Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
Aleksej Pokusevski
Height: 7'0
Weight: 205lbs
Wingspan: 7'3
Pts/Rbds/Asts/Stls/Blks: 9.9/7.2/2.8/1.2/1.7
Pros: To start with, Pokusevski is, if I remember rightly, the youngest player in this class by several months. Just flat out about as young as you can possibly be while still being in this draft: he will not turn 19 until his rookie year is already underway (assuming the season starts up within like, 2 months of when it usually does). So just consider that as you read everything else.
Shockingly good handle for a 7 footer. Just really really good, it would honestly still be high class for a large wing, someone who is maybe 6'9 or so; for a dude who is a legit 7'0, it's weird. Combined with very, outlier good, fluid movement, and Poku can cross people over, hit behind the back moves, shake people, and he can do it with both hands. Totally able and willing to grab a board and go in transition, where his handling lets him really knife through transition defenses, it's honestly amazing to watch a guy of his size do this kind of thing so casually. Creating space off the dribble for offensive creation like someone several inches shorter than him, and doing it even in traffic, you'd expect someone so tall to turn it over at a high rate, but while he's not exactly the world's most secure ballhandler, his TOV% is very standard for a big despite all the added craziness.
Handles like this combine perfectly with his passing, which is another outlier category. High level vision combined with delicate touch, creativity, and rapid decision making means that Poku is a threat to dish even when crowded by a double team under the basket coming off a behind the back dribble move; it's awesome. He can pass fluidly with either hand mid-dribble, he has short roll passing down well, can drive and kick, and has also shown (albeit limited) ability to run the PnR as ball-handler. Again, this is an 18 year old (most of his games played on record are from when he was 17) 7 footer. Guys this size, this young, who can hit skip passes and pocket passes with touch using either hand are very rare.
When it comes to scoring game, Poku is a perimeter scorer first and foremost. Over the last two years, he's shot 27/73 from 3 (good for 37%, basically), and while that might seem like very few attempts for 2 seasons, he only played in about 18 games over that span; so it's about 4 attempts per game, which is actually fairly decent volume. 76% from the FT line is reasonably encouraging too, although obviously it's not incredible. What's more enticing than just the raw shooting numbers though, are how he gets them: Poku is 7 feet tall and shoots pull-ups. Now, according to Synergy, he's only about 35% on those off-the-dribble pull ups, but that's still encouraging, and we all know that being able to shoot pull-ups is just a different category of impact from being limited to purely catch and shoot attempts. The one worry about his shooting is that the form is not consistently great, but that's something that's probably a function of his size and frame (we'll get to that later) combined with youth; it's not disgusting, and any competent shooting coach will probably find it easy to work with.
Somehow, the encouraging stuff doesn't stop here, because Poku, what do you know, is a defensive prospect too. He's got very good timing and anticipation, who plays with good positioning and some real aggression at times. In both of the last two seasons, he's posted stock rates of at least 3%STL and 8%BLK, which is very impressive just on paper, and it's not entirely gambling. He's willing to help, to dig on drivers, and his mobility is good enough that he actually shows some promise as a 7 footer who can chase guys around on the perimeter, which is wild. Hip mobility is there and it helps him be a solid isolation defender as well, and the footwork is seriously promising.
Cons: Okay so now that I've made him sound like Jesus, what's wrong? Why isn't he the consensus #1 pick?
1) Competition level. Poku plays in the 2nd division of the Greek league: this is the same league that Giannis played in before coming to the NBA and it is not renowned for being a good league. Simply put, if LaMelo and Hampton are being questioned about the quality of their competition in the NBL, and some people doubted Luka's abilities given the Euroleague, Poku's competition is even lower grade than that. There's some concern that the reason he's able to look so amazing and pull off so much incredible stuff is because he's just outclassing guys who would never cut it in the NBA.
2) Frame: Poku is 7'0 tall and 205lbs. He's rail thin, and his frame doesn't look like it will be the best for putting too much weight on. Now, there's the possibility that he's just a Durant type, who can add some weight and strength but will always just look skinny, but that's being optimistic; in reality, Poku is probably 20lbs away from being 10lbs away from heavy enough, and who knows if he can add that weight on that frame without sacrificing a bunch of the mobility that makes him such an enticing prospect? Any team that drafts him would want to be having him monitored closely during physical development, and even then there's just no guarantee that it will work out.
3) Relative Small Sample: 18 games in the last 2 years is not much. So the usual small sample stuff applies even more heavily here.
4) There are gaps in the game. Poku is not a very talented finisher at the rim despite his height, partially because of his super low weight, and partially because of his high centre of gravity. He's not able to muscle in the paint or post, and there's some concern that the reason that his game is so perimeter oriented is due to an inability to really make impact at the rim even in the Greek league, which is obviously a problem if true. He's weak, and he hides from contact on finishes like LaMelo Ball does, and the athleticism is very limited: there's no muscularity to his game, and he's not physical right now. Bumped off his spot on drives, bumped in the air on finishes, that's offense, but defensively he's limited due to this lack of strength too.
5) Lots of flashes, consistency concerns. For all I sung Poku's praises on defense up there, that's the positives. The downside is that sometimes he's unengaged; he can get caught ball watching, or lose his man. And more than just those focus issues, there are some technical problems with the defense as well: he takes bad angles sometimes, his size makes it difficult for him to navigate screens despite his lack of strength forcing him onto the perimeter, and he closes out inconsistently, giving up driving lanes easily sometimes. If he gets beaten off the dribble, he often just gives up.
Overall: Poku's combination of youth, outlier skillsets in key areas for modern bigs like shooting, handling, passing, and team defense, and his domination of his league are things you just can't ignore. But the concerns are real, both in terms of his on court play and his physical capacity to make that same impact on the NBA level: there's risk here. He's legitimately boom or bust: if everything falls right, he can add weight, focus more as he ages and matures, and patch up the holes in his game, there is real star potential here. But if things go poorly and he can't add weight, or the finishing just never improves, or the defense stays inconsistent, this is a guy who might not be an NBA player at all, let alone a star.
For me, I think it's worth the risk: there are so few guys in this draft who have ''star potential'' written on them, that the gamble may well be worth it. I could absolutely justify taking Pokusevski with a lottery pick, and if we grabbed him somewhere between 10 and 15 (wherever we end up, I don't know) I think it would be worth that shot, as long as we accepted that it was a risky prospect.