The 2025 NBA Draft is less than a week away, which means we’re just a few days out from seeing which former Tennessee Vols are going to join the list of drafted players from the Rick Barnes era in Knoxville.
Though there will only be 59 picks in the draft this weekend, ESPN’s Jonathan Givony recently penned out his Top 100 big board rankings for draft-eligible players this week.
Four Tennessee players landed on that list, though only one is projected to be taken in the draft this week in Brooklyn.
The first on the board is former Tennessee guard and Nashville native Chaz Lanier at No. 38. The sharpshooting guard has widely been looked at as a second-round pick, but has been slowly rising up the mock draft projections following an elite shooting performance at the NBA Combine in May.
The 6-foot-4 guard set Tennessee’s all-time single-season record for made three-pointers in 2024 with 123 from long range. He followed that up with the second-best shooting performance at the combine in Chicago with a 77% shooting performance, trailing only First-Team All-America guard Mark Sears at 83%. Lanier’s performance caught the attention of media members around the sport, and he’s been steadily moving up ever since.
In ESPN’s latest mock draft from June 17, Lanier was tagged at the No. 38 spot to the San Antonio Spurs. It seems extremely likely that Lanier becomes Rick Barnes’ ninth NBA Draft pick during his time in Knoxville, but he may be the only one drafted from Tennessee this week.
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Though the next three Tennessee players don’t appear to be NBA Draft picks this week, they can still earn their way into the league through Summer League invitations, two-way contracts, Exhibit 10 contracts, or an outright G-League roster spot.
Former Tennessee forward Igor Milicic Jr. is next at No. 70 in Givony’s Top 100 list. The former Charlotte transfer recorded 9.4 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game during his lone season in Knoxville. While he battled through inconsistency during the season, Milicic proved to have a versatile offensive game under his belt with seven games scoring 15 or more points and 14 double-digit scoring games.
The next Tennessee entry on Givony’s list is a player who fought to return to Knoxville in 2025, Zakai Zeigler. The 22-year-old point guard lands at No. 88 in the Top 100 rankings. Zeigler averaged 13.8 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 7.4 assists last season for the Vols. The 5-foot-9 guard built an unmistakable legacy during his four years in Knoxville with an emphasis on winning. While some would write Zeigler off for his size, he proved to use his height to his advantage on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court.
The last former Vol on the ESPN Top 100 rankings barely sneaks in at the very end, with Tennessee guard Jahmai Mashack landing at No. 98 in the rankings. The defensive-minded Swiss army knife was a lockdown defender and relished the opportunity to guard the opposition’s best offensive player in every game that he could. While Mashack never had the most stellar offensive numbers, he embodied what it meant to be a Rick Barnes-type player. If a team decides to take a chance on Mashack, they’ll be getting the hardest-working guy in the room. Mashack cracked Tennessee’s all-time single-season steals Top 10 last season with 64 in 38 games.
The 2025 NBA Draft will take place on Wednesday, Jun. 25, at 8:00 p.m. ET at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Check out ESPN’s full Top 100 NBA prospects list here.
