NBA Mock Draft 2019: The chaos of this draft is only beginning
24. . G. North Carolina. Coby White. 7. player
Watching White is fun, awful, surprising and ridiculous all at one time. Here are our notes on his uneven performance in that February loss to Virginia:
- Team defensive instincts are OK. He can help and recover better than expected for a freshman, likely helped by disciplined upperclassmen and a good coach. However, he also lost his man on a switch that opened up an easy layup despite North Carolina switching most of the night.
- Lost his matchup against the 5-9 Kihei Clark, flat-out. Clark can be schemed out by screening him consistently and making him beat you on offense, but when the two were matched up mano a mano, White got his pocket picked, was called for a foul, and generally looked frustrated against the freshman Cavalier guard.
- Short wingspan (6-5) makes it difficult for him to finish at the rim against NBA-sized big men like Virginia’s. He missed three shots at the rim in this one, and relies on his right hand to go up strong, even driving left.
- Handle is a work in progress as he gets comfortable playing point guard. Clark stole the ball from him three times by our count.
- Adjustment to point guard also shows up in pull-up shooting struggles. That concern feels overblown, though, as he was an incredible shooter with his feet set and likely just needs to build comfort taking 3s off the bounce.
We ridiculed Chicago in this space last week, but they’ve never explicitly been linked to White. It just seems unlikely the Suns and Bulls both pass on him considering they are ready to take the next level with their young core and need a playmaker to do so.