The 2024 NBA Draft is just two weeks away and the Portland Trail Blazers have the seventh and 14th pick in the first round.
While this year's draft is considered to be a bit of a crapshoot, there are some certainties for the Blazers. Here are three players that Portland must avoid in the 2024 NBA Draft.
Nikola Topic
Point guard Nikola Topic has been linked to the Blazers in several mock drafts, but Portland should stay away.
While it's no knock against Topic's game, the Blazers selected their point guard of the future with the third-overall pick just last year in Scoot Henderson. He and fellow young guard Shaedon Sharpe need more court time, not less, so drafting another guard in the lottery shouldn't be the plan for Portland.
Additionally, the team did a commendable job managing the (mostly under-informed) discourse around Henderson's rough first few months. When the chatter started to ramp up, the Blazers brought Scoot along slowly, having him play against reserves and increase his confidence until he finished his season strong.
If they drafted another young player at his position just a year later, all of the online chatter would pick back up again. No one wants that.
Topic also suffered a partially torn ACL shortly after the lottery. While it likely won't impact his long-term career, it is a worrisome development for the young player. Perhaps not enough to ward off a team like the Utah Jazz or San Antonio Spurs that needs a point guard, but the Blazers should stay away.
Matas Buzelis
Buzelis is a solid 6'10” athlete with a fairly versatile offensive skillset. With solid shot mechanics and high release, Buzelis as capable of getting his shot over defenders
Despite his fundamentally sound shooting stroke, Buzelis was inefficient in multiple areas last season. He shot below 30 percent from behind the 3-point line and acted mostly as a stand-still shooting threat.
Due to his lack of muscle mass, Buzelis struggled finishing through contact and dealing with physical defenders. He rarely got to his spots with ease, and he failed to create space against quality defenders. From a body mechanics standpoint, he appears to be at the early stages of understanding how leverage works. Buzelis is constantly moved off his spot by opponents.
Buzelis is an undisciplined ball handler right now, which leads to broken up drives and turnovers. He tends to disappear offensively when his shots aren’t falling and lacks elite facilitation skills to be a primary playmaker and struggles with ball handling in traffic.
As a passer, Buzelis’ assist-to-turnover ratio wasn't where scouts wanted it to be last season, racking up a negative ratio.
Unfortunately, Buzelis’ floor is quite low – which makes selecting him at no. 7 overall a risky proposition. He doesn't really have a go-to move to rely on and there's no guarantee he'll ever develop one. A worst-case scenario would be him fulfilling his potential to be a “master-of-none” type of player, lacking any standout skills.
If the Blazers are willing to invest in a multi-year development curve, Buzelis makes sense, but there may be safer choices available on draft night.
Kel'el Ware
Unlike the other big centers at the top of this draft class, Ware will need some time to grow into his frame.
In college, traditional centers were able to get to their spots relatively easily when facing Ware – on both sides of the ball. On offense, Ware was not always comfortable dealing with contact around the rim.
The biggest concerns surrounding Ware are tied to his motor and development curve. Despite finding his groove with Indiana, Ware still had a tendency to take plays off and disappear for long stretches of time.
The Blazers already have Deandre Ayton entrenched at the starting center spot. While they have been heavily linked to UConn center Donovan Clingan, center isn't necessarily a strong position of need. If Portland believes in Clingan that much, they should aim to draft him, but they shouldn't necessarily take a center just to take one – unless they have other plans for Ayton (and Robert Williams III).
While he has star potential, Ware is likely going to need a strong support system to keep him trending towards his current potential. A Blazers coaching staff that has three open positions and a head coach that is headed into a lame duck year may not be the ideal spot for a player with Ware's needs to land.
The 2024 NBA Draft is June 26-27 from Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Portland also has the nos. 34 and 40 picks in this year's draft.
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