5 NBA Draft sleepers in the NCAA Tournament
By Cole Zwicker
1. Mikal Bridges (Villanova)
At 6-foot-7 and 210 pounds with almost a 7-foot-1 wingspan and some quick twitch athleticism, Bridges meets all the benchmarks from a tools standpoint for a modern NBA wing. Bridges’ calling card is his defense, where he has exceptional versatility to guard multiple positions, as he swings from checking bigger wings to guarding the point of attack against opposing point guards regularly. In the modern NBA game where two-way play and versatility reign, Bridges meets that desirable combination, and is still largely unheralded in draft circles despite that.
The hang-up for Bridges in his statistical profile is usage, as he doesn’t command a legitimate percentage of the Wildcats’ finishing possessions. He’s also not assertive in an offense that features Josh Hart, Jalen Brunson and Kris Jenkins, so there are concerns about if he will seize NBA minutes confidently from the off.
Despite that Bridges is just so efficient in the possessions he does use. He has a career 66.1 true shooting percentage in college, and has really improved his shooting his sophomore year, putting up 39.3 percent on 107 attempts 3-point and 90.6 percent from the line on 53 attempts. Pair that with his incredibly underrated slashing and ambidextrous finishing game at the rim and ball-mover mentality and he fits almost perfectly into a NBA roster as a true 3-and-D wing.
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Buttressing Bridges’ profile is his insane advanced stats profile, which includes a career 12.8 average Box Score Plus-Minus number. For all the prospects that are flying substantially under the radar, Bridges arguably possesses the greatest NBA upside as a prospect with his combination of positional size, athleticism, length and fit at the next level.
*Stats derived from Sports-reference.com and Draftexpress.com.