I looked into this a bit because I was curious in response to a post on another thread, but my analysis got so long I thought it may be interesting for a thread. Here's the frustrating part -- Williams and Kessler only were measured at the draft, and Lively sat it out entirely, so that part of the analysis is somewhat difficult. Williams went 15th and Kessler 22nd in the 2022 draft, while Lively went 12th in the 2023 draft. Mark Williams As freshman, Williams 7.1 points and 4.5 rebounds. As a sophomore, he averaged 11.2 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game. Clingan is a little taller than Williams (7 v. 7'2). Williams also did not compete in the shooting drills, where Clingan did quite well. Williams also did not participate in the agility drills. Walker Kessler Kessler 4.4 points and 3.2 rebounds per game for UNC before transferring to Auburn, where he averaged 11.4 points and 8.1 rebounds with 4.6 blocks (leading the nation). Like Williams, Clingan is taller than Kessler (7 v. 7'2), and Kessler did not participate in the shooting or agility drills. Lively Did not participate in combine. He averaged 5.2 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game for Duke his freshman year before declaring. It should be noted that he was a highly decorated recruit, and was ESPN's #1 high school recruit. Clingan Clingan averaged 6.9 points and 5.6 rebounds as a backup for UConn his Freshman year. His sophomore year, he averaged 13 points. 7.4 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks. He performed well at the combine, with massive measurements and a good shooting touch. Given the foregoing, I do think Clingan is a much better prospect than Kessler and Williams were given he was a major contributor to a 2 time NCAA championship team and measured well at the combine. Lively is a different type of prospect, given much of his hype was due to his potential. I will say, however, Lively's success this year likely boosts Clingan's stock.
Clingan is definitely a better prospect than Kessler and Mark Williams were coming into the league. In the 2022 draft he probably goes somewhere between picks #7-#13, ahead of Duren.
This is in response to a thread on reddit from user Available_remove242 Clingan vs Williams - Mark had twice as many dunks as Clingan (more of a rim runner role), Clingan has a far batter ast/to (1.9 vs .9), which will be a common thread you'll see here since Clingan has an insanely good ast/to for a 7'+ guy. I don't expect Clingan to ever shoot based on priors. Mark Williams could have been argued as having a chance at shooting based on ft%. Same draft age. Williams is almost 2 inches shorter, but his wingspan is insane iirc. Otherwise pretty similar. Clingan vs. Kessler - Walker had a historically insane year regarding blocks at Auburn and has the easy edge on Clingan in that regard and actually had twice as many steals/36 as Clingan. Clingan smokes him in ast/to again, 1.9 vs .8. Shot projection, rebounding, defending without fouling, all come in about the same. Clingan is 2 inches taller. Lively vs. Clingan - off the top, Livelys role was had insanely low usage. 12.8% vs Clingans 24.6%. finally a competitor in the ast/to category with lively at 1.6 to Clingans 1.9. Clingan easily the superior rebounder between the 2. Lively much more prone to fouling (4.74 PF/36 vs Clingans 3.19). Clingan far more pts/36 (20.71 vs. 9.1), in part highlighted by the usage difference, but Clingan maintained similar efficiency regardless of the much higher usage. The vast majority of Livelys rim finishing was on dunks, which is not the case for Clingan. All in all I think having the defense being in a similar vein as these guys (but not Walker, Walker is much better defensively), and having the offensive BBIQ primarily borne out through his ast/to actually makes him a better prospect to me than any of those 3. Combine that with a weak draft at the top and you have him 3rd on my current board.
Clingan v. Williams Williams was slightly better on offense in college and a full step behind in defense, as compared to Clingan. Clingan v. Kessler Both were big time shot blockers in college and both were offensely challenged. Clingan shows some shooting skills at the combine, so the slight edge here may be to Clingan. But Kessler in the end might be the best NBA comp for Clingan. Clingan v. Lively Lively shot outside Js in high school but only occasionally in college and when he did they looked good. I suspect that Duke (and the Mavs as well) underutilized Lively outside of the paint. Lively's FT% in a very small sample size is no bueno, so I might be blowing sunshine up asses here. Dereck looks alright switching defenders at the three point line, which I suspect will be better than Clingan. Also Dereck at 230-ish might struggle against the thicker NBA Cs, which I suspect Clingan at 280-ish (and Kessler ftm) should not.
Blows my mind why anyone would want to draft a pure center who can’t shoot when we already have a really good pure center who cant shoot. If this was embiid or some super elite prospect it’s one thing, but this guy? Come on
This isn't the Warriors' era. Size is obviously making a comeback to the NBA. I'd prefer picking Reed, but Clingan has been mocked to us in several mocks and is worth discussing.
That's fine, but you can't play 2 pure centers together. You have no spacing, and it completely kills your offense. Imagine having a front line of brooks and 2 pure centers, we would never score. It somewhat works for the wolves (who aren't a great offense) because one of the bigs is the best shooting big in the league and the other is the best defender in the league.
They can't play together initially, no. If we draft Clingan, I'm guessing we send him to the G-League for a while and take our time with him. But they absolutely can play together if one or both develops a 3 point shot. People always reference KAT's shooting, but never seem to mention that he shot .34 from 3 on one shot a game his rookie season.
Sure, but he also shot over 80% on free throws and by his 3rd year was shooting 42% from 3 and 85% from the line. This Clingan guy shot in the 50s on free throws, and sengun 3 years in is still a complete zero. Even year 2 towns was almost 37 from 3 and 83 from the line. If you want to play 2 pure centers, one of them HAS to be an ELITE shooter, not just decent or good, otherwise your offense is toast. Wolves were 16th in offense WITH towns shooting (thought he missed a good amount of games), if towns was just a solid shooter they'd be in the mid/low 20s
I like Clingan but wouldn’t draft him ahead of Sarr, Risacher or Sheppard. It feels like those 4 plus Topic and Castle are all in the same tier. This is really about the scouting and analytics folks getting this right. We should be able to get a really good player at #3.
I like Kel'el Ware too. I just want a shot blocking center. I think Ware and Sarr best fit with Sengun. Clingan pairs better with Jabari.
Spoiler Play around, set your own criteria here: https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&year=2024&start=20231101&end=20240501
