.

The #1 thing I learned from previous draft and scouting processes is to not overdo it. Unless you’re doing it for a living, make sure to take rests. Take plenty of periods between the screen. Take care of your body. Spend times with loved ones. Otherwise, I will have a fried nervous system, low energy, and not be ready to actually enjoy scouting due to how exhausting it feels.

I will also have a job that involves being around children. In my opinion, I believe that it’s important to be fully present when around them. Therefore, I don’t want to be thinking about Chris Cenac’s three point percentage with 5 year olds around.

BartTorvik Rankings

My first and primary focus when it comes to looking at a prospect is to check out their stats. And I don’t mean their counting stats. I mean BartTorvik. I find rate stats to be far more important to if a player succeeds than counting stats. I will make these queries worth around 90% of the scouting process.

The first thing to check when it comes to BartTorvik is a player’s school, year, and production. The 3 most likely determinants of lottery picks are the player being a freshman, going to a high major school, and having a BPM over 3 during that year. Even if those players don’t declare for the draft, they have the potential to be impact players in the future.

If a player isn’t a freshman and is projected to go high in the draft, there will be important things to look for. For sophomores, I’m looking for that BPM to be at least 5 in the year they got drafted. I’d also like to see some year to year improvement.

For upperclassmen, I’d generally like to see at least 2 years of 5+ BPM(and one year of 7+ BPM). I’d also like to see improvements in their percentages and feel throughout their time in college. One of the key things I’ll look for is an improving AST/TO each year, as upperclassmen are expected to produce immediately.

Now, it’s time to look for all of the individual skill a player has. I have 23 individual skills divided into 10 different categories(production, overall offense, scoring, passing, defense, rebounding, functional athleticism, age, size, and positional value/archetype. Each skill is worth 10 points for a total of 230 points. On the scale, 10 is the highest and 1 is the lowest. The higher a player scores on this statistical query, the better I think his chances at an NBA career are. I’ll share with you how I evaluate of each category(and sub-category) down below.

Production(BPM)

Overall offensive production(OBPM)

Scoring: shooting(3PA, 3P%, 3P AST%, FT%, FTA), rim finishing(rim%, rim att, rim AST%), efficiency(TS%, eFG%), foul drawing(fTr), volume(USG%) 

Passing Assists(AST%), ball security(AST/TO, TO%)

Defense: Production(DBPM), steals(STL%), blocks(BLK%), defensive IQ(FC/40)

Rebounding: OREB%, DREB%

Functional athleticism: dunk total, blocks(BLK%)

Age: number on draft day

Size: HT, WT, WS(if applicable) 

Positional value/archetype: WING(9/10), BIG(6/10), NQW(4/10), SMALL GUARD(3/10),

positional explanations down below: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VxdUdyhLCDDcDt39_0ePjxqlLvDXZ9UM31jgRqBlvA4/edit?tab=t.0

archetype values down below: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-ygZb2Uy1xs7O98Uw5MB89dxIDaOhisgaGVW3HAgg24/edit?tab=t.0

The reason why I combine 5 categories into scoring and 4 categories into defense is to keep the spreadsheet from being too difficult to read. For any area with multiple categories, I just add everything in my head for that same reason.

I also want to show you how this formula looks in action. I did this by evaluating all 14 lottery prospects of the 2025 draft down below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O6dyCGumBTe2lg2-QY0lHNq2eVSZNr6MxWByySTIe3s/edit?gid=0#gid=0

The rankings of the lottery prospects through my model from 1-14 are: Cooper Flagg(180), Collin Murray-Boyles(176), Noa Essengue(171), Dylan Harper/Khaman Maluach(tied)(156), Carter Bryant(153), V.J. Edgecombe(151), Derik Queen(144), Kon Knueppel(141), Egor Demin(137), Tre Johnson(136), Cedric Coward(135), Jeremiah Fears(130), and Ace Bailey(124).

One theme that you could see is that two-way wing players(Cooper Flagg, Collin Murray-Boyles, Noa Essengue) were highly valued within the model. Carter Bryant was ranked extremely high as well. Kon Knueppel fell to 9th. The model also predictably rated Ace Bailey last, as he didn’t show any standout statistical indicators.

I agree with most of these analyses, as I believe that wing is the easiest position to play in the NBA. I also think that the best way to be a good NBA player is to be good at many different areas in college.

Having a model like this gives me the ability to defend my claims with actual evidence, unlike people who only watch film/follow media. Over last draft class, I heard tons of people saying that Ace Bailey has “tons of upside” and “star potential”. Most of these people didn’t use any statical claims to back it up, just saying “rUtGeRs bAd” and “his jumper looks nice” as their reasoning.

This is exactly why I hate the word “upside”. It’s too vague and based on the eye test. That leads to unnecessary errors in evaluation. If a player shows some untapped potential in an area, there’s usually a stat to help show that. Of course there will be anomalies, but you should look for what consistency works.

Through using this query, I want to present everyone a question. Why is Isaiah Evans ranked so high for next year’s draft? Why are Braden Smith and Donovan Dent ranked so low? People need to use their mind instead of trusting ESPN’s terrible predictions.

Finally, I want to tell everyone that I don’t do pre-draft rankings for freshmen. There are way too many variables involving high school competition. I’m personally just going to use the wait and see approach, using midseason as my first point of analysis.

Other BartTorvik analysis

The next thing I decided to do was to create a list of checkpoints. These checkpoints are to see what(I believe) are the NBA minimum for each player to survive in the league. There are 20 checkpoints total, which are shown with this spreadsheet down below:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ltYbP2w3OqlyT7hZhRI5176l1D9HactD86MjBmMsMz0/edit?gid=0#gid=0

I decided to get rid of 4 categories(OREB%, DREB%, BLK%, dunks) for small guards, 2 categories(OREB%, DREB%) for NQW’s, and 3(3PA, 3P%, and 3P Ast%) for bigs. This is because I didn’t find them that important for a player’s success at the next level.

I also created a list of statistical green flags and red flags. These are the skills that I find most likely why a player sticks(or doesn’t in the NBA). I will share what they are down below:

Green flags: Above average jumper(3PA, 3PT%, 3P AST%, FT%, FTA), Above average AST% or AST/TO, Above average STL%/BLK%, Above average dunk/rim% and rim attempts), Above average OREB%/DREB%)(for wings/bigs)

Red flags: Below average jumper(3PA, 3PT%, 3P AST%, FT%, FTA)(for non bigs), Poor AST% or AST/TO, Poor STL%/BLK%/DPBM, Poor rim% or attempts/Low dunk total(for non small guards), Below average OREB%/DREB%(for wings/bigs)

This process shows analytical evaluation on the floor and risk of a prospect. The highest ranking prospect for green flags was Cooper Flagg, as he hit all 5. Other players who ranked highly were Collin Murray-Boyles and Noa Essengue. For red flags, the highest ranking prospect was Jeremiah Fears. This agrees with my scouting process of high-feel wings being extremely valuable. It also showed the risk of drafting a player with so many flaws. The more flaws a player has, the more likely they are to bust in the league.

Film

Finally. I got to it. I believe that film has a small yet important role in player evaluation. However, I still believe that most people are watching film wrong.

The first thing you want to look at when watching film is to find a quality unbiased source. Don’t just watch highlights. My favorites are Cashiggy(game recaps) and Hardwood Hoops(season recaps). If you can’t find clips from either of them, college basketball scouting does a good job with some players. The channel’s links are down below:

https://www.youtube.com/@hardwoodhoopscentral

https://www.youtube.com/@cashiggy3219

https://www.youtube.com/@cbbtransferportal

When it comes to watching film, less is more. I generally feel like around 5-10 minutes is all I need when it comes down to watching a player. I would also say to look for specific things when watching film, like jumper form, processing speed, handle and ability to make competent rotations on defense. An example of film being important is Matas Buzelis. This is because his jumper looked good with OTE, but his percentages were awful. Once he moved into the league, his percentage from deep increased to league average.

It’s very important to not get caught up in analysis paralysis. I believe that watching too much film can cause someone to change opinions on a player a lot. People need to stick with their gut when it comes to players opinions

Media

I would say that the first step here is to avoid mainstream NBA Draft media. ESPN sucks. Don’t listen or follow any of these guys advice. All they are trying to do are get clicks and fuel rage.

When it comes to guys I do like, my favorite is No Ceilings . Their draft writing is some of the best I’ve seen. They go into great detail with player evaluations and cover a ton of under-the-radar trends. Without them, I wouldn’t be aware of important NBA trends or what to look for in key players. I also met one of the guys(Rowan) and he was an awesome person. I’m very blessed to say that I’m a paid subscriber to their content.

There are also a bunch of other great guys on Substack. Paul, Parker Fleming, Sam Wilson, and SSRole are some of the guys whose content I’ve enjoyed. Most of these guys have very small followings, so I hope that shouting them out gets them more readers.

For Youtube, I’m honestly not sure. Two of my favorites were Hoop Intellect and Adam Spinella. Both have gotten opportunities from an NBA teams as a scout. I haven’t been that active on there recently as I limit my screen time consumption.

I will always say create more than you consume. Focus on making your own boards and methods over blindly trusting someone else’s. Let yourself fail. Grow from your mistakes. Never strive for perfection, but always look for improvement.

What’s next

My current plan is to take two weeks off from looking at any draft related content to focus on my job and reset my nervous system. I’ve dealt with burnout in many areas of my life. I am hoping to teach myself balance this draft process.

Then, I will start on my next big project. I will be evaluating every non freshman with a BPM above 3 using my scale. I’ll share my results via spreadsheet and make a ranking on it. My goal is to get this done around October or something.

I plan on writing around 4-5 articles about the draft(pre-season upperclassman evaluation, mid-season freshman evaluation, final big board, draft grades) I will be taking long breaks to keep my mind refreshed and avoid overstimulation. I find that it’s more important for my quality of writing to be good than write 70 mediocre articles.

Anyways, I want to thank everyone for reading this. I know it’s long(like most of my work), but I put a ton of effort into this. If you care about my content, you can financially support me through this link: https://studio.buymeacoffee.com/dashboard. I would very much appreciate it.

This is definitely the least autistic article of all time.