Which Mock Drafts Best Predicted The 2025 NBA Draft?

The 2025 NBA Draft is complete and it’s time to reflect.

We’ve already handed out draft-night grades but now it’s time to assess the very basis of those grades! Over here at Basketball Insiders, we’ve compiled eight different mock drafts to see who performed the best (and worst).

The sites used are ESPN, The Athletic, The Ringer, NBADraft.net, NBA Draft Room, CBS, Yahoo, CBS (Gary Parrish) and Tankathon.

Without further adieu, here’s how the mock drafts were “marked.”

Three shades of green were used for accurate picks: the darkest shade for exactly the right pick, one shade lighter for being a spot off, and another shade lighter for being two picks off. Three picks off is neutral and in white.

After that, we get into the negative marking. Being four picks off gets you a yellow, five picks off is an orange and anything more than that is red.

For example, in the table below, you’ll see Tankathon was the only site to get all of the first seven picks exactly right. On the flip side, no one came close to having Yang Hansen at No. 16, so every site is in the red there.

Which Outlet Had The Best Mock Draft?

Other than Egor Demin going eighth to the Brooklyn Nets and a few outlets missing on Noa Essengue, the first 15 picks are pretty clean. It’s hard to expect perfection when trades take place and different teams get involved.

It is fair to ask, though, why no one was able to gather the intel the Nets had prioritized point guard for this Draft. Beyond Demin, Nolan Traore and Ben Saraf also wound up selected by Brooklyn.

The other point of interest is seeing just how much Kasparas Jakucionis dropped. Widely projected in the top 13, his drop to 20th was a surprise to most except Yahoo, which had him 22nd.

Probably the most straightforward way to measure which outlet had the best mock draft was to stack up the total differential: the difference between where a player was picked and where he was mocked, then adding up that difference for all 30 picks.

The winner in this regard was NBA Draft Room with a differential of 109 over the entire first round. Yahoo was second at 114 and ESPN finsihed third at 116. CBS (they have four analysts and we used Gary Parrish) finished worst at 160.

It should be noted The Ringer only covers the first round, so it was assigned the same mock number as whichever other outlet was worst. For example, Yang Hansen was projected lowest by Tankathon at 42, so that same number was assigned to The Ringer.

Back Half Of First Round Wreaks Havoc

What was interesting about this Draft is just how much mocks struggled in the second half of the first round.

The average differential over the first 15 picks was 34, compared to 99 for picks 16-30. That means, on average, mock drafts misplaced players by 2.26 spots per player over the first 15 picks, then by 6.6 spots per player over the next 15.

Seven trades were made between the 16th and 29th picks, which surely had an impact.

No one fared better over the first 15 picks than ESPN with a differential of 27, followed by a tie between Tankathon and NBA Draft.net at 33.

NBA Draft Room was the runaway winner in the back half of the first round with a differential of 73. Yahoo was next at 81, followed by ESPN at 91. CBS was the worst at 121, followed by Tankathon at 116.

Was it just an off day for some and a great day for others? Stay tuned next year to see the trend.