For a team looking for a well-developed offensive game at center, Brook Lopez is the 2008 Draft?s best option.
I?m not sure if he will have the strength and athleticism to do this so easily in the NBA, but the way he seals his man and gets his body ready to immediately score while a pass is on its way is remarkable. This anticipation allows him to score before off-ball shot blockers and sagging perimeter defenders can come to assist his man.
This readiness to score is extremely impressive, but he occasionally goes too quickly with the shot and is not all the way squared up to the basket.
His touch around the hoop out of the post is terrific and is of course something that can?t be taught. Lopez does a good job of keeping the ball high. His hands are superb; he rarely fumbles a good pass, catching them cleanly and does a good job going after errant passes.
I would like to see him develop and utilize more of a mid-post face-up game, something he rarely showed at Stanford, but his skill-set suggests potential in this area.
He passes well with either hand and does a great job of finding the open cutter when he draws a double team. He is solid on the easy pass and also can get creative when the defense forces him to do something with a higher degree of difficulty.
Lopez is a good rebounder with good instincts, but he will need to increase his motor especially as a weakside offensive rebounder. He could certainly attack the glass here more aggressively.
He is unquestionably a very competent athlete, particularly on the offensive end, but this is not one of his strongest suits. Lopez?s lateral quickness defensively and his movement towards the ball in help defense is too frequently a second late. He sometimes gets a little bored when playing on-ball defense and will allow an inferior offensive player beat him with a post move or off the dribble in an inexcusable fashion.
What he lacks in athleticism, he does make up in agility. He has great balance for a player of his size with a very strong physical core and is well-conditioned.
Because of the scarcity of quality centers, Lopez is the surest bet to be a legitimate NBA starter outside of Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley.
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Christopher Reina is the executive editor of RealGM. He can be reached at Chris.Reina@RealGM.com where he may use your draft questions in a future mailbag edition