2025 NCAA Draft Prospects Nile! is Lower on than Consensus

Part 2 coming soon. The process of elimination for NBA draft prospects is a year-round activity.

2025 NCAA Draft Prospects Nile! is Lower on than Consensus

Part 2 coming soon. The process of elimination for NBA draft prospects is a year-round activity.

Statistical Vetting

Some players retain draft hype throughout an extended college career of statistical mediocrity. Combinations of aesthetic fascination, niche skill, and prep hype usually are the reason for this hype, but weaponizing Box Plus-Minus to delineate upperclassmen NCAA prospect impact would have stopped this. The logical explanation is that players who present such weak box score performance over extended careers haven’t the current talent level to contribute to the NBA ecosystem, or the age-intertwined ‘potential’ to eventually perform at an impressive level after linear physical/mental development takes place.

Festus Ezeli, Jerome Robinson, Ben Sheppard, and O-Max Prosper were all first-round picks, with millions of dollars invested into them, after such weak NCAA performance. The former duo found little success in the NBA, and I expect the latter duo to follow.

NBA; Games Played ≥ 65; Box +/- ≤ 2.5; Min% ≥ 0;

Check out the rest for yourself. This is no way to procure NBA talent.

Saying all this, here is a list of players I expect to fall under this career threshold once their NCAA career is over, whether it be after the 2025 or 2026 seasons. There is little reason to spend time focusing on these players as prospects.

Desmond Claude, Wooga Poplar, Milos Uzan, Seth Trimble, Wesley Cardet, Jaxson Robinson, Tre White, Mike Sharavjamts, Jevon Porter, Matthew Cleveland, Adama Bal, Ryan Nembhard, Jeremy Roach, and Eternally fade Riley Kugel and Arthur Kaluma.

A season goes on and some players (even some players currently listed) will outperform this very low benchmark. I would still fade all listed and unlisted players as far as having a successful NBA career is concerned.

The Nile! 2025 NCAA Prospect Fade List

The rest of the players on this list consist of me calling my shots on prospects that I expect to underperform consensus expectations in the future. The variety of formats used in the following analysis is a response to the amount of explanation needed to prove the points. I have to explain why we can’t be fooled by Karaban and Lanier, where Carlyle’s raw impact does most of the explaining.

Alex Karaban

UConn Tall Shooter

Karaban is more interesting than the average tall ball-moving shooter in that he crashes the offensive glass at a much higher rate than his contemporaries. He’s equally as uninteresting once his negative crosssection of DREB%/AST%/STL%/FTR/draft age are collected and the most successful NBA players with these flaws are Corey Kispert (with a -2.1 career BPM and -0.9 net rating over 6,000+ minutes), Duncan Robinson (-0.9 career BPM/1.1 net rtg over 9000+ RS/PS minutes, accounts for 14% of the Miami Heat in 2024–25 with an increasing salary for the next 2 years), and Jabari Bird (120 NBA minutes).

Fading Karaban as a first-round prospect stems from denying the archetype’s value, accounting for the financial flexibility lost by paying such an inactive player 3–6% of a team’s salary cap (a first-round pick salary).

Karaban’s profile is too predicated on waiting for someone else to do something. 65% of his 110 made two-pointers were assisted during the 2024 season, an absurdly high rate, even archetype-relative.

In similar players’ age 21 season:

Kispert 31 / 78= 40% assisted 2PM rate

Duncan Robinson 21 / 37= 57% assisted 2PM rate

Svi Myk 37 / 90= 41% assisted 2PM rate

Jabari Bird 23 / 64= 36% assisted 2PM rate

If he does retain overall efficiency without Clingan, Spencer, and Newton creating the easiest shot quality in the nation, I will end the season higher on Karaban. I don’t expect this though. We have 2,000 minutes of a rising redshirt junior (age 22 season) falling somewhere between untasked and unskilled enough to score unassisted points. It’s much more likely that the difference between Newton/Spencer/Clingan initiating an offense and Hassan Diarra/Aidan Mahaney/Solo Ball doing so will compound the lack of shot creation and playmaking that Karaban provides. Dan Hurley’s alchemy will not be enough to save anyone this time.

Kanaan Carlyle

OTE/Stanford/Indiana Guard

#30 on Tankathon board 10/19

No one sub-6’4 beats <1 AST:TO and <1 STL% as a freshman. If Duane Washington Jr. or Jaden Shackleford are the best outcomes for a prospect, they should probably be faded.

No one beats >27% USG with an <2 OREB% and a disturbingly bad <94 ORTG as a FR. Not only isn’t Carlyle an NBA prospect, but he’s probably a multi-year negative NCAA player.

-3.5 luck-adjusted net in FR season @ Stanford along with a weak stat profile=will never play a single high-leverage minute in the NBA, if I had to guess.

Even his positive statistical traits equal out to a weak, unreliable archetype.

An interesting stat combination (AST%, 3PA/100, BLK%) puts Carlyle’s FR szn with the likes of Reed Sheppard, Lonzo, Ron Baker, NAW, Klay, Ivey, Devin Carter, Cade, Jalen Pickett, Marcus Smart.

ORTG=3rd worst of the sample, OBPM=3rd worst, PRPG 5th worst

I would expect his block rate to decrease substantially next season based on his OTE results AND the fact that players with similar DREB%/STL%/dunk rate/height do not block shots.

*This was one of my favorite revelations to make during this research process, especially if my assertion is correct over Carlyle’s career*

Carlyle was also terrible at OTE

21 games, 50 2P%, 25 3P%, 46 TS%, .6 3PAr, .23 FTr, 3.8 AST:3 TO per game ,.9 stocks:2.3 fouls per game

7.1 game score, worst among rotation players

Probably the worst rotation player on the ’23 Dreamerz all things considered

Bruce Thornton

Ohio St. Guard (also Kanaan Carlyle’s high school teammate lol)

Shooting more long 2s than 3s AND not having the athleticism to dunk is unsustainable, regardless of offensive success.

Single-season of “Why Bruce Thornton Does Not Translate”

AST:TOmaxxing as the pinnacle of a player’s profile does not matter as far as NBA prospects are concerned. One does not find the best 450 basketball players on earth by sorting the AST:TO leaderboards.

Chaz Lanier

North Florida/Tennessee Guard

This is a long-term fade. Lanier could be an All-American next season. His December 2001 birthday means he is the same age as NBA veterans Jalen Johnson and BJ Boston. Players develop/reach statistical success markers at different rates, but Lanier takes this concept to the extreme, with objectively terrible production up to his senior-age season. Lanier has three seasons of (sub-zero BPM, and sub-12 USG%) under his belt. No one to be this unproductive with such low usage for even one season has ever sniffed the NBA.

This should be enough to dismiss him as a prospect but Lanier will be on television frequently playing an electric, efficient style of basketball at Tennessee in 2025. Seeing his profile in its entirety will be necessary to complete a proper evaluation. His anemic box-score impact can be reevaluated if one puts enough stock into his impressive on-off numbers at UNF. A 10.9 net rating in his 2022 season with 51.1% of team possessions played, followed by a 3.2 net in 2023 (48.6% of possessions) indicates a positive contributor at the low-major level. In 2024, he exchanged team impact (-9.8 on-court net, -21.4 net diff) for an unprecedented leap in volume and efficiency that vaulted him into the peripherals of draft contention.

25% of career games vs t100 competition going into the 2025 season is yet another figure usually low enough to dissuade a prospect from NBA contention. Lanier has the unique opportunity to double his sample of matches versus meaningful teams to his resume.

Tennessee is one 2025 grad transfer away from proving their type is a mid-major volume shooter with enough vertical athleticism to finish at the rim — no regard for rebounding, passing, or defensive aptitude. Since 2021, the Tennessee ‘system’ has required nothing but a plug-and-play ‘hired gun’ scorer. The defensive infrastructure provided by Rick Barnes, Zakai Zeigler, Jonas Aidoo, Josian-Jordan James, and the like has shown to be enough to produce massively productive defensive campaigns. The Mercenary Volunteer is a perfect means of manufactured offense for the NIL-era NCAAB landscape. I have very little belief in it being a sustainable means of procuring NBA talent.

This is a query case in Lanier’s favor.

Following is one against him, illustrating that players as inactive as him regarding passing, defensive playmaking, and drawing free throws versus mid/low-major competition have zero NBA success, and usually get nowhere near the conversation.

Lanier is the third transfer-up from coach Matthew Driscoll’s North Florida regime. Noah Horchler and Jose Placer were non-factors at their next stop, though neither were as good as Lanier in their final year with UNF. Driscoll has also consistently had some of the best offensive production from the low-major level over his tenure, lending even less clarity on how good Lanier’s 2024 season was (as his coach has a history of being more advanced than his counterparts.)

Lanier has a chance to be the primary scoring option on Tennessee this season and his 2024 volume/efficiency combination paired with the defensive infrastructure the roster and coach provided Knecht last season could lead to lofty accolades and extraordinary hype as an unheralded offensive weapon that was waiting for the media to catch on.

Everything that boosted Knecht’s stock from a solid second-round prospect akin to someone like Marial Shayock to a first-rounder is what will allow Lanier the opportunity to cosplay as something like this.

Note that Monk is currently only 3 years older than Lanier, but is entering his 8th NBA season. Monk is also a career -2 net rating/-1.1 BPM producer over 10k minutes and has vastly underproduced for his draft status. The archetype is not consistently effective or valuable in the NBA. Fading Lanier is to assume that a player who only accomplished similar production at his age-22 season to an 18-year-old Monk (who has ranged from flawed secondary creator to radioactive draft bust in the NBA) versus the 267th-ranked strength of schedule with faint statistical indicators for being a Division One-caliber player prior will not return positive value if drafted.

AJ Storr

St. Johns/Wisconsin/Kansas Wing

Three schools in three years is mercenary activity, even in the NIL era. This is a trait I like to avoid as much as possible, all other things considered. Played for multiple high schools as well, including a postgrad season at IMG. Was a top-100 recruit, is on the Julius Erving preseason award watchlist, and received a substantial NIL deal from Kansas. Is regarded as a positive basketball player, will play on national TV frequently, and be talked about as a team staple.

Career 2.4 BPM could have proved Storr’s lack of authenticity as a prospect in the first section of the article, but he presented a great example of how aesthetics and other hype factors can influence perception.

Every player with OREB%/AST%/STL% as low as Storr are extremely high-volume 3-point shooters. Storr’s career .33 3PAr makes him a negative outlier.

Sub-3 OBPM+<0 DBPM is not usually a successful NBA equation.

His 3PAr/AST% combination as a wing is a huge roadblock to being an effective offensive weapon. Johnny Davis without the defensive ability comes to mind.

Net rating in FR year @ St. John’s

-6.1 total

-1.5 vs t160 comp

-22.8 vs sub-t160 comp (284 possessions on/633 total) due to 6% Off. EFG difference, and massive jumps on defensive Rebounding and defensive turnover percentages. The team was 1st percentile in Offensive FTR with Storr on.

Net Rating in SO szn @ Wisconsin

-3.7 total (1676 possessions on/2267 total)

-4 vs t160 comp. (1527 poss. on/2042 poss total) Team EFG%, OREB%, 3PAr, and rim% all lower with Storr on

Crowl, Klesmit, and Blackwell improved massively with Storr off, Wahl neutral, and Hepburn better with Storr on.

Part 2 soon enough. Nile!

@NileHoops on Twitter