Here Are 5 Steals From The Second Round Of The 2024 NBA Draft

In every draft class, there are about 20 players who end up actually sticking in the league for a significant amount of time. Most of those players are selected in the first round. However, evaluators are not perfect, and every year, they let a few solid players slip through the cracks.

The 2024 NBA Draft Class is especially prone to this type of error. With few players showcasing obvious All-Star potential, the difference between the those selected first and 60th may be as slim as ever. So, with that in mind, let’s spotlight some second-rounders who seem to fall under this category.

Honorable Mention to the Jaylens

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this thing, I wanted to offer a quick shoutout to two very special Jaylens: Jaylen Wells and Jaylen Clark. The former currently has the second-highest odds to win the 2024-25 Rookie of the Year Award. Clearly, the 39th overall pick is on his way to a prosperous NBA career. As for Clark, he was actually selected in the second round of the 2023 NBA Draft, but because of injuries, didn’t get to truly experience his rookie campaign until now. Just know I wrote about him extensively in a recent article, and he’s looking like an absolute steal for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Kyle Filipowski

In basketball, size and skill can take a player a long way. Kyle Filipowski, the 32nd overall pick last summer, has both of those features in spades. At 7 feet tall and 250 pounds, he has the physique to bang with modern day bigs. But despite being built like a brute, he isn’t programmed like one.

Filipowski is a proficient from all three areas of the court. His true shooting percentage (61.1) is fifth among 44 qualified rookies. He’s also the best passing big man in his class, posting the highest Passer Rating score of all first-year centers (per Thinking Basketball).

At the very least, Filipowski is in for a Kelly Olynyk-like career. But if he can tighten up his defense and add more volume offensively while maintaining his efficiency, a Nikola Vucevic-type career is not out of the realm of possibility.

Ajay Mitchell

The Oklahoma City Thunder absolutely cannot miss. Everything general manager Sam Presti puts his hands on turns to gold, and Mitchell has been blessed with his Midas touch.

Before going down with injury, Mitchell was already contributing on the team many favor to win it all. In a backup guard role, he’s averaging 6.4 points on a hyper-efficient shooting line of .506/.431/.848.

Mitchell’s most impressive trait is his ability to attack downhill. On the season, he’s in the 62nd percentile in points per chance on drives (per Synergy Sports), which plays perfectly into the Thunder’s offense (second in the NBA in drives per game).

Pelle Larsson

Well, what do you know? The Miami Heat uncovered another rotation-level player outside of the lottery. Taken with the 44th pick in the draft, Larsson has become one of my favorite rookies to watch.

Known as a marksman during his four years at Arizona, where he hit 39.7 percent of his 340 career 3-point attempts, Larsson has struggled from deep so far in the NBA (31.7  percent this season). However, his pedigree as a shooter (81.3 percent at the free-throw line in college) makes me believe this is an anomaly more than an accurate descriptor of who he is as a pro.

Couple that promise with what he’s shown as a defender (fifth among rookies in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus) and cutter (99th percentile efficiency), and there’s a nice little two-way wing who can eventually be counted on for playoff minutes when the Heat return to contention. That shouldn’t be too far away either, given the intrigue of their other young prospects like Kel’el Ware.

Jamal Shead

An older, undersized guard with a penchant for point-of-attack defense, a history of winning at the collegiate level and a questionable jumper may prompt ideas about Davion Mitchell 2.0. But there is reason to believe Jamal Shead can have more success at the NBA level than his predecessor and former Toronto Raptors teammate.

Earlier, I cited a metric called Passer Rating. It’s a stat created by Ben Taylor and an estimate of a player’s passing ability on an “approximately” 1-10 scale. As it stands, Shead currently grades out as a 6.5, which is the second-best mark of any rookie. Shead is very comfortable with the ball in his hands, consistently operating in pick-and-rolls and making proper reads based on where help is stationed. He’s in the 64th percentile in points per chance.

Shead is also off to a better shooting start than Mitchell was as a rookie — hitting 36.9 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes compared to Mitchell’s 32.8 percent. These data points and his tenacious brand of defense give hope he can be a quality backup in the league for years to come.

Quinten Post

Quinten Post is playing significant minutes on a suddenly reinvigorated Golden State Warriors team. Over his last 23 games, he’s logging 17.3 minutes per game, and the Warriors are 15-8 in that span.

Post is intriguing for similar reasons Filipowski is worth keeping tabs on. He’s a 7-footer with a futuristic skillset, except he may be an even better shooter than Filipowski. On the season, he’s hitting 40.8 percent of his threes on an absurd 9.2 attempts per 75 possessions (92nd percentile).

He’s a complete liability on defense (18th percentile Defensive EPM), and his finishing is not at the ideal level for his position (sixth percentile rim percentage). To a degree, those flaws will hold him back. But I don’t think they’re damaging enough to keep him from being a fixture on NBA rosters.