The 2025 March Madness tournament wrapped up the NCAA Men's Basketball season on Monday. With prospects done making their case to NBA teams in a competitive environment, that means mock drafts galore are right around the corner.
ESPN released their latest edition on Tuesday morning, and, as is often the case, they've included some very polarizing choices near the top of the draft order. One of the strangest was their choice for the Chicago Bulls.
Thanks to a 12-4 run over the last few weeks, Chicago clinched a Play-In berth as the No. 9 seed in the Eastern Conference (though they could move up as high as No. 7 with four games remaining). Even if they just get one Play-In game, it will be a huge learning experience for the young core of Cobi White, Matas Buzelis, and Josh Giddey.
That last name is the reason why ESPN's mock draft pick for the Bulls at No. 12 is so strange. Despite the fact that their backcourt has much more talent and depth than their frontcourt, ESPN still had Chicago taking 6'9" BYU point guard Egor Demin.
It would seem that Demin is just a younger, less skillful version of the 6'8" Giddey, who also often plays point guard. Demin's strength are his vision, passing, and ability to decipher pick-and-rolls. That's a pretty similar profile to Giddey.
Demin recently declared for the draft, and while the 19-year-old Russian is far from polished, he has already been through a lot. He played professionally for Real Madrid in 2023, and he successfully navigated moves from Russia to Spain to Utah.
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While Egor Demin struggled to shoot the three this year (27 percent) and is not known for his ability to take defenders one-on-one off the dribble, that's exactly what he did against VCU in his March Madness debut. He scored 15 points on 6-for-11 shooting, including a 3-for-7 night from deep.
Demin is definitely a player who's going to be a project and take some time to develop in the league. However, as a 6'9" point guard with his vision and passing ability, it's hard not to make the Magic Johnson comparisons. The sky is the limit with this guy.
And who knows, maybe the Bulls wouldn't mind have a pair of pseudo-Magics on their team together. ESPN's draft experts seem confident that the value on Demin will be too much to ignore if he does fall to No. 12.
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