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Jeremy Wu, ESPN
Player comparisons of 2024 NBA Draft candidates can be a useful exercise if done responsibly. It's easy to make exaggerated claims about ceilings and potential, or to highlight a player's negative aspects, but the end results of their careers tend to be somewhere in between. Very few players reach their perceived positive ceilings, and those that fail may end up falling far short of modest expectations.
Ahead of the two-day draft on June 26 and 27, the real utility of this exercise is figuring out what a prospect's role will be in the future, how much development they need to have to deliver great results, and what the risk is if things don't go as expected. While there are few true one-to-one comparisons that will ultimately be accurate, this kind of thought process can be useful when evaluating players from a conceptual standpoint and imagining how a prospect's profile might fit with a particular team.
With that goal in mind, ESPN draft analyst Jeremy Woo selected the best-to-worst comparisons for each of the projected lottery candidates in his latest top-100.
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Top 100 Rank: No. 1 | Mock Draft Predictions: No. 1 is the Atlanta Hawks
High-end: Khris Middleton's defense gets stronger
Low End: Trey Murphy III
