James Nnaji: 2023 NBA Draft Scouting Report
Raw and young, Nnaji is a pure upside pick. Does he show enough versatility to be worth the long-term development?
After the conclusion of the first round of the NBA Playoffs, I sat down and penned a somewhat-rambling treatise on the value of rim-bound big men in today’s NBA. The link to that piece is below, and grapples with the challenges that come from playing a 5-man who cannot provide offensive impact for his team away from the basket.
The idea isn’t new, just getting played out in real-time during the NBA Playoffs. Versatility is a buzz word, and many of these screen-and-roll big men don’t provide any versatility on the offensive end.
When determining value, the matrix I tend to rely on discusses the intersection of versatility and impact. The most impactful big men end up in the top right quadrant, where they’re both versatile and impactful. That versatility comes in their role on offense, where they play on the floor, and how many different schemes they can unlock on defense.
Those guys aren’t necessarily easy to spot — they’re really rare and often take time to develop at the next level. But they’re not very controversial in terms of roster construction. I’m thinking of guys like Anthony Davis and Pascal Siakam here, who can play either the 4 or the 5 at an All-Star level and fit in different types of defensive schemes.
The real debate comes in on the top left or bottom right quadrants. What is better: a big man who can have a positive impact in one specific way, or a versatile piece who really blends in and isn’t incredibly good at one thing?
A little over a year ago, I first watched Nnaji play. I was so impressed with his aptitude on defense at a young age. He was smart and disciplined in drop coverage, athletic when placed in space, and constantly giving maximum effort.
His minutes have been slim with the Barcelona top team, one that features the likes of former NBAers like Nikola Mirotic, Jan Vesely, Tomas Satoransky, Nic Laprovittola, and Alex Abrines. In some regard, I was hoping to see more development and consistent minutes from Nnaji this season. But when you look at how loaded their group is, it’s pretty understandable why his role is so limited.
Nnaji got into the game very late in life. The Nigerian big man didn’t start playing until 2016, so it’s easy to understand why his skill level is as far behind other players his age as it is.
Still, Nnaji is rather underdeveloped on offense. He’s long and bouncy, so lob sets are always there for him, as are pick-and-roll dives to the tin. But a player this raw who hasn’t gotten a ton of playing time this year smells like a ‘draft and stash’ pick.
Just where Nnaji will go on draft night depends a lot on the evaluation of how he fits on the impact vs. versatility scale. He’s not quite as rigidly tied to one type of pick-and-roll coverage, but there are some questions to how effectively he can play in anything other than Drop coverage.