bSPARQ athletic similarity scores for the 2025 draft class

Thanks to the fact that we have NBA combine data going all the way back to 2000, I've been able to build (with help from Jacob Sutton) a similarity score engine that compares combine participants to each other based on their performance in the various measurements and drills.

Unfortunately, said similarity score generator only works on the website and doesn't show up in the email version of the newsletter, but you can click right here to use it. For now, I've made it free for everyone to play around with. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Before we run through some of the comps, I’d like to note a couple things here:

• These comparisons are strictly based on a player’s measurements and athletic testing at the NBA combine. They do not at all account for style of play, production, projected role, draft slot, or really anything other than the data is collected at the combine itself. That’s why you’ll find a diverse array of player archetypes in each list.
• The comparisons account for a player’s height, weight, wingspan, standing reach, lane agility, 3/4-court sprint, shuttle run, bench press (or imputed bench press, as appropriate), standing vertical, and max vertical.
• It is very important to look at the similarity scores themselves. For example, every single one of Walter Clayton Jr.'s closest comps checks in with a similarity score of 85.73% or higher, led by Jalen Brunson art 95.29%, which is one of the highest scores in the entire database. Meanwhile, Ace Bailey's single-closest comp checks in at only 83.34%. So, factoring in the closeness of the comparison in addition to the identity of the player to whom they are similar is something to take into account.

Got all that? Great. I'm going to post the similarity scores for a bunch of notable players (the projected lottery picks in Sam Vecenie's post-lottery mock draft, plus a few more to make up for the fact that Kon Knueppel, Nolan Traoré, and Noa Essengue did not participate in the combine) and then once again link to the similarity score generator for you to use.

Flagg tested in the 44th percentile for a combo forward, but would have ranked in the 63rd percentile for a wing. (He did really well in the lane agility drill but not so well in the 3/4 court sprint and his verticals were basically average.) However, that designation would not affect his list of closest athletic comps. It's a pretty eclectic group, though most people who have already seen this list have focused on Luke Babbitt being near the top. (One guy on Bluesky already called him "Duke Babbit," which is very funny.) The juxtaposition of winding up with athletes as seemingly diverse as Babbitt, Toumani Camara, Tristan Thompson, and Aaron Gordon on this list is quite interesting.

Harper tested in the 82nd percentile for a combo guard and ended up with a slew of notable names on his list of closest comps: James Harden, Andre Iguodala, Dwyane Wade, Tony Allen, and more. As expected, his group is littered with very athletic guards. It makes sense that he'd get those type of comps, given that he's the son of Ron Harper. He's got those athlete genes.

Bailey tested as a 9th percentile athlete. As mentioned yesterday, that's not a death sentence, even if it is something to be overcome. (If you have a really high skill level and/or basketball IQ, it can be done.) Most of his closest comps fall under the 80% mark in the similarity scores, indicating how difficult it is to find comps for a player his size and weight who posted the type of athletic testing that he did. You'll find a lot of skinny wings and combo forwards here, though, with guys like Peyton Watson, Herb Jones, Ron Holland, and Darius Bazley populating the list.

Edgecombe tested as an almost exactly average athlete for his position. Had he been listed as a wing, it would've been slightly below-average. (As mentioned yesterday, a poor lane agility time dragged down his other scores.) He wound up with Iverson on his list, but not the one you're familiar with. I'd honestly never even heard of Colton Iverson before seeing these comps.

Johnson wound up in the 65th percentile. (He had an electric lane agility time but disappointed in the shuttle run.) Any time somebody has Zach LaVine among their closest athletic comparables, that's something that's going to stand out. But most of the rest of the comps here aren't quite the type of nuclear athletes that LaVine is and was. (Although, amazingly, LaVine's bSPARQ was only in the 82nd percentile for a point guard. Some of that is because he weighed only 180.9 pounds at the combine. He's played most of his career listed at 200 pounds.) Seeing guys like Allen Crabbe, Jeremy Lamb, and Patrick McCaw on this list took me back a bit.

Queen tested as a very disappointing athlete — 12th percentile for a big. Some of that is being only 6'9.25" and 247.8 pounds, which makes him a very small big man. All but two of his closest comps are bigs, with six relatively anonymous guys ending up with over 90% similarity. His lane agility time was really bad, and he only jumped 23.5 inches standing and 28 inches max. And he didn't run very fast, either. Despite not being a white, shooting big man himself, he ended up with a bunch of those guys on his list of comps. (More on that archetype later.)

Fears checked in 52nd percentile for a combo guard but would have been 71st percentile if listed as PG rather than PG-SG at the combine. Fears was only listed at 6'2.5" and 179.6 pounds, which brings his score down a bit because that's on the smaller and lighter side — even for a guard. He winds up with a bunch of combo guard types (even if they were listed at PG) on his similarities list, with the most notable of those being Reed Sheppard, last year's No. 3 overall pick, and Derrick White.

As mentioned yesterday, Maluach tested very poorly. He had among the worst the worst shuttle run times in the history of the combine and his verticals were really bad. He wound up in the 19th percentile of bSPARQ and his similarity scores are littered with unathletic bigs... but also include Rudy Gobert, DeAndre Jordan, and Brook Lopez. If you're noticing Jabari Smith at No. 20, that's not the one currently playing for the Rockets. It's his dad.

Murray-Boyles tested really well (77th percentile at combo forward, 88th percentile for a wing) thanks to posting above-average marks across the board and doing so at 239.2 pounds — massive for a player who measured in at only 6'6.5". Unsurprisingly, then, he winds up with big, combo forward types in Carmelo Anthony, Michael Beasley, James Johnson, and Derrick Williams among his top similarity scores, along with Kevin Love and Julius Randle.

Man, seeing Sauce Castillo atop this list really took me back. Jakucionis tested in the 53rd percentile for a combo guard, and he ended up with a ton of notable NBA players among his comps: Quentin Grimes, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, both years of Josh Hart at the combine, Jrue Holiday, Devin Booker, Stephon Castle. I'd like to again emphasize that there is no performance or playing style component to these similarity scores, so ending up with a bunch of recognizable names on the list doesn't necessarily make him any more likely to succeed than anyone else.

I don't know much about Bryant, who tested in the 52nd percentile, but based on this list of players it feels like he's going to be an athletic, defensive-minded wing. Thanasis, Ryan Dunn, Josh Smith, Thad Young, Andre Iguodala? That's got wing stopper written all over it. Someone please tell me if I'm wrong. I've never seen the guy play.

I'm trying to think of more different-seeming big men to wind up on a closest comparables list than Chris Kaman and Demarcus Cousins. That said, Wolf, like many other white, shooting big men, winds up with a bunch of other white, shooting big men on his list of comps. That's an archetype of player that just has very strong correlations, apparently. As mentioned yesterday, Wolf and Tre Johnson posted almost identical bSPARQ ratings, but because Wolf is a combo forward and Johnson a combo guard, Wolf checked in 26th percentile while Johnson was in the 65th for his position. (Raw bSPARQ ratings tend to scale with height and weight, which is why I adjust for position.)

There are a LOT of close comps for Richardson, despite his testing in only the 32nd percentile for a combo guard. (Which is surprising in and of itself because he's the son of Jason Richardson, who is one of the most explosive athletes to ever play in the NBA.) All 20 of his comps checked in over 88%, which is pretty crazy. Also crazy is that another son of a former player (Scotty Pippen Jr.) is his actual closest comp.

As mentioned at the top of the page, Brunson to Clayton is one of the closest comps in the entire database of 1,521 players. Clayton, who checked in with a 55th percentile bSPARQ, also has two other comps over 90% in Williams and Horton. I find it pretty fascinating that Brunson and Williams, who don't seem that similar athletically (but were, I suppose, similarly-sized) make up Clayton's top two.

As mentioned above, you can use the similarity score generator to find the closest comparables for any of the 1,521 players who have participated in requisite athletic testing since 2000. Note that some of the scores listed above may vary very slightly from the ones you'll find in the generator, which is because of differences in the way rounding works in the code on the back end of the version I use and the version that goes up online.