Having watched every Bender's game I could last 3 months (ICYMI my post before the season, I only saw one game of his before), I like what I saw from him. He's a 7ft1 small-ball 4 who can protect the rim. Bender's shot is smooth and even getting better with time. His only real weaknesses are offense near the rim (post game and moves) and somewhat rebounding. And of course adding weight and muscles, which is only natural considering he just turned 18.
People who do not watch the actual games would say his rebounding is extremely concerning due to low stat number, but he's asked to box out and spread out his arms. Literally 70%+ percent of the time he boxes out opponents and lets other teammates catch rebounds.
I do not know who to compare him with. When I watch Bender, I see (this is going to be wacky, prepare yourself) what would be if Ray Aleen was 7ft. He would set p&r instead of running it, his running through screens wouldn't be focused on finding space but finding somebody smaller to shoot over. Comparing him to Kukoč and Nowitzki is OK, but Bender's bread and butter 3s are in the corner while both of those (
link link ) barely shoot it. Which makes his moves completely different, albeit with similar playing style.
The most encouraging aspect of his offensive game is how much he started driving to the rim in December. Before that Bender didn't try to assert himself, if you combine his October and November number of rim attack, it's half of the December's.
His defensive style and moves are very similar to how Marc Gasol's. Using intelligence, length, shot blocking instincts and above average athleticism to generate defensive stops. The quality is obviously not there yet even at the Euroleague level, but it's great Bender doesn't need to learn defensive concepts and moves, he only needs to improve.
Overall, prospects I find as Bender's closest draft-day (overstating the word draft-day) comparisons are Jonathan Bender (obviously Dragan's vision is 10x better) and Kevin Garnett. Today he's not an NBA player, he's a 7th or 8th player on a Euroleague team, but following him with continuity, his improvement through last 3 months is noticeable. It's good for Bender his club didn't manage to qualify for next phase of Euroleague because they will play in Eurocup for the rest of the season (a 2nd tier competition, the same where Zinger played last season) and he'll get more playing time.
His outcome is tough to project because it'll depend on one thing: rate of improvement. His ceiling is very high (higher than Simmons' and Ingram's), but his current ability is relatively low. That's why I mentioned J. Bender and KG. Both were marginal NBA player at the time of the draft with similar level of ability, one improved rapidly and the other stayed the same. That's why his improvement attacking the rim is a major positive sign.
