2018 NBA Draft: Top 60 big board, Part 2
By Connor Harr
After showcasing the lottery rankings in the final 2018 NBA Draft Big Board, it’s time to shift focus onto a collage of wings in tiers 4 and 5.
Tiers 1-3 in Part 1 of our final 2018 NBA Draft Big Board featured a large amount of bigs, a few lead and combo guards and only a couple of wings. Since wings will be the name of the game in Part 2, and since every NBA team is always scrambling for new wing talent, I’d like to let everyone know what I value in a complementary wing prospect.
The first thing I value in wings is shooting. It is 110 percent necessary to be able to shoot in today’s NBA. It is even more impressive if you can shoot in all three facets as a wing: off the dribble, off the catch and off of movement. All three of these shooting elements are important. You have to be able to shoot to attack on offense if you are not a heavy usage creator.
Obviously none of these wings projects as a high-usage initiator in a team’s offense, or else they would be ranked higher. Which brings up the second and third offensive elements to value: athletic ability and decision-making. As far as athletic ability, how functionally do players use their athleticism? Do they have a great first step, or can they consistently finish above the rim?
Decision-making is extremely important in how much value you can add to your team if you are not scoring. Can you make smart passes on the move, or be able to recognize your open shooter in the weak-side corner, or even be able to recognize the extremely small amount of time to hit an open cutter?
On the defensive side of the ball, we start to look more at positional size because that can help contribute to your versatility defensively as a prospect and how many positions you can guard, how well you move your feet laterally when defending on ball, and how quickly you open your hips up to recover when beaten off the ball. Off the ball on defense, it is important to look for communication between the prospect and his teammates, making smart rotations once a player attacks the lane or when the ball is reversed around the perimeter. Lastly, there’s just an overall level of awareness that you need to have to be a quality off-ball defender.
Summing it all up, in these wing heavy rankings I value shooting, functional athletic ability on both sides of the ball, positional size and a high basketball IQ. Now let’s get into Tier 4 of the final 2018 NBA Draft Big Board.