RealGM

Zeng's going to be on the Ignite team in the coming year, so chances are we're going to get a lot of clarity in terms of evaluating him, but as of now he's more or less an international man of mystery despite having played a year in the US.

Zeng was committed to Gonzaga, but a bunch of weird things happened it seems ( or he simply looked at the Zags roster and felt he would get buried.) and he ends up de-committing and going to the Ignite as a result. I'd generally think that looking at Ignite guys is a easier evaluation than College if only due to the rules and lines.

So here's a brief scouting report I'm writing up to introduce him, using both his Windemere prep tapes (sophomore year) and his last year + in China.

Evaluating highschoolers who aren't slam dunk high lotto guys is always tricky, and for Zeng there's some added layer of problems, he played Sophomore in Windemere prep, but that year they went up against a pretty weak schedule, they didn't play Monteverde or IMG Acadamy and the likes, so a lot of those tapes are just him demolishing normie highschool teams where they barely have anyone over 6 feet tall, (to be fair they did do just that, they barely lost a game in that season.) while none of his teammates were better than D2 NCAA player types. and if you thought evaluating Zhou Qi playing against CBA guys is hard... what about evaluating a guy that's playing with/against teams of guys TRYING TO BECOME CBA players in China? (to be fair I'm actually reasonably impressed with the base level of play of those guys, at least in terms of being able to play very competent organized basketball which US high school teams often fail at.)

Anyway, here's the report.

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General size: he's about 6'9, 6'10 ish in shoes, wingspan is around 6'10~6'11 from the report I've seen, recent reported weight is around 205~210 lbs, looking at the recent tapes they seem to check out fine. He's got relatively thin shoulder and waist though, which is probably the main risk / weakness, He profiles as a offensive straight 4 type player who may struggle to matchup against that many type of players. being not able to slide enough to keep up with quicker wings and too thin to really bang against bigs. think something between Kyle Kuzma / Larry Markennan / John Collins is the general type of player Zeng looks like.

Overview: he's a bouncy lefty with a good shot and general intriguing mix of athleticism/skill/feel.


Athleticism: He gets off the ground quickly with one or two feet, seems to struggle a little more getting off his left foot though. What's perhaps more impressive is the consistent show of very strong core strength, he's one of those guys who just always goes for and makes contorted layups. and also strong second jumps.



(Well here's him dunking on some 7'2 dude and looking like he's trying to tear down the rim. the opponent were well aware he's lefty and obviously shaded him heavily trying to funnel him to the big... which worked... except he dunked through him.)



( him in a scrimmage against college age guys and windmilling one.)


( a pretty ridiculous play with high difficulty step around / hanging layup and second jump dunk attempt.)


( ridiculous play #2 with his new favorite move, the behind-the-back in transition, it would be awesome if he gets to try to pull that off in the NBA, i saw at least 3 or 4 of these type of plays in the recent few months from him)



(him doing all sorts of hanging acrobatic finish)


( A slightly awkward right hand finish off left leg)


( it seems he has no real problem finishing with his right hand, but the problem is doing so while jumping off his left leg, when he goes up with both feet he's very ambidextrous )


Shooting: Perhaps the most intriguing thing about him and why he might end up way higher than anyone thinks right now is that the dude really make shots, it goes in, the form looks great, and shows pretty serious ability to make NBA type of shooting plays.


(Here's him just stepping into one against Dillion Mitchell from way beyond the highschool line, probably the most high level real prospect he's gone up against so far. )


(Here's him sticking it against Jason Williams' son Jaxon on a off-screen catch and shoot. this is just textbook shooting motion.)


( This is a pretty damn high degree difficulty of play, coming off-screen, catch with back facing the basket, then turn around and drills it. )

Anyway, he's not been a very high volume shooter so far relative to how these shots look, given that he's always been the best guy on the floor pretty much, it'll be interesting to see if he can become more of a off ball shooting threat on the Ignite where it's unlikely that he'll be the best player with the ball obviously. He was 84% FT shooting in Florida and I think was more like 90% in China, so the consistency of form and touch is really evident.

( his shooting numbers were was 60/47/86 in Windemere prep, attempting 270 shots with 86 of them being 3s and had a 135 free throws in 31 games. so less than 3 3 point attempts per game. )


Handle / Passing vision / feel for the game:
He had more turnover than assist in Windemere prep, but there's a lot of flash of great vision and passing ability, last year in China it's evident that the main focus was working on his handle, and the Beijing club he's playing with often just run him as a point forward in half-court sets as well, he certainly is quite ambitious with his pass attempts and that might explain why the turnovers are sometimes pretty high. It does look like he's seeing the game at a very high level though that might also be due to him simply being so much faster / bigger than everyone else he's played, he seem to actively try to make highlight-reel plays so at least you're not concerned about him being passive I guess. it'll be interesting to see if he can show some of these things on the Ignite.


( even the guy that got the ball was shocked. )


( I know he's playing against normie kids here but this is still pretty audacious mid air touch pass )


(dat angle and accuracy....)


(stringing one through everyone in transition. did good job changing pace and angle while handling too.)


( well ok that's just mean now. but clearly, the big improvement he had last year is being able to handle like this, he's a full 6'9 + dude here.)


( here's him just shaking another smaller guy and euro step across all over the place )


( The Beijing Youth team often just let him run pick and roll, nothing fancy as he almost always ends up getting easy shots, but it's not normal for a 6'9 guy doing this.)


( a full court dribble with a pass after, again he shows pretty good ability to change speed and direction.)


(This is some next level big brain stuff here...)


( a literal cross court pass that caught everyone off guard, and he plays with quite a bit of swag and F you.)


Defense potential and problems
He is of an archetype of player that will most likely have problem in the high levels defending on ball IMHO, as he is quite lanky with higher hip and more narrow waist / shoulder, this means he's neither likely to be able to bulk up enough to really bang with the biggest dudes nor get down and slide consistently enough to deal with the faster cats, (he also have a mediocre wingspan for NBA level prospects.) his path to being an NBA player lies mainly in his ability to be a really nice offensive player that can really help make an offense hum as a good off-ball spacer that can also attack himself if given the chance and generally help connect everything with good passing and awareness.


( while he obviously did fine here, this doesn't look like something that's going to work against actual NBA level guards, he can probably slide ok for a little bit, but clearly, if you put him on an island against a real NBA point guard he's going to get blown by.)


(though he's very bouncy obviously, and he gets up for a second jump fast, so far if you watch the full tapes he's basically an off ball block machine that often gets 5+ block games, so chances are he's going to be helpful in off ball rotation and stuff, just that on ball he's going to struggle.)


( Here's Dillion Mitchell going around him pretty easily.)


Anyway, he's certainly rather intriguing, it'll be interesting to see if he can be a major part of the Ignite's rotation, I really have no level of confidence on where he'll end up, anything from late lotto to undrafted wouldn't shock me.

RollingWave wrote:
So here's a brief scouting report I'm writing up to introduce him, using both his Windemere prep tapes (sophomore year) and his last year + in China.

Jesus, if that's your brief scouting report...

EvanZ wrote:

RollingWave wrote:
So here's a brief scouting report I'm writing up to introduce him, using both his Windemere prep tapes (sophomore year) and his last year + in China.

Jesus, if that's your brief scouting report...

ok, I know we butt heads sometimes but this was funny.

RollingWave, looks very in depth. I'll check it out when I get more time.

He is #73 on 247? Do you think that is accurate?

Players of that caliber have like like maybe 1/5 chance of making a NBA roster after a few years in college. What makes Fanbo different from other low 4/high 3 stars out there aside from being Chinese.

CptCrunch wrote:He is #73 on 247? Do you think that is accurate?

Players of that caliber have like like maybe 1/5 chance of making a NBA roster after a few years in college. What makes Fanbo different from other low 4/high 3 stars out there aside from being Chinese.

I mean it was based off his Sophomore stuff, projecting highschoolers still 2 years away is a crap shoot anyway, ESPN had him in the 30s. just off his sophomore tape I'd say his body look a bit awkward and he didn't have anything resembling a functional handle that would work beyond high school, his development body and skill wise last year + in China was actually about as positive as one could reasonably hope for. filling out pretty nicely while really improving the handle to the point where he looks more like a wing out there at least on offense, if he had just remained a more awkward body guy that can shoot but can't dribble that's what... a poor man's Bol Bol?

If he was just an American player and stayed in Florida, just based on the Gonzaga offer you'd think his stock and hype would be higher.

Yeah I think your base analysis is right that he's roughly about a 4 star guy who might pan out and be real player or he might not, but that's kinda what you can say about all highschool propsects who's not a high end 5 star guy (and even those are often in the same boat. BJ Boston nearly played himself out of the draft and he was about as high of a 5 star recruit as you're going to get)

The shooting looks quite legit to me at least and that's obviously one argument in that if you're asking what's his NBA skill then it's pretty obvious he's probably got that part down, the question will be can he hang when everyone on the court is NBA caliber athletes and we'll find out in a few months.

Your right that the general consensus from the pros seem to be that he might need more than a year, though he's got this other quirk going on where he has agreed to play for the CBA club if he doesn't get on an NBA roster after the draft next year, (so the 2022-23 season he'll play for the Beijing Ducks if not a NBA team.)

CptCrunch wrote:He is #73 on 247? Do you think that is accurate?

Players of that caliber have like like maybe 1/5 chance of making a NBA roster after a few years in college. What makes Fanbo different from other low 4/high 3 stars out there aside from being Chinese.

Is 247 even a credible source?

For the most part, no sites are credible this far from the draft, are they?

I saw some "credible" experts who had Santi Aldama ranked in the 80's not long ago..then the grizzlies traded UP to draft him no. 30..so who cares where some random website ranks a guy, especially this far away from draft day..

Hal14 wrote:

CptCrunch wrote:He is #73 on 247? Do you think that is accurate?

Players of that caliber have like like maybe 1/5 chance of making a NBA roster after a few years in college. What makes Fanbo different from other low 4/high 3 stars out there aside from being Chinese.

Is 247 even a credible source?

For the most part, no sites are credible this far from the draft, are they?

I saw some "credible" experts who had Santi Aldama ranked in the 80's not long ago..then the grizzlies traded UP to draft him no. 30..so who cares where some random website ranks a guy, especially this far away from draft day..

Well Aldama hasn't done much to make the Grizz look good in Vegas heh, but drafting is always a fairly imprecise science anyway, there's always going to be big time outliers like Curry being a 3 star highschooler and then 2 times MVP (and he was definitely highly scouted, they can't chalk this up to the Giannis / Jokic type situation.) but just comparing the pre-season list of 5 star guys to what actually happens afterwards year by year and it looks closer to baseball batting averages in terms of hit and misses.

( also the star rating system seems very much just focused on these kids in terms of the NCAA which has somewhat different criteria than what NBA teams look for.)

Really fun to read this, I hope you do more!

It looks like Zeng's final few games in China before reporting to the Ignite is going to be interesting, he's going to get on the men's team for Beijing in the upcoming China National Games (think of it as a domestic Olympics between different provinces, a lot of the participants are Olympian / Pro athletes. which means for some category like Diving / PingPong it might as well be the highest level competition in the world.) He had previously played only in the U19 part of the games but it seems like they're going to just let him roll with the men's team for the finals.

There's only 4 teams in the finals and the difference in their roster is quite stark, the host province Shaanxi is running out their NBL team (which is like Division 2 of the CBA) so they're likely to get crushed, Beijing is rolling with a few player from the recently defuncted Bayi Rockets CBA team (they were well known for being the only team that never uses foreign players, and thus they were always losing in the least decade.) + Zeng and a few other Beijing Duck's younger players, the Hubei team is basically running out the Shenzhen CBA team (which is usually a relatively weaker CBA team.) but the Liaoning team is just going for the kill with not only their own CBA team (which is a perennial title contender with 3 guys that's basically the core rotation player for China's national team on top of the best young rookie ) but they throw on top of all that Zhou Qi (he played most of his youth basketball for LiaoNing), who's obviously the highest profile player inside China right now. So that's basically a national team level squad right there.

So one of the last games Zeng will play in China before heading over is going to be against effectively the best local team China could come up with right now, it'll be interesting to see what he can do against those guys (their level is basically guys that would at least hold their own in the summer league type given the few Chinese players that played in vegas before, the core Liaoning guys are around their level. )

The games will be next week, they'll play 4 games I think, 3 against each other and the 4th is the medals game.

( The Liaoning guys are known to be quite physical, and their young guy Kevin Zhang who played in Tulane is probably about as good of a player to match up against Zeng that they can come up with domestically right now, as he does have pretty good size and athleticism, the only problem is that he's inconsistent as heck, he had a few games in Tulane that made you think he might be a serious NBA prospect, the problem is that for everyone one of those he had 10 other games where you wonder if he should even play on a weak D1 team. I kinda question his work ethic tbh. but he is probably the one guy in the CBA right now who's a forward and has what could generously be described as NBA-level athleticism. )

( here's Zhang going supernova in last season's CBA finals, the problem is he's a uber streaky shooter as one don't need to be a shot doctor to see that his general form leaves something to be desired despite him having no concern of pulling all the triggers, and his on ball creation is fairly non-existent, but he can really get up and get some ally oops though, even in the CBA he's kind of an all or nothing guy who sometimes have these super games but you look up the whole season body of work and its meh.)

Unfortunately, the tournament didn't exactly go great for Zeng, his first game he did fine, looked way more atheltic than everyone out there and outplayed the mostly CBA guys well, the second game he was doing poorly and then got hurt so we didn't get to see him go up against the super-strong Liaoning team that eventually won the tournament fairly easily.

The injury is said to be minor and he's heading state side in a couple days, hopefully that's the case and we'll get to see him with the Ignite in a bit.

The main takeaway from this tiny 1.5 game sample is that his shot is way off right now, in my report I thought he was a good shooter and there's good reasons to believe that, however, he shot horrifically not just form 3 but also from the line these couple games, now obviously 1.5 game is an almost meaningless sample size, but the shots themself don't look great either in terms of how much he was off by. Seems like the most probable problem right now is that he's bulking up pretty fast and the general mechanics haven't adjusted to his body yet. hopefully he'll get that part down though it can often take awhile.

At the very least it's good to see whatever happened in his last game in China a few weeks back wasn't a serious injury.

Looks like david lee

Great posts man. Looks good off 1 foot and 2 feet, he seems like an NBA level athlete for sure. That form looks nice too. It’s been a while since there was a Chinese player in the league so I hope he makes it. I’m curious to see if he can use his talents in games.

Need to look at his speed on defense and offense in game. With that size/length and shooting touch, hard to not see him get drafted as stretch forward.