I mean, I don’t think he’s any more special of an athlete than a guy like Jericho Sims. Like I said, I think he’s athletic but I don’t think he’s a physical freak in any way. And I’ll say it again, there’s so much more to defense than being athletic as a C. You look at the best defensive C’s in the league, it’s not a vertical pop contest at all.
He has more potential to improve given his situation, but he’s also significantly further away imo. It’s his high potential for growth that makes him an NBA prospect at all, but given he’s so far away I wouldn’t say that equates to actually being a high potential player.
The idea of him being a late first isn’t horrible IMO, but I like a lot of other guys on the board. You also know what I think about drafting for need, so no need to rehash that. The general idea of addressing defense through backup C is pretty questionable though.