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I mean he had 21/15 and 6 blocks against a solid SF team last week
He had 16/7 vs Duke on 9 shots
15/6 on 8 shots vs UCLA
2025 NBA Draft Thread
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I mean he had 21/15 and 6 blocks against a solid SF team last week
He had 16/7 vs Duke on 9 shots
15/6 on 8 shots vs UCLA
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Has a pretty good track record against players from his class in AAU and in international play. Feel like those things need to be factored in too. Kinda goes back to our discussion the other day.
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Not worried about his skill - worried about his ability to put on weight and the strain of a full season
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I’m in on Smith #1 , the highest upside and positional value if things go right
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Remember when people thought Trevor Keels was a 1st round pick after the 1st game of the season?
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Did anyone really have that opinion? They shouldn’t have.
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Why is Gonzaga's Chet Holmgren so polarizing with NBA scouts?
Gonzaga freshman Chet Holmgren has been atop ESPN NBA mock drafts all season, but that doesn't mean there aren't questions about his future at the next level in the eyes of scouts. The 7-foot and 195-pound Holmgren has had his unique frame questioned since his high school days at Minnehaha Academy in Minnesota. It didn't prevent the 19-year-old from coming to Gonzaga as the No. 1 prospect in high school basketball last year, but with the NCAA tournament right around the corner, Holmgren will be under the microscope in the eyes of NBA scouts.
What are the questions surrounding Holmgren's one-of-a-kind frame that makes him so polarizing for NBA scouts? Could a poor showing in the NCAA tournament help catapult Auburn's Jabari Smith or Duke's Paolo Banchero to the top spot in the draft?
Holmgren and the Zags will try to wrap up a No. 1 seed on Tuesday in Las Vegas when they play Saint Mary's in the WCC tournament final (9 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN app) in front of several NBA general managers and 40-plus scouts. ESPN draft experts Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz answer the questions surrounding the most intriguing NBA prospect in quite some time.
Why is Chet Holmgren so polarizing with NBA scouts?
Familiarity breeds comfort in the world of the NBA draft. Spend any amount of time with an NBA executive discussing draft prospects, and often the topic will turn to which NBA player future draft picks "remind you of." It's helpful to put prospects in context by comparing them to NBA players, to visualize their pathway to success and gauge their fit on existing rosters. How does James Wiseman get drafted over LaMelo Ball? Or Marvin Bagley III over Luka Doncic? Special can also be a synonym for scary in the evaluation process.
The "problem" with Holmgren is he's a one-of-a-kind prospect, the likes of which we have simply never seen before. There are no great NBA comparisons that truly capture his rare skill set on both ends of the floor, and that's unnerving in many ways, as we're operating in unfamiliar territory. For draft analysts, that's incredibly exciting. But for NBA executives whose careers hinge on making the right choice atop June's draft, that can be downright frightening.
Start with his dimensions. Holmgren was measured over 7-feet barefoot by USA Basketball last summer, with a 7-foot-5 wingspan. There are 16 active NBA players who stand over 7-feet, and none of them weigh anywhere close to 195 pounds like Holmgren.
The closest physical comparisons we can find are Aleksej Pokusevski, Bol Bol, Chris Boucher, Isaiah Jackson -- hardly the most inspiring or imposing group.
None of these players came remotely close to producing the way Holmgren has thus far. You have to look back to Shaquille O'Neal, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon for lottery picks who put up the type of scoring/rebounding/blocking numbers Holmgren has produced on a per-minute basis, and none of them did so as freshmen.
Those are also true centers who did their damage inside the paint while physically dominating overmatched college competition. By contrast, Holmgren is shooting five 3-pointers per-40 minutes, making 43% of his attempts, better than all but two players currently projected to be drafted, both of whom are under 6-7. He is also shooting 74% from 2-point range (better than any projected draft pick), including 49 dunks, more than both Banchero and Smith combined, per Synergy Sports Tech.
Holmgren's ability to ignite Gonzaga's offense by pushing off the defensive glass, go coast to coast acrobatically, and find teammates off a live dribble are things that further separate him from other big men past or present. Despite towering over opponents, his mobility, lateral quickness and length makes him better equipped for guarding smaller players on the perimeter than strong-framed traditional bigs on the block.
Everything about Holmgren is uncommon, unconventional and completely unfamiliar. We have never seen a prospect like him before. -- Jonathan Givony
How much are NBA scouts factoring their evaluations of Holmgren based on the level of Gonzaga's opponents?
That process started long before he enrolled at Gonzaga. Thankfully, Holmgren has a fairly significant body of work to point to, which led him to be anointed the consensus No. 1 prospect in his high school class (from a fairly early stage). That process was muddled by the coronavirus pandemic, which prevented several opportunities to evaluate him against his peers. Holmgren cemented himself atop this class with standout showings at the Iverson Classic in April 2021 and the FIBA U19 World Cup last July, when he was named MVP after leading USA Basketball to gold. That team included fellow projected top-10 picks Jaden Ivey and Johnny Davis, while the tournament featured future draft picks in Canada's Bennedict Mathurin and France's Victor Wembanyama (who outplayed Holmgren in the final).
While some of Holmgren's best games have come against weaker competition (San Diego, Bellarmine, Pepperdine, etc), he's also had strong non-conference showings against UCLA, Alabama and Duke, as well as at home against Saint Mary's and home and away San Francisco games in the WCC, both of whom are top-20 caliber teams according to several metrics. By comparison, the ACC has zero top-25 teams for Banchero to match up with. It is safe to say that NBA teams have seen Holmgren excel against better competition, although they'd certainly like to see more head-to-head matchups with fellow NBA prospects, something the NCAA tournament should hopefully provide. -- Givony
How concerned are NBA scouts with Holmgren's slender frame holding up against NBA players?
You generally have two factions in the NBA regarding physical projections: The "body scouts" who value day one physicality, and the evaluators who tend to think more long term, noting that almost every slender prospect ranging from Giannis Antetokounmpo to Anthony Davis to Kevin Durant ultimately fills in with NBA strength and conditioning. You'll hear some of the most accomplished NBA execs rightfully ponder, "When is the last time skinny hasn't worked in the NBA?"
Yet there's still a contingent of NBA evaluators who seem more skeptical than usual regarding how quickly Holmgren will fill out, and by how much. You hear scouts say: "Look at his gait" or "I'm worried about his hips." Some evaluators said they left his underwhelming performances this season with "more questions than answers" regarding how he will survive physically in the NBA. Whether valid, others are even evaluating Holmgren's father, Dave Holmgren, a former standout at Minnesota who is lean himself at 7-0. Some see Chet's future going the way of Dave's, which seems a little ridiculous given the evolution of sports science since Dave's playing days.
As Givony outlined, there simply haven't been many players at Holmgren's height with his body type. Here's a look at how certain prospects were similar or different than Holmgren:
• Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was 6-9, 196 pounds entering the NBA, is a physical outlier who sprouted to 7-0 and added almost 50 pounds of muscle to his always-broad shoulders.
• Anthony Davis was 6-9, 187 pounds as a 17-year-old, yet weighed 222 pounds by the time he reached the NBA combine two years later. He now plays at 253 pounds.
• Evan Mobley tipped the scales at 198 pounds as an 18-year-old at USA Basketball and ultimately entered the NBA at closer to 215 pounds, which is around his current playing weight.
• Brandon Ingram was skinny coming up on the AAU circuit and is still listed at 190 pounds. Although there's been a clear physical progression since his Lakers days, Ingram hasn't seen a physical boom quite like Antetokounmpo, Davis, or Kevin Durant, who weighed 215 pounds as an 18-year-old and is now listed at 240 pounds.
• Rudy Gobert was almost 240 pounds by the time he reached the NBA combine as a 21-year-old.
• Mo Bamba weighed 196 pounds as a 17-year-old, yet eventually topped 225 pounds as a 20-year-old at the 2018 combine. He now plays at 231 pounds.
• Anthony Randolph weighed 197 pounds as an 18-year-old, yet was playing at a slender 230 by his mid-20s.
• Chris Boucher is another unique case as he weighed 182 pounds at the combine as a 24-year-old, and is now listed at 200 pounds.
• Austin Daye, who was 192 pounds as a 21-year-old, played a lot of his NBA basketball at 220 pounds.
• Pokusevski weighed 196 pounds as a 16-year-old with a better base than upper body, yet is now listed at 7-0, 190 pounds. Only able to compete in the Greek 2nd League abroad, Pokusevksi's question marks were more about toughness and durability than body construction, even with his narrow shoulders.
• Bol Bol weighed 208 pounds at the combine, but he was coming off a season-ending foot injury and weighed as much as 234 pounds as an 18-year-old. His frame is more in line with Pokusevski's than Holmgren's.
How does Holmgren compare physically? He doesn't quite have the same lower body or quickness as Mobley, even if he has a little more room to fill out the top. He's clearly skinnier than guys like Gobert, and even Davis and Durant at the same stage (Holmgren turns 20 on May 1). Although a bit lighter, he's tougher than Pokusevski, Bol and Bamba. We don't have combine measurements for Kristaps Porzingis, but he had a more projectable frame at the same stage, especially in the lower body, and plays at around 240 pounds now.
In terms of body construction with somewhat narrow hips, almost zero backside, high and wide shoulders, long arms and movements that are rangier, a 7-1 Ingram is probably the closest physical comparison to Holmgren in terms of frame. And Holmgren, who looked a bit stronger when I saw him Monday night against San Francisco, has more physical upside given his height and reach, and his fluidity is nothing short of spectacular.
The question then becomes, if Holmgren is truly closer to a 7-1 Ingram physically than Gobert, Mobley or Durant, what does that mean for his long-term projection? Where will being thin affect him, and for how long, if at all? Surely, Holmgren figures to struggle with the physicality of bigs such as Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic when they play out of the post. Most NBA bigs do. Watching Estonian Saint Mary's big man Matthias Tass have his way with Holmgren on a few possessions in a recent loss re-emphasized that point. Whether in the post or on a drive from a physical big such as Banchero (see their November matchup), Holmgren will take his lumps. But will Holmgren have to check Embiid and Jokic in those matchups? As Givony outlined, Holmgren is also capable of playing the 4 early in his career because of his mobility and defensive range, even if it's not quite to Mobley's level in terms of switch ability. That has surely helped Mobley, who doesn't have to worry about consistently banging inside while alongside center Jarrett Allen.
It's also important to note how many shots Holmgren's length and timing changes versus how many points he gives up by sheer force and physicality. It's the quiet toughness and mean streak he plays with -- which has similarly helped a guy like Ingram find so much success in the NBA -- that will help him hold up more than his biggest naysayers suggest. And as we've seen with Mobley being one of the NBA's top rim defenders in the league already at 215 pounds, you don't need to be Hercules to be a great rim protector. Holmgren is blocking more shots per 40 minutes (5.3 to 5.0) against teams over .500, with at least 10 altered shots against Alabama. His biggest NBA fans praise the nastiness his plays with, as do opposing coaches.
"He's a generational player," San Francisco coach Todd Golden recently said after a narrow loss to Gonzaga and Holmgren, who went for 21 points, 15 rebounds and six blocks. "Obviously he's skinny. There are times when he looks like Bambi out there. But he really doesn't get overpowered out there. He can fight the fight. We have some grown men in our front line [two fifth-year seniors who are over 245 pounds]. He can bang with those guys."
The other concern would be on the defensive glass, yet Holmgren's reach and toughness still outshine his lack of physicality, as he's regularly tapping the ball to himself or an open teammate or snatching the ball in traffic, even if he takes at least a few hard spills to the floor every game. It's important to note rebounds are far more uncontested in the NBA than in college. Offensively, Holmgren's finishing should translate even with his lean frame given his reach and the fact he's an agile lob-catcher. For reference, Mobley is posting a 73.8% eFG% in the restricted area, good for 18th out of 44 high volume finishers.
Where Holmgren could get in trouble is when teams switch on him to take away his pick-and-pop 3 and force him into post isolations, where he's easily pushed off his spots. But I imagine we'll see more and more of Holmgren's Dirk Nowitzki fallaway in the NBA, and the fact that he can handle, shoot off the dribble and pass at 7-1 will allow him to overcome some of the physicality concerns.
Teams seem slightly more concerned about Holmgren's frame than previous slender prospects, yet with the NBA being more of a "length and skill" league, some of the most respected voices are clearly optimistic that what he does well will translate to the NBA. The questions are more along the lines of durability. You never want to fully downplay any physical concerns (Zion Williamson, Porzingis), but Holmgren has never needed to rely on physicality to have an impact, and that shouldn't change at the next level. Holmgren is maybe the most intriguing prospect I've evaluated not named Wembanyama over the past decade or so, skinny frame and all, and has done nothing to show me he shouldn't be the No. 1 pick in June. -- Mike Schmitz
How important will Holmgren's performance in the NCAA tournament be for his draft status? Is there a scenario where he plays his way out of the top 3?
It's hard to envision a scenario in which Holmgren drops draft wise, even if Gonzaga suffers an early upset in the first weekend, but that will also depend on how Duke's Banchero and Purdue's Jaden Ivey finish their seasons. Teams don't tend to overreact to one bad single-game performance in an environment like the NCAA tournament. With that said, leading Gonzaga to the Final Four with some strong performances against NBA-caliber big men would go a long way in solidifying himself at No. 1.
Holmgren entered college in a very different situation than Banchero and Jabari Smith, playing alongside two upperclassmen in Drew Timme and Andrew Nembhard that put him in more of a complementary role. He looked passive at times in non-conference play, blending in and wanting to play the right way, passing up quite a few open shots in the process. He has looked like a completely different player in the WCC, allowing him to gain confidence while showing different facets of his game. Dominating in March like he has the past two months would bolster his cause significantly.
Gonzaga's coaching staff privately says they've encouraged Holmgren to be much more assertive recently and have found ways to utilize his unique skill set while still playing through Timme as their clear-cut go-to guy. Holmgren's struggles with the physicality of teams such as Texas, Texas Tech and Saint Mary's in Gonzaga's lone WCC loss does put some pressure on him to perform better in the NCAA tournament against those types of tough, veteran frontcourts. But it's difficult to see him falling out of the top-two based on what NBA teams are currently saying privately. -- Givony
Which of the most likely top-5 teams in the 2022 NBA draft would be best-suited to developing Holmgren at the next level? Which could be the worst fit?
Finding a situation in which Holmgren can play alongside a more physically developed interior force early on in his career -- while still being able to slide up to the 5 for stretches like Mobley does -- will be key. According to CleaningTheGlass.com, 13% of Mobley's minutes come at the 5, which feels like a solid target range for Holmgren. What teams in the top-10 can provide that?
The Detroit Pistons jump out. I love Holmgren's fit alongside Isaiah Stewart in the frontcourt. Although he lacks in the height and vertical pop departments, Stewart is as physical of a center as you'll find in the NBA, and he's proven he's more than willing to throw his weight around with anyone regardless of stature. Stewart checking 5s would allow Holmgren to function more as a rover, using his length and instincts to change shots at the rim from the weakside or roam the perimeter on switches. Having big-bodied guards and wings in Cade Cunningham and Saddiq Bey would also allow the Pistons to switch more and take away offensive rebounds when Holmgren has to converge on downhill guards in pick-and-roll drop situations.
Then there would be the offensive fit with Cunningham. The Pistons rank 29th in 3-point accuracy, and Cunningham is in dire need of a floor-spacing big like Holmgren to give him room to operate. Holmgren doesn't play with an offensively aggressive, scorer-mentality, which fits well next to a hungry bucket-getter like Bey and allows him to also operate more as a third option with Cunningham running the controls. Mobley not having to be Cleveland's primary offensive option alongside Darius Garland, Allen, Collin Sexton (when healthy) and Caris LeVert is a big reason why he's looked so comfortable, so early in his career. The Pistons could offer a similar platform to function as an offensive blender and defensive rover.
Holmgren is also an interesting fit next to the Orlando Magic's 250-pound Wendell Carter Jr. and Franz Wagner when Holmgren slides up to the 5. He'd mesh well with a post savant such as a 245-pound Alperen Sengun, (at least offensively) in Houston, as Sengun has some of the same strengths and weaknesses as Zags big man Timme.
Although they're currently projected outside the top-5, the big I'd like to see Holmgren paired with most is former Zag Domantas Sabonis in Sacramento. The Lithuanian lefty is powerful enough to battle traditional centers in the post, yet doesn't really shoot 3s or protect the rim, both things that Holmgren is elite at. The type of pick-and-roll combinations you could run with Sabonis and Holmgren would be glorious to watch. To a lesser degree, Holmgren could also unlock the best version of New York's Julius Randle.
As far as the most questionable fit, I'm not sure how Holmgren would look alongside some of the Pacers' current bigs. While he'd be must-see TV in pick-and-roll with guard Tyrese Haliburton, I'd be curious to see how he'd work alongside center Myles Turner, who, although a tremendous rim protector, isn't traditionally a great rebounder and prefers to do most of his damage beyond the arc offensively, like Holmgren. Rookie Isaiah Jackson, who has had some tremendous moments thus far, is incredibly light in his own right and doesn't have the body to bang with the 5s Holmgren will need him to early in his career. Holmgren is ultimately a much better player than all the aforementioned bigs, so his fit alongside key pieces like Haliburton and Chris Duarte should take priority. If the Rockets are committed to Christian Wood long-term, I'd wonder about that fit, as he makes more sense next to Sengun than Wood. -- Schmitz
Gonzaga freshman Chet Holmgren has been atop ESPN NBA mock drafts all season, but that doesn't mean there aren't questions about his future at the next level in the eyes of scouts. The 7-foot and 195-pound Holmgren has had his unique frame questioned since his high school days at Minnehaha Academy in Minnesota. It didn't prevent the 19-year-old from coming to Gonzaga as the No. 1 prospect in high school basketball last year, but with the NCAA tournament right around the corner, Holmgren will be under the microscope in the eyes of NBA scouts.
What are the questions surrounding Holmgren's one-of-a-kind frame that makes him so polarizing for NBA scouts? Could a poor showing in the NCAA tournament help catapult Auburn's Jabari Smith or Duke's Paolo Banchero to the top spot in the draft?
Holmgren and the Zags will try to wrap up a No. 1 seed on Tuesday in Las Vegas when they play Saint Mary's in the WCC tournament final (9 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN app) in front of several NBA general managers and 40-plus scouts. ESPN draft experts Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz answer the questions surrounding the most intriguing NBA prospect in quite some time.
Why is Chet Holmgren so polarizing with NBA scouts?
Familiarity breeds comfort in the world of the NBA draft. Spend any amount of time with an NBA executive discussing draft prospects, and often the topic will turn to which NBA player future draft picks "remind you of." It's helpful to put prospects in context by comparing them to NBA players, to visualize their pathway to success and gauge their fit on existing rosters. How does James Wiseman get drafted over LaMelo Ball? Or Marvin Bagley III over Luka Doncic? Special can also be a synonym for scary in the evaluation process.
The "problem" with Holmgren is he's a one-of-a-kind prospect, the likes of which we have simply never seen before. There are no great NBA comparisons that truly capture his rare skill set on both ends of the floor, and that's unnerving in many ways, as we're operating in unfamiliar territory. For draft analysts, that's incredibly exciting. But for NBA executives whose careers hinge on making the right choice atop June's draft, that can be downright frightening.
Start with his dimensions. Holmgren was measured over 7-feet barefoot by USA Basketball last summer, with a 7-foot-5 wingspan. There are 16 active NBA players who stand over 7-feet, and none of them weigh anywhere close to 195 pounds like Holmgren.
The closest physical comparisons we can find are Aleksej Pokusevski, Bol Bol, Chris Boucher, Isaiah Jackson -- hardly the most inspiring or imposing group.
None of these players came remotely close to producing the way Holmgren has thus far. You have to look back to Shaquille O'Neal, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon for lottery picks who put up the type of scoring/rebounding/blocking numbers Holmgren has produced on a per-minute basis, and none of them did so as freshmen.
Those are also true centers who did their damage inside the paint while physically dominating overmatched college competition. By contrast, Holmgren is shooting five 3-pointers per-40 minutes, making 43% of his attempts, better than all but two players currently projected to be drafted, both of whom are under 6-7. He is also shooting 74% from 2-point range (better than any projected draft pick), including 49 dunks, more than both Banchero and Smith combined, per Synergy Sports Tech.
Holmgren's ability to ignite Gonzaga's offense by pushing off the defensive glass, go coast to coast acrobatically, and find teammates off a live dribble are things that further separate him from other big men past or present. Despite towering over opponents, his mobility, lateral quickness and length makes him better equipped for guarding smaller players on the perimeter than strong-framed traditional bigs on the block.
Everything about Holmgren is uncommon, unconventional and completely unfamiliar. We have never seen a prospect like him before. -- Jonathan Givony
How much are NBA scouts factoring their evaluations of Holmgren based on the level of Gonzaga's opponents?
That process started long before he enrolled at Gonzaga. Thankfully, Holmgren has a fairly significant body of work to point to, which led him to be anointed the consensus No. 1 prospect in his high school class (from a fairly early stage). That process was muddled by the coronavirus pandemic, which prevented several opportunities to evaluate him against his peers. Holmgren cemented himself atop this class with standout showings at the Iverson Classic in April 2021 and the FIBA U19 World Cup last July, when he was named MVP after leading USA Basketball to gold. That team included fellow projected top-10 picks Jaden Ivey and Johnny Davis, while the tournament featured future draft picks in Canada's Bennedict Mathurin and France's Victor Wembanyama (who outplayed Holmgren in the final).
While some of Holmgren's best games have come against weaker competition (San Diego, Bellarmine, Pepperdine, etc), he's also had strong non-conference showings against UCLA, Alabama and Duke, as well as at home against Saint Mary's and home and away San Francisco games in the WCC, both of whom are top-20 caliber teams according to several metrics. By comparison, the ACC has zero top-25 teams for Banchero to match up with. It is safe to say that NBA teams have seen Holmgren excel against better competition, although they'd certainly like to see more head-to-head matchups with fellow NBA prospects, something the NCAA tournament should hopefully provide. -- Givony
How concerned are NBA scouts with Holmgren's slender frame holding up against NBA players?
You generally have two factions in the NBA regarding physical projections: The "body scouts" who value day one physicality, and the evaluators who tend to think more long term, noting that almost every slender prospect ranging from Giannis Antetokounmpo to Anthony Davis to Kevin Durant ultimately fills in with NBA strength and conditioning. You'll hear some of the most accomplished NBA execs rightfully ponder, "When is the last time skinny hasn't worked in the NBA?"
Yet there's still a contingent of NBA evaluators who seem more skeptical than usual regarding how quickly Holmgren will fill out, and by how much. You hear scouts say: "Look at his gait" or "I'm worried about his hips." Some evaluators said they left his underwhelming performances this season with "more questions than answers" regarding how he will survive physically in the NBA. Whether valid, others are even evaluating Holmgren's father, Dave Holmgren, a former standout at Minnesota who is lean himself at 7-0. Some see Chet's future going the way of Dave's, which seems a little ridiculous given the evolution of sports science since Dave's playing days.
As Givony outlined, there simply haven't been many players at Holmgren's height with his body type. Here's a look at how certain prospects were similar or different than Holmgren:
• Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was 6-9, 196 pounds entering the NBA, is a physical outlier who sprouted to 7-0 and added almost 50 pounds of muscle to his always-broad shoulders.
• Anthony Davis was 6-9, 187 pounds as a 17-year-old, yet weighed 222 pounds by the time he reached the NBA combine two years later. He now plays at 253 pounds.
• Evan Mobley tipped the scales at 198 pounds as an 18-year-old at USA Basketball and ultimately entered the NBA at closer to 215 pounds, which is around his current playing weight.
• Brandon Ingram was skinny coming up on the AAU circuit and is still listed at 190 pounds. Although there's been a clear physical progression since his Lakers days, Ingram hasn't seen a physical boom quite like Antetokounmpo, Davis, or Kevin Durant, who weighed 215 pounds as an 18-year-old and is now listed at 240 pounds.
• Rudy Gobert was almost 240 pounds by the time he reached the NBA combine as a 21-year-old.
• Mo Bamba weighed 196 pounds as a 17-year-old, yet eventually topped 225 pounds as a 20-year-old at the 2018 combine. He now plays at 231 pounds.
• Anthony Randolph weighed 197 pounds as an 18-year-old, yet was playing at a slender 230 by his mid-20s.
• Chris Boucher is another unique case as he weighed 182 pounds at the combine as a 24-year-old, and is now listed at 200 pounds.
• Austin Daye, who was 192 pounds as a 21-year-old, played a lot of his NBA basketball at 220 pounds.
• Pokusevski weighed 196 pounds as a 16-year-old with a better base than upper body, yet is now listed at 7-0, 190 pounds. Only able to compete in the Greek 2nd League abroad, Pokusevksi's question marks were more about toughness and durability than body construction, even with his narrow shoulders.
• Bol Bol weighed 208 pounds at the combine, but he was coming off a season-ending foot injury and weighed as much as 234 pounds as an 18-year-old. His frame is more in line with Pokusevski's than Holmgren's.
How does Holmgren compare physically? He doesn't quite have the same lower body or quickness as Mobley, even if he has a little more room to fill out the top. He's clearly skinnier than guys like Gobert, and even Davis and Durant at the same stage (Holmgren turns 20 on May 1). Although a bit lighter, he's tougher than Pokusevski, Bol and Bamba. We don't have combine measurements for Kristaps Porzingis, but he had a more projectable frame at the same stage, especially in the lower body, and plays at around 240 pounds now.
In terms of body construction with somewhat narrow hips, almost zero backside, high and wide shoulders, long arms and movements that are rangier, a 7-1 Ingram is probably the closest physical comparison to Holmgren in terms of frame. And Holmgren, who looked a bit stronger when I saw him Monday night against San Francisco, has more physical upside given his height and reach, and his fluidity is nothing short of spectacular.
The question then becomes, if Holmgren is truly closer to a 7-1 Ingram physically than Gobert, Mobley or Durant, what does that mean for his long-term projection? Where will being thin affect him, and for how long, if at all? Surely, Holmgren figures to struggle with the physicality of bigs such as Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic when they play out of the post. Most NBA bigs do. Watching Estonian Saint Mary's big man Matthias Tass have his way with Holmgren on a few possessions in a recent loss re-emphasized that point. Whether in the post or on a drive from a physical big such as Banchero (see their November matchup), Holmgren will take his lumps. But will Holmgren have to check Embiid and Jokic in those matchups? As Givony outlined, Holmgren is also capable of playing the 4 early in his career because of his mobility and defensive range, even if it's not quite to Mobley's level in terms of switch ability. That has surely helped Mobley, who doesn't have to worry about consistently banging inside while alongside center Jarrett Allen.
It's also important to note how many shots Holmgren's length and timing changes versus how many points he gives up by sheer force and physicality. It's the quiet toughness and mean streak he plays with -- which has similarly helped a guy like Ingram find so much success in the NBA -- that will help him hold up more than his biggest naysayers suggest. And as we've seen with Mobley being one of the NBA's top rim defenders in the league already at 215 pounds, you don't need to be Hercules to be a great rim protector. Holmgren is blocking more shots per 40 minutes (5.3 to 5.0) against teams over .500, with at least 10 altered shots against Alabama. His biggest NBA fans praise the nastiness his plays with, as do opposing coaches.
"He's a generational player," San Francisco coach Todd Golden recently said after a narrow loss to Gonzaga and Holmgren, who went for 21 points, 15 rebounds and six blocks. "Obviously he's skinny. There are times when he looks like Bambi out there. But he really doesn't get overpowered out there. He can fight the fight. We have some grown men in our front line [two fifth-year seniors who are over 245 pounds]. He can bang with those guys."
The other concern would be on the defensive glass, yet Holmgren's reach and toughness still outshine his lack of physicality, as he's regularly tapping the ball to himself or an open teammate or snatching the ball in traffic, even if he takes at least a few hard spills to the floor every game. It's important to note rebounds are far more uncontested in the NBA than in college. Offensively, Holmgren's finishing should translate even with his lean frame given his reach and the fact he's an agile lob-catcher. For reference, Mobley is posting a 73.8% eFG% in the restricted area, good for 18th out of 44 high volume finishers.
Where Holmgren could get in trouble is when teams switch on him to take away his pick-and-pop 3 and force him into post isolations, where he's easily pushed off his spots. But I imagine we'll see more and more of Holmgren's Dirk Nowitzki fallaway in the NBA, and the fact that he can handle, shoot off the dribble and pass at 7-1 will allow him to overcome some of the physicality concerns.
Teams seem slightly more concerned about Holmgren's frame than previous slender prospects, yet with the NBA being more of a "length and skill" league, some of the most respected voices are clearly optimistic that what he does well will translate to the NBA. The questions are more along the lines of durability. You never want to fully downplay any physical concerns (Zion Williamson, Porzingis), but Holmgren has never needed to rely on physicality to have an impact, and that shouldn't change at the next level. Holmgren is maybe the most intriguing prospect I've evaluated not named Wembanyama over the past decade or so, skinny frame and all, and has done nothing to show me he shouldn't be the No. 1 pick in June. -- Mike Schmitz
How important will Holmgren's performance in the NCAA tournament be for his draft status? Is there a scenario where he plays his way out of the top 3?
It's hard to envision a scenario in which Holmgren drops draft wise, even if Gonzaga suffers an early upset in the first weekend, but that will also depend on how Duke's Banchero and Purdue's Jaden Ivey finish their seasons. Teams don't tend to overreact to one bad single-game performance in an environment like the NCAA tournament. With that said, leading Gonzaga to the Final Four with some strong performances against NBA-caliber big men would go a long way in solidifying himself at No. 1.
Holmgren entered college in a very different situation than Banchero and Jabari Smith, playing alongside two upperclassmen in Drew Timme and Andrew Nembhard that put him in more of a complementary role. He looked passive at times in non-conference play, blending in and wanting to play the right way, passing up quite a few open shots in the process. He has looked like a completely different player in the WCC, allowing him to gain confidence while showing different facets of his game. Dominating in March like he has the past two months would bolster his cause significantly.
Gonzaga's coaching staff privately says they've encouraged Holmgren to be much more assertive recently and have found ways to utilize his unique skill set while still playing through Timme as their clear-cut go-to guy. Holmgren's struggles with the physicality of teams such as Texas, Texas Tech and Saint Mary's in Gonzaga's lone WCC loss does put some pressure on him to perform better in the NCAA tournament against those types of tough, veteran frontcourts. But it's difficult to see him falling out of the top-two based on what NBA teams are currently saying privately. -- Givony
Which of the most likely top-5 teams in the 2022 NBA draft would be best-suited to developing Holmgren at the next level? Which could be the worst fit?
Finding a situation in which Holmgren can play alongside a more physically developed interior force early on in his career -- while still being able to slide up to the 5 for stretches like Mobley does -- will be key. According to CleaningTheGlass.com, 13% of Mobley's minutes come at the 5, which feels like a solid target range for Holmgren. What teams in the top-10 can provide that?
The Detroit Pistons jump out. I love Holmgren's fit alongside Isaiah Stewart in the frontcourt. Although he lacks in the height and vertical pop departments, Stewart is as physical of a center as you'll find in the NBA, and he's proven he's more than willing to throw his weight around with anyone regardless of stature. Stewart checking 5s would allow Holmgren to function more as a rover, using his length and instincts to change shots at the rim from the weakside or roam the perimeter on switches. Having big-bodied guards and wings in Cade Cunningham and Saddiq Bey would also allow the Pistons to switch more and take away offensive rebounds when Holmgren has to converge on downhill guards in pick-and-roll drop situations.
Then there would be the offensive fit with Cunningham. The Pistons rank 29th in 3-point accuracy, and Cunningham is in dire need of a floor-spacing big like Holmgren to give him room to operate. Holmgren doesn't play with an offensively aggressive, scorer-mentality, which fits well next to a hungry bucket-getter like Bey and allows him to also operate more as a third option with Cunningham running the controls. Mobley not having to be Cleveland's primary offensive option alongside Darius Garland, Allen, Collin Sexton (when healthy) and Caris LeVert is a big reason why he's looked so comfortable, so early in his career. The Pistons could offer a similar platform to function as an offensive blender and defensive rover.
Holmgren is also an interesting fit next to the Orlando Magic's 250-pound Wendell Carter Jr. and Franz Wagner when Holmgren slides up to the 5. He'd mesh well with a post savant such as a 245-pound Alperen Sengun, (at least offensively) in Houston, as Sengun has some of the same strengths and weaknesses as Zags big man Timme.
Although they're currently projected outside the top-5, the big I'd like to see Holmgren paired with most is former Zag Domantas Sabonis in Sacramento. The Lithuanian lefty is powerful enough to battle traditional centers in the post, yet doesn't really shoot 3s or protect the rim, both things that Holmgren is elite at. The type of pick-and-roll combinations you could run with Sabonis and Holmgren would be glorious to watch. To a lesser degree, Holmgren could also unlock the best version of New York's Julius Randle.
As far as the most questionable fit, I'm not sure how Holmgren would look alongside some of the Pacers' current bigs. While he'd be must-see TV in pick-and-roll with guard Tyrese Haliburton, I'd be curious to see how he'd work alongside center Myles Turner, who, although a tremendous rim protector, isn't traditionally a great rebounder and prefers to do most of his damage beyond the arc offensively, like Holmgren. Rookie Isaiah Jackson, who has had some tremendous moments thus far, is incredibly light in his own right and doesn't have the body to bang with the 5s Holmgren will need him to early in his career. Holmgren is ultimately a much better player than all the aforementioned bigs, so his fit alongside key pieces like Haliburton and Chris Duarte should take priority. If the Rockets are committed to Christian Wood long-term, I'd wonder about that fit, as he makes more sense next to Sengun than Wood. -- Schmitz
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Bronny sounds like Alex Caruso.
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He’s absolutely not a one and done which will prove tricky for Bron trying to play with him
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This can be his path, just be that connective smart passer who can be a knockdown shooter
Agree with lot of the article
Agree with lot of the article
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There's a prospect somewhere in the NCAA averaging 25-28 points right now whose path is going to be becoming a "connective passer who can be a knockdown shooter" and he still might not make it. The kid who is ranked say....15th right now....in Bronny's class...does not have his pro prospects being discussed on a massive scale right now and will just naturally develop into whatever he is that will determine his outcome.
The fact were talking about what a kid's path needs to be who is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO far away from being an actual pro (in any pro league) is kind of wild...but here we are
Rough shoes for that kid to be in.
The fact were talking about what a kid's path needs to be who is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO far away from being an actual pro (in any pro league) is kind of wild...but here we are
Rough shoes for that kid to be in.
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Well, yes man, that’s the world we’re in lolThere's a prospect somewhere in the NCAA averaging 25-28 points right now whose path is going to be becoming a "connective passer who can be a knockdown shooter" and he still might not make it. The kid who is ranked say....15th right now....in Bronny's class...does not have his pro prospects being discussed on a massive scale right now and will just naturally develop into whatever he is that will determine his outcome.
The fact were talking about what a kid's path needs to be who is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO far away from being an actual pro (in any pro league) is kind of wild...but here we are
Rough shoes for that kid to be in.
Bronny most likely ain’t gonna be some kind of self creative scorer. He should focus on becoming a knockdown shooter
Dudes who are pure scorers will have a tougher time to transition into that type of role because they weren’t wired like that
Bronny should start now and try to become a Seth curry type player
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Tough being Bronny - who knows if the kid even loves playing 
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I think the larger point im making is that in the grand scheme of things he is still basketball putty from a development standpoint. His path is being tampered with and that's not fair as a player at all. His path is being attached to his dad's....and it doesn't need to be. Outside of the elite 1% of Bronny's class (2 or 3 kids maybe)...all of them just get to go and play ball without being fast tracked.
Example...we weren't talking about Seth Curry in the 11th grade. He naturally became "Seth Curry" after his own unique path .There weren't articles talking about what kind of player he'd need to be to become a one and done. I had a front row seat for the Patrick Ewing Jr. journey...and he had it ROUGH from an attention standpoint...and even still it was nothing compared to what I'm seeing w/ Bronny. There weren't any articles about what he needed to do to get to the NBA while he was still 17...and he was a 4 star kid.
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Someone posted an analysis of top 100 kids and only 17% of them make the league - a long way to go for them
Poor Bronny getting shelled on IG because they got blown out last night - THEY WERE THE UNDERDOG
Poor Bronny getting shelled on IG because they got blown out last night - THEY WERE THE UNDERDOG
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Vecenie’s 2022 NBA Draft Big Board 3.0: Chet Holmgren, Jabari Smith in their own tier; Shaedon Sharpe enters fray
We’re now deep into March Madness season, and it’s a good time to reset The Athletic’s NBA Draft Big Board, which has seen quite a bit of shake-up since the previous update. The top tier remains the same, but very little beyond that is truly settled. There is a bit more excitement overall brewing for this class from NBA teams than in previous iterations of the board, but teams still consider this to be an average to below-average draft, depending on who declares and how many players test their luck with the process.
Above all, what I think is worth stressing as we go into this crazy, beautiful swing of basketball madness is that there is an awful lot still up for grabs, especially in the first round from No. 15 on down. Players who emerge this month have every opportunity to be able to push themselves into the conversation to be taken in Round 1. The difference between the players ranked No. 15 and No. 58 here is really minimal, and a big month in the games that matter most could really work to push guys from going back to school toward declaring for the draft. There is so much space for real shake-up by the time this gets updated again in April.
In that vein, here is the top-100 board. It’s worth noting some things. We’re trying a new format here that splits up our board and allows us to talk a bit more about a wider variety of players. Additionally, it’s worth writing in a few notes as usual.
I do not rank freshmen who come in below No. 50. If a player outside of that group decides to declare for the draft, I will consider them as an addition to the board at that point, but not beforehand.
This board does not take team fit into account. What it tries to do is take the general direction of the NBA and slot in players who I think will play a role at the next level in the largest variety of situations. With the way the NBA is going, wings tend to end up marginally higher on my board than bigs, as every team needs more perimeter players who are multi-positional defenders. Versatile players are valued.
I get input and information from NBA executives, college coaches and other evaluators during the process. It’s critical to have conversations with folks around the basketball community to get a well-rounded picture of a player’s future. Sometimes it’s about his background and off-court habits. Sometimes it’s about his work ethic. Other times, it’s just a conversation about whether we think a guy can play. But at the end of the day, this is my ranking, and while it is reflective of the general tenor of NBA teams, it’s not necessarily what the consensus would be.
2022 Big Board 3.0 players 1-5
No adjustments here from what I wrote in the mock. I have Chet Holmgren and Jabari Smith in a mini-tier to themselves and see them as the two legitimate candidates to be taken No. 1 overall at this stage.
Chet Holmgren: The conversation regarding Holmgren’s frame is already getting tiring as more and more people start tuning into college basketball with March Madness heating up. I get it. He’s skinny and looks like a stiff breeze could blow him over. By the way, those conversations aren’t just happening in the public sphere. High-level NBA executives who are just now starting to attend games more and focus on scouting college hoops as opposed to the trade deadline or their own teams’ battles with COVID-19 are similarly debating Holmgren’s rare frame and game. It’s because we haven’t seen anything like this before. The term “unicorn” was often overused in the late 2010s as people searched for 7-foot rim protectors who could shoot, but Holmgren is genuinely something that hasn’t really entered the NBA. New players whom NBA executives can’t fit tightly into their little archetypical box often get questioned in this way.
But you know what? Holmgren’s also arguably been the most complete player in the country since the calendar turned to 2022. He’s an elite rim protector and defender who is posting a top-10 block rate in the country as a freshman. What I think people who are just tuning in now are missing is that Holmgren is physical. He is competitive as hell and fights constantly. His frame is a hindrance in terms of getting displaced by physical players and getting sealed on the block, but he still high-points the ball on the glass and never gives up on plays. His fundamentals in terms of using his length and verticality to contest are awesome. He moves his feet well in drop coverage. He can grab and go on the break and create his own shot. He can break down a defender at the top of the key and execute a spin into a drop-step two-handed flush as he showed against San Francisco in the WCC tournament. He has hit 41 percent of his 3s.
His game can make him a star if he proves capable of managing the lack of size in the NBA and still creating his own shot. But even if it doesn’t, the rest of his game is scalable toward being an elite No. 2 option because of that all-around defensive impact and shooting. People have questioned Holmgren’s lack of strength as he’s moved up to every single level, and he’s eventually figured it out and made it work. My guess is he does it in the NBA too. I don’t have him as a Tier 1 prospect. But I do think he’s the No. 1 player in this class right now.
Shaedon Sharpe: An adjustment to how I’ve been operating previously. I’ve decided to start ranking Sharpe on my big board but will not be placing him on the mock until he decides to declare for the draft. We have just as much information on if Sharpe is going to declare for the draft as we do on someone like TyTy Washington or Jeremy Sochan or Caleb Houstan or other freshmen. Typically, I rank freshmen who are inside of my top 50, and Sharpe certainly slots within there. At the end of the day, it’s right at this stage to rank Sharpe as if he’s a realistic option in the 2022 NBA Draft class. We’ll see what he decides to do.
I’ve slotted him at No. 5, as I’ve said I would throughout this process. It’s just really, ridiculously hard to find guys who are 6-foot-6 with 7-foot wingspans who are monster athletes in terms of balance and explosiveness and are legitimate pull-up shooting threats. There would obviously be much more variance in where he ends up getting taken on draft night, if he were to declare. I’d put his range anywhere from No. 3 to No. 15, depending on how he’d conduct his pre-draft process and how he’d perform in workouts for teams. For more information there, Kyle Tucker and I did a deep dive previously.
Players 6-10
Keegan Murray: It’s hard to overemphasize how impressive Murray has been this season offensively. He has answered every question as he’s moved up into a bigger role, shooting 38 percent from 3 on real volume and some minor movement such as little flare actions and pull-ups. He’s a terrific rebounder and makes smart weakside defensive rotations around the rim to be a presence as a shot blocker. He moves exceedingly well without the ball, finding little creases and gaps on cuts to get to the rim or into dead zones in the defense. While he’s not the world’s most creative passer, he’s elite in terms of decision-making and never turns it over.
I’ve had multiple conversations with high-level NBA executives where they raise the question of, “Why is Paolo Banchero a better prospect than Murray?” To me, Banchero is slightly ahead because he’s bigger, a bit stronger and is a better on-ball shot creator. His handle is better, and I think it translates better toward him being a top-two option in the NBA. But these are absolutely conversations executives are having right now, and it’s a testament to Murray’s production that he’s in the mix to be selected in the top five.
Dyson Daniels: Daniels doesn’t move up the board at all, but I think he’s done a really great job late in the season for the Ignite of solidifying himself in a couple of respects. He’s clearly the guy scouts like most out of the Ignite’s 2022 draft prospects. Maybe not every scout, but certainly the majority of them like Daniels more than Jaden Hardy, MarJon Beauchamp and Michael Foster. Why? Daniels just continues to look completely and utterly comfortable as a professional in ways the others do not.
A number of scouts have commented to me that Daniels was the player of the group who looked least bothered and most ready when the Ignite guys played in the Rising Stars competition. While you don’t want to read too much into an exhibition setting, that also lines up entirely with what the tape from Daniels with the Ignite will show. He defends at a high level. He can run the point and get his teammates involved. His two-foot jump-stop floater looks immediately translatable as an in-between weapon, and he finishes well around the rim. His jumper is showing strides, and he’s clearly working on it in a way that is translatable to the NBA. He takes everything off the hop now to get into rhythm and takes them with a lot more confidence than he did early in the season. I think I’d be surprised at this point if he fell outside of the top 15.
Players 11-30
Jeremy Sochan: It’s just exceptionally difficult to ignore what Sochan has done in the second half of the season for Baylor, as he’s entered the rotation at an even higher level and become an integral part of their attack. Over Baylor’s last 11 games, he’s averaging 10 points, nearly seven rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.4 steals. The numbers don’t look amazing. But it’s the flashes of what he could be capable of at some point that are tantalizing. He’s one of the most versatile chess pieces in the country, capable of handling the ball for stretches and creating offense as well as playing as Baylor’s anchor at the center position with Baylor’s big depth compromised because Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua is out for the rest of the year.
He’s the prototypical mismatch nightmare, a “positionless” 6-foot-9 wing who can attack bigs off the bounce with some hesitation and shake moves to get downhill and finish at the rim or with a floater. He loves to grab and go to put pressure on the defense and has the fluidity and balance to be able to do so. If a smaller guard picks him up in transition, he’ll bully that guy to the rim. If it’s a big, he can blow by. He can be the screener, or he can be the ballhandler out of ball screens. He’s going to have to improve as a shooter, but he’s already shown some real flashes in that respect this season despite making just 30 percent from 3.
More than that, Sochan’s defense is outstanding. He’s switchable and physical at the point of attack, plus he has good enough feet to slide with guards and enough length to contest in recovery. Baylor switches basically everything when he’s out on the court with Kendall Brown, and the two of them have allowed Baylor to essentially see no drop-off in defensive level despite losing three All-Big-12 defenders from last year’s national championship team. His hands are constantly active, and he gets deflections. I’m a believer in Sochan being really useful on that end. Maybe not quite All-Defense team level, but genuinely a plus and impactful.
All of that leads to a lottery grade right now in large part due to a lack of other options out there. But don’t get it twisted: Sochan’s upside is real, even if he might be a bit of a project early in his career while he works the jumper out. I’d bet coaches will buy into him playing early even despite that, just because he plays hard and has enough of a versatile skill set that he’ll help almost any team he’s on while playing unselfish basketball.
Malaki Branham, Ohio State: Branham has been on fire to close the season in Big Ten and has emerged as a legitimate option for NBA teams that are looking for a 6-6 shot-creating wing. Branham’s numbers in conference play are absurd for a young guy in a league that is that good this season. He’s averaging 16.3 points and shooting 52.3 percent from the field, over 46 percent from 3 and averaging four rebounds and two assists. There really are not many players around the country who can match that level of volume and efficiency.
While Branham isn’t some elite athlete, he does a great job of attacking and getting downhill by getting defenders off balance. He has great length and really covers a lot of ground on his strides, then uses those arms to finish over big guys with great touch. He can break down guys in isolation, get that little bit of separation with a series of hesitations and crossovers and rise up to knock down a shot. He’s very sharp at finding creases and cracks in the lane and driving through them quickly in a straight line to finish. Above all, he’s really improved as a jump shooter. He takes shots directly off the hop with confidence, leaping straight up and down and maintaining strong balance through the shot. This hasn’t always been the case. In high school, he was known much more as a midrange gunner than as a 3-point marksman, so this improvement says a lot about where he’s headed.
There are still areas for improvement. Defensively, Branham is still working on playing out games. He has good stretches, but sometimes his focus will waver just a touch, and he’ll get lost. His length and strength give him a lot of room for error, though. Typically, guys who are this big, this long and have some athleticism, ball skills and shooting play in the NBA for a while. Branham has what teams are looking for and is a genuine one-and-done option who should test the waters this offseason. I think he’d be likely to hear his name called in the first unless he completely falls apart in workouts.
Ryan Rollins, Toledo: This is a guy I — and an awful lot of scouts — just missed on throughout the course of the year but is clearly awesome. Rollins should be the MAC Player of the Year this year, one of the most polished 19-year-old scoring prospects I’ve evaluated in a while. He’s a sophomore, but he’s basically the same age as guys like Paolo Banchero, Holmgren, McGowens and all of the other average-aged 19-year-old freshmen in the class. But unlike some of the others, Rollins has an exceptional feel for how to score the basketball efficiently from all three levels.
He’s not the best athlete, but his balance out of ball screens and ability to get into his shot at a high level are unbelievable. Everything that Johnny Davis does at Wisconsin, Rollins does at a lower level with Toledo. And frankly, I think I buy Rollins’ shooting just a bit more (even though I buy Davis on defense and as an athlete way more). He’s a bit more comfortable from midrange than from 3 right now, but he seems to decelerate at a really high level. He plays off two feet out of ball screens and is always ready to get into a pull-up jumper. He can shake defenders away from him with ease. And while he’s not the most explosive leaper in the world, he absorbs contact well around the rim and finishes with terrific touch. He hits 47 percent of his floaters and 59 percent of his shots at the rim in the half court, according to Synergy. He’s averaging 19 points but also does a good job of getting his teammates involved as a playmaker and passer.
It’s really, really hard to find teenagers who are this skilled with ball in hand. In fact, this season, Rollins and Davis are the only teenagers to average at least 19 points per game, and Rollins is doing it on a terrific 57.5 true-shooting percentage given how much of his offense is self-created. And there is a lot of room for upside too, given that I think his 3-point percentage is a bit of a soft number right now and not all that representative of his actual shooting ability. I’ve got Rollins as a first-round grade. I really hope Toledo wins the MAC tournament this week — it is No. 1 seed and the clear favorite — and we get a chance to see him again against elite competition after he dropped 21 points on Michigan State earlier this season.
Players 31-60
Oscar Tshiebwe, Kentucky: At the end of the day, in the second round, you’re just looking for players who can stick. And it’s exceptionally easy to imagine Tshiebwe sticking. He’s the best rebounder college basketball has seen in at least a decade, and he plays exceptionally hard all the time. You know what you’re getting every time he’s out there, and he’s going to make opposing players absolutely miserable on a random Wednesday night in February when he chases every single loose ball and rebound. I don’t think I’ve seen someone who plays this hard all the time with this type of relentless motor and energy. It’s an enormous credit to him, and it’s why he’s going to be named National Player of the Year in college basketball.
There are some obvious worries. I don’t love his defensive positioning. He makes an impact on that end just by having a 7-foot-5 wingspan and by playing as hard as he does, but he gets lost a bit more often than you’d like to see. Also, it’s a bit easier to finish over the top of him than you’d like to see from someone who will play the center position full time. He doesn’t have much in the way of elevation for an undersized big. I don’t really see him as the All-Defense-caliber player SEC coaches apparently did by voting him to that team. He has value because he consistently ends every possession after just one shot by grabbing every miss, but he might not consistently force that first miss either.
On top of that, the offense isn’t awesome. He can’t create his own shot, and he can’t shoot. He’s not a particularly vertical rim runner out of ball screens because of that lack of explosiveness. He’ll be the most limited national player of the year I can remember skill-wise. But he’s good in the dunker spot and creates a metric ton of extra possessions. Tshiebwe just seems like one of those guys whose positive energy will genuinely help a team and whose insatiable motor will help a team in the regular season. If you’re picking at No. 35, I’m not sure you can ask for much more than a pretty strong bet to stick because he plays so much harder than everyone else across every level of basketball that he just won national player of the year based almost solely on his work ethic.
Jaylin Williams, Arkansas: I get that JD Notae averages the points and thus is going to be the person who gets noticed for end-of-year awards. But it’s not even close who the best, most valuable player is on Arkansas. It’s Williams. He does it all on both ends for them. He’s a really sharp positional defender who has to lead the NCAA in charges taken at nearly 50 this year. A lot of those come around the rim in high-leverage scoring situations too, where he reads the play faster than anyone else and makes a quick rotation to get in established guarding position. He’s not an incredible switch defender, but he doesnt’t get toasted out there and generally allows Arkansas to play varied defensive looks depending on the opponent. Williams’ hand-eye coordination is elite, and he uses his hands to disrupt opposing teams’ actions. He rebounds at an exceedingly high level because he reads the ball really well off the rim.
Offensively, Williams showcases that high-level feel across the board as well. He’s one of the best passing big men in college hoops, initiating a lot of actions from the high post and consistently finding cutters before running dribble-handoffs to reset the actions or pick-and-popping into short roll areas to create danger for the opposition. As a scorer, he knows where to sink in order to get found for open shots. He can occasionally knock down open 3s and has good touch.
His breakout midway through the season coincides directly with Arkansas’ jump from being good to becoming a legitimate SEC threat. In his final 16 games, when Arkansas has won 14 of them, Williams is averaging 14.4 points, 10.6 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.1 blocks. He’s the engine that makes Arkansas go, and he has so many of the skills that NBA teams are interested in from their bigs. The only issue is whether or not he’s athletic enough to do it all at the NBA level. He could stand to lean out and get into better shape. If he did that, it might add to his ability to protect the rim. Right now, Williams gets by largely with positioning and that aforementioned ability to take charges. I’m worried NBA teams would be able to just finish over the top of him at the center position because he’s only 6-10. But there is enough value at every other facet of basketball that I’m willing to bet on Williams at some level to figure it out.
Players 61-100
Vince Williams, VCU: Looking for a 3-and-D wing who has some potential to be a bit more? Look no further than Williams, a 6-6 wing with great length who has hit 39 percent of his 3s and 80 percent of his free throws consistently over the last two seasons while making some high-level reads as a passer and consistently providing real defensive value. Williams is a bit older, but his statistical indicators are high-level.
Per Bart Torvik’s incredible statistical database, there are only nine players to put up at least a 60 true-shooting percentage while making 50 3s and averaging a 15 percent assist rate on offense, combined with a 2 percent steal and block rate on defense while playing in a top-10 league. The first eight are Tyrese Haliburton, Eric Gordon, Lonzo Ball, Derrick White, Shake Milton, John Shurna, Mario Chalmers and Ron Baker. Williams is the ninth, and seven of the eight previous guys didn’t just go on to play in the NBA, but they played somewhat significant time in the NBA. Particularly, the Milton comparison is the one that stands out to me given the similarities physically and in terms of their games (although Milton’s offensive game certainly had a bit more craft).
Williams will probably end up as a two-way grade for me, but he’s a really solid bet on a two-way to carve out a role-player career given all of the production and tools he’s showcased.
Baylor Scheierman, South Dakota State; Tevin Brown, Murray State: Two terrific mid-major players who we’re guaranteed to see in the NCAA Tournament after their teams took care of business earlier this week and earned their way into the field via conference tournament victories. Both of them are 3-point gunners in some respect. Brown is a high-volume 3-point gunner who takes eight 3s per game and hits them at a 39-percent clip. He’s a 6-foot-5 wing, and he’s constantly moving and on the lookout to try and find those open shots. His ability to fly around off the ball at speed keys a lot of Murray State’s offense, and he does a good job of fighting on defense too. A three-time first-team All-OVC selection, he’s a fifth-year senior — he missed his entire first season with a left foot injury and redshirted back in 2018 — who turns 24 in September, so he should be looking to start his pro career at the end of the month.
Scheierman, on the other hand, is more of a well-rounded offensive player with some time on his hands. He runs the offense for South Dakota State as a 6-foot-6 point wing and does everything. He averages 16 points while shooting over 50 percent from the field, 48 percent from 3 and 80 percent from the line. He distributes at a high level, dishing out nearly five assists versus only two turnovers per game. His hands are active on defense. The major concern here is athleticism. It seemed like Alabama’s speed overwhelmed him a bit in the team’s early-season game against the Tide. Even against Washington and Missouri State, two not-great defenses that are more athletic than anyone else SDSU plays in its league, Scheierman seemed to not deal with the pressure all that well. The tournament will be a critical test for him, almost regardless of who the Jackrabbits play. If he can show out in a big way, he could parlay it into being a draft pick this year. If not, he’s probably more on the 2023 timeline.
Kevin McCullar, Texas Tech: McCullar is just one of my favorites across college hoops. He’s all sorts of tough, the son of former football player, Kevin Sr., who played at Texas Tech back in the 1990s. He’s battled through a pair of ankle injuries throughout almost all of conference play, and it’s clearly had adverse effects on his personal numbers (his shooting numbers have totally tanked since the start of the calendar year when he suffered the first ankle injury, as he’s shooting just 31.6 percent from the field and 22.6 percent from 3 in that time).
But it hasn’t stopped him from battling through and still fighting every single night on the defensive end. It was a total joke that McCullar — the best defensive player on the best defensive team in the country — wasn’t named to the Big-12’s All-Defense team. He brings it every single night, defending multiple positions, forcing turnovers and generally disrupting everything opposing teams bring to the table. On top of that, Texas Tech asked him, especially early in the season, to handle a lot of the point guard position, something that isn’t totally natural for him, but he still succeeded. He’s been the ultimate team guy this season for a Texas Tech group that has been utterly selfless.
If you believe McCullar’s offensive game is more representative of his first half of the season, where he averaged 13 points, six rebounds and four assists while shooting 45 percent from the field and 37 percent from 3, then you should think of him as a draftable player like I do. Regardless, it might behoove him to return to Texas Tech and dominate as a senior before turning pro. But I think McCullar is a significantly undervalued asset right now as a draft prospect, given that we know how good he is on defense and there have been real flashes of positive offensive play. I can’t get him much higher than top 80 because the sample is too small on offense. But I’m a buyer.
We’re now deep into March Madness season, and it’s a good time to reset The Athletic’s NBA Draft Big Board, which has seen quite a bit of shake-up since the previous update. The top tier remains the same, but very little beyond that is truly settled. There is a bit more excitement overall brewing for this class from NBA teams than in previous iterations of the board, but teams still consider this to be an average to below-average draft, depending on who declares and how many players test their luck with the process.
Above all, what I think is worth stressing as we go into this crazy, beautiful swing of basketball madness is that there is an awful lot still up for grabs, especially in the first round from No. 15 on down. Players who emerge this month have every opportunity to be able to push themselves into the conversation to be taken in Round 1. The difference between the players ranked No. 15 and No. 58 here is really minimal, and a big month in the games that matter most could really work to push guys from going back to school toward declaring for the draft. There is so much space for real shake-up by the time this gets updated again in April.
In that vein, here is the top-100 board. It’s worth noting some things. We’re trying a new format here that splits up our board and allows us to talk a bit more about a wider variety of players. Additionally, it’s worth writing in a few notes as usual.
I do not rank freshmen who come in below No. 50. If a player outside of that group decides to declare for the draft, I will consider them as an addition to the board at that point, but not beforehand.
This board does not take team fit into account. What it tries to do is take the general direction of the NBA and slot in players who I think will play a role at the next level in the largest variety of situations. With the way the NBA is going, wings tend to end up marginally higher on my board than bigs, as every team needs more perimeter players who are multi-positional defenders. Versatile players are valued.
I get input and information from NBA executives, college coaches and other evaluators during the process. It’s critical to have conversations with folks around the basketball community to get a well-rounded picture of a player’s future. Sometimes it’s about his background and off-court habits. Sometimes it’s about his work ethic. Other times, it’s just a conversation about whether we think a guy can play. But at the end of the day, this is my ranking, and while it is reflective of the general tenor of NBA teams, it’s not necessarily what the consensus would be.
2022 Big Board 3.0 players 1-5
No adjustments here from what I wrote in the mock. I have Chet Holmgren and Jabari Smith in a mini-tier to themselves and see them as the two legitimate candidates to be taken No. 1 overall at this stage.
Chet Holmgren: The conversation regarding Holmgren’s frame is already getting tiring as more and more people start tuning into college basketball with March Madness heating up. I get it. He’s skinny and looks like a stiff breeze could blow him over. By the way, those conversations aren’t just happening in the public sphere. High-level NBA executives who are just now starting to attend games more and focus on scouting college hoops as opposed to the trade deadline or their own teams’ battles with COVID-19 are similarly debating Holmgren’s rare frame and game. It’s because we haven’t seen anything like this before. The term “unicorn” was often overused in the late 2010s as people searched for 7-foot rim protectors who could shoot, but Holmgren is genuinely something that hasn’t really entered the NBA. New players whom NBA executives can’t fit tightly into their little archetypical box often get questioned in this way.
But you know what? Holmgren’s also arguably been the most complete player in the country since the calendar turned to 2022. He’s an elite rim protector and defender who is posting a top-10 block rate in the country as a freshman. What I think people who are just tuning in now are missing is that Holmgren is physical. He is competitive as hell and fights constantly. His frame is a hindrance in terms of getting displaced by physical players and getting sealed on the block, but he still high-points the ball on the glass and never gives up on plays. His fundamentals in terms of using his length and verticality to contest are awesome. He moves his feet well in drop coverage. He can grab and go on the break and create his own shot. He can break down a defender at the top of the key and execute a spin into a drop-step two-handed flush as he showed against San Francisco in the WCC tournament. He has hit 41 percent of his 3s.
His game can make him a star if he proves capable of managing the lack of size in the NBA and still creating his own shot. But even if it doesn’t, the rest of his game is scalable toward being an elite No. 2 option because of that all-around defensive impact and shooting. People have questioned Holmgren’s lack of strength as he’s moved up to every single level, and he’s eventually figured it out and made it work. My guess is he does it in the NBA too. I don’t have him as a Tier 1 prospect. But I do think he’s the No. 1 player in this class right now.
Shaedon Sharpe: An adjustment to how I’ve been operating previously. I’ve decided to start ranking Sharpe on my big board but will not be placing him on the mock until he decides to declare for the draft. We have just as much information on if Sharpe is going to declare for the draft as we do on someone like TyTy Washington or Jeremy Sochan or Caleb Houstan or other freshmen. Typically, I rank freshmen who are inside of my top 50, and Sharpe certainly slots within there. At the end of the day, it’s right at this stage to rank Sharpe as if he’s a realistic option in the 2022 NBA Draft class. We’ll see what he decides to do.
I’ve slotted him at No. 5, as I’ve said I would throughout this process. It’s just really, ridiculously hard to find guys who are 6-foot-6 with 7-foot wingspans who are monster athletes in terms of balance and explosiveness and are legitimate pull-up shooting threats. There would obviously be much more variance in where he ends up getting taken on draft night, if he were to declare. I’d put his range anywhere from No. 3 to No. 15, depending on how he’d conduct his pre-draft process and how he’d perform in workouts for teams. For more information there, Kyle Tucker and I did a deep dive previously.
Players 6-10
Keegan Murray: It’s hard to overemphasize how impressive Murray has been this season offensively. He has answered every question as he’s moved up into a bigger role, shooting 38 percent from 3 on real volume and some minor movement such as little flare actions and pull-ups. He’s a terrific rebounder and makes smart weakside defensive rotations around the rim to be a presence as a shot blocker. He moves exceedingly well without the ball, finding little creases and gaps on cuts to get to the rim or into dead zones in the defense. While he’s not the world’s most creative passer, he’s elite in terms of decision-making and never turns it over.
I’ve had multiple conversations with high-level NBA executives where they raise the question of, “Why is Paolo Banchero a better prospect than Murray?” To me, Banchero is slightly ahead because he’s bigger, a bit stronger and is a better on-ball shot creator. His handle is better, and I think it translates better toward him being a top-two option in the NBA. But these are absolutely conversations executives are having right now, and it’s a testament to Murray’s production that he’s in the mix to be selected in the top five.
Dyson Daniels: Daniels doesn’t move up the board at all, but I think he’s done a really great job late in the season for the Ignite of solidifying himself in a couple of respects. He’s clearly the guy scouts like most out of the Ignite’s 2022 draft prospects. Maybe not every scout, but certainly the majority of them like Daniels more than Jaden Hardy, MarJon Beauchamp and Michael Foster. Why? Daniels just continues to look completely and utterly comfortable as a professional in ways the others do not.
A number of scouts have commented to me that Daniels was the player of the group who looked least bothered and most ready when the Ignite guys played in the Rising Stars competition. While you don’t want to read too much into an exhibition setting, that also lines up entirely with what the tape from Daniels with the Ignite will show. He defends at a high level. He can run the point and get his teammates involved. His two-foot jump-stop floater looks immediately translatable as an in-between weapon, and he finishes well around the rim. His jumper is showing strides, and he’s clearly working on it in a way that is translatable to the NBA. He takes everything off the hop now to get into rhythm and takes them with a lot more confidence than he did early in the season. I think I’d be surprised at this point if he fell outside of the top 15.
Players 11-30
Jeremy Sochan: It’s just exceptionally difficult to ignore what Sochan has done in the second half of the season for Baylor, as he’s entered the rotation at an even higher level and become an integral part of their attack. Over Baylor’s last 11 games, he’s averaging 10 points, nearly seven rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.4 steals. The numbers don’t look amazing. But it’s the flashes of what he could be capable of at some point that are tantalizing. He’s one of the most versatile chess pieces in the country, capable of handling the ball for stretches and creating offense as well as playing as Baylor’s anchor at the center position with Baylor’s big depth compromised because Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua is out for the rest of the year.
He’s the prototypical mismatch nightmare, a “positionless” 6-foot-9 wing who can attack bigs off the bounce with some hesitation and shake moves to get downhill and finish at the rim or with a floater. He loves to grab and go to put pressure on the defense and has the fluidity and balance to be able to do so. If a smaller guard picks him up in transition, he’ll bully that guy to the rim. If it’s a big, he can blow by. He can be the screener, or he can be the ballhandler out of ball screens. He’s going to have to improve as a shooter, but he’s already shown some real flashes in that respect this season despite making just 30 percent from 3.
More than that, Sochan’s defense is outstanding. He’s switchable and physical at the point of attack, plus he has good enough feet to slide with guards and enough length to contest in recovery. Baylor switches basically everything when he’s out on the court with Kendall Brown, and the two of them have allowed Baylor to essentially see no drop-off in defensive level despite losing three All-Big-12 defenders from last year’s national championship team. His hands are constantly active, and he gets deflections. I’m a believer in Sochan being really useful on that end. Maybe not quite All-Defense team level, but genuinely a plus and impactful.
All of that leads to a lottery grade right now in large part due to a lack of other options out there. But don’t get it twisted: Sochan’s upside is real, even if he might be a bit of a project early in his career while he works the jumper out. I’d bet coaches will buy into him playing early even despite that, just because he plays hard and has enough of a versatile skill set that he’ll help almost any team he’s on while playing unselfish basketball.
Malaki Branham, Ohio State: Branham has been on fire to close the season in Big Ten and has emerged as a legitimate option for NBA teams that are looking for a 6-6 shot-creating wing. Branham’s numbers in conference play are absurd for a young guy in a league that is that good this season. He’s averaging 16.3 points and shooting 52.3 percent from the field, over 46 percent from 3 and averaging four rebounds and two assists. There really are not many players around the country who can match that level of volume and efficiency.
While Branham isn’t some elite athlete, he does a great job of attacking and getting downhill by getting defenders off balance. He has great length and really covers a lot of ground on his strides, then uses those arms to finish over big guys with great touch. He can break down guys in isolation, get that little bit of separation with a series of hesitations and crossovers and rise up to knock down a shot. He’s very sharp at finding creases and cracks in the lane and driving through them quickly in a straight line to finish. Above all, he’s really improved as a jump shooter. He takes shots directly off the hop with confidence, leaping straight up and down and maintaining strong balance through the shot. This hasn’t always been the case. In high school, he was known much more as a midrange gunner than as a 3-point marksman, so this improvement says a lot about where he’s headed.
There are still areas for improvement. Defensively, Branham is still working on playing out games. He has good stretches, but sometimes his focus will waver just a touch, and he’ll get lost. His length and strength give him a lot of room for error, though. Typically, guys who are this big, this long and have some athleticism, ball skills and shooting play in the NBA for a while. Branham has what teams are looking for and is a genuine one-and-done option who should test the waters this offseason. I think he’d be likely to hear his name called in the first unless he completely falls apart in workouts.
Ryan Rollins, Toledo: This is a guy I — and an awful lot of scouts — just missed on throughout the course of the year but is clearly awesome. Rollins should be the MAC Player of the Year this year, one of the most polished 19-year-old scoring prospects I’ve evaluated in a while. He’s a sophomore, but he’s basically the same age as guys like Paolo Banchero, Holmgren, McGowens and all of the other average-aged 19-year-old freshmen in the class. But unlike some of the others, Rollins has an exceptional feel for how to score the basketball efficiently from all three levels.
He’s not the best athlete, but his balance out of ball screens and ability to get into his shot at a high level are unbelievable. Everything that Johnny Davis does at Wisconsin, Rollins does at a lower level with Toledo. And frankly, I think I buy Rollins’ shooting just a bit more (even though I buy Davis on defense and as an athlete way more). He’s a bit more comfortable from midrange than from 3 right now, but he seems to decelerate at a really high level. He plays off two feet out of ball screens and is always ready to get into a pull-up jumper. He can shake defenders away from him with ease. And while he’s not the most explosive leaper in the world, he absorbs contact well around the rim and finishes with terrific touch. He hits 47 percent of his floaters and 59 percent of his shots at the rim in the half court, according to Synergy. He’s averaging 19 points but also does a good job of getting his teammates involved as a playmaker and passer.
It’s really, really hard to find teenagers who are this skilled with ball in hand. In fact, this season, Rollins and Davis are the only teenagers to average at least 19 points per game, and Rollins is doing it on a terrific 57.5 true-shooting percentage given how much of his offense is self-created. And there is a lot of room for upside too, given that I think his 3-point percentage is a bit of a soft number right now and not all that representative of his actual shooting ability. I’ve got Rollins as a first-round grade. I really hope Toledo wins the MAC tournament this week — it is No. 1 seed and the clear favorite — and we get a chance to see him again against elite competition after he dropped 21 points on Michigan State earlier this season.
Players 31-60
Oscar Tshiebwe, Kentucky: At the end of the day, in the second round, you’re just looking for players who can stick. And it’s exceptionally easy to imagine Tshiebwe sticking. He’s the best rebounder college basketball has seen in at least a decade, and he plays exceptionally hard all the time. You know what you’re getting every time he’s out there, and he’s going to make opposing players absolutely miserable on a random Wednesday night in February when he chases every single loose ball and rebound. I don’t think I’ve seen someone who plays this hard all the time with this type of relentless motor and energy. It’s an enormous credit to him, and it’s why he’s going to be named National Player of the Year in college basketball.
There are some obvious worries. I don’t love his defensive positioning. He makes an impact on that end just by having a 7-foot-5 wingspan and by playing as hard as he does, but he gets lost a bit more often than you’d like to see. Also, it’s a bit easier to finish over the top of him than you’d like to see from someone who will play the center position full time. He doesn’t have much in the way of elevation for an undersized big. I don’t really see him as the All-Defense-caliber player SEC coaches apparently did by voting him to that team. He has value because he consistently ends every possession after just one shot by grabbing every miss, but he might not consistently force that first miss either.
On top of that, the offense isn’t awesome. He can’t create his own shot, and he can’t shoot. He’s not a particularly vertical rim runner out of ball screens because of that lack of explosiveness. He’ll be the most limited national player of the year I can remember skill-wise. But he’s good in the dunker spot and creates a metric ton of extra possessions. Tshiebwe just seems like one of those guys whose positive energy will genuinely help a team and whose insatiable motor will help a team in the regular season. If you’re picking at No. 35, I’m not sure you can ask for much more than a pretty strong bet to stick because he plays so much harder than everyone else across every level of basketball that he just won national player of the year based almost solely on his work ethic.
Jaylin Williams, Arkansas: I get that JD Notae averages the points and thus is going to be the person who gets noticed for end-of-year awards. But it’s not even close who the best, most valuable player is on Arkansas. It’s Williams. He does it all on both ends for them. He’s a really sharp positional defender who has to lead the NCAA in charges taken at nearly 50 this year. A lot of those come around the rim in high-leverage scoring situations too, where he reads the play faster than anyone else and makes a quick rotation to get in established guarding position. He’s not an incredible switch defender, but he doesnt’t get toasted out there and generally allows Arkansas to play varied defensive looks depending on the opponent. Williams’ hand-eye coordination is elite, and he uses his hands to disrupt opposing teams’ actions. He rebounds at an exceedingly high level because he reads the ball really well off the rim.
Offensively, Williams showcases that high-level feel across the board as well. He’s one of the best passing big men in college hoops, initiating a lot of actions from the high post and consistently finding cutters before running dribble-handoffs to reset the actions or pick-and-popping into short roll areas to create danger for the opposition. As a scorer, he knows where to sink in order to get found for open shots. He can occasionally knock down open 3s and has good touch.
His breakout midway through the season coincides directly with Arkansas’ jump from being good to becoming a legitimate SEC threat. In his final 16 games, when Arkansas has won 14 of them, Williams is averaging 14.4 points, 10.6 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.1 blocks. He’s the engine that makes Arkansas go, and he has so many of the skills that NBA teams are interested in from their bigs. The only issue is whether or not he’s athletic enough to do it all at the NBA level. He could stand to lean out and get into better shape. If he did that, it might add to his ability to protect the rim. Right now, Williams gets by largely with positioning and that aforementioned ability to take charges. I’m worried NBA teams would be able to just finish over the top of him at the center position because he’s only 6-10. But there is enough value at every other facet of basketball that I’m willing to bet on Williams at some level to figure it out.
Players 61-100
Vince Williams, VCU: Looking for a 3-and-D wing who has some potential to be a bit more? Look no further than Williams, a 6-6 wing with great length who has hit 39 percent of his 3s and 80 percent of his free throws consistently over the last two seasons while making some high-level reads as a passer and consistently providing real defensive value. Williams is a bit older, but his statistical indicators are high-level.
Per Bart Torvik’s incredible statistical database, there are only nine players to put up at least a 60 true-shooting percentage while making 50 3s and averaging a 15 percent assist rate on offense, combined with a 2 percent steal and block rate on defense while playing in a top-10 league. The first eight are Tyrese Haliburton, Eric Gordon, Lonzo Ball, Derrick White, Shake Milton, John Shurna, Mario Chalmers and Ron Baker. Williams is the ninth, and seven of the eight previous guys didn’t just go on to play in the NBA, but they played somewhat significant time in the NBA. Particularly, the Milton comparison is the one that stands out to me given the similarities physically and in terms of their games (although Milton’s offensive game certainly had a bit more craft).
Williams will probably end up as a two-way grade for me, but he’s a really solid bet on a two-way to carve out a role-player career given all of the production and tools he’s showcased.
Baylor Scheierman, South Dakota State; Tevin Brown, Murray State: Two terrific mid-major players who we’re guaranteed to see in the NCAA Tournament after their teams took care of business earlier this week and earned their way into the field via conference tournament victories. Both of them are 3-point gunners in some respect. Brown is a high-volume 3-point gunner who takes eight 3s per game and hits them at a 39-percent clip. He’s a 6-foot-5 wing, and he’s constantly moving and on the lookout to try and find those open shots. His ability to fly around off the ball at speed keys a lot of Murray State’s offense, and he does a good job of fighting on defense too. A three-time first-team All-OVC selection, he’s a fifth-year senior — he missed his entire first season with a left foot injury and redshirted back in 2018 — who turns 24 in September, so he should be looking to start his pro career at the end of the month.
Scheierman, on the other hand, is more of a well-rounded offensive player with some time on his hands. He runs the offense for South Dakota State as a 6-foot-6 point wing and does everything. He averages 16 points while shooting over 50 percent from the field, 48 percent from 3 and 80 percent from the line. He distributes at a high level, dishing out nearly five assists versus only two turnovers per game. His hands are active on defense. The major concern here is athleticism. It seemed like Alabama’s speed overwhelmed him a bit in the team’s early-season game against the Tide. Even against Washington and Missouri State, two not-great defenses that are more athletic than anyone else SDSU plays in its league, Scheierman seemed to not deal with the pressure all that well. The tournament will be a critical test for him, almost regardless of who the Jackrabbits play. If he can show out in a big way, he could parlay it into being a draft pick this year. If not, he’s probably more on the 2023 timeline.
Kevin McCullar, Texas Tech: McCullar is just one of my favorites across college hoops. He’s all sorts of tough, the son of former football player, Kevin Sr., who played at Texas Tech back in the 1990s. He’s battled through a pair of ankle injuries throughout almost all of conference play, and it’s clearly had adverse effects on his personal numbers (his shooting numbers have totally tanked since the start of the calendar year when he suffered the first ankle injury, as he’s shooting just 31.6 percent from the field and 22.6 percent from 3 in that time).
But it hasn’t stopped him from battling through and still fighting every single night on the defensive end. It was a total joke that McCullar — the best defensive player on the best defensive team in the country — wasn’t named to the Big-12’s All-Defense team. He brings it every single night, defending multiple positions, forcing turnovers and generally disrupting everything opposing teams bring to the table. On top of that, Texas Tech asked him, especially early in the season, to handle a lot of the point guard position, something that isn’t totally natural for him, but he still succeeded. He’s been the ultimate team guy this season for a Texas Tech group that has been utterly selfless.
If you believe McCullar’s offensive game is more representative of his first half of the season, where he averaged 13 points, six rebounds and four assists while shooting 45 percent from the field and 37 percent from 3, then you should think of him as a draftable player like I do. Regardless, it might behoove him to return to Texas Tech and dominate as a senior before turning pro. But I think McCullar is a significantly undervalued asset right now as a draft prospect, given that we know how good he is on defense and there have been real flashes of positive offensive play. I can’t get him much higher than top 80 because the sample is too small on offense. But I’m a buyer.
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Hollinger: David Roddy, Josh Minott and 9 other NBA Draft sleepers to watch during March Madness
David Roddy does not look like a basketball player. Most basketball players, for instance, are renowned for occupying vertical space, not horizontal space.
The junior forward for Colorado State, on the other hand, is 6-foot-6, 255 pounds. He is a big, barrel-chested, brick, a nose tackle playing basketball.
And yet, he does basketball player things. A lot of them. His 31.4 PER and 11.6 BPM both lead the Mountain West Conference this season, and not coincidentally, he was named the conference player of the year. He shoots 61.5 percent inside the arc and 46.2 percent from 3-point distance, the latter a new addition to his game. And he’s not some plodding lineman, either. Roddy’s feet and hands are nimble enough to generate more than two steals and two blocks per 100 possessions, a rare double-whammy for a player this size. He also averages more assists than turnovers and pulls down 14.1 rebounds per 100 possessions.
He is the classic positionless player — kind of a center, but not really; kind of a wing, except he’s built like a tank and isn’t going to break you down with sick handles. He’s just good across the board.
He’s also the classic under-the-radar player. He plays in Fort Collins, Colo., and his games come on after much of America has gone to sleep.
But that might be about to change. Roddy’s Rams went 24-4 this season and are on track to nab a No. 6 or No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament, depending on whose bracket you believe. Winning this week’s Mountain West tournament could push them even higher.
NBA scouts already know about him and are angling to learn more. The appeal of Roddy as a pro wing (if the shooting holds up) who can switch onto bigs and use physicality to hold his own, P.J. Tucker style, has gained some traction.
As for casual fans? Most haven’t seen him, and they need to check him out.
As a result, Roddy is the top player on my list of unheralded collegians whom NBA fans might want to watch in the next three weeks. These are the guys who aren’t playing for the bluebloods and aren’t getting major lottery hype but could work themselves into the top-45 names on a team’s draft boards … especially with a strong weekend or two in March Madness.
Josh Minott, 6-8 freshman PF, Memphis
His teammate Jalen Duren is a likely lottery pick, but keep an eye out for Minott too; he could crash the first round if he puts his name in.
Also, make sure you don’t blink. One of the most bizarre subplots of the season involves Minott’s playing time. The 6-8 freshman forward leaves scouts salivating with his length, feel and athleticism, especially on the defensive end. He is second on the team in both PER and BPM … but seventh in minutes. Of late, he hardly plays, seeing more than 15 minutes just once in the Tigers’ last nine games. Some scouts have wondered if Penny Hardaway is trying to hide him.
Minott isn’t without warts — he fouls like crazy (6.8 per 100) and has only made two 3-pointers all season. But the rest of his skill set screams NBA combo forward, and his 75.9 percent foul shooting offers some hope for his perimeter development.
The Tigers are on the NCAA bubble and could end up in the NIT, the First Four in Dayton or the main bracket, depending on what happens in the AAC tournament.
Tevin Brown, 6-5 senior SG, Murray State
When I went to scout Murray State in late 2018, there was a single, overwhelming reason — they had a point guard named Ja Morant who turned out to be pretty decent.
However, while I was there, I also noted a freshman guard named Tevin Brown who seemed to have enough size, shooting and athleticism to possibly crack the league. Four years later, Brown is the best player on a Murray State team that ran the table in the Ohio Valley Conference and will likely enter the tournament as a No. 8 or 9 seed.
Brown is shooting 38.9 percent from 3 this season on mad volume (13.3 flings per 100 possessions), has shown enough as a passer to be a serviceable secondary playmaker and has athleticism indicators that show he can hang if he moves up a level. He’ll be 24 years old by the time his first NBA season starts, which is a draft-stock killer, but he’ll be in the mix as a second-rounder or two-way guy.
Jake LaRavia, 6-9 junior PF, Wake Forest
I was going to list his teammate Alondes Williams here as well, but Williams was named ACC Player of the Year this week, which makes his “under-the-radar” status a bit more questionable.
LaRavia, however, is still a deep cut for ACC Network nerds. A transfer from Indiana State, he unexpectedly blew up to the tune of 61.5 percent shooting on 2s and 39.7 percent on his rare 3-point attempts, something he’d likely do much more at the pro level. LaRavia also shows a deft feel as a passer and enough instincts on defense to rip nearly three steals per 100 possessions over the past two seasons.
He might end up staying in school another year, but scouts will want to do their homework on his best positional fit as a pro and whether his shooting can ramp up enough for stretch-four work in the NBA. Wake Forest is in jeopardy of missing the NCAA Tournament after an upset loss to Boston College in the ACC tournament, despite a strong all-around game from LaRavia (21 points on 9-of-13; four assists, four steals and three blocks) that impressed observers; if Wake doesn’t make the cut, look for him in the NIT.
Ryan Rollins, 6-4 sophomore SG, Toledo
Here it is, everyone, my favorite deep, deep sleeper. Hopefully, he makes it to the Big Dance; Toledo will have to win its conference tournament to make it as a No. 12 or 13 seed; otherwise, the Rockets are likely headed to the NIT.
In either setting, keep an eye on Rollins, who hasn’t gotten much capital-B buzz yet but has displayed many of the traits of a first-round shooting guard talent. His athletic metrics pop, as does his eye test on the court, and he shows enough facility as a playmaker (6.5 dimes per 100) and pull-up shooter to be at least a secondary playmaker at the next level. He also doesn’t turn 20 until July.
The only thing missing from the package right now is 3-point shooting. Rollins shoots a decent volume but has only knocked down 32.4 percent from deep in his two college seasons. His 79.8 percent foul shooting and projectible form offer decent hope that this is a fixable issue.
Jamaree Bouyea, 6-2 senior PG, San Francisco
It pains me that Stuart Scott is no longer with us to narrate this player’s highlights. The Dons will likely make the tournament after winning a de facto play-in game against BYU last weekend, and Bouyea is a player NBA scouts likely will evaluate closely as a potential second-rounder.
Bouyea’s initial look isn’t imposing — he’s a slender 6-2 and will be 23 by the time summer league starts. Nonetheless, dig deeper, and some of his numbers are eye-popping. He averages more than a steal for every personal foul, for instance, combining the theft rate of a plus ball hawk (2.9 per 100) with one of the lowest foul rates I’ve ever seen in captivity (just 2.2). Additionally, he blocked 28 shots in 33 games, which is impressive for a 6-2 guard.
Bouyea is just OK as a shooter (33.7 percent career from 3, 71.1 percent from the line) and is likely a one-position player in the pros, so there are limits on how high his draft stock can go. But I do expect him to be in the league next year.
Lee Hyun-jung, 6-7 junior SF, Davidson
The second-best shooter ever to come out of Davidson, but his team sits on the tournament bubble and may need to win the Atlantic 10 tournament this weekend to assure safe passage. Otherwise, the Wildcats might be in the NIT.
Either way, Lee’s ability as a movement shooter in the Klay Thompson mode is sure to attract NBA attention if he enters the draft his year, especially in the second round. (Fun side note: Lee models his game on Thompson’s and was such a fan of the Splash Brothers that the only schools he visited were Washington State and Davidson.)
Lee flings darts from the perimeter (39.9 percent from 3 for his career, on 11.6 attempts per 100) with a high, quick catch-and-shoot and peppers in off-ball cuts that take advantage of his shooting threat. However, NBA scouts will want to see him in the tournament against Power 5 athletes to assess his readiness at the defensive end.
Abu Kigab, 6-7 senior SF, Boise State
Boise State’s first-round NCAA Tournament game is going to be a hideous, tortured mess that ends with a score of something like 46-43. Prepare yourself now, and embrace the ugly. That wickedly good defense is the reason the Broncos won the Mountain West regular-season title and could make it to the tournament’s second week.
Kigab’s length and mobility on the perimeter are a huge part of that. The fifth-year senior will be 22 on draft night and has a shaky outside shot (28.6 percent from 3 career), so we’re not exactly talking about a lottery hopeful here — more like late second round or two-way territory. On the other hand, he can handle the ball and slash to the cup and may be able to do so much more effectively in NBA spacing.
And again, the defense. Kigab is a big wing who can move his feet and gets his hands on balls even in a conservative scheme; he profiles as a potential defensive specialist who can check the opponent’s best wing.
While we’re here: Also keep an eye on Boise State freshman Tyson Degenhart as a “down the road” guy, another nails-tough defender who shows stretch-four potential.
Colby Jones, 6-5 sophomore SG, Xavier
I was hugely excited by Colby Jones’ freshman year at Xavier, and while his second season hasn’t shown much progress, he’s still on the radar for the next level due to his advanced feel and plus athleticism. Jones also is young for his class, born just a few weeks after Chet Holmgren in 2002.
Jones’s biggest shortcoming is his jump shot; he’s a 29.5 percent career 3-point shooter on low volume and 72.5 percent from the line. That’s a big issue for a pro guard, especially one who isn’t quite elusive enough to play as a primary ballhandler. Nonetheless, if he becomes even halfway decent from the perimeter, there is a ton to like here. Jones moves his feet well, and his quick leaping ability helps him rebound like a power forward (14.4 percent rebound rate). He also operates well as a playmaker (nearly two dimes for every turnover this season) and draws fouls in the paint.
After a brutal overtime loss to Butler in the first round of the Big East tournament, Xavier is firmly on the bubble and could end up in Tuesday’s First Four.
Mike Miles Jr., 6-1 sophomore PG, TCU
In a lot of respects, Miles Jr. has had a bad season. He’s shooting 41.8 percent inside the arc in Big 12 games, 29.9 percent from 3 for the season and has a high turnover rate. Although small in stature, he plays as a “power” guard who looks more to score, and that could make his NBA fit trickier.
He has played better at the end of the season after a series of stinkers in January, including scoring 26 against Texas Tech’s top-ranked defense and adding 19 in a win over Kansas that likely sealed a tournament berth.
His shooting numbers from his freshman year give a decent whiff of hope that this was a flukish bad shooting year. Miles Jr. is still at 32.8 percent from 3 and 77.4 percent from the line for his career; he also draws a ton of fouls and is a pesky defender. He can build on his case in this week’s Big 12 tournament; the Horned Frogs will play Texas on Thursday and, if they win, face Kansas for the third time in 10 days in Friday’s semifinal.
Baylor Scheierman, 6-6 junior SG, South Dakota State
One way to get yourself on the draft radar is by shooting 47.3 percent from 3, which Scheierman did this year while the Jackrabbits won the Summit League regular season and tournament to qualify for the NCAAs, likely as a No. 12 or 13 seed. Scheierman has a decent chance of being this year’s Dylan Windler or Max Abmas, a small-school player who puts himself firmly on the draft radar in the wake of a tournament upset or two.
Scheierman isn’t just a shooter. He has a spectacular rebound rate for a 6-6 guard, averaging more than two dimes per turnover and shooting 54.6 percent inside the arc. The red flag is the competition level in a weak league.
Scouts will get to see him against higher-level opposition at least once next week; the last time SDSU played a Power 5 team was Dec. 11. He’s likely a four-year guy who would be a player of interest for the 2023 draft, but because his team has a decent chance of wearing the Cinderella slipper, Scheierman’s name is going to come up a lot this spring.
David Roddy does not look like a basketball player. Most basketball players, for instance, are renowned for occupying vertical space, not horizontal space.
The junior forward for Colorado State, on the other hand, is 6-foot-6, 255 pounds. He is a big, barrel-chested, brick, a nose tackle playing basketball.
And yet, he does basketball player things. A lot of them. His 31.4 PER and 11.6 BPM both lead the Mountain West Conference this season, and not coincidentally, he was named the conference player of the year. He shoots 61.5 percent inside the arc and 46.2 percent from 3-point distance, the latter a new addition to his game. And he’s not some plodding lineman, either. Roddy’s feet and hands are nimble enough to generate more than two steals and two blocks per 100 possessions, a rare double-whammy for a player this size. He also averages more assists than turnovers and pulls down 14.1 rebounds per 100 possessions.
He is the classic positionless player — kind of a center, but not really; kind of a wing, except he’s built like a tank and isn’t going to break you down with sick handles. He’s just good across the board.
He’s also the classic under-the-radar player. He plays in Fort Collins, Colo., and his games come on after much of America has gone to sleep.
But that might be about to change. Roddy’s Rams went 24-4 this season and are on track to nab a No. 6 or No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament, depending on whose bracket you believe. Winning this week’s Mountain West tournament could push them even higher.
NBA scouts already know about him and are angling to learn more. The appeal of Roddy as a pro wing (if the shooting holds up) who can switch onto bigs and use physicality to hold his own, P.J. Tucker style, has gained some traction.
As for casual fans? Most haven’t seen him, and they need to check him out.
As a result, Roddy is the top player on my list of unheralded collegians whom NBA fans might want to watch in the next three weeks. These are the guys who aren’t playing for the bluebloods and aren’t getting major lottery hype but could work themselves into the top-45 names on a team’s draft boards … especially with a strong weekend or two in March Madness.
Josh Minott, 6-8 freshman PF, Memphis
His teammate Jalen Duren is a likely lottery pick, but keep an eye out for Minott too; he could crash the first round if he puts his name in.
Also, make sure you don’t blink. One of the most bizarre subplots of the season involves Minott’s playing time. The 6-8 freshman forward leaves scouts salivating with his length, feel and athleticism, especially on the defensive end. He is second on the team in both PER and BPM … but seventh in minutes. Of late, he hardly plays, seeing more than 15 minutes just once in the Tigers’ last nine games. Some scouts have wondered if Penny Hardaway is trying to hide him.
Minott isn’t without warts — he fouls like crazy (6.8 per 100) and has only made two 3-pointers all season. But the rest of his skill set screams NBA combo forward, and his 75.9 percent foul shooting offers some hope for his perimeter development.
The Tigers are on the NCAA bubble and could end up in the NIT, the First Four in Dayton or the main bracket, depending on what happens in the AAC tournament.
Tevin Brown, 6-5 senior SG, Murray State
When I went to scout Murray State in late 2018, there was a single, overwhelming reason — they had a point guard named Ja Morant who turned out to be pretty decent.
However, while I was there, I also noted a freshman guard named Tevin Brown who seemed to have enough size, shooting and athleticism to possibly crack the league. Four years later, Brown is the best player on a Murray State team that ran the table in the Ohio Valley Conference and will likely enter the tournament as a No. 8 or 9 seed.
Brown is shooting 38.9 percent from 3 this season on mad volume (13.3 flings per 100 possessions), has shown enough as a passer to be a serviceable secondary playmaker and has athleticism indicators that show he can hang if he moves up a level. He’ll be 24 years old by the time his first NBA season starts, which is a draft-stock killer, but he’ll be in the mix as a second-rounder or two-way guy.
Jake LaRavia, 6-9 junior PF, Wake Forest
I was going to list his teammate Alondes Williams here as well, but Williams was named ACC Player of the Year this week, which makes his “under-the-radar” status a bit more questionable.
LaRavia, however, is still a deep cut for ACC Network nerds. A transfer from Indiana State, he unexpectedly blew up to the tune of 61.5 percent shooting on 2s and 39.7 percent on his rare 3-point attempts, something he’d likely do much more at the pro level. LaRavia also shows a deft feel as a passer and enough instincts on defense to rip nearly three steals per 100 possessions over the past two seasons.
He might end up staying in school another year, but scouts will want to do their homework on his best positional fit as a pro and whether his shooting can ramp up enough for stretch-four work in the NBA. Wake Forest is in jeopardy of missing the NCAA Tournament after an upset loss to Boston College in the ACC tournament, despite a strong all-around game from LaRavia (21 points on 9-of-13; four assists, four steals and three blocks) that impressed observers; if Wake doesn’t make the cut, look for him in the NIT.
Ryan Rollins, 6-4 sophomore SG, Toledo
Here it is, everyone, my favorite deep, deep sleeper. Hopefully, he makes it to the Big Dance; Toledo will have to win its conference tournament to make it as a No. 12 or 13 seed; otherwise, the Rockets are likely headed to the NIT.
In either setting, keep an eye on Rollins, who hasn’t gotten much capital-B buzz yet but has displayed many of the traits of a first-round shooting guard talent. His athletic metrics pop, as does his eye test on the court, and he shows enough facility as a playmaker (6.5 dimes per 100) and pull-up shooter to be at least a secondary playmaker at the next level. He also doesn’t turn 20 until July.
The only thing missing from the package right now is 3-point shooting. Rollins shoots a decent volume but has only knocked down 32.4 percent from deep in his two college seasons. His 79.8 percent foul shooting and projectible form offer decent hope that this is a fixable issue.
Jamaree Bouyea, 6-2 senior PG, San Francisco
It pains me that Stuart Scott is no longer with us to narrate this player’s highlights. The Dons will likely make the tournament after winning a de facto play-in game against BYU last weekend, and Bouyea is a player NBA scouts likely will evaluate closely as a potential second-rounder.
Bouyea’s initial look isn’t imposing — he’s a slender 6-2 and will be 23 by the time summer league starts. Nonetheless, dig deeper, and some of his numbers are eye-popping. He averages more than a steal for every personal foul, for instance, combining the theft rate of a plus ball hawk (2.9 per 100) with one of the lowest foul rates I’ve ever seen in captivity (just 2.2). Additionally, he blocked 28 shots in 33 games, which is impressive for a 6-2 guard.
Bouyea is just OK as a shooter (33.7 percent career from 3, 71.1 percent from the line) and is likely a one-position player in the pros, so there are limits on how high his draft stock can go. But I do expect him to be in the league next year.
Lee Hyun-jung, 6-7 junior SF, Davidson
The second-best shooter ever to come out of Davidson, but his team sits on the tournament bubble and may need to win the Atlantic 10 tournament this weekend to assure safe passage. Otherwise, the Wildcats might be in the NIT.
Either way, Lee’s ability as a movement shooter in the Klay Thompson mode is sure to attract NBA attention if he enters the draft his year, especially in the second round. (Fun side note: Lee models his game on Thompson’s and was such a fan of the Splash Brothers that the only schools he visited were Washington State and Davidson.)
Lee flings darts from the perimeter (39.9 percent from 3 for his career, on 11.6 attempts per 100) with a high, quick catch-and-shoot and peppers in off-ball cuts that take advantage of his shooting threat. However, NBA scouts will want to see him in the tournament against Power 5 athletes to assess his readiness at the defensive end.
Abu Kigab, 6-7 senior SF, Boise State
Boise State’s first-round NCAA Tournament game is going to be a hideous, tortured mess that ends with a score of something like 46-43. Prepare yourself now, and embrace the ugly. That wickedly good defense is the reason the Broncos won the Mountain West regular-season title and could make it to the tournament’s second week.
Kigab’s length and mobility on the perimeter are a huge part of that. The fifth-year senior will be 22 on draft night and has a shaky outside shot (28.6 percent from 3 career), so we’re not exactly talking about a lottery hopeful here — more like late second round or two-way territory. On the other hand, he can handle the ball and slash to the cup and may be able to do so much more effectively in NBA spacing.
And again, the defense. Kigab is a big wing who can move his feet and gets his hands on balls even in a conservative scheme; he profiles as a potential defensive specialist who can check the opponent’s best wing.
While we’re here: Also keep an eye on Boise State freshman Tyson Degenhart as a “down the road” guy, another nails-tough defender who shows stretch-four potential.
Colby Jones, 6-5 sophomore SG, Xavier
I was hugely excited by Colby Jones’ freshman year at Xavier, and while his second season hasn’t shown much progress, he’s still on the radar for the next level due to his advanced feel and plus athleticism. Jones also is young for his class, born just a few weeks after Chet Holmgren in 2002.
Jones’s biggest shortcoming is his jump shot; he’s a 29.5 percent career 3-point shooter on low volume and 72.5 percent from the line. That’s a big issue for a pro guard, especially one who isn’t quite elusive enough to play as a primary ballhandler. Nonetheless, if he becomes even halfway decent from the perimeter, there is a ton to like here. Jones moves his feet well, and his quick leaping ability helps him rebound like a power forward (14.4 percent rebound rate). He also operates well as a playmaker (nearly two dimes for every turnover this season) and draws fouls in the paint.
After a brutal overtime loss to Butler in the first round of the Big East tournament, Xavier is firmly on the bubble and could end up in Tuesday’s First Four.
Mike Miles Jr., 6-1 sophomore PG, TCU
In a lot of respects, Miles Jr. has had a bad season. He’s shooting 41.8 percent inside the arc in Big 12 games, 29.9 percent from 3 for the season and has a high turnover rate. Although small in stature, he plays as a “power” guard who looks more to score, and that could make his NBA fit trickier.
He has played better at the end of the season after a series of stinkers in January, including scoring 26 against Texas Tech’s top-ranked defense and adding 19 in a win over Kansas that likely sealed a tournament berth.
His shooting numbers from his freshman year give a decent whiff of hope that this was a flukish bad shooting year. Miles Jr. is still at 32.8 percent from 3 and 77.4 percent from the line for his career; he also draws a ton of fouls and is a pesky defender. He can build on his case in this week’s Big 12 tournament; the Horned Frogs will play Texas on Thursday and, if they win, face Kansas for the third time in 10 days in Friday’s semifinal.
Baylor Scheierman, 6-6 junior SG, South Dakota State
One way to get yourself on the draft radar is by shooting 47.3 percent from 3, which Scheierman did this year while the Jackrabbits won the Summit League regular season and tournament to qualify for the NCAAs, likely as a No. 12 or 13 seed. Scheierman has a decent chance of being this year’s Dylan Windler or Max Abmas, a small-school player who puts himself firmly on the draft radar in the wake of a tournament upset or two.
Scheierman isn’t just a shooter. He has a spectacular rebound rate for a 6-6 guard, averaging more than two dimes per turnover and shooting 54.6 percent inside the arc. The red flag is the competition level in a weak league.
Scouts will get to see him against higher-level opposition at least once next week; the last time SDSU played a Power 5 team was Dec. 11. He’s likely a four-year guy who would be a player of interest for the 2023 draft, but because his team has a decent chance of wearing the Cinderella slipper, Scheierman’s name is going to come up a lot this spring.
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It was obvious Memphis would be a better team if they benched Bates, the injury forced that for em and they took off
Bates can still be solid, he just gotta get the one n done lotto star outta of his head n focus on improving year by year until he’s ready for the next level…The bright side of this season is he’s still only 18 but should know exactly what he needs to work n how to be better on the college level (If he does another year somewhere) compared to the incoming freshman his age
Bates can still be solid, he just gotta get the one n done lotto star outta of his head n focus on improving year by year until he’s ready for the next level…The bright side of this season is he’s still only 18 but should know exactly what he needs to work n how to be better on the college level (If he does another year somewhere) compared to the incoming freshman his age
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He better go to the G-League. Another year of so-so college ball and he'll be lucky to be a 1st round pick.
Should have saw the Memphis situation coming. You bring back a group of juniors/seniors who ended their previous season on a good note and ready to ride that wave into the next season...and then right before that season starts you bring in 2 highly publicized freshmen who graduated early and then try to force feed one of them and give him the keys from day one. It only created animosity from the older guys.
From the outside looking in...it just seems like this kid is being mismanaged at every turn.
Should have saw the Memphis situation coming. You bring back a group of juniors/seniors who ended their previous season on a good note and ready to ride that wave into the next season...and then right before that season starts you bring in 2 highly publicized freshmen who graduated early and then try to force feed one of them and give him the keys from day one. It only created animosity from the older guys.
From the outside looking in...it just seems like this kid is being mismanaged at every turn.
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Josh Minott > Emoni Bates
