Wherever Duke star Marvin Bagley III gets drafted on Thursday night, he going to be a superstar. Draft scouts have been raving about Bagley’s skills for months, and the general basketball public saw them on display while he was playing for the Blue Devils.
But there’s more to Bagley that just the flash of a college hoops stud. He knows that his future begins now, and is looking to the past in order to craft a style of play we’ve both seen before but never like how he presents it.
Call him a DJ of basketball skills, except he’ll be dropping dimes rather than bass.
Bagley, representing JC Penny, told Mark Carman that he grew up watching guys like Steve Nash and Kevin Durant, and plans on incorporating parts of their game into his own.
Many are mocking Bagley to be a Top 3 pick, going to anyone from the Atlanta Hawks at No. 3 to possibly being the first overall pick for the Phoenix Suns.
Wherever Bagley goes, that team is getting a potential star. Finding pieces like him to add to a young core is invaluable, and we could be looking back at his selection in a few years the same way we are other stars that didn’t go No. 1 — guys like Jayson Tatum and Donovan Mitchell.
It’s hard to make those comparisons, though. Whatever he ends up becoming, it’ll be unique Marvin.