Preseason View of the 2012 Draft Class

This week marked the official beginning of the college basketball season. While the prospect of a 6 month season is odd at best, playing a game on an aircraft carrier made it well worth watching. With the influx of new freshmen talent, in addition to the higher-than-typical number of prospects that returned to school this fall, there's a lot of talent to be evaluated in this year's season. With that in mind, it's a good idea to take a look at where players stand as we start the season. Using, in my opinion, the most reliable mock draft sources (here and here), this is how the players look going into the season.


TIER 1: CONSENSUS LOTTERY PICKS

The first thing to note is the draft positions of 0. While it's difficult to say who's definitely going pro and who's not (especially after last year), McAdoo, Beal, and Ross are considered top 10 picks in the 2013 draft, so they make this tier. Patric Young is probably the only questionable inclusion, but at least that leaves something up for debate.

Terrence Jones will be an interesting case to follow this year, given his current draft position. Conventional wisdom says that coming back to school would give him a chance to improve his game and show it off to scouts, whose new evaluations would move him up the board. After being a consensus lottery pick last year, he's currently the last consensus lottery pick on the board this year. We'll see if his choice to come back as a sophomore looks more like Blake Griffin or Devin Ebanks by the end of this year.


TIER 2: 1ST ROUND CONSIDERATION

The only consistent thing about this group is that it's all in the eye of the beholder. People could literally argue all day about how a player would function on an NBA court (Henson, Yarou), whether the college fit of system and player overstates pro potential (Taylor, Marshall), or if passing the eyeball test is enough to make a player worth the pick (Leslie, Dedmon). But here's some facts: there are 21 people on this list, for 16 picks. There were 15 people on the lottery list, for 14 picks. That means that end of the 1st round in June 2012, at least 6 of these players will either be waiting for next year or hoping they make it on a non-guaranteed contract.