It might seem perplexing because they are fundamentally the same activity, yet university basketball and NBA basketball could not be more distinctive.
That’s a critical explanation for why achievement at the university level ensures no assurance of progress as a professional. Of this previous season’s five agreement first-group NCAA All-Americans, just one (first generally pick Cooper Flagg) was chosen in the lottery of June’s NBA Draft. Public champion Walter Clayton Jr. was taken at No. 18, while Auburn’s Johni Broome dropped to the Philadelphia 76ers early in the subsequent round. Alabama star Mark Sears went undrafted, while Purdue’s Braden Smith decided to return for his senior year.
Only one 2022 first-team All-American, Keegan Murray, gets standard NBA playing time.
The disharmony is noisy, and it checks out when you truly delve into the distinctions in the style of play and the abilities expected to succeed at each level. Sixers rookie VJ Edgecombe, chosen third overall, talked on that accurate subject when he as of late joined teammate Paul George on the “Podcast P” show. While averaging 15 points, six rebounds and three assists per game in his only season at Baylor, Edgecombe procured second-group All-Enormous 12 distinctions — an impressive accomplishment — however he neglected to make any of the All-American teams.
The 20-year-old Bahamas local made sense of why his creation at the university level isn’t really relative with his status as an NBA prospect.
“I disdain university basketball, personally,” Edgecombe said. “A few people love it. I don’t. There were two focuses, two bigs sitting in the paint. I gotta get to the cup — it was hard. It was awful. I’m like, ‘Bro, I got no space to operate.’
” … But now, the spacing in the NBA. It’s so much better. Plus you’re playing with elite players. … For me, it’s a simpler game.”
You need just contrast around five seconds of any university basketball game with an NBA game to see that the spacing is totally different. The NBA has a defensive three-second rule that forestalls big men from setting up camp out in the key to safeguard the edge, whereas university doesn’t. As Edgecombe noted, that makes getting to the crate staggeringly troublesome. The NBA 3-point line is additionally more profound than its university counterpart, and the far and wide shooting precision by the experts makes a great deal of ground for defenses to cover.
So how could it work out for Edgecombe playing the NBA style during summer league? All things considered, the space seems to have assisted his exhibition in the paint. The rookie shot 10 for 17 (59%) at the edge in his two summer league appearances (one in Salt Lake City, one in Las Vegas), contrasted with 54% during his time at Baylor, per Synergy Sports.
You can see here as Edgecombe blows past a greater defender on a switch, there is no one waiting for him at the edge as he throws down a strong finish.
And keeping in mind that the rates weren’t there on his 3-point attempts (2 for 13 in his two games), he was “unguarded” on 67% of his catch-and-shoot attempts, per Synergy. At Baylor, that was the situation only 37% of the time.
Just glance at the room he has on this above-the-break 3-point attempt during the Las Vegas Summer League.
Contrast that and this claustrophobic Baylor ownership from the Enormous 12 tournament, which leaves Edgecombe to force up a intensely challenged 3-point attempt.
Edgecombe is an elite athlete who ought to make an immediate defensive effect for the Sixers, so shooting and playmaking will probably decide his ceiling. The distinction in spacing between university and the NBA ought to go far in making both of those things a bit more manageable.
It ought to likewise assist that Edgecombe will presently not be playing a game he hates.
