This week was the 2025 NBA Draft.
I love the draft.
Kids in silly suits, their moms/girlfriends getting ready to click deliver on all those items they’ve been adding to their Amazon carts on Uber rides to practices.
The occasional open weeping.
The draft also serves as clues, puzzle pieces to help form all 30 franchises’ grand plan.
Nothing like it.
(I did not watch the second round or understand why it needs it’s own night. I don’t watch the French basketball league like that. I don’t know these players.)
So here are my 9 biggest takeaways from the First Round of the 2025 NBA Draft.
1. Cooper Flagg will have to be really good, really fast
I’ll admit, I did forget Kyrie Irving’s ACL exploded last season.
The Dallas Mavericks built a team around his playmaking and then he immediately stepped on a land mine.
With Luka taking advantage of LeBron’s HGH plug in LA, Dallas has a bunch of really talented players and no one to give them the ball.
I just read a headline that the Mavs are playing footsies with D’Angelo Russell.
Spencer Dinwiddie, D’Angelo Russell and Caris LeVert will forever be tethered to one another.
Anthony Davis can’t run an offense.
Klay Thompson is Klay Thompson.
PJ Washington is still here for some reason.
So Cooper Flagg, from day one, will have to prove why he’s the No. 1 draft pick.
Godspeed.
2. The Bulls kids are thriving
- Ron Harper’s son was the no. 2 pick
- Scottie Pippen’s son is a 6th man of the year candidate
- Dennis Rodman’s daughter is on the women’s national soccer team
- Michael Jordan’s son is banging Scottie Pippen’s wife
The kids are alright.
3. Is Joel Embiid…done?
The Sixers are actively looking to move off Paul George’s stupid contract.
They drafted 19-year-old guard VJ Edgecomb to pair in a dynamic backcourt with Tyrese Maxey and TikTok’s Jared McCain.
The timeline of this team is dramatically changing. They could be one of the youngest teams when the season starts.
And then there’s just Joel Embiid with elephantiasis—yelling “don’t look at me” as he covers his face and drags his busted hoof up and down the court.
An ogre whose knees have become 40-pound bowling balls with perfect 300 scores.
What happens to Embiid if he can never be the guy again?
I don’t think his career will end overnight.
He’s expensive as shit.
He’s gonna make $69 million in the 2028-29 season and he can’t walk in a straight line.
But if can’t stay on the court and get these Sixers to the playoffs—it’s over in Philadelphia.
Their young players are becoming too talented to waste their youth chasing Sam Hinkie’s unrealized dream.
From everything I’ve seen, VJ Edgecomb looks like a honey badger out there.
Jared McCain looked like Jamala Murray before he injured himself.
This whole roster could be flipped on its head by this time next year.
Joel Embiid better be sleeping in ice.
If he has to miss a chunk of time again this season, the rest of his career will be out of his control—being traded to wherever has the cap space for his contract—no leverage or say what happens to him going forward.
Nothing lasts forever, and I fear the Joel Embiid MVP years are a distant memory.
4. Can Charlotte be saved by glue?
After the no. 3 pick, ESPN showed clips of VJ Edgecomb dunking.
After the no. 4 pick, ESPN showed clips of Kon Knueppel diving for loose balls.
After the no. 5 pick, ESPN showed clips of Ace Bailey dunking.
I don’t know what the Hornets are yet.
They had sooo many losing streaks last season.
They had losing streaks of 4+ games seven times last season, including losing 12 of their final 13 games of the season.
They never looked good 4 quarters in a row.
I didn’t learn shit about the Charlotte Hornets this season.
Does anyone remember when the Hornets beat the Lakers 100-97 in the middle of February?
I went back and rewatched some of that game—maybe I’d see some recipe for this team to be better than.
First, Austin Reeves kicked himself out of the game in the 3rd quarter.
I mean, LeBron and Luka should be good enough to beat one of the worst teams in the league but yea, Reeves was pissed and needed his night to be over.
Who among us hasn’t rage quit before?
Here’s some quick stats from that game:
- LaMelo Ball: 27 points, 9-for-19 shooting, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal
- Miles Bridges: 29 points, 5-for-11 from 3, 5 rebounds, 5 steals, 1 block
LaMelo Ball is sick, yo.
I understand why it may seem like he cares more about giving the fans a fun night at the arena than he cares about winning the game but I don’t give a shit if the Hornets win.
I love watching basketball and LaMelo is ice skating around the court, hitting step-back, one-legged 3’s.
You want me to complain about this?
The problem is his injury history. He’s had ankle and wrist injuries that have cost him full seasons.
But from his perspective, the last time he played a full season (75 games in 2021-22, his 2nd year in the NBA), he made the All-Star team and the Hornets went 43-39.
Why would he change anything about his game when the proven concept exists? We have the evidence it works.
The only year with Melo that the Hornets finished above .500 was when he was healthy.
I’m okay with giving him one more shot before pulling the plug.
Brandon Miller was out for this Lakers game after undergoing season-ending wrist surgery in January.
So it was the Miles Bridges game…
I don’t know if Miles Bridges has substance abuse issues or if he was just raised under a fucking bridge but he’s gifted at the sport and it sucks that he seems like he grew up too fast and the world around him is moving 200mph.
I do wish he had to go, like, play in Turkey for a year, away from the rif raf and see if he truly loves this game again before he come back—like when Bruce Wayne had to rebuild his body, mind and spirit after Bane dogwalked him—but maybe still being employed by the NBA saved him.
I don’t know.
Please don’t hurt anymore people so I can talk positively about your game without the longest fucking disclaimers of all time.
Sorry, I got super into that random game.
Let’s bring this back to Kon Knueppel.
Between LaMelo, LaAsshole and a returning Brandon Miller, the Hornets have enough ballhandling.
They need a guy who can catch and shoot, who will cut, who will push the ball in transition, who will dive for loose balls.
They need a glue guy.
I’m lowkey excited to see if the Hornets can be fixed by glue.
5. Ace Bailey: Prove It
Ace Bailey refused to work out with teams.
He only wanted to be drafted by Washington, New Orleans or Brooklyn.
He wanted to be the star of an NBA team.
And good for him.
Who the fuck am I to tell this kid to put a silencer on their dreams?
I’ve quit almost every job I’ve ever had because I thought I was more valuable and deserved more.
If Ace Bailey believes he is capable of carrying the burden of having an organization built around him instead of being plugged into already built machinery, let him find out.
But he was drafted to a Utah Jazz team where he can achieve exactly that and he’s being corny about it.
“Their other first-round pick, Walter Clayton Jr., flew to Utah on Thursday and is getting ready to go. Ace Bailey did not and there’s been minimal contact with him and the team.” (Source)
I understand if Ace Bailey wants to be the main guy.
But now it sounds like he wants to be the main guy, and have lit nights in a fun city after the games and I’m out on that.
I don’t love the idea of an 18-year-old who only wants to go to cities where the bars close late.
Perhaps Ace has an internet perception of Utah and doesn’t know that Salt Lake City has become a whole ass city now but again—it still feels like he’s motivated by going outside—and you hope he grows up sooner than later—but like, prove it, Ace.
Prove that you can first average 20 points per game over the course of a long, arduous 82-game NBA season.
Do that one fucking time before you seek special treatment.
6. Washington and Brooklyn are punting on the season again
Thanks to a draft lottery rewarding already good teams with the top 3 picks, Washington and Brooklyn still have another season of figuring shit out if they have a basketball team yet.
I’ll get more into Brooklyn in a second, so let’s talk about Washington real quick.
Washington just traded Jordan Poole to New Orleans for CJ McCollum to pair with Marcus Smart and Khris Middleton for a strange, washed backcourt rotation.
Tre Johnson isn’t the on-ball scorer that Jordan Poole is.
He does a lot of his work in the shadows, sneaking around the perimeter and slicing his way to the hoop in transition but Washington will be looking to once again pick at the top of next year’s draft for a potential All-Star caliber player.
Or perhaps Alex Sarr or Bub Carrington take an enormous leap (I doubt it)and they have a new offseason plan next summer but either way, this year will be a lot of experimenting, giving all of the young players a chance to show if they are the ones.
7. Sean Marks is my favorite GM
Sean Marks has been running basketball ops for the Brooklyn Nets since 2016.
The team has either been one of the worst in the NBA or swept in the first round.
Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving fell into their lap and they still didn’t do shit but acquire James Harden, Blake Griffin and Ben Simmons around them.
Sick.
Like I said about Sam Presti after OKC won the championship, most GMs don’t get third chances.
Sean Marks is on his third chance.
And he’s getting suuuuper weird with it.
Let’s look at his 5 first round draft picks:
- Egor Denim
- Nolan Traoré
- Drake Powell
- Ben Saraf
- Danny Wolf
Here’s how ESPN describes Egor Denim:
Demin is the best passer in this draft, which served him well as a creative force for BYU. He has the ability to make every necessary read operating out of a pick-and-roll.
Here’s what CBS Sports says about Nolan Traoré:
Traore came into the draft cycle viewed as a potential top five pick and while his stock dipped during the course of the season, he played some of his best basketball late in the year with Saint-Quentin. He has extreme speed and playmaking ability, but is also showing some recent gains with his shooting that are very encouraging.
Here’s Yahoo Sports’s analysis of Drake Powell:
Powell has a chiseled frame that he uses to barrel into defenders at the rim and to contain opponents when he’s on defense. He’s a switch-everything defender who plays with a high motor, and if his spot-up jumper translates he checks all the boxes to be a 3-and-D role player at a minimum.
Let’s run it back to ESPN for some thoughts on Ben Saraf:
Saraf is a big guard with an impressive combination of scoring instincts, a feel for the game, aggressiveness and playmaking, demonstrating supreme timing and creativity in the pick-and-roll. His sharp basketball instincts are evident in every aspect of the game.
Annnnd here’s The Ringer describing Danny Wolf:
He’s a true 7-footer who looks immensely comfortable facing the basket and directing traffic not only from the elbows, but from beyond the arc as well. It’s the kind of game that was built for social-media highlights.
I meaaaaaaan, that’s not a bad draft for a Brooklyn Nets team led in minutes by Jalen Wilson.
If you don’t have the Gotham Sports app, you don’t even know who Jalen Wilson is.
Jalen Wilson averaged 9 points on 39% shooting from the field.
Brooklyn used 5 first-round draft picks to put together a bunch of high-potential playmakers.
I will be watching 0 seconds of the Brooklyn Zionists but any of these players can be better than Jalen fucking Wilson. So that’s a W.
8. Joe Dumars is the last of a dying breed
The New Orleans Pelicans traded an unprotected 2026 first-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks in order to move up 10 spots and select Derik Queen out of Maryland.
The problem is, Derik Queen plays a hell of a lot like Zion Williamson plays:
Derik Queen Playmaking pic.twitter.com/qdzGkmoOnj
— Boppa 🧟♂️ (@ihatebbls) June 27, 2025
He’s a chubby big man with conditioning issues who likes the ball in his hands and likes to play from the outside-in.
Minus Zion’s aliean athleticism, Derik Queen and Zion have almost identical player profiles.
I and want to be clear, this will be cool as shit to watch.
It would be as if 1993 Derrick Coleman teamed up with 2018 Blake Griffin.
It’ll be an insane experiment to spectate.
But from New Orleans perspective, sure, they have similar strengths but they also have similar weaknesses. With Jordan Poole, Zion and Queen on the floor together, the other team will have layup lines to the basket.
The Pelicans won’t be very good at basketball next season and they’ll need that first-round pick they sent to Atlanta to add cheap young talent to this roster.
As front offices have gotten astronomically smarter than they were when I was growing up—back when you’re trade first round drafts for fucking anyone, but Joe Dumars is old school. He’s from that old guard that had no long-term planning. Just get guys you like watching play basketball on the same team and they’ll figure it out.
9. Buy Blazers stock
Deadseriousness is quickly becoming a Portland Trailblazers fan page.
Joe Cronin and Chauncey Billups are doing something interesting over there on the other side of the country.
Enter my new Chinese son, Yang Hansen:
The highlights you’ve been waiting for 🤝 pic.twitter.com/seKv2jc3HT
— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) June 27, 2025
I know we’re supposed to see an Asian ballplayer and diminish how talented they are because, well—they were playing against other Asian guys—but I like 7-footers who can act as an offensive planet, directing satellites around them.
The Blazers already have big men on their roster but they’re DeAndre Ayton and Robert Williams.
If other teams wanted those players, Portland would’ve traded them by now.
Donovan Clingane seems more like a Mitchell Robinson/Jonathan Isaac backup center who comes in to wreck shit for like, 23 minutes, and then sits down gasping during timeouts.
Unleash Yang Hansen.
Thanks for reading.
Let me know your draft thoughts, leave a comment below. Respond on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or shoot me an email at Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Let’s chat, bay-beeeee.
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