The top three players in this year’s N.B.A. draft have been discussed so much that most people don’t even need their last names: Zion, Ja and R.J. will do. The words “three-player draft” have been bandied about ad nauseam.

So what happens when you’re the fourth player in a three-player draft?

Darius Garland, a sharpshooting point guard out of Vanderbilt, is likely to find out. That is, he will if his skyrocketing draft stock doesn’t launch him into that vaunted top-three.

The expectation heading into Thursday’s draft at Barclays Center is that the New Orleans Pelicans will take Duke’s Zion Williamson at No. 1, the Memphis Grizzlies, who plan to trade Mike Conley to the Utah Jazz, will take Murray State’s Ja Morant at No. 2, and the Knicks, despite some last-minute chatter about alternative options, will take Duke’s R.J. Barrett at No. 3.

Not so fast.

As Barrett sat at the Grand Hyatt in New York on Wednesday, answering at least eight questions about the Knicks, Garland was on a court working out for the team.