FIBA World Cup: 5 players from outside the NBA that could make an impact

2. Jock Landale

Jock Landale, the recent Saint Mary’s standout, is in one of the weirder situations for a potential impact player. He’s playing next to Aron Baynes, despite both of them being very, very large men. He’s on a team that, though they probably saw it coming at some level, had its expectations drastically reduced by the withdrawal of Ben Simmons. And he’s a guy whose primary value is from his scoring and rebounding on a team that has a ton of NBA talent with which to score the ball and is playing a huge lineup that makes them favored on the boards to start with.

But Landale, who was the second-leading scorer for KK Partizan last year behind only recent Sacramento Kings’ draft pick Vanja Marinkovic, has shown very few signs of caring about the fit questions.

Landale put up 31 points and 17 rebounds across a pair of games against Canada and Khem Birch, who will likely be the best non-French defensive center at the World Cup. And Landale did that without making a single attempt from 3, as his normally acceptable jumper saw nothing roll and he went 0-for-7. If that reverts to the mean a bit, Landale could be set up to be an excellent complement to Patty Mills.