By drafting Edey, Memphis isn't bluffing
The Grizzlies' audacious No. 9 pick is the highlight of NBA Draft Night.
Screenwriters, basketball players and bridegrooms-turned-brides all know this to be true. It only takes one.
Zach Edey was the two-time national Player of the Year in college. He was not in the Green Room for the NBA draft Wednesday, nor should he have been. He was written off before he even went through the draft process, as if he actually had bolts in his neck. Ponderous at 7-foot-4, incapable of a viable shot, not at all ready to handle pick-and-rolls while on defense, etc.. Size only mattered in the age of dinosaurs. Time was not on Edey’s side.
But slowly Edey chipped away at the stone tablets of opinion. As Purdue marched through the NCAA tournament Edey showed he could answer all the points with immutable counterpoints. His footwork was pretty good. He could find deep position and, when there, score with either hand on either side of the hoop. He could set screens and roll. He could block shots and wasn’t prone to fouling, although Purdue could hardly afford to let him foul out and thus enabled some of his defensive passivity. Some revisionism began to take hold. Maybe the ultimate weapon in college could find a role amid the wide open spaces of the NBA.
Draft night came along and the Memphis Grizzlies were picking in the ninth spot. They were supposed to trade up, so they could get UConn’s 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan. It didn’t happen, and Clingan went to Portland at No. 7. So the Grizzlies rattled the strange brew of draft spectators at Barclays Center when they went ahead and took Edey.
Twitter reacted predictably. Instant draft analysis, in any sport, is a fool’s errand, as Mel Kiper Jr. has proven on a regular basis. Few of the draftniks thought the Lakers had stubbed several toes when they chose Lonzo Ball over Jayson Tatum in 2017. Quite the opposite, in fact. Ben Simmons won unanimous approval in 2016 when he was the first pick, even though he had shown no shooting aptitude, and his LSU team had performed the almost impossible feat of missing the NCAA tournament. Yet he went No. 1, to the 76ers, and Boston gratefully took Jaylen Brown at No. 3.
It’s also interesting that Edey, so visible for so long, draws such comprehensive nit-picking, but any number of French teenagers are praised lavishly for what they might become when they mature. There were only six college players taken in the first dozen picks, and three Frenchmen in the first six, including the top two.
It’s also very possible that Edey will have a nice but undistinguished NBA career in which he never makes an All-Star team or averages 35 minutes per game. But just because Luka Garza and James Wiseman and Hasheem Thabeet were misdrafted doesn’t mean Edey was. There are no “comps” for someone of Edey’s dimension. That, said Memphis general manager Zach Kleiman, was part of the motivation.
“We spend a lot of time wondering how we match up with this or that team,” Kleiman said. “Zach is incredibly unique in that you got to deal with him. From a size and physicality standpoint, that’s something other teams are going to have to grapple with.”
Edey will not play in a vacuum, and the Grizzlies were only in the lottery through a series of unfortunate events. Largely stripped of point guard Ja Morant, shooter Desmond Bane and power forward Brandon Clarke, they won only 27 games. But they are not rebuilding. While they struggled, they found other scoring options like GG Jackson and Scottie Pippen Jr.
Memphis still has Jaren Jackson Jr., former Defensive Player of the Year. Edey would let him play in his natural 4 spot, and Jackson would help erase whatever defensive shortcomings Edey has. More likely, Jackson, Clarke and Edey would Ziploc the rim against opposing drivers. And Bane and GG Jackson will quickly find out that Edey is on a post-graduate level when it comes to passing from the post.
Even though the NBA bodies are bigger and more vertical, it’s hard to measure what Edey might do against single-coverage. The NCAA championship game, against Clingan and UConn, was one of the few times he saw it, and he had 37 points and 10 rebounds. The Huskies were just happy that he didn’t have an assist. That’s how inevitable he was.
Yet there’s also the possibility that the critics are right and that Edey belongs in the disco era. That is why Memphis saved Draft Night. It stirred up real debate. The rest of it was either unknowable or speculative. It’s what happens when a draft is so opaque that most teams, given their druthers, would have traded down. Unfortunately there weren’t nearly as many who wanted to trade up.
It is always wise to see how Tim Connelly handles a night like this. The man who built the Nuggets and who spruced up the Timberwolves wound up with two picks and took two known scorers. He traded to get the rights to Kentucky’s Rob Dillingham, who has his uncertainties but knows where the hoop is, and then he took Terence Shannon of Illinois, who was the leading scorer of all NCAA tournament players, and who showed Iowa State the door in the Sweet 16 game before he ran into UConn.
The Timberwolves were too reliant on Anthony Edwards in the Western Finals when they lost to Dallas. Dillingham and Shannon could address that. Minnesota was able to get Shannon with the 27th pick. That might have been the residue of his trial for sexual assault in Kansas last month, although Shannon was acquitted after he had testified in his own defense. But shadows are hard to dispel.
The real news came Tuesday, when the Knicks continued to establish themselves as Villanova’s satellite campus. They got Mikal Bridges, the NBA’s iron man whom Brooklyn got from Phoenix. With starter’s minutes, Bridges became one of the league’s most productive players, and he has the same doggedness that distinguishes Josh Hart, Jalen Brunson and Donte DiVincenzo, the other ex-Wildcats on the Knicks.
Clearly the Knicks feel the Eastern Conference will boil down to Themselves vs. Boston, and Bridges can help equalize the perimeter. Meanwhile Brooklyn underlined its stepchild brand. The Nets will gladly plunge next year to get a top pick in what is anticipated to be a bountiful 2025 draft. They also have 16 first-round picks through 2031. All aboard for the next six-year plan, while the Knicks embark on a string of 50-plus win seasons.
Meanwhile, the Grizzlies recognize that the best way to win is to head upstream against popular opinion. With Zach Edey they have a chance to touch the wall first. They also might discover the dangers of swimming alone.
So well put as usual. All these pundits - many of whom I otherwise respect - put out virtual reams of analysis identifying draft winners and losers, but it could be years before we know the answer, and often the successes happen after the player has moved on to another team. And as David Thorpe has pointed out, the major determinant happens not on draft day but in the months and years thereafter through player development, some of which depends on the efforts of the player himself, but much of which is on the team.
7’ 4” can still count a lot in basketball. I hope the Grizzlies can use Edey smartly, and make their opponents pay.