For most NBA front offices, no day on the calendar is more important than draft day. While fans are just now turning their attention to Thursday’s draft in the aftermath of last night’s thrilling and potentially legacy-defining Game 7, team executives have been preparing for the draft for months.
Draft preparations involve more than just evaluating prospects and deciding who to target; you also want to know who other teams are targeting. That way, you can trade down from a high pick and gain extra assets if your preferred player is less highly desired by others, or you can trade up to precisely where you need to be in order to snag your favored prospect.
With these considerations in mind, here’s a look at a few NBA draft prospects that I rank higher than most, including the consensus draft tier and my personal draft tier for each prospect.
Taurean Prince – 21.8 years old, 6’8” 220 pounds, 6’11.5” wingspan
Mock Draft Consensus: Mid- First to Early Second Round (DX #18, ESPN #34)
My Draft Tier: Top 10
Comp: Jae Crowder
Why isn’t Prince more highly regarded? He might be the most versatile defender in the draft, with the size, quickness, and determination to lock down at least two and quite possibly three positions at the NBA level. Watch how he moves his feet to stick with a guard, Wayne Selden, in the first clip and then closes ground and soars high above the rim for the transition block in the second.
He’s also a proficient catch-and-shoot guy, even curling off screens. He worked tirelessly on his jumper over the summer between sophomore and junior year, and the result is a quick release, a high release point, and consistent form that should translate to NBA 3-point range.
His shooting percentages were down this year, but that’s due to a higher degree of difficulty given Baylor’s poor guard play, brutal schedule, and lack of other options. Much like Robert Covington with the Sixers (check out my scouting report on Covington here), Prince has a clumsy handle and was overtaxed as the go-to guy playing the role of primary ball handler much of the time. Baylor faced the 2nd toughest schedule in the nation defensively, and Prince acted as a shot creator and bailout option out of necessity. Only 81% of his 3s were assisted compared to 89% last year and 93% the year before. He’ll be able to play a more confined, 3&D-type role at the next level.
The most common comp you’ll see for Prince is DeMarre Carroll, and honestly I don’t like that comparison at all. I think it’s important to consider players at the same stage of development, and Carroll was nothing like Prince in college. Carroll bullied opponents in the paint, shooting just 11/52 from 3 through age 21. He didn’t really develop his perimeter offense until joining the Hawks when he was 27. Also unlike Prince, Carroll didn’t collect many steals until his senior year (age 22), and that senior year uptick occurred while playing in Mike Anderson’s “40 minutes of hell” full-court trapping defense that inflated steals team-wide.
Jae Crowder, on the other hand, was basically a Taurean Prince clone every step of the way. Each player was very young for his grade and therefore undersized and lightly recruited in high school. Crowder wound up playing 2 years of JUCO ball before landing at Marquette, while Prince committed to LIU-Brooklyn before a senior year breakout combined with a coaching change in Long Island enabled him to change course and go to Baylor. After not playing major minutes in his freshman or sophomore year, Prince (like Crowder in his 2 years at Marquette) emerged as a scorer, outside shooting threat, and active defender who filled the stat sheet in just about every category.
Though Crowder and Carroll are similar players now, their different prospect profiles matter when trying to gauge how Prince should fare as a pro. When I think of Carroll as a prospect, I think of a player whose skills weren’t particularly transferable to the NBA initially and who struggled on his rookie contract as a result. Crowder was a useful rotation player as a 22-year-old rookie and has only improved since then. If Prince can approach the latter career path, he’s well worth a top-10 pick.
Chinanu Onuaku – 19.6 years old, 6’10” 245 pounds, 7’2.75” wingspan
Mock Draft Consensus: Early to Mid- Second Round (ESPN #35, DX #38)
My Draft Tier: Late Lottery
Comp: a more mobile Kyle O’Quinn
Skal Labissiere. Cheick Diallo. Stephen Zimmerman. What do these players have in common? For one, they’re all well worth following on Twitter. Check them out @OneBigHaitian, @cheick_diallo13, and @BIGG_ZIMM. More importantly for my purposes, they’re all expected to be drafted ahead of Chinanu Onuaku, despite the fact that Onuaku was both younger and more productive in college this past year. [Of course, Onuaku still is, and always will be, younger than they are. Sorry for the awkward phrasing. In case you were wondering, Onuaku doesn’t have a Twitter account.]
Onuaku was a sophomore at Louisville this year whereas each of these other players was a freshman, yet in projecting future performance, age generally is much more indicative of potential than experience. This has been studied more thoroughly in baseball, where, for example, Rany Jazayerli of Baseball Prospectus found that older high school seniors were systematically overdrafted relative to their future performance while younger high school seniors substantially outperformed their draft position in the aggregate. The key takeaway from this and other studies is that differences in age relative to grade or level of play are much more significant than we might intuitively understand.
In Onuaku’s case, this suggests that he is very much underrated as a prospect. His freshman year per-40 averages of 7 points, 10 rebounds, nearly 2 steals and 3 blocks appear more impressive when you consider that all the other NBA prospects his age were still in high school. And his sophomore year as one of the best big men in the ACC really stands out in comparison to his same-aged cohorts.
I believe that Onuaku has a high floor, as a solid backup at minimum, based on his exceptional timing, mobility, and awareness as a defender and rebounder. Most rim protectors tend not to stray far from the paint defensively, but Onuaku is different. Despite not looking like the fastest or most athletic player, Onuaku blocked 43 jumpers this year, including 6 3-pointers, which is particularly remarkable considering that he committed about 3 fewer fouls per 40 minutes than either Labissiere or Diallo. He closes ground, cuts off angles, and leaps so quickly that shooters don’t have time to adjust.
As you can see a bit from that clip, Onuaku is always communicating on defense and pushing his teammates to rotate like he does. His efforts led to Louisville ranking as the 2nd best defense in the country. Onuaku also makes good use of his bulky frame to outmuscle opponents while battling for rebounds and positioning.
Offensively Onuaku is more of a work-in-progress, though much like Kyle O’Quinn, his excellent vision and potential as a facilitator help make up for underdeveloped post skills and limited range.
The biggest concerns on Onuaku relate to his shooting and his conditioning, as Onuaku seemed to fatigue quickly at Louisville, especially against better opponents. In both of these areas I believe there is reason for optimism.
First, Onuaku made great strides as a shooter this year. He shot 52% on 2-point jumpers this season (59/114) compared to just 22.7% as a freshman. His range still doesn’t extend past 15 feet, but an NBA team can work with that. He also improved his free throw shooting by notably converting to “granny style.” After making less than half his free throws freshman year, Onuaku became nearly a 60% free throw shooter as a sophomore, including 63% in conference play. Some might see it as a flaw that he resorted to shooting underhand free throws, though in my mind it speaks to his willingness to put team success and personal development ahead of his own image.
On the conditioning side, Onuaku recently was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which is medical jargon for having an extra electrical pathway in your heart. It’s characterized by anxiety and tiring easily due to exercise, as episodes of heartbeat quickening during intense activity cause fatigue, dizziness, and/or lightheadedness. This may help explain Onuaku’s apparent poor conditioning and issues with fatigue in big games, and based on everything I’ve gathered, the good news is that it is easily fixable and in fact has been permanently corrected through a minor surgical procedure called an ablation. Teams should feel confident that this medical issue will not negatively affect Onuaku going forward.
Paul Zipser – 22.3 years old, 6’8” 210 pounds, 6’11.5” wingspan
Mock Draft Consensus: Mid- to Late Second Round (DX #43, ESPN #59)
My Draft Tier: Mid- to Late First Round
Comp: Robert Horry, minus a bit of athleticism and historic clutchness
I can’t say that I’ve watched any of Zipser’s games for Bayern Munich. I do know, however, that Euroleague competition is considerably tougher than the NCAA, and Zipser has performed well there.
Both from the stats and from what little tape I’ve seen, I’m fairly confident that Zipser is being undervalued by most prospect rankings. On offense Zipser spaces the floor, looks for the open man, and makes quick decisions with the ball, whether that means taking an uncontested jumper, attacking a closeout, or dishing off to a teammate. Defensively he has a knack for blocking shots, and considering his size he maintains a remarkably low defensive stance on the perimeter, showing the quickness and agility to defend both forward spots. Check out a more in-depth report and video on Zipser here.
I doubt he’ll ever be a first or second option offensively, but Zipser does just about everything competently and he’s a better athlete than I expected given the lack of buzz surrounding him. I see him as a valuable role player for a long time, particularly as teams continue to increase ball movement on offense and switching on defense.
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