There's less than a week until the 2025 NBA Draft, and ESPN has updated its mock draft with more insight and intel, without the players who jumped out to go back to college. Since the last mock put out by ESPN, John Tonje has risen five spots from 47th overall to the Milwaukee Bucks and 42nd overall to the Sacramento Kings.
This is an interesting destination not simply because his stock has risen since the last mock draft, but because the Sacramento Kings have shown much interest in John Tonje. Recently, he worked out for the Kings and even provided post-try-out comments to reporters. Tonje talked about his workouts and how he's trying to differentiate his game from the other participants.
John Tonje could find himself picked at the top of the second round in the NBA Draft
This isn't the highest draft slot that John Tonje finds himself in. The Athletic has him drafted at 37th overall to the Detroit Pistons, which is the seventh pick in the second round, making him a top-end second-round pick. There are even some theories that he could slip into the first round.
According to the NBA Draft Consensus Board, he's the 44th best prospect available, and so his projected picks are all hovering around that number. His biggest knocks that may keep him in the second round instead of the first, where his talent is probably at, are that he has only one year of elite college production and the fact that he's already 23 years old. The NBA values projects when they are young; a team will have to be convinced he is either ready to add value to a team now or really shortly before using a draft pick on him.
Tonje said that he has 12 scheduled workouts ahead of the NBA draft, which is a good number, and many of those teams, like Sacramento, are in that range of picks.
The first round of the NBA Draft is June 25 and the second round is June 26th.