Will Tipton’s Senior Sleepers
A collection of win-now talents that will help your favorite team in the postseason for years to come…
As the NBA postseason inches on, with the best of the best fighting it out for the chance to be crowned NBA champs, the NBA Draft looms in the coming month. The best prospects slated to be selected are currently in Chicago participating in the NBA Draft combine, showcasing their talent for a slew of NBA scouts and decision makers.
Every NBA executive and pundit is raving about the potential of this year's draft class, with froshes such as the generational Duke forward Cooper Flagg, dynamic Rutgers guards Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, and the explosive Baylor guard V.J. Edgecombe being the presumptive top four guys to go off the board. (The Dallas Mavs man, I can’t believe their luck….)
There are plenty of worthy candidates for lottery selections in Chicago as well this week, with a wide-ranging selection of promising underclassmen and international players slated to be picked.
Watching the NBA postseason, I always gravitate to the star caliber guys on every team, the players scoring key buckets for their squad and garnering the headlines. The gravitas of Nikola Jokic, the flair of Anthony Edwards, the greatest shooter to play this beautiful game in Steph Curry. I can go on and on…
The stars of the NBA make us believe the impossible is possible, and that is what makes the months of May and June so special to watch. But as they say, it doesn’t mean a thing without the ring.
Winning on the margins, finding role players to accentuate the best players on a given team, that’s how championships are won.
Derrick White, one of the best role players in the National Basketball Association on the reigning champion Boston Celtics, was the 29th pick of the 2017 draft. Payton Pritchard, the Sixth Man of the Year winner this past season, engineering a career year on the C’s, was the 26th pick of the 2020 draft. Herb Jones, a do-everything defender for the Pelicans with go-go gadgets for arms, a guy any NBA team would kill to have on their squad: the 35th pick of the 2021 draft.
All of these fantastic NBA role players were seniors coming into the draft.
The constant search for young talent has made collegiate upperclassmen somewhat of an afterthought when it comes to the draft, and that honestly boggles my mind as someone who follows the NCAA season as close as humanly possible. I get that a lot of the great college players who make their stamp on the game as four-year players are in college that long for a reason.
Historically, college seniors who are selected high in the draft either don’t make nearly as much of an impact as their younger counterparts, along with not having as high of a ceiling with being in a college weight room and gym for a prolonged period of time.
This, on paper, makes taking them with a high draft pick much more of a risk then taking a chance on a collegiate freshman that has more upside and untapped potential being in the pros.
This has devalued upperclassmen in the draft, and has for the past almost-decade, caused high impact, win-now players to slip to teams that plug and play these guys and impact winning on a high level. You look at the college game now too, and there is more talent than ever staying in school with the prospect of making more money off of name, image, and likeness compared to a two-way level contract in the NBA.
The 2025 NBA Draft is on par with some of the best draft classes in recent memory, and it is full of guys I can see making an immediate impact for teams right away. Here are three of my “guys” entering this draft class.
John Tonje
Guard, Wisconsin - 2024-25 Season Stats (19.6 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 1.8 APG, 46.5 FG%, 38.8 3P%, 90.0 FT%)
Draft Projection - 2nd Round
At one point, the New Mexico Lobos in the 2024 offseason had a roster of Donovan Dent, John Tonje, JT Toppin, and Nelly Junior Joseph.
Good lord.
That would have been an incredible squad to watch wreak havoc on the Mountain West but I digress. JT Toppin ended up transferring to Texas Tech and John Tonje flipped his initial commitment to the New Mexico Lobos to Greg Gard and the Wisconsin Badgers. Tonje, who was injured for almost all of 2023-2024 season at Missouri, made his impact felt early in the season in an upset victory against the Arizona Wildcats, putting up 41 points and going 4-6 from beyond the arc, while getting to the line 22 TIMES and knocking down 21 of those attempts at the charity stripe.
Talk about a loud introduction to the country or what, huh?
This incredible performance by the 6’5” wing from Omaha, Nebraska epitomized what Tonje provided for the Badgers this season: instant offense, where he utilized his big powerful frame to get downhill and finish through contact or draw fouls at an astonishing rate throughout the entire season. As a true three-level scorer, he consistently created offense as a one-man wrecking crew when the offense had ground to a halt time and time again versus some of college basketball's best defenses in the Big Ten. Tonje had 32 points against Michigan State to send the Badgers to the Big Ten Championship, 31 in a win versus Illinois, and 32 to upset Purdue on the road in one of the most hostile environments in the country at Mackey Arena.
The hyper-efficient scoring wing got it done against top competition, and the analytics back it up.
Here is a list of players in the NCAA this past year that garnered over 60 minute percentage%, Offensive rating > 120.0, usage rating > 20.0, Free Throw Rate > 40.0, with 50/35 2P%-3P% splits:
Bruce Thornton, Chad Baker-Mazara, Cooper Flagg, and John Tonje.
Not bad company to be in for Mr. Tonje.
High usage, highly-efficient offensive weapons are few and far between in the sport of college basketball, and his analytic profile makes him all the more attractive to draftees in the second round.
This is not to mention the eye test backs up the ability for Tonje to shoot off the catch, take it to the rack off of closeouts, and make tough shots in the mid-range off balance as a pure scorer.
The Wisconsin offense was unrecognizable compared to years past in a good way, scrapping the swing offense in favor of a motion, ball continuity offense that resembled much more an NBA style of offense then the lethargic pace of some of the Badgers’ prior years.
Tonje utilized this in his mercenary season with the Badgers at a high level, getting mismatches off of ball screens where he could size up his defender and get into his bag of tricks, whether that be a variety of stepbacks, lulling his man into the paint to rise up for a 15-20 footer, or just barreling into the paint where he really made his bread and butter.
You see guards at the next level excel at this á la Cade Cunningham and Jalen Brunson, maneuvering into the paint and getting to two feet, while utilizing a variety of up fakes and step throughs to either draw a foul or get a clean look off glass or the rim at a high level.
Tonje thrived at this at a high level, generating an astounding 254 free throws across the course of the year! His absurd 90% clip at the line on high volume is a promising talking point for Tonje’s shooting potential as he enters the league.
Tonje is not without weaknesses, as he has an average defensive acumen and a paltry steal percentage (1.4%) in college. It’s not like he cannot hold his own on that end of the court though, with a thick burly frame and a 6’9” wingspan that lends itself well to stopping much stronger offensive players from taking advantage of him on that end of the court. I believe he can be a much better defender than he showed at Wisconsin. There was an extremely heavy burden on him to generate offense in college, and he will not be asked to do nearly as much as a role player on an NBA court.
On the offensive end, he was not a distributor by any means, registering a higher TO% then AST% rate every season he played college basketball. Not being a ball dominant player at the next level while improving decision-making in the open court lends itself well to his potential, but this is the defining weakness in his game that will have to improve when facing the athletic freak defenders that await him in the NBA.
Shot creation, catch and shoot opportunities, and holding his own on the defensive end will keep him in the league, and all three of those boxes were checked in my eyes all season.
This guy is an ultra sleeper in this year's draft, so don’t be surprised when you tune into the playoffs in a couple years and John Tonje is coming off the bench to drill a stepback three for an NBA contender. Heavy Baylor Scheierman/Terrance Shannon Jr. vibes from the Madison, Wisconsin man.
Ryan Nembhard
Guard, Gonzaga - 2024-25 Season Stats (10.5 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 9.8 APG, 44.6 FG%, 40.4 3P%, 77.0 FT%)
Draft Projection - Late Second Round
If this postseason has shown us anything, it is that it is such a luxury to have a secondary ball-handler on the team that can run the show in the absence of a team's main guy. The Pacers are a primary example of that, with the wizard floor general Tyrese Haliburton at the sticks. They run and run and run to try to bait teams into keeping up with them in a shootout. As Kenny Atkinson said in the postgame press conference after the Cavaliers were eliminated in game five, they play like a college team!
To put the pressure on opponents full throttle all game, the Pacers employ multiple initiators of offense within their rotation other than Haliburton, such as wily vet TJ McConnell and combo guard Andrew Nembhard. This enables the Pacers to utilize their style for a full 48 minutes and never let their opponents get a rest from this break-neck style of pace. It also helps when Nembhard is an absolute playoff riser, showcasing a super slept-on skill set, getting to his spots on the court in the pick-and-roll, spot up shooting, and with tricks resembling a 10-year vet’s rather than a player still on his rookie contract!
In game five, I witnessed a stretch of play by Nembhard where he:
A. Absolutely pulls the chair out from under Cleveland Cavaliers guard Ty Jerome on a drive to the cup and causes a turnover leading to a patented Indy fast break.
B. Gets a feed on the perimeter, then employs a no-dip three pointer. Even though he missed, he still followed his own miss with ferocity.
C. On a drive to the rim, employs a lethal shoulder bump move that Nembhard has mastered, it seems, this 2025 postseason, and got the and-1 on Max Strus to further push the Pacers lead.
Defensive intensity, role-playeresque tricks that contribute to winning basketball, and the rage of modern day basketball: shooting beyond the arc. Nembhard has been the X-Factor for this Pacers ECF run, and guess what? There’s a mini version of Andrew coming into the league this draft.
Meet Ryan Nembhard.
They both went to Gonzaga, and the brothers have a strikingly similar analytic profile.
Both are highly intelligent ball handlers that make their mark as efficient shooters, contribute to high offensive ratings when they are on the court, and are pesky defenders on opposing lead guards.
But Andrew is more of a jumbo combo guard and has more of an impact on pressuring the interior of a defense off the bounce and in the pick and roll with drives to the rim. Ryan is much more of a “pure” point guard, really popping off the tape with his savviness in the two-man game especially.
That 41.5% AST rate is no typo. The six-footer out of Canada averaged almost a double-double in points + assists for the Zags, and if you programmed your ideal lead guard in a lab, you would want him to play like Ryan Nembhard.
The pick and roll Nembhard ran with big man Graham Ike was a thing of beauty, and Nembhard had so many options that he employed to great effectivity.
Switch the big man onto Nembhard? He shot 56% at the rim in the 2024-25 season, and was great at getting off glass when he got to the paint, finishing through contact.
Drop coverage? One of Ryan’s signature moves was a snake dribble where he got to the opposing elbow and rose up for a buttery jumper that stands out as one of his NBA quality traits.
Well, those strategies aren’t working, ice him maybe? Nice try doing that against one of the best ball handlers and decision makers in the game of college basketball. The man recorded 10+ assists 19 times last year! He had a fully stocked kitchen of scorers in the Gonzaga offense, and he loved to get everyone a bucket over the course of the game.
You look at his tape when he previously played at Creighton for two years, and he flashed the same elite vision and plus ball handling playing with NBA caliber guys in Ryan Kalkbrenner and Baylor Scheierman.
His truly unselfish nature leads me to really believe in his NBA prospects, and the prospect of him being a guy leading the second unit like…you guessed it, Andrew Nembhard.
Now for weaknesses, it would be that he is too unselfish! He really doesn’t hunt his own shot at times which isn’t a bad thing, but as an efficient off-the-catch shooter (92nd Percentile in the 24-25 season!!) and efficient rim scorer, he has untapped potential as a really good scorer when he gets to the next level. The man stood out in combine drills shooting the rock, going 24-for-30 on 3-pointers taken off the dribble and shot the second-best mark in the "star" 3-point drill, going 19-for-25.
He also is undersized, standing at just 5’11” in no shoes, and the list of NBA players that have a long career at that size is few and far between. Yet, it’s not like Ryan is some net negative on the defensive end of the court, registering a 2.4 DBPM (Defensive Box +/-) this past year for the Zags. He showed flashes of great instincts, especially off the ball, jumping into passing lanes and generating easy fast break points.
Shooting, plus ball handling, defensive intensity, that will get you second looks when you get to the next level, and that’s what makes Ryan one of my “guys” heading into this NBA Draft.
Maxime Raynaud
Forward, Stanford - 2024-25 Season Stats (20.2 PPG, 10.6 RPG, 1.7 APG, 46.7 FG%, 34.7 3P%, 77.0 FT%)
Draft Projection - 2nd Round
I miss Pac-12 after dark.
I could wax poetic for pages about the impact that watching late night Pac-12 hoops had on me as a young fan of the game growing up, but the once-iconic after hours hoops league has now shifted in a sense to the ACC.
Watching west coast hoops on a late night in January, I was drawn to this French seven-footer with serious range for the Stanford Cardinal.
I was enthralled watching this guy seemingly do everything for the Stanford offense as an inside-out scoring presence, spotting up on the perimeter, facing up and taking his man off the bounce, and generating quality looks from the post.
Looking at the prospects in this class as a whole, you would be pressed to find guys with such a unique skill set that can play the five as a whole. Derik Queen has long-term concerns for his projectability as a floor stretcher. Khaman Maluach has a super translatable skill set as a shot blocking/lob threat, but he doesn’t provide the pick and pop/inside-out ability that Raynaud displayed at Stanford. The amount of players in basketball that are a legit seven feet, while also being a guy you have to account for as a spot-up sniper from three is few and far between. Unicorn-like stuff in my eyes.
Size, skill, shooting.
These are the defining skills of the new era of basketball, and Maxime has the prototypical skillset for the modern day big. So why is he a projected second round pick at this stage of the draft process?
Maxime passes the eye test with flying colors as a mismatch nightmare for opposing bigs on the perimeter, putting the Stanford offense on his back in his Senior season, taking 16 shots a game for a team that desperately needed every ounce of his production. The man was a top-15 scorer in college basketball this past year!
His analytical profile likens him to NBA role players Moritz Wagner and Quinten Post, which is exactly the role I envision him developing into as he progresses at the next level. I start talking about the French sensation for enough time and I start to give him Kevin Love comparisons so let me come back down to earth for a second.
He undertook an extremely high workload in the Cardinal offense, putting up just over 16 shots a game while barely sacrificing efficiency on absurd volume! This isn’t a case of a talented player shot chucking on a bad team, he simply generated quality looks for himself and the guys around him as a playmaking hub on the post and perimeter consistently!
His post game had a lot of variety at Stanford, where he took his man down low for finishes around the basket, and broke out a fadeaway middie that honestly had me feeling really nice!
His potential as a rebounder and defender is not as projectable compared to his offensive skillset, but he was no slouch in either department in college. He has the physicality to not get bullied by more interior-oriented bigs, and put up a 28.7% defensive rebounding rate along with a 4.7% block rate his senior year at Stanford. He is a capable defender around the rim and flashed rim protection skills along with bodying up in the post.
Now get him on a switch with a guard and it is a different story. Maxime isn’t a flat-footed big by any stretch of the imagination, but against quicker and more agile players, he is not going to come out on top a high percentage of the time. That is something to look out for when heading into the league. Coupled with a subpar ability to draw fouls and fully utilize his physicality for a full length of gametime, there are legitimate holes in his game as a pro prospect.
But I learned this a time ago, focusing on what a player can do versus what they can’t do makes evaluating guys a hell of a lot easier, and I know NBA decision makers feel the exact same way. Pigeonholing players into executing things they aren’t comfortable is never conducive to winning basketball, and it never will be. You wonder why organizations such as Charlotte and Washington have been in the doldrums for so long, with a laundry list of failed draft picks, and then you compare their player development to San Antonio or Boston…
Having guys be great at the parts of basketball they are comfortable with is a hell of a lot better than throwing young guys out on the floor and letting them figure it out over the course of an NBA season like the NBA teams I just mentioned.
Maxime provides a skillset that is very feasible to be translatable as a backup center in the league. He’s a floor-spacing five that provides above average rim protection and rebounding in 10-15 minutes a game.
As this NBA playoffs and years past have proven, you are only as good as the last guy in your rotation. If you can’t stay on the floor and play your role, teams will scheme around you and carve you up for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don’t overthink it NBA teams, Maxime Raynaud will be a high level backup big for years to come, and you will regret not taking a stab at this unicorn of an offensive skill set.
