Nile! Presents: 2025 NBA Draft Master Notes, Part One of Three

Draft notes on Ace Bailey, Carter Bryant, Johni Broome, VJ Edgecombe, Noa Essengue, Jeremiah Fears, Egor Demin, and more members of the 2025

Nile! Presents: 2025 NBA Draft Master Notes, Part One of Three

In alphabetical order. Parts Two and Three linked.

Ace Bailey

Parallels between Bailey and Jabari Parker, a statistically poor NBA contributor drafted highly due to pre-NCAA hype, are too evident for me to retain much interest as a prospect.

This very static playstyle used to be a more frequent occurrence. Bailey’s game is a relic in that way, and it makes sense that people who may index more on their age/experience-based eye tests are bigger fans of him than statistically-based analysts.

I do not tax Bailey for his game being ‘outdated’. I’m sure there have been prospects that I’ve been fond of whose games did not have many recent parallels. I must tax him heavily because this archetype translates terribly and provides neutral to negative impact in the pace-and-space era. Relative to his statistical peers, he is younger by a few months, and this is a positive in his favor. He is also over twenty pounds lighter than the next-lightest prospect here, and this could surely hinder his ability to sustain balance through bumps, like those that would be needed to increase his free-throw and rim rates, as well as allowing him to match up with taller/heavier players.

Even accounting for age, I believe Bailey is substantially less contact-seeking than anyone else in this cohort (which tracks with the weight point). Even in Harrison Barnes’ case, when he rarely attacked the rim, he dunked and got fouled at a notable frequency. In the NBA, his ability to draw fouls is a ‘signature skill’ and one of the only notable traits I believe he’s provided to the league Ace’s signature skill appears to be making midrange shots at outlier accuracy. Below are my thoughts on that, summarized in Tweet form.

Like many a data-driven analyst alongside me, I will have to fade Ace Bailey’s pro outlook.

Final Ranking: 26th

Brooks Barnhizer

I did not know Barnhizer was in the prospect pool until about a week before the draft. At some point, I mistakenly believed had received clearance to do return to school, to the point he was on my 2026 returners rough draft list. Luckily, I also found my original notes on him, in the form of DMs. See below, from around February 16th.

“My barnhizer hype came from attempts at running Luc Mbah A Moute queries 😭 career 3.7 DRAPM or something completely all-time level insane”

“I’ll send query tomorrow but solid size, stocks without fouling, and ++ DREB influence was the concept and Barnboy was the only 2025 potential prospect. It caught hella other NBA DRAPM monsters too”

“We aren’t getting +7 wingspan from barn boy are we (referencing Mbah A Moute’s WS) … honestly in this class, I just need like +4 (probably still not, if even tests. He might get medical redshirt lmao)”

We can stick with the BarnBoy moniker, why not.

Naturally, I lost the originally mentioned query, but I believe I’ve reconstructed it using Mbah a Moute’s RealGM profile.

Def Reb % ≥ 18; Block % ≥ 2; Steal % ≥ 2.5; Fouls/40 ≤ 3.5; Height ≥ 78;

His measurements were rather impressive as well, with a 6'11 wingspan/229-pound frame giving him real defensive wing bully measurements, similar to Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder, or Stanley Johnson.

His offensive game would have made for an amazing Part Two of Anatomy of a Missed Layup/Layups Are Hard (with Caleb Love as the co-feature), as 54% at the rim/14 dunks on 900 FGA are jarringly low metrics.

Luckily, by virtue of being a High-Feel White Boy™, he still displayed a rare skill intersection on thae offensive end, and Northwestern was nationally elite and much better with him on the floor offensively in 2025 and 2023 vs t220 competition. Their best offensive season as a unit was in 2024, and he played 92 percent of the team’s possessions that season, voiding any small-sample data with him off the floor.

Barnhizer has as good an opportunity as anyone to continue the lineage of Kenrich Williams/Dean Wade ‘UDFA ++ defensive impact per minute’ wing forward. 26% from three on 64 attempts in his age-22 season is enough to keep him from edging out a guy like Walter Clayton or even the next prospect in alphabetical order.

Final Ranking: 28th

Oumar Ballo

Surprised and disappointing to see he’s not on the consensus top 100 board, after a prominent and impactful high-major collegiate career.

I was a Ballo denier for an embarrassingly long amount of time. Some of it was a roundabout jealously that he kept Motiejus Krivas, one of my my favorite projects in my two-plus years in player analysis, off the court. Some of it was using face-value metrics without team strategy in mind.

It is now quite clear to me why Ballo is an NBA-caliber big.

He is one of the biggest people in the world, measuring in at nearly 280 pounds with a 7'7 wingspan and over 9-foot standing reach at 2025 Portsmouth Invitational. As well, he is an elite rebounder on both ends, and is one of the better defensive rim deterrent bigs in college basketball. Playing five years in college and being 23 years old for his entire rookie season is an additional perk.

Below is a conversation with some of my most studious peers, where I was able to convert them into Ballo truthers.

The low block percentage is strategic, like his peers Kalk and Zach Edey. Players of such offensive importance to their teams cannot chase blocks, as the risk of fouling out is the difference between winning and losing. In 2022, Ballo was of less offensive importance to Arizona, sharing frontcourt minutes with Christian Koloko and Azoulas Tubelis, and he was able to chase blocks and foul with heavier volume.

He did post his career-low in DREB% in that season, which speaks to a major downside of ‘chasing’ blocks, that being taken away from rebounding opportunities.

He closed out his career at Indiana, where a multitude of off-court occurrences and public distain for his substantial NIL deal on a team that failed to make the NCAA tournament distracted the world from an extremely impressive individual campaign.

The biggest hurdle to him being a NBA-caliber talent is his free-throw accuracy. I have already researched this topic with a similarly poor shooter from the charity stripe in Mitchell Saxen in Anatomy of a Missed Layup, towards the bottom. Open that hyperlink, Ctrl+F, search Damian Jones, and learn about poor NCAA free throw shooters as pros. The sooner his improvements come, the more likely that he can play starter-level minutes in the NBA.

Final Ranking: 25th

Joan Beringer

Our first instance of a ‘blank entry’. Will be mostly international players. NCAA is king for pre-NBA prospects, outside of the most productive, and I distribute my evaluation time using this principle.

While it would be excellent to have thorough analysis for each and every prospect in class, it’s not within reason currently for my process. This time though, I will substantiate with articles or posts that led me to ranking the player accordingly.

Final Ranking: 23rd

Johni Broome

Broome was one of my first favorite prospects when I dedicated my life to the NileHoops lifestyle.

As I have improved as an analyst, I appreciated Broome’s intersection of elite rim protection, rebounding, and passing skills that make his NBA career a sure thing. There were points where I had him top five, in 2024 and beginning the 2025 cycle. His age-based production has never worried me. In learning more about shot diet, I concluded Broome may struggle even more as a rim finisher as a pro due to his lack of vertical elevation. His sheer volume of 2PT/rim attempts is massive, but his efficiency is notably a step below peers.

Luckily, his peers are some of the best college players of the 21st century.

The rest of his game is so refined (outside of such poor free-throw shooting, it just makes me sad) that there will be no way to keep him off the court. A three-year foundation of elite rebounding, shot-blocking, and positional playmaking with turnover aversion versus the hardest schedules in the nation is very easily one of the best players in the class, even without massive shooting upside. I will miss watching him play college basketball.

Broome’s Final Ranking: 12th

Carter Bryant

Bryant is the premier ‘big 3&D’ prospect, not only of this class, but potentially of his generation.

Bryant’s measurements and draft season 3PAr make an awesome outcome apparent: Shane Battier.

Battier’s heaviest RAPM influence was in Defensive FG%, which aligns with Bryant’s 90th percentile Spot-Up defensive PPP (min. 100 poss, D1) and team defensive impact.

The most admirable leaderboard trait Bryant exhibited during his lone season at Arizona was finishing in the top 1% of players in 3PAr out of Spot-Ups (min. 90 poss.), indicating an elite trigger that allows him to shoot over all contests. This is a valuable skill in the NBA, as proven by (prove it)

This is impressive alone for a player his size, but is increasingly more impressive as this season was his first time being a high-volume spot-up player.

Fears regarding a small NCAA shooting sample (3P att. ≤ 150; 2P att. ≤ 100;), and mediocre playmaking skills could end him closer to Taurean Prince than Battier or Green.

Volume 3PT shooting off-ball wings will never die, no matter how mediocre. Bryant’s floor is just that, but my elevated ranking is due to him exhibiting excellence versus high-end competition during his age-19 season.

The closest recent proxy to Bryant was Kansas Jayhawk Johnny Furphy, who I ranked 18th in last year’s class. Imagine if Furphy were a substantially better athlete, weighed nearly twenty more pounds at the combine, and had a wingspan three inches longer.

Final Ranking: 4th

Dylan Cardwell

I’ll let my boy Lukas have the floor, I believe he advocated for Cardwell’s prospect viability as well as I could have.

Final Ranking: 31st

Nique Clifford and Egor Demin

Clifford’s profile seems so gangster until you remember Niko Medved also had David Roddy just as turnt, and the latter wasn’t old enough to rent a car with no extra fees.

Clifford’s on-ball usage spike and the assist% boost that usually comes with it does look cool, and he went on a crazy run into the new year where he was arguably the most productive wing in the nation, but his physical measurements were slightly underwhelming and his stocks were depleted. This was surely due to larger offensive load, but at 23, genuine multi-faceted dominance is required. I was enough of a fan last year to respect his improvements and understand he may be able to run some NBA offense at his peak, while contributing in most aspects of the game.

Demin was one of the easiest prospects to fade all season, as I never fell for his Magic Johnson impression versus the University of Idaho.

Giving him another chance at the end of the season did give a bit more optimism to a 6'9 wing with solid playmaking feel, rebounds and defends without fouling at a mediocre level, and has massive room for improvement as a shooter, to the point that just being a regular weak shooter instead of a super-brick could make him playable in the future. PSA: Stop calling players with insane turnover issues “The Best Passer In The Class”, it’s very distasteful.

Clifford’s Final Ranking: 16th

Demin’s Final Ranking: 29th

VJ Edgecombe

Off Reb % ≤ 8, Assist % ≤ 20, 3PA/100 Poss ≤ 9, FG% at rim ≤ 0.65, Dunks made ≥ 20; Class = FrSo;

In English?

What happens when a young prospect:

• Can’t finish at the rim outside of transition or ‘open’ dunking lanes
• Lacks the size to grab offensive rebounds,
• Is without the facilitating skills to run an offense,
• And cannot generate three-point attempts at heavy volume?

Block Mirage

Edgecombe’s highlight reel of blocks substantiates claims of being a supreme athlete. While he is a ‘good’ to ‘very good’ functional athlete, hopes for a substantial ancillary rim protector should be quelled.

His early-season outlook was that of a generational disruptive force. Across his first seven games, Edgecombe ranked first in OREB% and BLK%, tied for fifth in dunks, and 21st in STL% among 231 high-major players listed 6'6 or smaller (min. 175 minutes.)

Making high-impact plays like this helped his draft outlook, while his scoring efficiency cratered (216th in TS% in the same sample and timespan). He proceeded to miss Baylor’s December 4th matchup with UConn, apparently to undergo an appointment removing all shot-blocking mechanics from his body. A block versus Abilene Christian with 8 minutes left in the first half was his last for over 300 minutes of his on-court minutes, or for nearly seven weeks of real time.

This period may not have been damning if another high-volume streak followed, but his final 16 games at Baylor further indicated that swatting the shots of Tarleton State and the University of New Orleans may not be the best indicator of anything at all. Edgecombe’s 11 dunks tied for sixth and his OREB% was t-10 among 213 6'6 or smaller HighMajor guards over the period, but a 1.6 BLK% placed him at a forgettable 32nd among the sample.

A prospect’s strengths being mirages feels more apparent for VJ than basically any other.

Baylor Tax

Quick: Name the best two Baylor recruits in the NBA in the Scott Drew era. Royce O’Neale and Davion Mitchell (who I hope you weren’t planning on saying anyways) were transfers.

One answer is 24-year-old Jared Butler, whose NBA win percentage is a ghastly .315. Have fun picking the other.

Their 2024-drafted freshmen?

Probably neither of them.

Edgecombe is meant to be better than all of these players based on his high school recruiting ranking and double-digit box plus-minus freshman season, but this does not entail him being particularly impactful at the NBA level. Scott Drew, being such an elite coach, can make flawed prospects look more advanced than they are.

For a more positive, and generally excellent, outlook on Edgecombe, see below. Ahmed and I shared notes on VJ in preparation of this amazing work, and his work absolutely taps into the vibe of our discussions.

Final Ranking: 10th

Noa Essengue

As explained with Beringer, international prospects are a blind spot, and I anchored him there based on the higher stock rates and AST:TO that he had with a smaller sample size. He was a strong third, now he’s a weaker one, but his full year age difference on Carter Bryant and a newfound appreciation for players that dominate in transition leave the Frenchman in his place.

Final Ranking: 3rd

Jeremiah Fears

I’ll be honest.

From November to December, I had Jeremiah Fears as my #2 prospect in the class. I even had a prediction that he’d have an insane breakout game versus Auburn on February 4th, and he’d then surpass Flagg, whose Le’Bryan Nash-esque game would have fizzled out by then (some silly query like this was the basis for the comparison.)

None of that happened, to a nearly comical degree. Oklahoma got smoked by 28 points in the predicted breakout matchup, and Fears played one of the worst games any NCAA prospect did all season, finishing with a -7 Box Plus-Minus, 5 turnovers, and a 19 EFG%. Flagg led the nation in Box Plus-Minus from the time of my post until the end of the season.

My high-end case for Fears would read similarly to anyone who ranks him highly today. An 18-year-old lead guard with elite steal and foul-drawing rates, along with pristine free-throw shooting priors that would eventually matriculate into jumpshooting accuracy.

Then, conference play began.

I can’t do anything with that, unfortunately.

The learning curve for young NBA guards is so steep. Drafting a player who has no chance of returning positive value on their rookie contract is a looming disaster.

Final Ranking: 32nd

NileHoops 2025 NBA Draft Board

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