Prospect Thread: Onyeka Okongwu

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Onyeka vs Tyrus is actually somewhat interesting stat wise. Per 40 min, OO took more shots at a better percentage and had a better FT%. TT has the better rebound, block, & assist numbers. Both are listed 6' 9" but OO's listed weight is 245 to TT's 215.

I do remember TT being a disaster here, but I thought that the primary reason was injury.

Above all, Thomas is happy simply to be playing after undergoing surgery in March 2014 to remove a cyst from his spinal cord that also involved placing a plate in his neck to fuse vertebrae. In a sign of his peace of mind and maturity, Thomas refuses to blame his inconsistent play with Charlotte on the then-undiagnosed injury.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bulls/ct-tyrus-thomas-bulls-spt-0131-20160130-story.html

[KGdaBom]

Onyeka vs Tyrus is actually somewhat interesting stat wise. Per 40 min, OO took more shots at a better percentage and had a better FT%. TT has the better rebound, block, & assist numbers. Both are listed 6' 9" but OO's listed weight is 245 to TT's 215.

I do remember TT being a disaster here, but I thought that the primary reason was injury.

Above all, Thomas is happy simply to be playing after undergoing surgery in March 2014 to remove a cyst from his spinal cord that also involved placing a plate in his neck to fuse vertebrae. In a sign of his peace of mind and maturity, Thomas refuses to blame his inconsistent play with Charlotte on the then-undiagnosed injury.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bulls/ct-tyrus-thomas-bulls-spt-0131-20160130-story.html

TT did very nicely for my fantasy basketball teams.
Stocks are super valuable.

[amcoolio]

Oneyeka is Tyrus with a great head on his shoulders.

Just watch any of of his latest interviews, its a night and day difference between him and Tyrus, or Edwards, or Ball

I think if you are looking for a potential Giannis or Paul George type of boom or bust draft pick Okongwu is a good bet. You assume he is still raw and can grow into shooting and ball handling. He has the measurable and the offensive and defensive awareness already, and shoots well from the line.

[Braggins]

Oneyeka is Tyrus with a great head on his shoulders.

Just watch any of of his latest interviews, its a night and day difference between him and Tyrus, or Edwards, or Ball

I think if you are looking for a potential Giannis or Paul George type of boom or bust draft pick Okongwu is a good bet. You assume he is still raw and can grow into shooting and ball handling. He has the measurable and the offensive and defensive awareness already, and shoots well from the line.

He and Wiseman both impressed me as far as their mindset/attitude/intelligence.

[driveandkick]

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?s=20

[wilson115]

Interesting take:

To spot NBA market inefficiency, I’m going to use Jacob Goldstein’s (@JacobEGoldstein) Player Impact Plus-Minus (PIPM, via WinsAdded.com) as a surrogate for player value. PIPM is a per-100 possession, on-court impact metric that combines luck-adjusted plus-minus data with box-score stats to estimate player value over the course of a season. PIPM is converted into an equivalent number of Wins Added using total minutes played and the Pythagorean wins formula. Here I’m going to focus on the number of wins which a player added for every one million dollars spent on his salary in the 2019-20 season.

Which player roles are underpaid and provide the most value on the NBA market?

Currently, the most marketable skill in the NBA is offensive creation. The median salary among the 61 creators who played at least 200 minutes this year was $8 million (in red). In comparison, the 89 rim protectors (in blue) and the 67 floor-spacers (in yellow) commanded lower wages, with median salaries of $3.5 and $3.0 million, respectively. Players who have more than one essential skill (in orange, green, or purple) tend to sign the biggest deals.

There is an impressive amount of consistency in contract values across this Venn diagram of player skills, as several of the sections have a median of either 0.22 or 0.23 wins per $1M. This is an indication that NBA teams are doing a pretty smart job of matching a player’s salary to his abilities. In line with the typical salaries for the three groups, creators tend to have the highest PIPM (median of 0.0) followed by rim protectors (-0.4) and floor spacers (-0.7). Of the three groups, floor spacers tend to have a slightly higher contract value, with a median of 0.27 wins per $1 million.

https://fansided.com/2020/07/29/nylon-calculus-spotting-nba-market-inefficiency/

[wilson115]

Another one:

In this post, I am taking a second look at optimizing lineup fit using the talent grades developed by Tim (@Tim_NBA) and Jacob (@JacobEGoldstein) at the Bball-Index. These grades use publicly-available stats to provide objective measures of skill that are designed to be independent of team-specific factors such as coaching, schemes, and teammates. For my analysis, I used six seasons of percentile ranks for the following talent grades: 3-point shooting, off-ball movement, playmaking, one-on-one, roll gravity, finishing, post play, offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding, total rebounding, perimeter defense, and interior defense. I linked these talent grades with six years of play-by-play data from PBPstats.com (70k lineups, 1.4M possessions) to find out which skills contribute most to offensive and defensive success.



For the tables above, I simply summed the talent grades (as percentiles) for the five players in each lineup and then calculated the correlation between the lineups’ total talent grades and their offensive and defensive ratings (i.e., points scored and allowed per 100 possessions) for any combination that played together for at least 150 possessions during a single season.

Using this really crude approach it appeared that a lineup’s offensive rating was most closely tied to the perimeter-shooting talent of its players (in red, on the left). To a lesser extent, getting high marks for off-ball movement and roll gravity were also linked to offensive efficiency. In contrast, a lineup’s defensive rating was most highly correlated with its players’ total interior defense grades (in blue, on the right). Being skilled at perimeter defense and defensive rebounding also helped to prevent the other team from scoring.

It is sometimes said that a defense is only as strong as its weakest link, but these data actually suggest otherwise. Lineups with no good big defenders and three or more good perimeter defenders (109.6 points allowed per 100 possessions or worse) were no better on defense than lineups with exactly one good big defender (109.9). In other words, one good rim protector CAN make up for a defensive weak link…or maybe even two. Moreover, lineups with three or more good defenders broke even (i.e., they posted non-negative net ratings) just as long as one of those good defenders was big. That’s a pretty useful rule of thumb to remember: effective lineups tend to have at least three good defenders, one of whom is big.

https://fansided.com/2020/03/02/nylon-calculus-optimizing-nba-lineup-fit/

[wilson115]

This seems more anecdotal:

In fact, modern NBA offenses are mostly built on the idea that guards are human and that they will physically have to concede to some unfavorable switches. To counter the prospect of getting torched by a guard on every single possession, teams have been responding in recent years by playing smaller and quicker bigs who at least somewhat negate these mismatches, and who are able to occasionally stay in front of smaller and quicker players.

Having an agile big man who can do all this defensive work while contributing marginally offensively is basically expected for a functioning modern NBA team. Considering how much scoring is done by guards, and how key big man defense is, teams would much rather have an agile defensive big than an offensively talented one who is lackluster at defense.

Offensive ability is often considered a matter of skill and defensive ability is often considered one of tools. Skills can be taught; tools cannot. Therefore, a defensive specialist big man is much more sought after than an offensive specialist big man.

Having a defensive big means you have a player who can already play, and whose limitations will not negatively affect your team that much if your other pieces produce as expected. On the contrary, having an offensive big means you have a player who might not be able to stay on the floor, who may never be able to develop to fix these weaknesses, whose weaknesses may very well negatively impact your team and whose actual talents may be redundant on any actually good team.

https://sircharlesincharge.com/2016/08/18/defense-nba-position-determines-value/

[wilson115]

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[James Gatz]

Okongwu is second on my board now. I don't see how this guy doesn't have an above average starter career in the NBA. Has a clear role and provides flexibility on team building. Draft him and get a top pick 2021 and then we really have something going.

Graham
2021 Pick (Primary Initiator)
Miles?
PJ
Okongwu

[geraldwallace]

Starting to really like this kid, he seems like a perfect modern big on defense plus he would fit nicely in Borrego's switch-heavy defense.

[luciano-davidwesley]

Okongwu is growing on me. He's probably more NBA ready than Wiseman and he seems like a guy with a great attitude and he is an improver. He's a competitor and isn't afraid to do the dirty work and get physical. Guys that show a lot of improvement in college tend to continue that trend in the pros.

I consider Wiseman to basically be a highschool player as he only played 3 games for Memphis so he'll likely be a project.

That being said we can afford to give Wiseman plenty of minutes even as a marginal player in his first year as it will help the tank. We want to tank next year then get a great pick in 2021 and then start to attempt to contend for the play-offs from then.

TL DR version is I'm 50/50 on Okongwu or Wiseman at #3 and I'd be ok with either pick. Okongwu will almost certainly be a good to very good player (high floor medium/high ceiling) while Wiseman could be transcendent but could also be a bust. Please don't draft Toppin!

[amcoolio]

I trust Mitch makes the right decision. I think Wiseman works pretty hard I just like Okongwu's potential better. Especially since we are seeing Miami go so deep in the playoffs on Bam's back.

[Soul Rebel]

I trust Mitch makes the right decision. I think Wiseman works pretty hard I just like Okongwu's potential better. Especially since we are seeing Miami go so deep in the playoffs on Bam's back.

Agree with this take on Mitch.

I am cautious on Okongwu because for every Bam and Horford, IMO, there's as many (if not more) Biyombos and Sweeney's.

It's hard with Wiseman bc the sample size is so small and his strengths aren't necessarily what's winning in the NBA now.... whereas his weaknesses are what you wish to have in a big.

Maybe my thinking is flawed, but I thought you were getting upside/potential with Wiseman, and more confident in the floor on OO.

I'm honestly happy with either prospect at 3... Deni and Obi scare me more, so I will trust Mitch on this move. My biggest fear in this selection is looking back in 3 years and seeing Wiseman being a top-5 center in the league, and we passed on him.

[Snidely FC]

I’d prioritize a big being able to quickly recognize a double team and make quick and effective passes to open team mates and a big who promotes/facilitates ball movement Vs being a black hole much higher than I would a big being able to drain 3’s

I like this perspective on bigs - https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/9/4/21422487/nba-playoffs-bam-adebayo-draymond-green-marc-gasol

A big is worth investing in if they (a) can guard multiple positions and (b) have the BBIQ to direct an offense and unlock actions and direct traffic from the 5 spot.

Does OO check all those boxes? Would have to understand their college scheme and watch a lot of game tape to answer that question.

I agree w Slam and YB that what makes an elite 5 is not just shooting but playmaking ability - question for those comparing OO to Bam can Okongwu get there?

Rob Dauster takes a look in this video/article. exectuive summary: Bam is an elite playmaker and that one skill is what Kong needs to develop if he's to get to Bam's level; so far there have been few signs, but with proper coaching, the potential is there

He didn’t get too many chances in these actions last season, and when he did, it wasn’t always pretty. He finished the year with 30 assists and 56 turnovers, and ball-handling is clearly not yet one of his strong suits as it is with Green and Adebayo. But I do think the potential is there. Okongwu showed the ability to pass out of the post and hit drivers or weakside shooters, and there are more than a few examples of him making quick reads to create open shots for his teammates. Now, passing with your back to the basket and playmaking as a roller in ball-screens are two different things, but both require the cognitive ability to read and react to what a defense is giving you. If Okongwu can do the former then it stands to reason that, with some coaching, he can do the latter.

https://collegebasketball.nbcsports.com/2020/07/18/2020-nba-draft-onyeka-okongwu-bam-adebayo/

[amcoolio]

I trust Mitch makes the right decision. I think Wiseman works pretty hard I just like Okongwu's potential better. Especially since we are seeing Miami go so deep in the playoffs on Bam's back.

Agree with this take on Mitch.

I am cautious on Okongwu because for every Bam and Horford, IMO, there's as many (if not more) Biyombos and Sweeney's.

It's hard with Wiseman bc the sample size is so small and his strengths aren't necessarily what's winning in the NBA now.... whereas his weaknesses are what you wish to have in a big.

Maybe my thinking is flawed, but I thought you were getting upside/potential with Wiseman, and more confident in the floor on OO.

I'm honestly happy with either prospect at 3... Deni and Obi scare me more, so I will trust Mitch on this move. My biggest fear in this selection is looking back in 3 years and seeing Wiseman being a top-5 center in the league, and we passed on him.

I highly recommend watching some interviews and clips of Oneyka, he is so much more smooth with the ball than Biyombo can ever hope to be. Also shot well from the line and came out of nowhere to post 16.2/8.6 with 2.7 blocks per game as a freshman. Its only a matter of unlocking his jumpshot. I'd rather gamble on a guy who didn't shoot in college than shoots but has terrible efficiency or form

Watch on YouTube

[Braggins]

Spoiler:

I trust Mitch makes the right decision. I think Wiseman works pretty hard I just like Okongwu's potential better. Especially since we are seeing Miami go so deep in the playoffs on Bam's back.

Agree with this take on Mitch.

I am cautious on Okongwu because for every Bam and Horford, IMO, there's as many (if not more) Biyombos and Sweeney's.

It's hard with Wiseman bc the sample size is so small and his strengths aren't necessarily what's winning in the NBA now.... whereas his weaknesses are what you wish to have in a big.

Maybe my thinking is flawed, but I thought you were getting upside/potential with Wiseman, and more confident in the floor on OO.

I'm honestly happy with either prospect at 3... Deni and Obi scare me more, so I will trust Mitch on this move. My biggest fear in this selection is looking back in 3 years and seeing Wiseman being a top-5 center in the league, and we passed on him.

I highly recommend watching some interviews and clips of Oneyka, he is so much more smooth with the ball than Biyombo can ever hope to be. Also shot well from the line and came out of nowhere to post 16.2/8.6 with 2.7 blocks per game as a freshman. Its only a matter of unlocking his jumpshot. I'd rather gamble on a guy who didn't shoot in college than shoots but has terrible efficiency or form

Watch on YouTube

He says that towards the end of the college season his strength and conditioning coach measured him and he was "6'9" and some change without shoes on". Thats pretty good if true.

[MugzZo]

Spoiler:

Agree with this take on Mitch.

I am cautious on Okongwu because for every Bam and Horford, IMO, there's as many (if not more) Biyombos and Sweeney's.

It's hard with Wiseman bc the sample size is so small and his strengths aren't necessarily what's winning in the NBA now.... whereas his weaknesses are what you wish to have in a big.

Maybe my thinking is flawed, but I thought you were getting upside/potential with Wiseman, and more confident in the floor on OO.

I'm honestly happy with either prospect at 3... Deni and Obi scare me more, so I will trust Mitch on this move. My biggest fear in this selection is looking back in 3 years and seeing Wiseman being a top-5 center in the league, and we passed on him.

I highly recommend watching some interviews and clips of Oneyka, he is so much more smooth with the ball than Biyombo can ever hope to be. Also shot well from the line and came out of nowhere to post 16.2/8.6 with 2.7 blocks per game as a freshman. Its only a matter of unlocking his jumpshot. I'd rather gamble on a guy who didn't shoot in college than shoots but has terrible efficiency or form

Watch on YouTube

He says that towards the end of the college season his strength and conditioning coach measured him and he was "6'9" and some change without shoes on". Thats pretty good if true.

If we draft him over Wiseman I won't even be mad....not even a little. That video and others and a few games have shown me what I need to know. Hes a bam/collins hybrid.

[Soul Rebel]

Excellent vid post.

I def would be thrilled getting Okongwu at 3 bc a lot of his positive traits are deeply needed here. Hearing that he's closer to 6'10" is nice too, but could also be lip service to help boost his stock. Regardless, his 7'1" wingspan is huge and even if he is 6'9", he can def be our future 5.

Just like any of the prospects in this draft class, he has areas he needs to improve, but that is the theme of this draft year. Take your pick and hope the weaknesses can be worked out..... whether its Edwards, Ball, Wiseman, Deni or OO.

I also keep forgetting that he ran with LaMelo in HS and was overshadowed at a very talented Chino Hill HS squad.

He or Wiseman at 3 for me and I'll be happy.

[Braggins]

Ive been reading some speculation that Okongwu could be available as late as 9. If thats the case then I think trading back for him could be the best play.