The NBA might be getting better at scouting. The draft classes might just be getting deeper with better NCAA and international development. Whatever the reason is, the top of the second round doesn’t seem like as much of a crapshoot as it used to be.
When the second round of the NBA Draft starts, there is surely to be a reminder graphic on the television broadcast that lets fans know about the gems certain teams discovered in the second round.
For the longest time it felt like that graphic included players like Chandler Parsons, Draymond Green and Nikola Jokic who were all drafted over a decade ago. The names on that graphic are sure to be younger this time around, and if that can translate to the early portion of this year’s second round, the Sixers should be able to get a good player at No. 35 overall.
Let’s begin our recent historical overview with the 2021 second round. The 35th overall pick in that draft was a player that some Sixers fans might have interest in acquiring this offseason. New Orleans selected Herb Jones at that pick and Jones is now on a team-friendly second contract with two years until he hits free agency. One of the nice things about second-round success stories like Jones is that even when the team hits on the pick, a good second-rounder isn’t going to become good right away. Therefore, the player’s second contract will still be somewhat friendly to the team because practically no second-round pick is going to command a max deal coming off the rookie contract. That’s why Jones is interesting on the trade market right now. If Jones were on a better team, he’d fit in well as a starter behind a couple of max players.
There were a couple of guards selected in the 30s in 2021 after Jones who might not have the ceiling Jones has, but seemed to have carved out roles as rotation players. Miles McBride was the 36th overall selection and Ayo Dosunmu went 38th overall. McBride has become a reliable bench shooter for the Knicks who gets plenty of playoff minutes as Sixers fans saw in 2024. Dosunmu has started about half of the NBA games he’s appeared in, thanks in large part to the fact that Chicago doesn’t have enough talent to cement Dosunmu on the bench, but his numbers still look worthy of being the 7th or 8th man in a rotation on a contender. Would you really complain with this kind of player on the Sixers given the player was a second-rounder?
There were a couple players selected in the 30s in 2022 that are playing in the NBA Finals. Indiana took Andrew Nembhard 31st overall and Nembhard came right in and started 63 games as a rookie in 2022-23. Nembhard is now a regular starter for the Pacers. Jaylin Williams was selected by Oklahoma City at 34 in 2022. He might not be Jalen Williams, but Jaylin Williams still gives the Thunder 15-20 minutes a night in the regular season and has played about 10 minutes per game in the playoffs on a super deep Thunder team.
While 2023 does not appear to be a stellar second round, the early returns from the 2024 second-rounders are positive after their rookie seasons. Utah selected Kyle Filipowski with the first pick of the second round last year and Filipowski averaged about 10 points per game off the bench for the Jazz and shot 35% from the three-point line. When all is said and done, Jaylen Wells might be the best pick of the entire 2024 NBA Draft as Wells came right in for a Memphis team that made the play-in tournament, started 74 games and contributed admirably on both ends of the floor as a the 39th pick. Lastly, the Sixers took Adem Bona at 41 last year and I think many fans that suffered through last season are going into 2025-26 feeling optimistic about Bona’s development and where he can go from here.
Without getting too far in the weeds, we wanted to prove a point that there is talent to be found in the early portion of the second round. Not every team can do it, but if I told you that three of the 10 picks in the 30s were going to make their second contracts with the team that drafts them, you’d sign up for those odds and hope the Sixers were one of those three teams that took one of those prospects, right?
As you can see from the players we highlighted, some become starters. Some become impact bench players and others become bottom-of-the-rotation players who do enough to stay in the NBA. Any one of those three outcomes should be viewed as an acceptable outcome for the 35th overall pick. It’s certainly far from a guarantee that Philadelphia gets a good player with that selection, but the pick should not be viewed as a lottery ticket anymore either.