Of all the prospects to scout, freshmen are the hardest. Except for a small handful who dominate right away, it takes a keen eye to see how a player might project out into the future.
Insider spoke with a number of NBA sources to find out which freshmen are hot and which are slipping on NBA draft boards.
STOCK: UP
John Wall, PG, KentuckyWe've already drooled over Wall in previous blogs. In fact, for Wall, the question now isn't whether he'll be the No. 1 pick in the draft. The question is, how does he stack up against the other elite No. 1 picks over the past decade? Scouts believe he's already better than the Bulls' Derrick Rose, and one NBA executive told me he believes Wall will be the third-best No. 1 prospect this decade, behind only LeBron James and Dwight Howard.
To read about the hot start of Xavier Henry and analysis of other freshmen who are likely to be draft-bound, you must be an ESPN Insider.
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Chad Ford
Chad Ford covers the NBA and NBA draft for ESPN Insider. He also is a frequent contributor to ESPN The Magazine and makes weekly appearances on ESPN Radio and ESPNEWS.
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Fran Fraschilla
Fran Fraschilla is a college basketball analyst for ESPN and ESPN Insider. He formerly was the head coach at Manhattan, St. John's and New Mexico. He has been part of ESPN's NBA draft broadcast coverage each of the past five seasons.
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David Thorpe
David Thorpe is an NBA analyst for ESPN.com's Scouts Inc. and the executive director of the Pro Training Center in Clearwater, Fla., where he oversees the player development program for NBA and college players. David has trained Kevin Martin, Corey Brewer, Omri Casspi, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, Yi Jianlian, Courtney Lee, Kyrylo Fesenko, Earl Clark, Jrue Holiday, DeJuan Blair and others.
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