Ryan Broekhoff doesn’t look like an NBA player, but he’ll be a valuable one in Dallas
Ryan Broekhoff is 6-foot-7, 215 pounds. Visibly, that’s about the end of his attributes that would make you think he’s an NBA-level player if you watched him walk into an NBA arena.
The Australian could probably pass for one of the members of the Step Back staff if you gave him a lanyard and a laptop and stuck him on press row. He doesn’t have an incredible wingspan. He’s not incredibly quick. And with his thin frame, you’d probably be shocked to find out that he was perhaps the NBA’s most sought-after player from the European leagues this summer, and just signed a two-year deal with the Dallas Mavericks.
Broekhoff’s physical frame has been one of his main impediments to the NBA since he left Valparaiso in 2013. He’s thrived in five seasons abroad, first with Besiktas in Turkey, and for the past three years at Lokomotiv Kuban in Russia. But outside of a Summer League stint with the Nuggets in 2015, he hasn’t really sniffed the NBA. After all, he doesn’t fit the mold of what you’d traditionally think of as an NBA player. He’s a stretch four that’s two inches too short and about twenty pounds skinnier than average. How’s he supposed to defend Blake Griffin or LeBron James?
The tide is changing, though, and things finally broke Broekhoff’s way. Teams are starting to recognize more and more that there’s more value in intelligence and skill than just pure athleticism, and that’s Broekhoff’s entire game. He didn’t become the best power forward in the world’s third-best league purely because there’s an athleticism gradient change. He consistently finds success because of his feel for the game, shooting stroke, and willingness to play above his size.
The obvious draw to Broekhoff’s game is his threat as a shooter as a four. Broekhoff has hit 44.2 percent from three on 822 attempts over the past four seasons — even with a shorter line, it’s well established that he can shoot.
Broekhoff’s shot isn’t perfect, as he dips the ball as he gathers to shoot at times. But his mechanics are consistent, and he’s a versatile shooter. he can pick-and-pop well, but he’s also strong in the corners, and his mechanics are almost better off movement, a rare trait that helps him build a stronger gravity as a shooter.
Broekhoff’s shooting sets the table for the rest of his game. It’ll allow him to play the three in certain lineups next to Harrison Barnes or Maxi Kleber, and his shooting threat will make for some interesting pick-and-roll combinations with Luka Doncic and Dennis Smith. But Broekhoff’s value extends beyond that. He has great feel for the game on both ends of the ball, and that should help him find a place as a role player in the NBA. For one, he’s a strong passer, with great court vision and a knack for finding teammates in advantage situations.
He also was one of the best slashers in the VTB League. Countless times, a defense would collapse against former Knick Mardy Collins or Dmitry Kulagin entering the paint, only for Broekhoff to waltz into the frame three steps ahead of his defender that he just back cut from a stand-still (The victim here is new Nets guard Dzanan Musa, who is going to be sooooo so so bad on defense in the NBA).
Broekhoff is also a heady defender, which helps narrow the athleticism gap on that end. The ultimate question for Broekhoff is how he prevents himself from being the most extreme version of Ryan Anderson — a decent shooter who constantly has to be hidden on the defensive end against a non-shooting, non-post threat that also can’t be a roll man to generate switches. Obviously, there isn’t much he’s going to offer against the league’s offensive initiators. But if he can fit into a strong scheme, there’s hope.
Luckily, we have some real evidence of that — Lokomitiv Kuban was an outstanding defensive team in each of his three seasons with the club, and he consistently fit into the schemes built by Georgios Bartzokas and Sasa Obradovic, two of the best defensive coaches outside of the NBA. He did so by being a smart and willing help defender — collapsing, doubling, and providing pressure on ball while keeping track of his man and feeding his man into help in situations where he’s one-on-one.
He also supplements that team defense with some interesting rebounding skill. Broekhoff was able to play the four in Russia primarily because he plays much bigger than his size on the glass, and it’s established that he can do this against NBA size with a more cramped paint. The VTB League may not have the NBA’s athletes, but it definitely has comparative bulk inside, with big men like 7-foot Dmitry Sokolov, 6-foot-11 Yanick Moreira, and former NBA forward Thomas Robinson, among others. Broekhoff wasn’t an elite rebounder at this level, but he routinely came up with contested boards. His 12-rebound performance against UNICS Kazan in the 2017 VTB playoffs is a good example.
Broekhoff has made a career of playing larger than his size and frame, and he hopes to do so in the NBA. In Dallas, he has the opportunity to do so. The Mavs are trying to reset their culture under the helm of Rick Carlisle, and have mined the ranks of the undrafted and European leagues to build a core of role players who don’t fit the physical mold of the NBA but understand the game at a strong level. Broekhoff might not be a physical specimen, but neither is Dorian Finney-Smith. Neither is Maxi Kleber. Luka Doncic’s entire draft evaluation was a constant battle of understanding if his athleticism was good enough. But all of these players can play a role anyway, especially when you put them with a couple of physical freaks like DeAndre Jordan and Dennis Smith Jr.
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Whether Broekhoff makes it in the league remains to be seen, and he may end up being limited too much by the fact that he’s 6-7 instead of 6-9. But the bones of a role are there. He’ll attempt to play as a stretch four, who provides shooting as a pick-and-pop weapon in small lineups, and defends well within a team context with Jordan backing him up. A lineup like Smith, Doncic, Harrison Barnes, Broekhoff, and Dirk Nowitzki could be extremely fun, as Smith and Doncic probe with three forwards that can shoot and screen well around them. Pair him with Kleber in another small unit, and Kleber can handle tough post assignments while Broekhoff crashes the glass and spaces around Kleber’s diving to the rim.
All Broekhoff has to do is continue shooting and proving that his frame isn’t the end of his NBA discussion.