It’s time for us to take a good look at the 2018 NBA draft class.
The play of that draft class’s number one overall pick Deandre Ayton and the meteoric rise of Trae Young as an NBA playoff superstar has completely shifted the thought process of how many viewed this class of players.
A year ago, many would have looked at this as the Luka draft. While Young was good in Atlanta, he wasn’t winning consistently enough to turn heads. Ayton wasn’t nearly the same player he’s blossomed to this postseason and Jaren Jackson Jr. has been legit but he’s been dealing with injuries his whole career.
This postseason has opened our eyes to so much talent in this draft class that we have to start considering it one of the deepest of the last decade.
And not to mention the players who aren’t even in the playoffs this year but are still hooping during the regular season like Collin Sexton, Gary Trent Jr., Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Miles Bridges, and Devonte’ Graham, to name a few.
The 2011 class will be in a class of its own for now when we look back on drafts of that decade. You can’t argue with Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, Kemba Walker, Jimmy Butler, and Kyrie Irving.
But the 2018 class might have an argument for the second-best draft class of the last decade in competition with the 2017 class that gave us Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell, and Bam Adebayo and the 2016 class which gave us Ben Simmons, Jaylen Brown, Jamal Murray, and Brandon Ingram. The 2018 class already has the best player of any of those guys in Luka and you could make an argument that 2018 has better role players positioned in the later picks.
If everything progresses the way that it should, the 2018 class will have a profound impact on the league for the next 10 to 15 seasons.
The 2018 class is nothing to play with — these guys can hoop for real.
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