brayden

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

With the #11 pick….

[Quinn Fishburne @QuinnFishburne]

Karim Lopez remains the best international prospect in the 2026 NBA draft, but who is he?...⤵️

The term “jack of all trades, master of none” sums up Lopez well; he has shown flashes of doing a bit of everything, shooting 32.6% from beyond the arc, while being a strong rebounder, with intriguing moments as a passer, who is able to generate steals and blocks.

He has clear dribble-pass-shoot potential with impressive size and strength, especially considering he is one of the youngest players in the class.

Still, at this point, Lopez doesn’t have a lone projectable skill he will be able to “hang his hat on” once he enters the league. Prospects like these pose inherent risk without any skills to fall back on; their value lies in them potentially taking significant developmental strides to both build out new skills and drastically refine their current ones.

Even some of the most surprising picks of last year’s NBA draft had at least one specific skill that excelled at:

- Yang Hansen (Passing)

- Cedric Coward (Shooting + Defense)

- Egor Demin (Passing)

Contextualizing his lack of high-level competency with any singular skill is crucial in attempting to understand who Karim Lopez is.

Given Lopez’s lack of skill speciality, much of his potential to be a “do-it-all” wing hinges on his ability to be a threat from the perimeter. Lopez’s shooting has been the tale of two halves, opening the season with stunning efficiency, shooting 40.4% on 3.1 attempts through the first 15 games. While on limited volume, Lopez’s hot start continued to solidify his place among the draft’s top-end talent.

However, his start has since proved unsustainable, with his efficiency quickly declining over his last 16 games, shooting just 24.4% on 2.8 attempts per game. His collapse as a perimeter shooter has certainly slowed his momentum up draft boards and raised a new set of questions about the projectability of his offensive role if he isn’t at least a competent shooter. In that same breath, one of these admittedly tiny sample sizes will be an outlier; maybe these last 16 games are just a fluke cold streak or vice versa, that his hot start was a peak he will never reach again.

Realistically, Lopez likely sits somewhere in the middle of his dual outlier samples this season.

#NBADraft

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@EC3Enthusiast @TheWolverineOn3 Yeah i heard about Davion. We could run Elliot, Davion, McKinney, McCoy and be more guard heavy instead of being frontcourt heavy. Id love that

[Blue! 🎀 @bluebeari3]

THANK YOU, WEMBY,
THANK YOU SPURS,TRULY .

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@HawkEmDownChris Klay Thompson :/

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@ByAZuniga @TimMcCormick40 Thats great! If he still had a working knee or achilles.

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@CurryForGame @anthonyVslater Those fucking loser pieces of fucking shit. What the fuck was the point of wasting the end of the career of the best pg of all time? Rehiring that loser Kerr? Keeping Draymond? Fucking losers. Steph should be disgusted and gone, if not, he’s just as guilty.

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@BriceMarich 3 star LB who doesnt even play LB, lol

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@BraydenMerkel @EC3Enthusiast @hailmediagroup He is taking a chance that he can be rehabbed by the Michigan staff. A pretty wise move if it works. Or we can take your outlook and just be negative. I prefer taking a hopeful and positive outlook!

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@umhoops Are we adding one last player or not? Silly to waste a spot when half our team is inexperienced or injured.

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@crispcorp1 @FranzTheWise Where at?

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@JWeinbachNBA Idk about two firsts and podz.. thats a lot. Id rather try and flip Jimmy and picks and keep podz and #11 to get Yax or Burries

[brayden @BraydenMerkel]

@ClankerEddy @BrettSiegelNBA Nothing with Jimmy on the roster should be the goal. Making like 60 million and wont be available for most of the season, and we have no idea how well he plays after returning. Thats way too much pressure on steph to carry early on, and he’ll get injured again.