In basketball, meritocracy rules. No matter where you are, no matter where you live, if you can ball, the right people will find you. From the farmlands to the beaches to big cities, the best high school basketball players all have the same goal. Make the NBA.
So how do we determine who’s the best player in all 50 states and the District of Columbia? Simple. Imagine we’ve got the No. 1 draft pick to build a team in every state. This is who we would take.
These are the best high school basketball players in the country, state by state, and they represent the future of the game.
(July 2022 update: Since the publication of this list in July 2020, 13 of the players on the list have been selected in the NBA Draft, including a No. 1 overall pick and an NBA champion)
Bottom Line: Nick Smith
Nick Smith, right, is being recruited as a combo guard. ntsmith1402 / Twitter
We’re still two years out from point guard Nick Smith stepping on a college basketball court, but the big-time schools are already lining up to land him.
Smith is a do-it-all guard with great size, and he’s starting to fill out. While Smith seems to have grabbed the national headlines, Magnolia High guard Derrian Ford, also in the class of 2022, isn’t far behind.
Ford and Smith are both about the same size, 6-foot-4, and both combo guards. It would be a huge recruiting coup for the University of Arkansas to snag both players.
Bottom Line: Julian Hammond III
Julian Hammond III is the grandson of former Denver Nuggets player Julian Hammond. creeksports / Twitter
Smoky Hill High School’s Jalen Weaver might be the top-rated basketball recruit in Colorado, but if it comes down to one game, we’ll take Cherry Creek High’s Julian Hammond III, the grandson of former Denver Nuggets player Julian Hammond.
Julian III was the only athlete in Colorado to make All-State in football, at quarterback, and basketball after he led Cherry Creek to the football state championship.
He averaged 22 points per game in basketball to lead his team to the state tournament, but his future is on the gridiron, where he’s an up-and-coming dual-threat quarterback.
Bottom Line: Tucker DeVries
Tucker DeVries shot almost 50 percent on 3-pointers as a junior. Twitter / AveryQuad
Tucker DeVries lit up the competition in a breakout junior year. He averaged 21.4 points, 7.8 rebounds, 4.7 assists and shot an amazing 48.1 percent from beyond the 3-point arc on the way to a state runner-up finish.
DeVries is a natural fit at shooting guard, and at 6-foot-6, he could be a matchup problem at the next level.
After another year to work on his game, he chose to play at Drake, where his dad is the head coach. Tucker also had scholarship offers from Iowa State, Oregon, Florida, South Dakota State and Air Force.
Bottom Line: Bennett Pitcher
Bennett Pitcher, dunking, was also a top football recruit. bennettpitcher / Twitter
Never accuse Bennett Pitcher of not being able to think for himself.
Pitcher was one of the most sought-after football recruits in the country as an offensive tackle and seemed destined to play for a Power Five school, but an injury during football cost him almost his entire junior season in both sports and changed his thinking.
How good did the nation’s best college football coaches think Pitcher could be? Baylor, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, UCLA, Northwestern and Virginia were among his suitors. Instead, he’ll play basketball for Harvard.
Bottom Line: Emoni Bates
Emoni Bates, with ball, was the 2020 Gatorade National Player of the Year. 247Sports / Twitter
Emoni Bates is, simply put, the best high school basketball prospect to come along since LeBron James in 2003. Bates has been on the radar of NBA teams and elite college coaches since he was 12 years old, and even with two years of high school basketball left (unless he graduates early in 2021), he would be the hands-down No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft now if he were allowed to enter his name.
Bates decided to transfer to Ypsi Prep Academy — a new school started by his father so he can play tougher competition — after averaging 33.1 points, 9.1 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.3 steals in his sophomore year at Lincoln in 2019-20.
It won’t be the last time Bates does something impressive. The future of basketball is with him.
Bottom Line: Alex Germer
Alex Germer is the best player in Montana. alexgermer_ / Twitter
Montana State head coach Danny Sprinkle is pretty darn good at finding diamonds in the rough. Alex Germer is one of three players on this list headed to play for the Bobcats. And Germer might be the best of the bunch.
At 6-foot-7 and 200 pounds, he’s a versatile wing player that can guard three and sometimes four spots on the opposing team, and averaged 17.9 points and 8.5 rebounds as a junior.
Crazy fact? Germer’s father, Chad, was an All-American offensive lineman at the University of Montana in the early 1990s, and his older brother, Nick, played wide receiver for Montana.
Bottom Line: Micawber Etienne
Micawber Etienne’s game, and hair, compare favorably with Joakim Noah. andrew__slater / Twitter
It’s not hard to see the NBA comparison for Micawber Etienne. From the game to his hair, it’s gotta be Joakim Noah.
There aren’t a lot of elite, college-ready post players out there, and Etienne is one that all of the blue-blood college teams are going after. He chose UCLA and began with the Bruins at the start of the 2021 winter quarter as a mid-year enrollee.
He was originally the best player in Connecticut but transferred from Suffield Academy to recruiting hotspot Brewster Academy after his junior season, in part so he could team up with AAU buddy Yann Farrell.
Bottom Line: D’Marco Dunn
D’Marco Dunn, with ball, was the Class 3A Player of the Year in 2020. westoverbball / Twitter
D’Marco Dunn became a big-time recruit the old-fashioned way — he showed out during the actual high school basketball season. Dunn led Westover High to a 30-0 record and the de facto Class 3A state championship (the title game was canceled) as a junior, when he averaged 20.4 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 2.7 steals.
There’s an idea that not being able to play in the summer before his senior year on the AAU circuit may have hurt Dunn’s recruiting, but he got offers from North Carolina, Arizona and Vanderbilt, among others. And ended up signing with North Carolina.
So that argument doesn’t hold water.
Bottom Line: Jalen Warley
Jalen Warley’s grandfather, Ben Warley, played almost a decade in the NBA and ABA. Gregory Payan / AP Photo
No state saw a bigger exodus of talent than Pennsylvania following the 2019-20 season, with five-star recruit Jalen Duren headed to Florida’s Montverde Academy and five-star recruit Chance Westry headed west to California’s Sierra Canyon to play alongside Bronny James.
Even with those two gone, there’s still five-star combo guard Jalen Warley, who has great basketball roots. Both his father and uncle played for St. Joseph’s and his grandfather, Ben Warley, played over a decade in the NBA and ABA, and was an ABA All-Star in 1968.
Bottom Line: Johnathan Lawson
Johnathan Lawson led Wooddale High to the Class AA state quarterfinals in 2020. pthoops_ / Twitter
Tennessee was one of the toughest states to pick, but elite wing player Johnathan Lawson gets the edge over Mason Miller, the son of former NBA player Mike Miller.
Lawson does too much to pass him over. He averaged 25.4 points, 11.7 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 2.0 steals as a junior in leading Wooddale High to the Class AA state quarterfinals.
Lawson’s weight — he’s only 170 pounds — might have kept a lot of Power Five schools away, but Oregon was able to sign Lawson away from Vanderbilt, Alabama, Arkansas and Iowa State. And the Ducks got a winner.
Bottom Line: Dior Johnson
Dior Johnson is the top point guard in the country for the Classes of 2021 and 2022. vareo_ / Twitter
Dior Johnson is a prep superstar. He committed to Syracuse, then decommitted in 2020.
Don’t be surprised if other big-time programs come calling like Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Virginia Tech, Kentucky, Georgetown, Maryland, Notre Dame and Indiana.
He will have his pick. He also might just decide to go straight to the NBA G League instead of playing a year of college basketball. He’s that good.
Bottom Line: Paolo Banchero
Paola Banchero was the 2020 Seattle Times Player of the Year. Courtside Films / YouTube
It’s not hard to look at Paola Banchero, a 6-foot-9, 235-pound power forward, and envision him making millions of dollars in the NBA really, really soon.
Banchero is a beast — a player who already has the body to rebound against the best players in the world. There’s nothing he doesn’t do well on a basketball court, and he’s surprisingly nimble with the ball and making moves to the basket.
Banchero averaged 22.6 points, 11.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.7 blocks as a junior and led O’Dea High School to the Class 3A state title.
