10 Top Prospects In This Year's NBA Draft (Part 1)

#6 Jaren Jackson Jr. (Michigan State University Spartans)

Jackson is considered by many to be the "Uncut Diamond" of this year's draft

Michigan State University has, for the longest time now, been an absolute basketball powerhouse. Under Tom Izzo, the University has had a proud tradition of regularly competing and making deep runs in the NCAA tournament and challenging for Conference honors. They have made it to the NCAA tournament 21 years in a row and have, during that time, been Champions, runners-up and have gone to the Final Four 7 times!

Right now, we are not even considering the host of Conference Titles and Elite Eight/Sweet Sixteen appearances that the Spartans have amassed. They were the conference regular season champions this year and were tipped to go as far as the Final Four by analysts across the board. However, they suffered a second-round defeat at the hands of the University of Kansas Jayhawks (Who did go on to the Final Four).

Jaren Jackson Jr. is the latest prospect to have come out of the famed Michigan State program - other athletes of note being Magic Johnson and Draymond Green. Jaren is a projected Top 5 pick in the draft and how high he rises depends on the selections and requirements of the teams drafting players before him. For a Center, he shoots threes quite well - he had a 40% 3PT% last season.

Out of High School, Jaren was a 5 Star recruit across the board. In his one year of college, Jackson went on to become the Big 10 Freshman of the Year and was nominated to the All-Freshman First Team in the Big 10. He also has the Defensive Player of the Year (Big 10) award to his name. While many players in this year's draft need to work on their defense, Jaren exhibits fearsome defensive skills, so essential in a good Center. He led the Big 10 in blocks per game last season (3 Blocks per game). He even went on to record an INSANE 8 blocks in a game versus the Rutgers University Scarlet Knights. While his career average in scoring is 11 PPG, his career high is 27 points which came in a game versus Minnesota.

Even though Jackson is bucking the trend of having poor defensive skills in the draft, he is still a raw prospect. Teams drafting him will do so with the purpose of developing him for the future initially. He needs to develop his post-playing skills and rebounding stats. He is also turnover prone and has a tendency to get into foul trouble in games.

While he is a pick for the future, the mere fact that Jackson is a projected Top 5 pick is a testament to his talent and potential. Come draft day, his name is sure to be one of the earliest to be called.

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With this, we come to an end to this part of the TOP prospects expected to be drafted the earliest in this year's NBA draft!

However, we are yet to reveal the rankings for Player 5 through 1! Stay Tuned for part 2!