The No. 1 team in college basketball has changed multiple times this season — first from Kansas to Tennessee in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, then from Tennessee to Auburn.
But do you know what hasn’t changed? The projected No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. Yes, in my eyes and in the minds of most, it’s still Cooper Flagg, the 6-foot-9 phenom who is leading Duke in points per game (20.0), rebounds per game (8.0), assists per game (4.2), steals per game (1.5) and blocks per game (1.2.). Even though he entered the sport with an unusual level of hype, even for a consensus top-ranked freshman, Flagg has managed to meet all expectations and arguably exceeded them. He only turned 18 four days before Christmas but is still the best player on one of college basketball’s two best teams in a year where the sport’s other best team (Auburn) is being led by a man who is 53 months older than Flagg and the biggest obstacle between him possibly becoming the youngest winner in the history of the John. R. Wooden Award.
That man’s name is Johni Broome.
He’s in this mock draft, too.
Because Broome will be 23 years old on Opening Night of his rookie year, some front offices will likely eliminate him from first-round consideration. That’s fine. But with tax bills getting outrageous in the NBA, it’s maybe never been more important than it is right now to have impactful players on rookie contracts. Most franchises with three-or-more big-contract players have a difficult time filling out their rosters, and a franchise like that should be the type who considers Broome in the first round, because if you select him outside of the top 20, what you’ll have is a plug-and-play rotation piece making less than $3 million next season.