2025 Summer League vs Predraft Analysis
Extremely early first look at 2025 draft prospects on their NBA teams
NBA Summer League offers the first look at the newly drafted prospects on their new NBA teams. Any conclusions based on summer league data needs to take into account the short timeframe from the draft (only 2 weeks), the small sample size of games (a potential max of 6 if prospects even play all of the games), and the different rules (40 minute games with 10 personal fouls before ejection). Keeping all of this in mind, there are insights to be learned regarding the team’s direction on a prospect’s role.
The main reason that I wanted to analyze multiple neighbours for each prospect is not only for a range of potential outcomes (star, starter, rotation, fringe), but also a range of potential roles. How a team chooses to develop a prospect is important as the prospect needs to be given the opportunity in a role before succeeding in said role. So this article will focus more on intriguing role glimpses of selected prospects rather than any conclusions of projected NBA efficiency which would be volatile statistically due to the reasons outlined above.
I’ve added the summer league data for each prospect’s individual page:
Most of the 1st rounders and top prospects with more detailed analysis used in creating my big board can be found on this page:
https://drewdatadesign.substack.com/s/2025-nba-draft-prospect-profiles
Most of the 2nd rounders and undrafted prospects with shorter summaries can be found on this page:
https://drewdatadesign.substack.com/s/2025-likely-2nd-rounders-short-summaries
Interesting 2025 Summer League Draft Prospect Roles
1. Egor Demin (Pick 8)
The Brooklyn Nets had one of the more eventful draft nights with 5 1st round picks and using 3 of them on questionable shooting PGs (Demin, Traore, Saraf) and a 4th in Danny Wolf who functioned as a playmaking big. There’s only 1 ball and only 1 potential assist on each possession, even though there is offensive value in the untracked “hockey assist” in basketball. So the question regarding all of these prospects is what are they going to be producing on the offensive end when they are not assisting?
Predraft I theorized about Demin’s offball wing potential with his physical tools (6' 8.25'' height and 6' 10.25'' wingspan), but Demin’s poor wing-focused production such as orb% compared to his 6 foot PG neighbours did question that role possibility. Demin alongside the other playmaking prospects in Summer League had less of a playmaking role compared to NCAA (lower usg, ast% with the same tov%) and had more of an offball role.
orb% noticeably increased by 3x his NCAA stat
FGA/40 was similar with 3PA/40 doubled in Summer League
Demin attempted the same amount of FGA, but with a much larger 3pa rate (and subsequently lower 2pa rate). A higher 3pa rate would be beneficial for Demin to function offball to provide better offensive spacing. Increasing Demin’s offball production with his wing dimensions would help him fit in a starting lineup next to high usage scorers and playmakers.
2. Collin Murray-Boyles (Pick 9)
CMB was one of the prospects I was higher on compared to consensus rankings. I was particularly interested in seeing CMB’s offensive role in Summer League as he featured in lineups with most of the Raptors projected bench players in the upcoming season.
usg in Summer League was below avg at 18.2. This number will likely drop even lower with high usage starters incorporated in the lineup. CMB in his sophomore year had a 27 usg as the 1st option on an overmatched South Carolina team in the tough SEC. Even as a NCAA freshman with a lower offensive role, CMB had an above average usg of 22.9.
FGA/40 dropped slightly and 3PA/40 almost tripled (this means that 2PA/40 dropped significantly). CMB was efficient from 2P% as a low usage freshman (0.61) and managed to raise his 2P% as a high usage sophomore to 0.62. Increasing the 3pa rate is necessary for CMB to be an effective NBA wing, but will the low 2P attempts will continue for CMB going forwards?
CMB can still be a productive NBA player even with a low usg and 2P attempts as he offers defensive and playmaking value, but part of the appeal to me as a prospect was his offensive efficiency from 2P% as both a role player (freshman year) and lead scorer (sophomore year). If the trend continues, there is potential that CMB’s offensive game will become similar to Draymond Green, functioning more as a playmaker, screener, and occasional 3P shooter. This would be slightly underwhelming for CMB’s offensive potential as Green has the unique opportunity to playmake with 2 of the greatest 3P shooters in NBA history and Green never had CMB’s 2P scoring potential in his 4 year NCAA career. Green’s NBA career usg is a low 15.5 and peaked at a still below average 18.8.
A wing-sized Evan Mobley was my comp for CMB on both the offensive and defensive end and Mobley’s usg was 23.4 as a NCAA freshman, 20.4 as a NBA rookie and peaked last year at 23.2 (due to large increase in 3PA as 2PA actually decreased). Will CMB will be given the opportunity to develop his NBA offensive role from both 3P% and 2P% like Mobley or will he be limited to the offensive Draymond Green role?
3. Khaman Maluach (Pick 10)
Maluach was one of the prospects I was lower on compared to consensus rankings. Rather than focusing on some of the more underwhelming Summer League stats (3P%, FT%, ast%, ast/to) which can be volatile in a small sample size, I was more intrigued by Maluach’s potential role as a stretch 5.
usg was above average at 23.4 when it was below average at Duke next to top 4 picks Flagg and Kon.
Massive 3PA/40 jump to 7.382 (more than 9x increase from NCAA)
large oreb% drop to 9.2
The Suns are really experimenting with Maluach’s stretch 5 potential which I theorized predraft is one avenue that Maluach can outperform his traditional C neighbours because he trailed in offensive and defensive playmaking. If Maluach does develop into an effective stretch 5 role, it may also affect his other offensive advantage that he had over his predraft neighbours (oreb%).
There is a zonal conflict of being a stretch 5 and offensive rebounds. By definition a stretch 5 is as far from the rim as possible, usually above the break and at least 24 feet away. This zonal placement is necessary to pull defenders away from the rim and allow teammates to operate below the 3 point line. However by being the furthest player from the rim, the stretch 5 is also likely the furthest away from most rebounds. This leads to a zonal conflict for Maluach as 1 area of offensive value (stretch 5) requires him to be far from the rim and the 2nd area of offensive value (oreb and dunks) requires him to be close to the rim. There are several offensive possessions in a game, so Maluach can be in different areas on different possessions, but this requires a balance so that Maluach in the right zonal location on the right possession. Maluach’s role in the NBA will be fascinating to see if he can optimize both his 3PA and oreb% or if there ends up being a significant tradeoff due to the zonal conflict.
4. Noa Essengue (Pick 12)
Noa was the 1st prospect from an international league drafted which has much fewer potential neighbour comparisons than the NCAA prospects. Summer League allows for an opportunity to determine how well the stats from the German league and Eurocup translate to fringe NBA competition.
usg was above average in Summer League at 23.4 when it was average predraft (19.5 in German league and 20 in Eurocup)
FTR dropped significantly in Summer League to 0.417 when it was extremely high predraft (0.742 in German league and 0.812 in Eurocup)
If Noa’s absurdly high predraft FTR from the German league and Eurocup isn’t translatable to the NBA, then Noa’s offensive ceiling is considerably less high than I projected predraft.
5. Hansen Yang (Pick 16)
Without a doubt the most fascinating pick in the 2025 NBA Draft to me was Hansen Yang. The prospect I had by far the least data on as he played in the Chinese league where the only recent draft prospects were lottery PG Mudiay and Zhou Qi, a 2nd round pick C who played only 19 NBA games. Yang produced better as a playmaker than Zhou, but when most of the other advantages favoured Zhou, I downgraded Yang’s NBA rotation player potential. With Yang in Summer League, it allows for a closer glimpse of his production against fringe NBA competition rather than the CBA.
usg was almost identical in Summer League to predraft as a slightly above average 21.3
ast% increased significantly to 23.6 (tov% also increased to 28%)
3PA/40 more than tripled
Yang as a possible Jokic-lite playmaking C is a very intriguing potential development to follow. Producing a 23.6% ast% against fringe NBA competition as a C, even with the high tov%, is noteworthy as is his ast/tov of 1 especially only 2 weeks post-draft with all new teammates.
The increased 3 point rate is noteworthy as well for his stretch 5 potential. If Yang is a threat from 3 as a stretch 5, this complements his playmaking role nicely (unlike Maluach’s orb% and rim runner conflict as a stretch 5) as this allows for more space for teammates to operate below the 3 point line and for Yang to pass to offball cutters.
Yang as a pseudo-Jokic archetype will be fascinating to track as it will be for another playmaking C, Danny Wolf. Whether these 2 prospects will be first given the role to playmake with their high turnover issues and whether the rest of their games (defense, shooting, inside scoring) will be good enough to be a starter or rotation C.
Whatever the outcome, Yang as a mid round 1 pick from the Chinese league will become a very welcome addition as a neighbour comparison for any future Chinese league prospects.
6. Jase Richardson (Pick 25)
The prospect that had one of the largest differences between my big board (6th) and where he was drafted (25th) was Jase. Predraft I labelled Jase a prospect test case who may have innate PG skill that was masked as a 6th man and offball guard at Michigan St. Summer League was Jase’s first opportunity to run PG as a starter.
ast% rose to 20.9
tov% dropped to 8.1
ast/tov rose to 2.5
Jase only played 2 Summer League games so I don’t want to overreact to any stats in a small sample, but I noted Jase’s game against the Raptors in particular. The Raptors in particular got the memo about the Summer League rules and customized their game. Summer League rules of 40 minutes and 10 personal fouls per player before ejection means that defences can be hyper aggressive hunting steals which the Raptors did in leading the NBA Summer league with 14.2 steals/game (https://www.nba.com/2025-summer-league-vegas-team-stats?dir=D&sort=STL). Jase had to run PG against older and more experienced guard defenders like Shead and held his own. In a game consisting of 22 tov by the Raptors and 27 tov by the Magic where almost all players on both teams were turning the ball over, Jase remains unscathed with a sparking 4 ast to 1 tov game.
This will likely be the most opportunity Jase will have to run as a PG anytime soon as he is on the Magic with a number of young capable playmakers in Paolo, Franz, Bane and Suggs. The fact that this is now the 3rd different role (NCAA 6th Man, NCAA offball guard, NBA Summer League Starting PG) where Jase has managed a low tov%, high ast/tov and increasing his ast% leads more evidence that there is a starting PG ability in Jase that can be developed. Whether he eventually will be given the opportunity and role in the NBA remains to be seen.
