NBA decision makers rarely admit to being dramatically swayed by a particularly strong NCAA tournament run. A prospect’s body of work is what counts, we hear most often, and no one gets drafted based solely on a big showing in March.

But history tells us otherwise. Look at Patrick O’Bryant, Joe Alexander, Marvin Williams, Sean May, Bryce Drew, Jared Jeffries, Ed O’Bannon, Mateen Cleaves, Mike Miller, Corey Brewer, Juan Dixon, Tyrus Thomas, Julius Hodge, and Mike Conley. They all saw their stock rise or solidify at least partially due to the way they played down the stretch.

It’s actually human nature. With the way memory works, the most recent events often carry the most weight in our decision-making process. Since these are the last games in which we’ll see these prospects, we tend to remember them more vividly than ones from November and December. Combine that with the incredible emotion involved with March Madness and the magnitude we place on this event, and it’s easy to see how mistakes are made. (For more on this topic, see "Nate Silver's Theory on 'Recency Bias'" and especially Thinking, Fast and Slow, which should be required reading for NBA personnel.)

Do you only care about the NCAA tournament because you want a look at the best players in the upcoming NBA draft? Wonderful news. You are in the right place. Here's a handy viewing guide for March Madness. A note before we get started: The numbers represent players' placement in the latest DraftExpress Top 100 Prospects rankings and all times are ET.

Top Five Friday Games

9:57 p.m.
Kansas: no. 3 Thomas Robinson, no. 30 Tyshawn Taylor, no. 76 Elijah Johnson, no. 94 Jeff Withey
Detroit: no. 81 Ray McCallum, Eli Holman, LaMarcus Lowe
CenturyLink Center Omaha (Omaha, Neb.)
truTV

Do you only care about the NCAA tournament because you want a look at the best players in the upcoming NBA draft? Wonderful news. You are in the right place. Here's a handy viewing guide for March Madness this year. A note: The numbers represent players' placement in the latest DraftExpress Top 100 Prospects rankings.

Top Five Thursday Games

9:20 p.m. EST
Iowa State: no. 73 Royce White
Connecticut: no. 4 Andre Drummond, no. 12 Jeremy Lamb, no. 91 Alex Oriakhi, Ryan Boatright, Shabazz Napier, Roscoe Smith, DeAndre Daniels
KFC Yum! Center (Louisville, Ky.)
TBS

This is a game that is not only loaded with NBA prospects, but also features one of the more intriguing head-to-head matchups, both tactically and stylistically, between Andre Drummond and Royce White. Drummond is an incredibly physically gifted yet hopelessly limited offensive player who can be absolutely dominant defensively in stretches, while White is a Boris Diaw clone — a 6-foot-8 forward with the passing and ballhandling skills of a guard, but the girth of a 35-year-old center. Both Drummond and White are just as talented as they are frustrating. It will be fascinating to see what happens tonight.

I’ve attended the NBA D-League Showcase for five years. I’ve been to the event in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and watched prospects at South Padre Island, Texas.

But this year — after spending four days holed up in a small gym in Reno as I watched 12-hour sessions of middling basketball — I started to develop an interesting impression.

It seems like NBA Commissioner David Stern’s vision might finally be coming to fruition.

The NBA Development League is (slowly but surely) creeping toward its goal of becoming a proper minor league farm system for basketball, even if there’s still plenty of work left to do.

Jonathan Givony is spending a few days at the NBA D-League Showcase, where NBA scouts and executives are evaluating the talent in the league. Here’s a look at what’s happening in Reno this week.

In conversations at the NBA D-League Showcase this week, three names seem to pop up more than any others: Mickell Gladness, Squeaky Johnson, and Terrel Harris.

All three played multiple seasons as backups in the D-League, where they were cut or traded in favor of better prospects. All three struggled to produce in lower-level leagues in Europe, and all three found themselves back in the States, primarily owing to a lack of other professional basketball options.

This week in Reno, Nevada, dozens of NBA scouts and executives are gathering for the annual NBA D-League Showcase, a four-day event that offers talent evaluators a look at the best of what the league has to offer.

Plenty of members of the national media are in attendance, as are a handful of scouts representing teams from Europe and Asia. Over the next few days, we’ll look at a number of topics surrounding the showcase, but first here’s a quick introduction to the event.