NBA Draft

While neither of them has had a truly great freshman season, both have made their impact, specially in the later parts of the season.

Lively has ideal physical tools in terms of size and switchability, and was expected to show both range and some passing skills, which warranted his 5 stars evaluation coming out of highschool. A slow start (both his own and that of his teammates) and injuries derrailed his season early, and while he has not shown the expected skillset on the offensive end of the floor, his defense has ended up being as good as advertised in the later parts of the season. He is both a solid rim protector and switchable in the perimeter, showing some real playmaking traits on that end of the floor. His offense at this point is little else besides finishing plays, but his upside from highschool still exist, and teams might feel they can tap into those talents better than a Duke team that has been mildly disfunctional this season.

Clingan was nowhere near as lauded as a highschool prospect, being a 4 star and not a top 50 player. He ended up in UConn backing up Adama Sanogo, one of the better centers at the college level. With no real shooting upside and a much bigger frame as a pretty thick 7-2, Clingan seems closer to players like Gobert or Kessler, a more classic rim protector. And protect the rim he has done, averaging 1.8 blocks per game in only 13 mins per game and being generally a massive wall in the paint. And he has shown more offensive game than expected, using his high BBIQ to impact the game with his DHOs and screens in the perimeter and some fairly good inside out passing, together with solid rolling skills and a clear understanding of how to use his height to score anything he gets near the basket. But while overexposure might have affected Lively's stock, underexposure has affected Clingan's, whose numbers are far less impresive that those of other prospects as a backup to a top 10 center in college basketball like Sanogo, wich is also paired with a lack of hype coming out of highschool. And his limitations are still very much there, Clingan is not a switchable center and his numbers do not point towards any kind of shooting upside, and while I personally think he can be a decent passer, his ceiling as a playmaker seems to also be fairly limited.

So which freshman would you guys draft first? And who do you think gets drafted first?