The NBA Draft is one week from tonight
This year’s NBA Draft is like no other, and after the first three prospects (Ball, Edwards and Wiseman in some order) there’s little consensus. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, teams haven’t gotten the access to players or data they’re used to having. Pitting the prospects against one another in a scrimmage situation is currently impossible, and remote interviews have been shaky for both athletes and teams. Golden State, who will be a contender now that their roster is healthy, picks second, and no one knows what they plan to do with it. The Pistons want to trade up. There’s the potential for maximum chaos because there’s an unprecedented level of doubt.
So where does that leave the two Jayhawks in the draft, Udoka Azubuike and Devon Dotson? Can they be masters of this chaos? Coming off of absurdly productive college seasons, will they rise in the draft or get lost in the shuffle? I’m here to make some guesses.
Devon Dotson
If Dotson were 6’4’’, he would be the number one pick in the draft. He’s not, so here we are.
While the pace-and-space era of the NBA has created a lane for undersized guards who can create in space and shoot, Dotson will have to prove he can hit threes an acceptable clip in the NBA. (Dotson made tons of improvements during his sophomore campaign at Kansas, though 3PT% was not one of them). While Dotson’s combine metrics were off the charts—see above—the prolonged competitive hoops hiatus deprived him of traditional basketball scrimmages, situations in which he excels. The smaller you are, the less margin of error you have. Will Dotson make NBA defenders pay for giving him space around the arc? End-to-end speed is an increasingly coveted skill, and will Dotson’s upside there give way to a rise in the rankings?
Dotson is a hooper. We all know this. Taller dudes would spot him five feet in order to play the drive, and they still couldn’t stop him. On a purely gut level, I have a good feeling about him by watching him grind throughout the entire Draft process, which has resulted in some face-melting workout performances. Late first/early second feels like his sweet spot. The G League shuttle seems inevitable, but those are quality reps these days for lead guards who are learning to run NBA offenses.
Prediction: Early second round, possibly the Sixers, who have two early second round picks and need someone who can dribble
Udoka Azubuike
A lot of armchair NBA analysis tends to fixate on the center position being “dead,” or at least on life support. While I don’t think a Shaquille O’Neal-esque playing style would get the performance returns now that it did in the early 2000s, basketball is a fluid laboratory. It’s all about matchups, and how you react to them. While tons of Doke’s buckets in college came from traditional post maneuvering, to label him as a “back-to-the-basket” dinosaur is selling him short, I think.
During his senior season at Kansas as a 20-year-old, Doke’s improvements in reading the game were noticeable during the Jayhawks’ biggest moments. The Dayton game and the Baylor game in Waco stand out to me in particular; he was reading the pick and roll deftly, creating problems on both ends of the floor. In an NBA where the pick-and-roll read is the staple of virtually every offense, Doke’s ability here is what makes me think he’s a sneaky late first-rounder. DraftExpress creator Jonathan Givony called Doke a “complete outlier, physically”, which makes me suspect more teams are in on him that you might think.
If there’s anything I’m really hoping for in the 2020 NBA Draft, it’s a high level of gamesmanship, since no one really knows anything. But I’m also hoping for Doke to sneak into the late first round. His rapid improvement last year suggests there’s room for even more.
Prediction: Late first round, and for the sake of pegging it let’s say the Lakers at 28 or the Raptors at 29.