The developmental gaps second-round bigs need to solve
The Raptors are, slowly, solving the burning questions they are facing. And the possibility of Ryan Kalkbrenner or Hansen Yang (who worked out with the Toronto Raptors) falling to the second round of the NBA draft would make Day 2 another chance to address more needs.
Even if one or both are drafted by Wednesday night, getting Yanic Konan Niederhauser could be a fun development project, sort of the way that Ulrich Chomche being picked at 57 has been so far.
Watching prospective bigs for #39 reminded me: what often seem like simple fixes for bigs can be much more difficult in actual practice. It’s easy to say “if only Player A would do X and/or Y,” he’d be a serviceable NBA big, but achieving the “if only” is a long road. For many, that “if only” is about jumpers. But the same concept applies across the board.
Take Yang, for example. It’s easy to look at him and say “if only” he could improve his lateral speed and not be a defensive liability, he could reach some arbitrary ceiling.
At the Combine, he had a beauty of a spin move down low, hit the reverse lay-up and completed the and-one. On the following defensive possession, he got his hand all over the ball and blocked Niederhauser’s shot attempt down low, which hyped up Yang’s teammate John Tonje. He has incredible abilities.
It’s easy to get excited by a big’s potential, but according to Dr. Thomas Lam at Fits Toronto, the same gym that has continued to train Dwight Powell in the off-season, the five foundation movement patterns – hinge, squat, push, pull and rotate – need to be established before a player can get any faster, stronger, and just plain old better.
The five foundation movement patterns underpin speed skills like locomotion, acceleration, deceleration, and impulse generation. This also means that if there’s any glaring weaknesses in any of these five foundational pillars, a player becomes susceptible to injury, according to physical therapist Shogo Ogosu.
“In tall athletes (like someone who is 7’2’’), the physical demands of even basic movements are much higher due to biomechanics,” Lam texted me. “The greater the demand on the body, the more developed their control and capacity must be in return.”
In short, the work that a player like Yang will have to do to return to the bottom of his athletic development pyramid, and work on his weaknesses means a long journey ahead. It’s much more work than merely doing shuffle and cone drills in the off-season to up his lateral speed. Improvement on the court is like an iceberg; much has to be done that’s unseen in order to get better when everyone is watching.
And development isn’t just physical, there’s a mental component to it, too.
I enjoyed watching Lachlan Olbrich at the NBA Combine, who’ll more likely fall in the second round (if he’s picked at all). He’s only worked out with Portland, but had an impressive showing at the Combine.
He made some nice plays there. After attacking from the perimeter, spinning inside, and finishing, he had another great offensive possession, snagging down the offensive board and then rolling to the basket for an easy score. He got up and down the floor easily – he grabbed a defensive board, ran in transition and took a bump on his way to the basket, undeterred, though he didn’t finish.
In Ersin’s NBA Draft Newsletter, Olbrich is considered a defensive liability in the pick-and-roll, given his tendency to pick up fouls. Olbrich’s “lack of composure” and his “rushing to make the right decisions” signals overeagerness, but how players of his archetype learn to show effort, without being overly eager, have to do around their mental adaptability – how malleable are they between the temples (or do they have a Thibodeau-like hard-headedness that gets in the way of their own growth)? Will a player like Olbrich learn to stay calm when doubles come in the post or will he learn to show effort closing out 3-pointers without fouling?
That, again, is something that takes improvement elsewhere. In pattern recognition. In schema knowledge base. In proprioception.
Whoever the Raptors pick at 39 – hopefully a big (maybe Olbrich’s fellow Aussie, Alex Toohey) – what that player does or doesn’t do to fill these physical and mental gaps matters tremendously. Once in the NBA, teams help and know what improvement requires. But it ultimately falls to the player to do the work.
At 39, a prospect has a glaring weakness or the perception that his limitation will cap his developmental pathway. The Joker’s an anomaly, but his slowness and athleticism made him slip to #41, and he’s still slow and unathletic to this day. It didn’t end up mattering at all.
With so many players returning to school, the second round will be a crapshoot – but if the Raptors snagged Jamison Battle in the undrafted pool last year, let’s hope they pick out an interesting big left over from Wednesday. Then the real work will begin.
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