Milwaukee Bucks: 6 Options for 42nd Pick in the NBA Draft
By Kenny Jilek
Wings
The NBA is a three-and-D league and having bench guys who can do just that, shoot it from deep and defend is crucial to team success.
Isaiah Joe – Arkansas
Isaiah Joe is a high-volume, high-efficiency scorer from downtown. In his two years of college ball at Arkansas, he averaged 9.1 three-point attempts per game and converted 37.8 percent of them. Three-pointers made up just over 75 percent of his total field goal attempts in college, and his freshman year, he was actually slightly better shooting from behind the arc than inside it.
He’d shoot them off a handoff, catch-and-shoot, in transition, off the dribble, with a guy in his face, anything. Even so, he was still an efficient weapon for the Razorbacks. Over his career, he averaged 15.2 points per game.
He’s not a physical player, which can hurt him occasionally on offense as he prefers to stay on the perimeter and on defense against stronger opponents. However, he is a plus defender overall, and while he stands 6’5″, he has a 6’10” wingspan, which allows him to get his hands in passing lanes, something he did well in college, averaging 1.5 steals per game.
Jordan Nwora – Louisville
Nwora is a very different player than Joe, with a 45-pound weight advantage. This makes him much more of a physical player, and he is also two inches taller at 6’7″.
While he doesn’t have quite the volume of Isaiah Joe from downtown, he shot 6.1 threes per game in his last two seasons at Louisville and was a 39.4 percent three-point shooter for his college career. His team didn’t actively look to get him three-point shots, but he was excellent in catch-and-shoot spots.
His scoring profile is a lot more inside stuff, and he showed many times that he’s not afraid to go right at a smaller defender and get a quick bucket right over them, and while he lacks quickness, he can occasionally break down a slower defender off the dribble to get to the rim. He averaged 17 points in his sophomore year and then 18 as a junior this season.
Defensively, that lack of quickness does hurt him sometimes, but he makes up for it with his physicality to body guys up and his basketball IQ, which makes him a good off-ball defender. All that comes out to a guy who’s probably a slightly above average defender who isn’t anything special on that end but shouldn’t be a liability either.