The Over/Unders: 4 Draft Prospects Whose Performance Doesn't Match Their Athleticism
Exploring the college ball players who exceeded or fell short of their athletic potential
“All-time leaper,” “high-upside,” “one of the most athletic.” These were all terms used to describe Keon Johnson during the 2021 NBA Combine. Of course, the terminology was correct. Johnson had just broken the NBA Combine vertical record, leaping a ridiculous 48 inches — four full feet of verticality.
And yet, the “high-upside” player that he was deemed hasn’t yet panned out, as he played just 5 total games this year and averaged a measly 6 points per contest.
Compare his trajectory to one that came before him, a player who was deemed “below standard” in the athleticism department. One that would — and I quote a real NBA scout here — “have limited success in the NBA.” Those terms were used to describe Steph Curry. It turns out that lack of athleticism didn’t quite matter; shooters do, in fact, shoot. I have no idea where that scout is now, but that’s a scouting report you never live down; you might as well put it on your tombstone. But I digress.
This year’s draft is chock full of these kinds of dilemmas. On one side, you have the players who are athletic freaks yet didn’t quite perform at the collegiate level. Maybe you’d call these guys “Unders”, those that didn’t quite live up to their freakish athleticism. On the other, you find prospects who, while not very athletic, were hyper-successful during their NCAA days. You could call these ones the “Overs”, groups of players who outperformed their athletic woes.
So in the spirit of the Currys and Keons of the world, let’s take a look at two “Overs” and “Unders” each with a level of objectivity.
How To Calculate Overs and Unders
Usually, it’s pretty tough to properly quantify prospects’ athleticism outside of the eye test. One look at Ja Morant and you’d know he’s a freak, but how much of a freak is he?
To solve this dilemma, there’s bSPARQ, which can be found at
’s Substack — here’s the link. bSPARQ is an offshoot of a metric called SPARQ, which Nike used to measure the athleticism of its athletes using various different measures, and it’s proven to be about as accurate as you can get.So for this little exercise, we’re going to use bSPARQ and compare it to each prospect’s average PORPAGATU! (also known as PRPG!), which, despite sounding like a Star Wars slur from the forests of Endor, is an all-in-one measure of how good a player was on both offense and defense, adjusted for schedule, usage, and other things that I don’t need to dive into here.
By normalizing both PRPG! and bSPARQ, we’re able to measure the difference between athleticism and actual collegiate performance, using the absolute value of [Normalized PRPG! - Normalized bSPARQ]. While not necessarily predictive of NBA performance, it’s an important precursor to what seems like a wide-open draft year where there are few locked-in draftees. After doing some calculations, we find these Overs and Unders are the most extreme:
For the purpose of relative brevity, we’re only going to focus on the two most extreme cases in each category:
Overs (AKA, I swear I didn’t just pick UConn’s guards):
Cam Spencer (UConn, Guard)
Tristen Newton (UConn, Guard)
Unders (AKA, the raw, high-upside bigs):
Adem Bona (UCLA, Big)
Yves Missi (Baylor, Big)
Let’s start with the Overs, who coincidentally played alongside each other for the entirety of last season…
Over #1: Cam Spencer
When it comes to speed and verticality, Cam Spencer is not who you want. In the Combine, Spencer ranked barely average in his lane agility times and followed it up with a 5th-worst 30.5-inch max vertical. His standing vert was even worse, ranking in the, uh, 1st percentile all-time in that department. That matters, at least to a certain extent. But everything else he does on the court practically screams “winner.”
The UConn senior had the 7th-highest offensive PRPG! out of any player in Division 1 basketball, as showcased in his per-40 minutes stats:
26.3 PPG
8.9 rebounds
6.7 assists
139 offensive rating (?!)
44% three-point shooting
Part of his absolute heater of a three-point shot comes from the fact that his release is lightning-quick. When you watch the very first play of this video you’ll see what I mean — it’s arguably one of the quickest in the entire draft:
The UConn product carried his pure shooting stroke over the Combine drills, hitting his threes in the off-the-dribble break right shooting drill at an 86.7% clip, good for second-best out of the draftees on site.
Spencer plays quite well in the pick-and-roll, which was a boon for UConn’s offense considering they had one of the best roll men in the country in Donovan Clingan. He looks like he could fit into any NBA offense from day one and contribute to some degree, and not only on the offensive side.
His on-ball defense is passable, while his off-ball defense is a trickier one to crack. On one hand, Spencer is readily aware of passing lanes and has a high basketball IQ. Yet, when you look back at his overall lack of pure athleticism, he sometimes struggles to fight over screens and get ahead of quicker offensive forces, which is why scouts aren’t necessarily as high on him as you might think.
ESPN’s most recent mock has him being drafted dead last to the Mavericks. At 6-foot-3, he isn’t exactly the jumbo guard that most teams look for nowadays. Plus, 24 years old, he ain’t a spring chicken. Even so, Spencer’s tenacity, shooting, championship mettle, and overall passing skills look NBA-ready — and I’d expect his incredible performance in shooting drills at the Combine to boost his stock a bit.
After slotting Spencer into a model that I recently developed that compares players’ collegiate seasons, a consistent comparison that pops up is Grayson Allen. That could turn out to be a decent comp, depending on how well his shooting and on-ball defense translate. The question is whether or not teams can look past his complete lack of verticality and speed in lieu of those more positive factors.
Over #2: Tristen Newton
Newton is the other UConn guard in our Overs department. As a five-year college player (COVID year, baby!), scouts are, of course, cautious. And yet, he’s actually a full year younger than his running mate, Cam Spencer, which helps stabilize things.
As you might expect based on his Over designation, Newton’s athleticism is pretty darn poor based on his Combine measurements. He ranked in the 3rd percentile in bSPARQ all-time, is in the 26th percentile for max vertical (32.5 inches), and doesn’t have a great wingspan to work with on the defensive end (17th percentile).
Up to this point, his story sounds relatively similar to Cam Spencer’s, but where things diverge is how Newton plays. He isn’t the sharpshooter that Spencer is, as he shot just 32% from deep on 5.5 attempts per game last season. Instead, the brunt of his success has come in the lane due to his 55%+ shooting percentage at the rim. Newton has a tight handle on the ball and is shifty at the basket — and he’s aggressive, too. For his size, he finishes well through contact, which somewhat deters criticisms about his athleticism to a certain degree.
Plus, Newton is a great distributor and offensive engine of a guard, able to maintain control of his team’s pace when things get too crazy. He consistently holds a low turnover count (3-to-1 assist/turnover ratio) and is willing to defer to teammates when needed, which could bode well for a potential NBA career.
Many scouts have taken issue with the fact that Newton, while not necessarily a defensive liability, loses focus at times on that end of the floor. He’ll occasionally appear disengaged, akin to an NBA 2K player after the controller has already died, especially when dealing with quicker guards. Whether or not this is a mental focus thing or simply being outmatched defensively — or both — is up for interpretation.
One of the NBA’s recent mock drafts has Newton going to the Warriors in the late second round, which could be a nice fit for him long-term. While his overall athleticism measurements aren’t great, he was in the top 20 for lane agility at the Combine, clocking in at 10.96 seconds, which could encourage scouts a little.
If he gets a chance to translate his floor generalship and finishing skills to the NBA, he could end up being a nice second-round success story akin to Spurs guard Tre Jones, who went 41st overall in 2020.
Under #1: Adem Bona
Adem Bona is one of the freakiest athletes to ever join the draft cycle, full-stop. According to bSPARQ, Bona is in the 99th percentile for overall athleticism, only outranked by even freakier athletes like Jericho Sims (see his dunk reel!?) and the ridiculous brick wall that is Lu Dort.
His athleticism isn’t in question after seeing him leap 40 inches at 6’8” and 243 pounds, but just about every other aspect of his game is. Bona, while mobile, often appears to get jumbled up in the post from a footwork standpoint and, as
mentions over at his great publication, , often gets called for moving screens and other ticky-tack fouls.Almost every draft profile of Bona you’ll find will mention that the UCLA big man is “raw” from a basketball standpoint. While he has decent passing vision, he tends to make poor decisions when in traffic. And yet, the athleticism factor makes him such a tantalizing prospect.
Around the rim and in the paint, he’s an absolute force, shooting between 60-65% on two-pointers over his (thus far) two-year college career. He has a super high motor, so he hasn’t necessarily wasted his athleticism; he just needs a lot of refining from a basketball standpoint. In a way, he feels very similar to Udoka Azubuike, who is one of the few players who ranks higher in bSPARQ than Bona. Azubuike came into the league extremely raw but with high athletic upside, yet has bounced around the league on two-way contracts thus far.
If Bona wants to buck that trend, his most important thing to work on is his pick-and-roll positioning, which seems to get out of whack at times — once again, he’s a raw prospect. After fixing those issues, however, he could carve out a nice role as a roll man in the NBA. Don’t be surprised to see a team take a chance on him in the second round.
Under #2: Yves Missi
In many ways, Missi is a similar prospect to Bona, but much more refined and with a clearer pathway to a long-term NBA role. Like Bona, Missi is hyper-athletic and is an elite rim finisher, shooting 77% when at the rim. He’s a relatively productive rebounder (5.6 per game) and played a key role in Baylor’s offense this year as a freshman. However, his scoring outside of the paint and lack of playmaking has been something of a downer for scouts.
His offensive skill set is somewhat limited (similar to Bona’s), as he didn’t take any threes in his freshman year and had a mediocre 3.4% assist rate. Yet, once again, his rim protection, pick-and-roll defense, and 6-foot-10 frame make him an easy guy to at least take a risk on from a development standpoint.
One of the very positive things about Missi’s game is he’s an elite rebounder and uses his athleticism well. His 15%+ rebounding percentage — similar to Zach Edey’s freshman year — is just one piece of the rebounding puzzle. When under the basket, Missi’s athleticism turns him into a human pogo stick, making him a constant threat for putback dunks or defensive rebounds.
Plus, with a block percentage of 7.3% (and 3.9 blocks per 100 possessions), Missi is a great interior force overall. While the rest of his game (shooting, passing, etc.) isn’t quite up to snuff yet, Missi is still in contention to be a lottery pick this year.
His theoretical ceiling is something akin to Daniel Gafford’s, as both had very similar strengths and weaknesses coming out of college. A Gafford-level prospect could be a lottery pick well spent for teams in need of a primary or secondary big, such as the OKC Thunder, Toronto Raptors, or Chicago Bulls (Andre Drummond can’t hold down the fort forever).
Regardless of athleticism, I’ve been extremely surprised by how intriguing so many of the prospects in this draft are. No, we may not have a generational prospect or sure-fire star, but this class seems like one where a guy in the late first round could surprise us and become a star down the road.
While guys like Yves Missi and Adem Bona could make good on their athleticism promises, it could also very well be the less athletic prospects like Tristen Newton or Cam Spencer who turn into impact players. After seeing what guys like Jalen Brunson, Tyrese Maxey, Pascal Siakam, and Dejounte Murray have done after being picked outside the top 20 in their own respective drafts, it feels as if steals could come from practically anywhere.
Bronny James is a fraud
Great article! Very insightful. And thanks for the shoutout!