Prospect Watch: Kentucky’s Bam Adebayo

edrice-bam-adebayo-kentucky-wildcats-recruiting-freshman

San Antonio and its Spurs are on their way to a possible 60-win season (yet again) and while they may end up with the top seed in the Western Conference, they’ll likely end up with one of the last picks of the NBA Draft in June. To prepare you for that and who they might be looking at in the college ranks, I am here to give you the lowdown on the guys you need to know.

This week’s prospect is a big name player who has taken a dive down draft boards since the beginning of the season mostly because of the way he has been used in Lexington. Forward/center Edrice “Bam” Adebayo was a machine for the Kentucky Wildcats, but only because he did a lot of dirty work and went after loose balls with a veracity that would scare most people. Here are his raw stats:

  • 6’10”, 260 pounds
  • 13 PPG, 8.0 RPG, 1.5 BPG
  • 60 FG% in 30.1 MPG
  • Defensive rating: 95.7
  • Offensive rating: 123.6

Adebayo was never the focal point of the UK offense with future top ten picks De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk running the show at guard, so really it’s quite impressive he was able to score as often as he did. He got a lot better throughout the season at sealing his man off and creating an easy dunking lane for himself though and got points through that and putbacks.

His body is already NBA-ready and he won’t have to do much refining in that area, but he will have to extend his range a little bit as he can only get out about ten feet from the hoop. If he can become a consistent mid-range guy then his pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop game could be incredibly dangerous. For now, the Spurs would have to settle for some good rolling but he can contribute right away off the bench as an energy/hustle/boards guy to play with someone like Dewayne Dedmon or even David Lee.

Photo: SI.com

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