2026 NBA Draft Evaluation Model V3
NBA Draft Sleepers and Hopefuls. Some Future College Players as well.
Here is the third iteration of the series I started last year for the Draft Prospect Evaluation Tool. If you never seen this before please take a look at the post I have linked below explaining how these rankings are determined. In short, this is an excel model I created that generates ratings based on multiple factors and are completely unbiased and strictly rely on basketball data to generate a player rating for each player.
After my last post I meant to go back and update the below post to include something in there for the NCAA candidates that I’ll be including in these, but that will come later.
NBA Draft Prospect Evaluation Model
If you have read my other recent posts, you would know that I have been working on an Excel Code to rank NBA Draft Prospects. After multiple iterations I have finally found something that I am happy with. This model is based on the following:
Ratings as of 02/25/2026
The biggest disappointment this year has been Miika Muurinen, averaging only 7 minutes per game; he is losing valuable development time. Obviously he is going up against these guys in practice everyday but there is nothing like in game reps. Miika will be in college next year after a disappointing year overseas. Crazy to think that he may have left a ton of money on the table by going overseas to play pro (wild how far college basketball has come…). After the summer circuit Miika had he would’ve commanded top dollar from every Blue Chip Program in college basketball, now I wonder what his NIL deals will be.
Karim Lopez is a consensus Top-15 guy, this model does not have him rated very high though. We do need to remember he is an 18 year old putting up these stats, he has a ton of time to grow and come into his own. This is a guy I have no problem drafting right outside the Top 10 of this loaded class.