5 Bold predictions for the 2018 NBA draft class

#5 The best player in the draft will be Luka Doncic

It surprises me a whole lot that despite Doncic winning the Euroleague Final Four MVP a few weeks before winning the championship with Real Madrid, he wasn't heralded as the consensus best player of the draft right now. Even the Suns' coach Igor Kokoskov preferred bringing a big man into the Suns roster rather than his fellow countryman Luka.

If the accolades Doncic has already accumulated thus far don't convince you as to why he's the best player right now, a look at his mixtape from his Real Madrid times will go a long way towards allaying all the concerns surrounding the youngster. He wasn't even the most athletic player in Europe and will probably be lower than the 50th percentile among vertical leapers in the NBA for his whole career, but the same disadvantages haven't really stopped the likes of Chris Paul and James Harden from submitting season after season of MVP-caliber performances.

Doncic projects as a do-it-all swingman who can be the primary ballhandler for a really successful team, and should the Mavs be able to surround him with a complete roster in the near future, expect him to vault into MVP candidacy before long. Players with his combination of size, finesse and vision come by once in a long while, and should be treasured for what they're able to do.