The point of the draft is kind of simple: add championship-caliber pieces so you can build a championship-caliber team. Most champions have a fairly clear hierarchy and construction template. A couple star scorers and MVP-caliber players atop the roster who anchor the attack. The other twelve or thirteen teammates need to properly fill in roles around them. You need shooting, defense, other creators and rebounders and guys who bring out the most in your stars. But when it comes to draft night, different franchises find themselves in different positions. Some are filling in those roles and have a clear blueprint for the types of players or pieces who compliment their core. Other teams are hoping to construct the core. Similarly, prospects can fall into either of the two categories. They may have the upside to be one of the foundational pieces of the core, so far-and-away dominant at one thing or possessing the scoring upside to be considered there. Others have to prove how they fit into different systems in the modern NBA and what role they best fit; they need a particular skill to hang their hat on (and yes, versatility is a skill). Projectable alpha scorers are the cream of the crop, and the cream always rises to the top. Those guys, the Anthony Edwards and Killian Hayes of the draft, will be taken by teams who hope and see the path to turn them into those core pieces. Other names, like James Wiseman, are simply too freakish with the upside they possess to be a core piece that the reward is worth the risk. But what about everybody else? I subscribe to the idea that there are only really three positions in today's game: guards, wings and posts. A few of the categories I use illustrate the blurred lines between them (ex: combo guards are part guard, part wing and forwards are part wing, part post), but on the whole, players will find themselves being deployed in one of these three areas. The NBA as it's constructed leaves a scouting checklist for role players of different types to be successful and have a clear path to NBA minutes. Below, I'll outline those boxes for each role. PostsFive different areas of skill are important for bigs in today's game. They're not ranked by impact or importance, so please don't see a heirarchy developing within the skill categories. For starting-caliber players, I'd say 3-4 of these boxes need to be checked. For role players off the bench, 2-3 should be checked, with at least one of them being an elite skill they can hang their hat on.
To have all five would make someone a pretty certain starter, no matter what degree they'll have of each (hello Bam Adebayo). If you have the chance to add someone who you think is going to hit every box, take him and value that above the rest. Others can be so elite in one or two categories, like Rudy Gobert with #1 and #3, that it doesn't matter how many boxes he checks. Evaluating bigs who may project as literally the best in the world at some of these categories is different than looking for a role player. To be a role player, you have to at least hit two, with Enes Kanter as the exception to the rule. Most role players aren't guys that coaches run post-ups for or that offense is run through, so if you don't see a "throw it inside and score on the block", it's because that's not something asked of role players anymore. When evaluating prospects more on the fringe, I look for not just what boxes they could check, but how certain I am that they'll check them. It paints the way I rank players. For this 2020 draft class, only two guys have the potential to check 3-5 boxes. Onyeka Okongwu and Jalen Smith are those names, and both get lottery grades as a result. Okongwu is someone I'm comfortable checking boxes 1 through 3, but am not as sold with 4 and 5. Smith checks 2, 4 and 5, with a high probability of success in #1 if he adds strength. I also see Smith as someone who can be elite in areas 4 and 5, one of the best across the NBA in each category. That justifies him being above Okongwu in my mind -- there's not just potential in more areas, but a path to elite potential in at least one. In this class, I view James Wiseman, Obi Toppin and Aleksej Pokusevski as unique prospects whose skill levels transcend these boxes. What their upside shows they could provide an offense makes them the offensive core worth building around, thus exempting them from discussion here. That doesn't mean it isn't important to evaluate them by the same factors to examine where they fit, but that their success level isn't determined by excelling purely within these boxes. There's a huge drop off after these names and the rest of the role players. There are a few guys who check multiple boxes, and a few who are great at one category but devoid in others. I'll list the other bigs in my top 60, in order they appear, and analyze which categories they're most skilled at, have upside or are average at, and which worry me most.
As a quick explanation here, there are a couple categories which are more rare in combination with each other. The rarest, in my opinion, is #3 and #4, being able to excel in both Drop PNR coverage and switching coverages. That's where having both Achiuwa and Bey atop this list, as the only guys who at least check both those boxes, makes sense for me. They can be less polished or not as well-rounded as everyone else since they possess the rarest combination. Nnaji and Reed are somewhat outliers; they don't have any boxes they check right now, but have the upside to check many. Nnaji comes out higher with four potential boxes to Reed's three. For what it's worth, I wouldn't look at either as a first-round selection. Then there are natural tiers and questions that arise. Perry is the most well-rounded in the offensive categories but has question marks elsewhere. Is he more valuable than Tillie, who may be elite in one offensive category while a tad farther along defensively? The same can be said of Kaleb Wesson, though he combines the defensive fears of both. Oturu and Carey come out as similar impacts with some stylistic differences. Both are best on the offensive side. Guys like Stewart and Azubuike check similar boxes but in varying levels. Azubuike is better at what he's best at than Stewart, but he's clearly worse in his shortcomings. Different scouts will rank players in different areas; these categories aren't universal. A few people love Stewart's motor and personality so much that they have a difficult time not seeing him be strong in at least a few categories. Another friend I spoke to recently believed Oturu to be the best shooter of the group (which shocked me) and that gave him a first-round grade as a result. Most scouts will flip my rankings of Perry and Stewart, as well as Reed and Wesson. There is one category intentionally left off the list because it manifests itself in so many different ways: rebounding. A few guys are superb rebounders on this list: Perry, Carey and Stewart stand out most. But the functionality of their rebounding skill can be measured so differently. Stewart is the most likely to bury his man so that a teammate can fly in and get the rebound. That skill is more appealing to teams with guards who crash the glass. Perry is the most mobile with the ball in his hands, an outside skill that leads to rebound-and-run opportunities. He and Achiuwa are the only two on this list I'd trust in those situations, but those traits only matter on a team whose coach would allow it to happen. Carey and Stewart develop their reputations on the glass due to how tenaciously they attack offensive rebounds. If they're not encouraged to do so in the NBA, how much of a necessary skill is it? As a result of those differences, I try not to include rebounding as a key role factor and speak of it more as a swing skill that needs to mesh with the team identity. They aren't necessary skills if they swing based on situation. Hopefully these draft philosophy markers help illuminate why the rankings bear out the way they do on my board. I'm much more concerned with the fit of role players for bigs than most other positions. The two questions that need to applied to any examination of role: what will you be asked to do frequently, and how good at it will you be?
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AuthorAdam Spinella, Head Boys Basketball Coach, Boys' Latin School (MD) Archives
September 2021
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