(#4) Mikel Brown Jr.
2025-26 stats: 18.6 PPG (42.1 FG%, 34.6 3P%), 3.4 RPG, 5.1 APG, 1.2 SPG, 0.2 BPG
With Louisville Cardinals freshman Mikel Brown Jr. averaging 34.3 points per game across his last three contests, he’s obviously raking in the superlatives himself. In those games, Brown was absolutely unconscious from beyond the arc, knocking down 18 of his 29 long-range attempts. As 54.5% of his field goal attempts were 3s in that three-game stretch, him shooting 62.1% from 3 clearly had its advantages.
An Unpolished Gem
That being said, Brown hasn’t been the paradigm of 3-point efficiency in 2025-26, shooting 34.6% from deep. As a result, his recent performances are really outliers. Anomalies. Though there are enough games left for him to raise his 3-point percentage up to a more respectable level, what he’s shown scouts over the past week has to be taken with a grain of salt.
What Brown has consistently done this season is use his ball-handling, length and explosiveness to get into the teeth of the defense. Once there, he prefers to get all the way to the rim, which is underscored by his free-throw rate (50.4%). However, he’s pretty fond of delivering drop and dump-off passes to big men when he’s in the paint as well. Unfortunately, though Brown is a natural facilitator, he’s turnover-prone. Because he’s capable of consistently getting passes into tight windows, he can get too overconfident and make bad passes.
Funnily enough, Brown is pretty great at getting his hands on passes, often looking like a cornerback. With his size and anticipation, he could be a chaos creator at that end.
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