With the NBA Draft just one week away, teams are starting to close in on their top prospects, which include a number of international prospects including Turkish shooting guard Furkan Korkmaz. The 18-year-old Korkmaz is hoping to make the jump from the Turkish Basketball Super League to The League, the NBA, in 2016 and that starts with the draft.
After the high end of the draft ends at pick No. 2, it’s mostly going to be a wide open race for the rest of the prospects and their potential teams. For every site that you can read or different search term you can enter into Google, you are going to get different answers on which team will take what player and where in the draft that will happen.
As if the draft this year isn’t already enough of a toss-up, throw in a healthy dose of foreign players who are either very young or have little scouting material to get a draft of true intrigue and surprise. General consensus is only going to get us so far.
We think we know a lot about all the one-and-done guys, the guys who plied their trade under the unpaid conditions of American collegiate athletics. We think we know. The reminder of overlooking talent is fresh in the mind of all basketball fans. Look no further than testicle-crunching Draymond Green to find a player that slipped into the second round only to become the ultimate LeBron James nemesis in less than four years.
Still, a player like Kurkmaz isn’t Green by any stretch of the imagination. He isn’t Kris Dunn or Buddy Hield or even northern Wisconsin giant Henry Ellenson. No, all of these players have exposure and have been well scouted, groomed for the American basketball system to succeed in the American basketball system of the AAU, then NCAA, and then, maybe, the NBA.
The uneasiness of projecting foreign prospects belies their success. Toni Kukoc won rings with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli won rings in San Antonio. Boban Marjanovic snuck onto the Spurs roster and into the hearts of the NBA diehard fans as a late pick with low expectations.
But, this is the time for Furkan Korkmaz. There are other European players in this draft, some are higher in profile – Dragan Bender, Timothe Luwawu, Thon Maker – without us knowing if the logic or preconceptions are accurate.
At 6’8” and 170 lbs., Kurkmaz shows the undersized frame of his youth. You see the frame of a player who will grow into strength with age, not unlike expectations for him to grow into an NBA-level talent. Watching a highlight video of the young Turk from the 2014-15 season you see a lot of skill to be excited about. He cuts to the lane, finishes with explosiveness and composure and demonstrates speed and length not common for a two-guard. This video gives a glimpse of some skills:
It’s a short video with a few plays and dunks taking up more of the playtime on this video. That probably isn’t due to a lack of quality play from Korkmaz, more it has to do with the limited playing time he has seen up to this point. Keep in mind, this highlight video is from 2014-15, technically two seasons ago as the 2015-16 season has also been played since these games took place. Yet, as a youngster he still demonstrates a high level of skill and some great shooting fundamentals.
Korkmaz is a shooter. He connects at a high percentage from 3-point range and his release mimics some of the best in the game. I couldn’t help but feel like his shooting form looked vaguely like Klay Thompson. Also, the ball never “dips” when he receives the ball and fires off a made basket, the ball stays high and shot is released quick enough.
His size might be the biggest issue. Being merely 170 lbs while playing in the NBA with a 6’8” frame is daunting. The size also creates probably cause for questions about his defense, though most 18-year-old scorers play defense somewhere along the lines of non-existent so that might not be surprising.
The good news is that he appears to work on his flaws and shows improvement, even though he is still young. Merih Sorkut wrote a profile on Korkmaz after watching him over the course of four years and believes that Furkan has earned his high prospect status due to his constant improvement in attacking his flaws.
Ultimately, Korkmaz is probably the best shooter in the draft who needs another year or two to work on the physical aspects of his game which will be the most difficult acclimation for him. He has a high level of athleticism and is quite the dunker. He might be Zach LaVine, but at 18 he has already taken the Euro dunk title. Even if he bottoms out, he may be able to push Aaron Gordon and LaVine in the realm of dunk supremacy.
Establishing the case for Korkmaz as worthy of a first-round pick is easy. But where does he slot in and who takes him.
Our own Zach Reynolds has Korkmaz slated to be picked 15th by Denver. Sam Vecenie of CBSSports ranks him at No. 19 on his big board, but has him going at No. 13 to the Phoenix Suns. The potential of a Booker-Korkmaz backcourt is exciting to think about. However, Aaron Torres of FOX Sports has him at No. 15 to the Denver Nuggets, as does DraftExpress in their latest mock.
In case it seemed like the internet was about to agree on a destination for Kurkmaz, NBADraft.net puts Kurkmaz at No. 12 to the Uah Jazz while the staff at Basketball Insiders went No. 24 Sixers, no. 18 Pistons, No. 26 Sixers, and No. 20 Indiana Pacers.
If I’m placing Korkmaz somewhere as of today, one week before the real deal, it is with the Celtics, 76ers, or Nuggets. The Celtics are the least likely due to the Dragan Bender possibility and going for two Euro players in the first round for a squad that needs a more immediate imprint with at least one of their top two picks.
Similarly, the 76ers are definitely not grabbing Furkan with the No. 1 overall pick, so he would need to fall to the No. 24 or 26 position in the draft in order for the Sixers to have the option to take him. It is particularly unlikely that he makes it that far.
Both Boston and Philadelphia have more picks than they need this year and are looking at a few draft-and-stash picks this year. Ultimately, they could look to trade some combination of picks, excluding the No. 1 and No. 3 positions, to get a little higher if they want to lock up a player like Kurkmaz knowing that he won’t fall to their later picks.
The other obvious option is Denver. The Nuggets have several picks just like Boston and the Sixers. They also have had a considerable amount of success on European players in recent years with Jusuf Nurkic, Nikola Jokic and Danilo Gallinari. All three are skilled Euros who have found success in Denver, making Korkmaz a comfortable selection. He also would work as a nice asset to develop with Mudiay simultaneously in the backcourt. They wouldn’t spend the No. 7 pick on Furkan, but Denver has their second pick come up at No. 15, one spot ahead of Boston, and again at No. 19 which is before Philadelphia gets another crack at it.
The most likely destination seems like Denver, but I like Korkmaz for the Jazz (No. 12) and Bulls (No. 14). Both teams could use a shooting guard that can score 3-pointers and develop an off-the-dribble game and penetrate to the rim.
The only drawback for either of those teams drafting Korkmaz, despite the good fit, is the fact that the Turkish player is likely to spend either one or two more years in Europe before making the leap to the NBA. The Bulls are constantly in win-now mode and the Jazz will know what Rudy Gobert, Dante Exum, Trey Lyles, and Derrick Favors are going to become as pros. That timeline just doesn’t match up which is what makes this so much more difficult.
No matter where he lands in the draft, Korkmaz is still likely a year or more away from joining the NBA. He’s going to be good, though how good is still an unknown quantity. If he can develop strength to go with his excellent 3-point shooting and impressive above-the-rim athleticism, he will become a highly functional and capable starter in the NBA. It will be interesting to see how he develops, and where he ends up.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
