2024 NBA Draft scouting report: Ariel Hukporti

When the final buzzer sounded for the NBL Finals this year the Tasmania Jackjumpers lifted their first-ever title, defeating Matthew Dellavedova’s Melbourne United. Defeat is never enjoyable, and in a championship series, it’s often painful. Some players can prepare themselves to make another run next season. In contrast, others are stuck wondering where they’ll land in free agency and if this is the best opportunity they ever had, and for a few fortunate players — this is only the beginning. 

That is the case for Ariel Hukporti — the 22-year-old German and Togolese center — who was a part of the Melbourne United team that came up short. Hukporti capped off a solid season as an NBL Next Star with a strong showing in the Finals where he flashed all of his skills, helping him creep into multiple NBA Mock Drafts. 

Before heading to Australia, Hukporti spent time in the youth ranks of German club Riesen Ludwigsburg and made his professional debut there, and then spent the 2020-21 season with Nevezis Kedainiai of the Lithuanian Basketball League. Hukporti became an NBL Next Star for the 2021-22 season and earned a role as a backup center. He missed the entire 2022-23 season with an Achilles tendon rupture but came back for the 2023-24 season and looked like he hadn’t lost a step. 

Hukporti is not a ceiling raiser, a high-upside gamble, or anything in that ballpark. But he does look like he could become an NBA role player quickly, as a reliable high-energy backup center, and take what he’s done in the NBL and bring it to the NBA on day one.

Ariel Hukporti NBA Draft bio

Height: 7-foot

Weight: 250 pounds

Birthdate: April 4, 2002

Position: Center

Offensive Role: Rim-runner, roller, and lob threat

Defensive Role: Versatile rim protector

Projected draft range: Late second round or undrafted

NBA Draft highlights

Strengths: 

What makes Hukporti appealing is his size and the way he moves. He’s a giant on the court but his mobility is immediately obvious. He’s a great sprinter, slides well, and can jump out of the gym. What accelerates all of these physical skills is Hukporti’s energy. He plays the game as if he gets points for sprinting the hardest up the floor and while that isn’t technically true, it isn’t untrue either. As a center, beating your opponent up the court can lead to an easy two, something Hukporti capitalizes on regularly. 

Hukporti’s energy is tethered to all parts of his game. He’s a strong offensive rebounder who not only generates offense for himself but is constantly looking for teammates — namely shooters — after grabbing an offensive board.

He will set as many screens as humanly possible on a single possession. He will screen away, screen for the ballhandler, re-screen, and go screen for another ballhandler and look like he wasn’t tired out by this at all. His seemingly unlimited fatigue lets him roll to the rim hard and ready to finish after setting multiple screens. With good hands and impressive leaping ability, he can finish lobs or catch a pocket pass and rise to the rim. Even when he can't dunk the ball, he's got a reliable touch around the rim with his preferred left hand.

Hukporti doesn’t carry anywhere near the offensive repertoire that the dominant big men — Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Kristaps Porzingis, etc. — of the modern NBA do but he still knows how to make an impact on that end of the floor, and is far from a liability. When you recognize what he might be able to do on the defensive end, the offensive skillset simply turns into a generous bonus. 

Hukporti’s greatest strengths are on the defensive end of the floor. NBA centers are being tasked with more than ever. You need to be able to stand tall in the low post against Embiid, Jokic, and Domantas Sabonis. You can’t let those guys shoot uncontested jumpers either, because they’ll bury you with those as well. If moving out on the perimeter with them doesn’t sound challenging enough you’ve got Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren to deal with as well, two guys who are taller than 7-feet but will live on the perimeter for extended stretches. 

The list of requirements doesn’t stop there. Centers can’t just be good at guarding other centers, they need to be able to defend opposing ballhandlers in the pick-and-roll and ideally, comfortable in a variety of coverages. Can you play drop coverage and track the ballhandler in front of you and the roll man behind you and force your opponent into as inefficient a shot or decision as possible? Can you switch and hang with an opposing quick-twitch perimeter player outside of your comfort zone? Can you hedge and recover back to your man before your opponents rotate the ball and find him for a dunk underneath? 

And finally, on top of all of that, can you generally offer your team rim protection? Do your teammates feel confident going for a steal or chasing their man off the three-point line and toward the rim when you’re on the floor? For Hukporti, the answer to all of those appears to be yes. 

In the NBL Finals alone, Hukporti showed his ability to switch, to drop, to help his teammates, and be an overall terror on the defensive end. Hukporti is 22, making him an older draft prospect in any class, but his defensive IQ and ability reflect superior wisdom not just for a 22-year-old, but someone who has already played multiple years of high-stakes professional basketball.  As an NBL Next Star who is closing the season with Riesen of the German BBL, that’s the advantage Hukporti has over his fellow 2024 draft class competitors. 

Weaknesses: 

If you read all of Hukporti’s strengths and you’re asking yourself why is he only coming up late in the second round of mock drafts, that’s fair. For starters, while Hukporti has a handful of desirable NBA-ready skills he appears to be somewhat close to his ceiling. Hukporti is on the older side of draft entrants and has not shown a ton of growth from when he was an NBL rookie to now. 

Part of that is because of the Achilles tendon rupture — even though he looks great, missing a season of basketball in your early 20s would hurt anyone’s development — but part of it is the fact that Hukporti hasn’t added much to his game over the past few years. He’s a better free throw shooter but still a bad one, has zero range outside of 10 feet, is a decent passer but not a great one, and is not someone you can throw the ball to in the low post to try to get you a bucket when you need it. There are concerns that given his age and lack of significant development over the past few seasons he may be locked into these limitations on the offensive end now and potentially for his career. 

What would’ve made Hukporti explode as a prospect anywhere over the past few seasons is if he had extended stretches where he flashed some more consistent ball skills. Whether it be developing a couple of reliable post moves, establishing some dribble handoff chemistry with a notable teammate, showing the ability to make the right reads out of the short roll, or any of these secondary skills that have helped take the likes of Sabonis and Bam Adebayo from NBA starters to NBA All-Stars. To an extent, Hukporti can do these things, but it doesn’t look like he’ll do them on a reliable nightly basis in the NBA because he simply hasn’t done so at this stage of his career. 

Hukporti is not perfect on the defensive end either. His flaws are much less stark, and borderline standard for any NBA center that isn’t Rudy Gobert or Joel Embiid. Hukporti still falls for pump fakes. In the NBL, he gets away with this sometimes because he’s a good second jumper and playing against more inferior athletes. Even if he bites on a pump fake he can occasionally recover in time and still make a play. In the NBA, this is less likely. Even the league's best are often toast if they fall for a pump fake.

This general reactionary flaw can get him in foul trouble too. That’s maybe not a problem for a backup big man, but if he wants to be more than that it’s something he’ll need to resolve. This seems to be a consequence of the general energy Hukporti plays with. Flying around the court without fear or remorse can have its benefits and its consequences. Finding the right balance will be the key to Hukporti having an extended NBA career and exceeding expectations. 

Final summary: 

If Hukporti falls into the late second round, you could do a lot worse than selecting a 22-year-old with an NBA-ready body who already appears to have some baseline skills that could help him impact the NBA game sooner rather than later. Any sooner than that, though, and you’ve got to start weighing the risks. 

What is Hukporti’s ceiling if his improvement is marginal from here on out? What skills can he add to his game? What stretch of play in his career supports that belief? Is he a late bloomer or an early riser? Is the Achilles injury an unfortunate one-off or indicative of problems that could plague him for his entire career? 

There are plenty of question marks surrounding Hukporti, but that can be said for any late second-round targets. As long as that’s where you get him, you don’t need to worry about the answers too much.