“I was watching Clingan play the other day before the game, and he was putting his shots up and making them at a pretty high rate, and I think he was being told not to take those shots,” an NBA executive said. told HoopsHype. “Coach Hurley and UW have had success with that formula. They have a lot of talented perimeter players who can take shots against Clingan. You can't argue with the success. He did what he does best: do some damage to the rim, get offensive rebounds and utilize his big frame.”
“Clingan could potentially be an Ivica Zubac-like player, but if he puts on a lot of strength and muscle, he'll have a hard time scoring at the rim,” another NBA executive told HoopsHype told. “I see a little bit of that in Walker Kessler, who is more athletic. Clingan can still be a lob threat and put pressure on the rim. He has things on both ends that can make an impact. He moves relatively well from north to south. If he plays defense, I think you can replace him with 5 seconds left. I wouldn't classify him as a straight-laced person.
“Clingan can pass a little bit,” an NBA scout told HoopsHype. “I saw him shooting in warmups, he was shooting threes, he was showing some touch. He doesn't shoot threes at UConn. Now, if he's in that element If you brought him to the NBA, you're talking about a different kind of player. He's not very athletic. His feet are slow enough to guard pick-and-roll sets. He doesn't have a lot of mobility and doesn't allow the roll man to get behind him. He's 7-foot-2, so he can definitely block shots.”
Excerpt from HoopsHype's Aggregate Mock Draft by a colleague michael scottcontributed research to this story, found here.
