The Athletic: Another mock draft has Thunder taking James Bouknight
It might interest Oklahoma City Thunder fans to know that Connecticut men’s basketball is scheduled to play at 6:10 p.m. on Saturday. They may want to start paying attention to UConn, and in particular, wing James Bouknight.
The Athletic’s mock draft has the Thunder selecting the 6-foot-5 Bouknight at No. 9, and this is the second recent mock draft that has OKC taking him. Earlier this month, Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Wasserman had the team do the same.
Sam Vecenie wrote for The Athletic that Bouknight’s balance and body control, hesitation move and defense are promising.
“He can hit opponents with a wicked crossover and get by, even when his first step doesn’t get the job done. I also think he’s pretty underrated on defense. When he’s locked in, he’s really tough.”
Bouknight is averaging 19 points and 5.7 rebounds while shooting 53% from 2. His 3-point shooting is down from last year, though, as he’s shooting only a touch above 30% from deep.
“(He) generally has been the kind of athletic guard who has NBA scouts believing he can be a starting off-guard at some point in his career.”
The Thunder would probably prefer an off-ball guard to play next to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, so the fit may be there.
With the No. 17 pick in Vecenie’s mock draft, Oklahoma City took center Isaiah Jackson out of Kentucky.
Jackson has been a blocking machine all year long, averaging 2.6 per game, but he really broke out in February.
“It took him some time to get his feet wet, as he missed a lot of rotations on defense early and struggled to make an impact in a Kentucky offense that struggled with spacing. But by the time February rolled around, Jackson was terrific. In his final six games, he averaged 14 points and eight rebounds with 2.2 blocks in 22 minutes per night.”
Oklahoma City has bigs they like, but at 6-foot-10, Jackson has better height than Isaiah Roby or Darius Bazley.
He also provides a roll threat on offense that aren’t particularly strong parts of the games of those two bigs or Aleksej Pokusevski.
“He’s an impact guy out there because of his quickness and length. He can switch out on the perimeter defensively, he’s a terrific shot blocker and he’s a great downhill threat as a rolling lob catcher. This is just a really easy role to fit into with the modern NBA.”
His versatility could fit into OKC as well — though because this pick comes from the Miami Heat, who are rolling as of late, the Thunder might not be choosing this high come end of season.
In the second round, Vecenie slotted the Thunder to pick Baylor guard Jared Butler (17 points, 5 assists, 41.3% 3P) at No. 31, Arizona State forward Marcus Bagley (11 points, 6 rebounds, 35% 3P) at pick 38 and Utah State center Neemias Queta (15 points, 10 rebounds, 3.3 blocks) with the 53rd selection of the 2021 draft.
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