Gregg DoyelIndianapolis Star
Show Caption
Zach Edey will be a good NBA player – that’s his floor – and if he hits his ceiling, well, don’t be surprised. And his ceiling is a great NBA player.
Nobody wants to say that now, of course. Too dangerous. You could look stupid! And nobody wants to look stupid. Luckily, I’m used to it. Calloused, you could say.
Stupid, you might add.
Doesn’t matter. The one thing I’m not doing, as it relates to the NBA projection of former Purdue center Zach Edey, is underestimate the guy. How’d that work out for the 300-plus Division I schools that underestimated him when he was a high school senior in 2020?
Doyel in 2020: This Zach Edey fellow, he’s going to be a problem for college basketball
Doyel in 2024: Taunting Zach Edey is weird. Especially after he just did *that* to your beloved team
Nobody saw him coming – not even Purdue coach Matt Painter, and he’ll tell you as much – when he was a 7-4 former hockey player and baseball pitcher who’d grown out of his favorite two sports as a kid in Canada, so he switched to basketball, and was just learning the sport in 2019 when college scouts were flocking to IMG Academy to see all those future college and pro players, and got a look at that 7-4 rising senior from Canada, and … looked away.
Zach Edey news: Five years ago, Purdue's Zach Edey chose basketball, but what if he hadn't?
They didn’t see what Painter did see: the remarkable agility and coordination for someone that large and young. He was 17 going on forever, and college scouts missed it. They blew it. They looked at a kid 18 months removed from picking up a basketball for the first time, and saw a project not worth projecting.
Dummies.
Is the NBA about to do it again?
NBA teams are looking at a young man 6½ years removed from picking up a basketball for the first time. Do they see a project not worth projecting? Not exactly, no. Mock drafts, which tend to be based on pre-draft information leaked from scouts and front-office executives and whoever else in the game doesn’t just give everything to Woj and Shams, have Edey going anywhere from No. 9 overall to No. 30 overall in the 2024 NBA Draft, set for Wednesday and Thursday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. An IndyStar sampling of seven prominent mocks drafts found Edey’s average draft spot at No. 18.
Outside the 2024 NBA draft lottery, in other words.
In a year said to be weak for lottery picks.
Dummies.
Latest mocks: Why Zach Edey may be 'most polarizing player' in 2024 NBA Draft
Yes, we can all recite chapter and verse for why Zach Edey won’t be a great NBA player, or maybe even a very good one. He’s too big, in a league getting smaller. Too slow, in a league getting quicker. Doesn’t shoot from 3-point range. Who’s he going to defend, especially when opposing teams put him into the pick-and-roll, leaving him to switch to a perimeter player?
Don’t know. Maybe he should just retire.
Who does 7-0, 284-pound Nikola Jokic defend on the perimeter? How about 7-0, 280-pound Joel Embiid, or even 7-0, 245-pound Giannis Antetokounmpo for that matter?
Those are the last six MVP’s in the league.
Yup, that’s exactly what I’m saying: Zach Edey will be an MVP! He’s every bit as skilled as Jokic, Embiid and Giannis!
Dummies.
Not you.
The point here – and please don’t be like 300 Division I coaches in 2020, and miss it – is that basketball, yes even the pro game, still has room for slow-ish 7-footers. Even a 7-footer who doesn’t shoot 3-pointers! Ever heard of Alperen Sengun? He plays for the Houston Rockets, goes about 6-11 and 245 pounds, is considered an average athlete and rarely shoots from 3-point range. He averaged 21.1 ppg this past season. Why? Because he’s big, he has some skill, has some intelligence, has some heart.
Zach Edey has all of that, and a 7-11 wingspan.
Can he shoot 3’s? Not yet, no. But the way this guy progressed – from the No. 436 project in the high school class of 2020 to one of the most dominant college players in decades – are you really betting against him learning how to shoot an open 3? Because he’ll be open. Nobody’s following him to the 3-point arc, and even if they do, so what. He’s 7-4 with a 7-11 wingspan. He’ll shoot right over them. And his 70.4% career accuracy from the foul line says he has touch.
Who will Edey defend on the pick-and-roll? Whoever Jokic defends. Whoever Embiid defends. Whoever Alperen defends. Edey will back away from the smaller guard, just as those guys do, only at 7-4 and with a 7-11 wingspan, he’ll present a whole different problem for smaller players launching 3’s over him.
The sky’s the limit for Zach Edey, even now. And he’s going to be drafted anywhere from No. 9 to No. 30? He’s projected to fall out of the lottery of a weak 2024 NBA draft class?
Dummies.
Not you.
But all those college teams in 2020. Well, all but Purdue. And all those NBA teams Wednesday night – well, all but whoever drafts him.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStaror atwww.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
More:Join the text conversation with sports columnist Gregg Doyel for insights, reader questions and Doyel'speeks behind the curtain.
