Shooting Guards
Small Forwards
Centers
All of the stats I either found or calculated from hoop-math.com, basketball-reference.com, and tothemean.com. Points, assists, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, steals and blocks are all per40. As a new thing, I've included BPM and RAPM in addition to ORtg/DRtg/Net.
Vitals
Again, focus on the height barefoot rather than in shoes - KZ Okpala is just as tall as Jalen Hoard, Tyler Cook, Isaiah Roby and Brandon Clarke. In fact, they all have different measurements in shoes despite being the same height barefoot. By height, you can probably guess that most of these guys are combo-forward types rather than dedicated PFs. I've listed Shittu as a PF due to his lack of shot-blocking making him unfit for the center position as it stands.
I've included both the difference between a guy’s wingspan and his height in shoes, and also what that difference would look like if people didn't cheat with their listed heights and all just gained 1 inch. The guys who cheat the most on height look best here then. Okpala's length is really impressive, as is PJ Washington's.
Weight is more important here because we want to know if a lot of these combo-forward types have the girth to stick it out at PF. Most are fine, but some guys like Roby, Hoard, Okpala, Brissett and even Clarke are a bit light. McDaniels is in another class of skinny, unfortunately he's just built that way and can't add much weight at all. Windler is thin too, but I am not quite as worried about him as I am about McDaniels. Clarke's measurements are really poor overall here, but by now that's nothing new.
Brazdeikis, Paschall, Grant Williams and Dylan Windler are all possibly too small to be full-time PFs, due to a lack of height/length. Zion might actually be a bit ‘small’ for PF too, though no one is really worried about him for obvious reasons.
Overall Offense
This class of PFs features a number of big-time scorers, but Hachimura, Windler and Zion stand apart from the rest. It should be noted that Brandon Clarke is fourth in points per40 however, and on the second-best efficiency. His ability to score is underrated. Wooten, Brissett and Roby were often non-factors as scorers, and Brissett's efficiency is brutally bad - another product of Syracuse not running actual offense, like Tyus Battle. Simi Shittu also had absolutely brutal efficiency for a guy with center size.
Shittu and McDaniels make up for inefficient scoring with solid assist rates. Okpala and Wooten combine few assists with a lot of turnovers. Hachimura and Brazdeikis avoid assists and turnovers. Windler avoids turnovers in addition to efficient scoring and a decent assist rate.
Zion is no surprise as the top offensive rebounder. Hachimura was second, and I guess he took all of the offensive boards away from Clarke, who's near the bottom. Okpala lack of offensive rebounding is a surprise, and Wooten did very little of it for a small-ball center type.
Lawson, Washington, Williams and McDaniels relied really heavily on mid-range shots, but only McDaniels was really inefficient. He's just too weak to force his way to the rim. In contrast, no one could stop Zion. Roby had a pretty good shot distribution but poor efficiency, a bad combo. Grant Williams is the opposite - stellar efficiency despite taking way too many long 2s.
Penetration
%FGA at the rim basically shows who's a pure PF and who's a combo-forward, with the exception of Zion. McDaniels - again just took weak to get to the rim, poor guy. Paschall's lack of shots at the rim is more surprising and concerning. Washington and Williams again are low here since they took a ton of mid-range shots out of the post, and will likely do a lot less of that in the NBA. Windler took relatively few shots at the rim not because he was taking long twos, but because he took a million 3s.
Roby, Okpala and Brissett really struggled to finish at the rim, pretty bad thing to see. Roby has the athleticism but clearly needs to bulk up and play tougher/more aggressively on offense. Clarke was the best finisher in this class, just ahead of Zion, but Zion was finishing against much better rim protectors in the ACC, so is again more impressive.
It's no surprise that Wooten had the highest % of his makes assisted, but it is a bit of a surprise to see William and Hachimura so high as well - though not nearly in the same area code as Wooten. Windler also had most of his makes at the rim assisted, which isn’t encouraging given his low volume of shots there. Okpala, Brissett and Brazdeikis were on the lower end as finishers, so it's comforting to see that they created so many of their own looks. Roby lacks that excuse for his poor finishing.
Props to Paschall for drawing contact well to make up a bit for having so few attempts at the rim. Williams and Washington are guys you'd expect to draw contact with their bulk and post play. Windler is again next to those two despite playing differently. McDaniels is again too skinny. Clarke and Wooten, being finishers, are also the sorts of guys you'd expect to not draw a ton of fouls.
Shooting
Lot of shooters to be found of varying reliability. Brazdeikis, Lawson, Okeke and Windler are essentially sure things from deep. Of that group, Iggy had the lowest % of his makes assisted.
McDaniels, Williams, and Hachimura just need to extend their range and have decent foundations. Washington, Roby and Okpala are guys I expect will be able to shoot but were poor from the free throw line and so likely need work.
Paschall has some range but has never been that good. Zion, Brissett, Clarke, Hoard and Shittu are clearly a ways away.
Cook and Wooten give no reason to expect development of a 3 point shot.
Passing
This class features a few guys who can pass or at least move the ball. Williams is top in the class, with Washington the only guy producing a similar number of assists per40. Okeke and Clarke demonstrate their intelligence and feel with good A/TOs though few assists. Windler produced more assists on a similar A/TO.
Hachimura and Brazdeikis were both guys I noted as black holes, and they are. Wooten is just a finisher who rarely has the ball, so no surprise that he has few assists, but that is still a brutal A/TO. Okpala is another poor performer as a passer, with a really low AST% given his offensive load and nominal status as a potential perimeter player. Simi Shittu really struggled with turnovers.
Defense
Goes without saying that Zion's numbers are crazy good, especially for a guy who's just 6'7" in shoes. Okeke is a really high IQ guy, and this shows up in his excellent number of steals. Few defensive rebounds though, which is something to keep an eye on with these combo-forward types. Clarke's numbers are also excellent, freakish even given his lack of length. How is he getting about as many steals and more blocks than the super-long limbed Washington? Washington's numbers are already quite good.
Okpala's numbers look like those of a big wing - a lot more steals than blocks, not too many defensive rebounds. Roby looks more forward-y, with a good block rate and slightly more rebounds. Windler is an interesting in-between. His steal rate is solid for a wing while his defensive rebounding is elite regardless of position (though both stats are inflated a bit due to playing a lower level of competition). Encouraging results regardless.
Lawson's steals and blocks are good for a slow-footed guy, and he also dominates the glass. Williams' stocks look good enough to stick at PF. Hachimura and McDaniels' numbers are weak but for the rebounding.
Brissett, Shittu, Cook and Hoard do poorly aside from okay rebounding, Brissett is more concerning here since the Syracuse zone should be helping him pump those numbers up. Brazdeikis and Paschall have poor numbers across the board and might just not be up to task in the NBA, especially since they're on the smaller end of PFs. Wooten provides nothing but blocks. He'll need to rebound better in the NBA I think.
Impact Stats Summary
Clarke, Williams and Zion all have essentially elite impact numbers across the board, but Williams is not considered a similar caliber of prospect as even the physically flawed Clarke. Perhaps he’s being underrated?
At the other end, Hoard, Shittu and Cook all look quite bad. Shittu and Hoard at least have youth on their side, but Cook is entirely uninteresting. Roby, Brissett and Okpala do poorly as well, but at least have excuses related to their teams. Okpala’s relatively poor numbers were the ones I found most surprising.
There is generally a surprising lack of one-way defensive players here. Essentially everyone with mediocre to bad offensive number also has mediocre to bad defensive numbers. Kenny Wooten is really the only one who could qualify. In contrast, there are plenty of offense-first guys, like Hachimura, Windler and Brazdeikis.
Player evaluations
Zion Williamson
He's the #1 for a reason, I don't need to tell you about him.
Grant Williams
I've been doubtful of him, but there isn't much in his statistical profile to trash him. His problem is that much of his offensive value comes from posting up, which he won't do much of in the NBA. He'll have to extend his range to 3, but if he's hanging out there, what does that do to the rest of the things he's done on offense to make him valuable in college? It's not like Williams is some perimeter face-up guy who passes on the move. And I have to imagine that playing against better size in the NBA will hurt his post game anyways. But looking at his statistical profile, the only hole is his shooting, and that isn't a lost cause at all. In spite of my own doubts, I have to think that I'm underrated him.
Brandon Clarke
His offensive ability is getting underrated because he doesn't create for himself a ton, but scoring on that volume and with that efficiency isn't an accident, it's indicative of some real ability. His A/TO is a further indication that there's hidden potential on offense due to his intelligence. Defensively we can all see his in-game impact, but we can only speculate as to how well it will translate to the NBA given his limited dimensions. There aren't many examples of guys with his sort of profile to compare to, so we can only give educated guesses. As with Zion and Williams, the impact numbers adore Clarke, so I do like him as a lottery talent.
PJ Washington
He's a guy I've been high on for a while and I think remains underrated. Like a number of prospects he relies a lot on his post game, but unlike most of them he's more proven from 3, and he has excellent length. Between the shot, the passing, and the length, I think a poor-man's Draymond comparison isn't totally unreasonable.
Dylan Windler
I stuck him with the PFs because he has the rebounding to stick there, his AST% is unimpressive for a wing and he created very few of his own shots, especially at the rim. Not that he couldn’t play SF in the NBA, but I wanted to keep guys to one position. His shooting is obviously excellent, which is all most people are interested in, and despite his relative lack of size, length and girth, he might have the defensive chops to hang at PF. It’s still a reasonable concern, but his numbers suggest that he could be at least competent enough to stay on the floor and shoot the lights out.
Rui Hachimura
The volume scoring is impressive, but I don't see it in the NBA. He mostly isn't creating his own looks, he isn't shooting 3s, he seems to have bad vision as a passer - and he's a bit old. There's value to having an elite finisher on offense, but it's not really high value. This isn't to say that he doesn't have potential to develop more on offense though. He has potential from 3 and he could expand his existing game to create more for himself, but I don't see him becoming a good passer ever, and you really need to be able to do some of that to justify having the ball in your hands a lot. Defensively he's got a nice-looking frame but again he doesn't show great instincts and he didn't produce in terms of steals and blocks. I think that he just doesn't have the sort of feel for the game that you want to see in a guy, so I don't know if he'll ever be a particularly good defender.
Dedric Lawson
His productivity on both ends is really impressive, and there just aren't many big holes in his statistical profile. Obviously watching him you can see that he’s slow, but his defensive impact numbers are quite good, and he clearly can shoot, score and rebound. I don’t think anyone has talked about him much, but I can certainly see a contributor here, given that Kyle Anderson has made it in the league.
Iggy Brazdeikis
As an older freshman, he came in really ready to play. His jump shot is probably the best of any of these PF prospects, and he showed a solid handle and good strength when attacking the basket. He also was able to hold his ground against the bigger veteran Eric Paschall their teams played this season, holding him to 10 points on 3-14 shooting and 3 turnovers. The issue is that he might not have the speed to guard SFs, and he probably lacks the length to be a small-ball 4. If he showed any inclination to pass the ball, that'd be great too, but mostly it's about hoping that he'll be able to survive on defense. In the NBA he looks like a 6th man combo-forward, since he clearly has great confidence and ability as a scorer.
Eric Paschall
He’s old and small for the position, but he gives you just enough at both ends that you can talk yourself into him, at least by the impact numbers. I have to wonder about his actual role in the NBA though, given that his 3 point shooting has never been that great, and the rest of his offensive game is not spectacular either.
Chuma Okeke
He's a very intelligent player with great feel. Offensively he's shown that he can shoot 3s, crash the glass and pass the ball a bit. He also produced a ton of steals, at a rate that'd be elite for a PG much less a PF. And he blocked shots too. Really, he's shown a bit of everything and I can only imagine where he'd be if he hadn't gotten hurt. Very intriguing guy, I expect him to be a steal.
Kenny Wooten
The Jordan Bell comp is a bit lazy, but obvious. He's an undersized big who is bouncy and blocks a ton of shots. However, Bell was much more productive at both ends in college, and he's not been a big hit in the NBA. Wooten will have to show better intelligence on defense in the NBA, and develop some other skill, just anything. He's really a zero outside of the shot blocking and I guess finishing.
Jalen McDaniels
He's huge, long, mobile and can shoot some, but he's just cursed with a terrible frame that no amount of hard work and eating can fix. His lack of strength allows guys to just push him off his spots on offense and out-muscle him to the rim on defense. Even if he extends his range to the NBA 3, he'll always have this huge weakness. But he really does move his feet and contest shots on defense, and I think he will be able to learn to shoot 3s. He can still in theory be a 3 and perimeter-D guy, but only as a bench guy.
Kezie Okpala
He's another player who had to do a ton on a team lacking talent. Basically none of his guards could reliably bring the ball up the court and not turn it over, so he initiated a ton of offense. He's fairly crafty and has just enough handle to get to the rim, but he isn't a good finisher, and he will need to learn to pass. Poor teammates or not, that AST% is awful and I didn't see him show a ton of vision. Given his finishing and passing, he'll need to make his jump shot more reliable. Defensively he's got crazy length, but he wasn't a consistent force on that end. He'll probably need to bulk up and apply more focus and effort on that end to stick in an NBA rotation, but he isn't a lazy or really dumb defender. There is potential there. Also, he kind of lacks awareness on either end of the court, not great off-ball. Some of that is because of the team, but some of that is on him too. Given his awful impact numbers, I think that he's a bit of a gamble.
Oshae Brissett
He's a bit of a victim of circumstance. As I've explained with Tyus Battle, it's not a great exaggeration to say that Syracuse basically didn't run a real offense this season. His 3P% and FT% dropped significantly, but he was actually substantially worse at the rim last year, shooting just 46.6%! His steal and block numbers are unimpressive generally, but especially so coming out of Syracuse. It's hard to find anything positive in his statistical profile.
Isaiah Roby
An injury in the offseason robbed him of the opportunity to develop his game, and he actually did worse as a junior than as a sophomore. He still was an impact player on defense who could switch, contain guards and block shots. But on offense, his shooting regressed all over. He shows flashes of a handle and decent form on his jump shot, but he was never aggressive about getting his own shot, even as his team really needed him to step up. He needs to get stronger, tougher, and more aggressive on both ends, but he has excellent potential on both ends of the court and is not too far from realizing a lot of it. I remain high on him in spite of some really unimpressive impact numbers.
Tyler Cook
He stinks. His backup, Nick Baer, was a much better player, and I never could really figure out why he didn't start or play more minutes. Cook, like everyone on Iowa except Baer, can't play defense and generally look clueless on that end. Offensively, Iowa's always exciting but Cook is mostly a finisher at the rim with some sneaky ability to pass. I suppose you could see a useful player here if you assume that you can teach him to actually play defense, but this is the sort of role player that you stash in the G-League.
Simi Shittu
Coming off an injury and losing Gafford just 5 games in meant that Shittu was stuck in a really bad situation and struggled. The skills are still visible on tape (an ability to pass/shoot/create a big at his size), and he's young, so you can't write him off despite the bad year. But even before the injury he was never really explosive vertically, so you have to wonder if what we saw of him this year might actually be pretty close to who he really is.
Jalen Hoard
Another old freshman, Hoard showed some nice potential with his ability to create his own shots at the basket and finish, but he struggled from distance and so his TS% stunk. He hit his FTs though, so that can be fixed. However, both his passing and his defense were pretty poor. WF's defense was hot garbage overall, so he could just be giving as little effort as everyone else, but that is hardly encouraging. He does have one essentially 'proven' skill in attacking the basket and he's still young overall, so he's theoretically worth taking a flyer on and developing, but there's no guarantees that he'll do that.
