The 2025 NBA Draft is just days away which means most of the Big Boards have been settled and most of the mocks are either the same or very similar based on circulating intel. And yet every year there are players who slip in the draft and wind up outperforming their draft slot. Like clockwork.
For the purposes of this exercise we will call those players sleepers.
Accordingly, I have come up with a list of players who are positioned — at least as we stand here before the draft — to potentially produce more value than where they are currently projected to be drafted. This list can and probably will change because basketball is as much about a fit and system as it is about talent. But the five listed below are the ones who in a vacuum I think fit to a T who I think of in this class when I think of sleepers.
2025 NBA Draft: The most likely pick for every team inside the top 10
Cameron Salerno
Cedric Coward | SG | Washington State
Coward elevated himself from a fringe potential second-round pick this spring into a surefire first-rounder over the course of the summer thanks to a strong predraft process that included a killer showing at the NBA Draft Combine and aces across the board in private team meetings. That fits the type of rise we’ve seen from Coward, who began his basketball career at the Division III level before playing his way up levels over the last couple of years.
The 6-foot-5 Coward has a 7-2 wingspan and is a career 39% 3-point shooter that helps him profile as a 3-and-D type wing with room to grow into more. His ascension over the last 60 days has been reminiscent of Jalen Williams during his predraft process in 2022, which culminated with him becoming the No. 12 pick — and eventually a focal point of a Thunder team that is now NBA champion.
Drake Powell | SF | North Carolina
Once a former five-star recruit projected as a top-10 pick, Powell and North Carolina last season turned out to be a marriage that for myriad reasons didn’t quite fit. I still believe in Powell’s talent, though, and the peripherals of his profile are very encouraging. He was in the 81st percentile on catch-and-shoot opportunities at UNC and rated in the 84th percentile on finishing at the rim, per Synergy data.
All the while he routinely blew up plays on the defensive end with his energy and infectious enthusiasm as a wing weapon. I’m buying all the Powell stock and I think he’ll be a steal if he falls anywhere in the 20s.
Rasheer Fleming | PF | Saint Joseph’s
Three years playing in the Atlantic 10 with Saint Joseph’s was all it took for Fleming to work his way into the first-round discussion. Standing at 6-8 with a 7-5 wingspan, he hit a career-high 39% on 3s last season as one of the team’s top scoring options and rated out very well as a defender across a number of situations.
He’s physically mature and polished enough to contend for a role on a quality team if taken late in the 20s, where I think he could land.
Ryan Kalkbrenner | C | Creighton
How it’s possible for a 7-1 center to fly under the radar is beyond my comprehension. But that appears to be the case with Kalkbrenner. My hunch is that it’s his age (he’s 23 and spent five seasons in college) and that it’s a deep class for bigs that is keeping his profile somewhat low. But to be clear: it shouldn’t be. He was a four-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year winner at Creighton who improved each year as a scorer and became a real shooting threat late in his college tenure.
He checks the boxes of a stretch big who can hold his own defensively, even if it is only in drop coverage. I firmly believe Kalkbrenner could be a potential starter or at worst a key rotation big in the NBA, which would return huge value for where he is expected to be selected. I’d be fine taking him as early as No. 20 but he could wind up being taken as late as the 30s.
Alijah Martin | SG | Florida
Martin was the second-leading scorer and fourth-leading 3-point shooter by percentage on a Florida team last season that marched to a national title behind a devastating 3-point attack and an offense predicated on playing to his strengths.
He helped lead two teams to the Final Four in his college career (FAU and Florida) and has the statistical profile of a potential first round pick packaged into a likely second-rounder having hit 36.4% on 3-pointers for his career and averaging 12.5 points per game in five seasons. He’s a physical marvel who can fly on defense and soar above the rim and tough as nails to boot. He’s someone I’d love to sneak onto my roster somewhere in the second round and his prove-it mindset makes me think he sticks in the NBA.
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