My concern about him is the fact that he only averaged 0.1 blocks per game in his 3 seasons at NCAA and also he wasn't able to achieve the mark of 1.0 steals per game in those years. He doesn't seems a bad prospect for the #38 pick but I think he will be gone between the #28-#35 range.
I expect us to select a SF/PF who can help the team defensively the following years and could be a complementary piece on the scheme of Mike Brown next to Sabonis and his lack of interior defense. My top3 prospects that could still be there for us at #24 and which I think that would fit well in that role next to Domas and Keegan are Sidy Cissoko, Noah Clowney and Jordan Walsh, being the last one the only one who I think could fall also to us in the second round. Maybe not as starters in their rookie season but in their 2nd/3rd year in the league if they can develope correctly.
I really like Cissoko. I watched him live in Spain one game when he was playing at our 2nd division as a 17 years old and he was the best player I watched this year (I watched all the games of my hometown team). By then he played as a PG and he surely grew strongly phisically this year. He might had to adapt his game to his new frame and weight and also to a new country and role this year in the G-League and I think he did it well. Finding a new role for him without the ball in his hands as he was used to in his career and with 3 other players claiming the ball in their hands and a ton of shots next to him, something that he will surely find also in the next step in his career as a NBA player.
He only shots at 32% from 3 this season but he also had a terrible streak for the final part of the season that was the cause his stats dropped so hard as he only could convert 3 of the last 26 shots he attempted. If he wasn't so bad with his shot in those 9 final games and he could keep his 3pt porcentages around 35-36% maybe he boosts his value to the lottery range.
For me, being from Spain, it would be amazing if we can select Cissoko at #24 and Nnaji at #38 to cover the two most needed roles of the team with two defensive mind guys that could help us to become an average defensive team at least in the near future.
Prosper was working more on his SF game, Marquette switches everything they are very multi-positionally focused and for Prosper, the paramount area that needed refinement was the ability to develop the catch and shoot 3ball. If he was at some smaller school starting at PF and tasked with playing closer to the paint getting big minutes surely he'd have had way more blocks. Part of it too was just the dynamics of the teams he was on in college, they had Oso Ighodaro at Marquette whos plenty capable of defending the rim as he's quite light footed and has plenty of recovery speed at the college level meaning it wasnt going to hurt their rim protection for Prosper to be out on the perimeter. Then he had Aamir Simms/Hunter Tyson/PJ Hall in his forgettable year 1 at Clemson, Simms was by far the best player on that team n hes same position same height n O-Max was a lot skinnier n a freshman then, far from ideal situation to put up stats.
Id argue if theres one thing you can say Prosper should be better at in the NBA than he was in college, it'd be him getting more blocks.. One of the reasons you take a player like this is to develop him further, he's far from finished n appears to be improving rapidly.
This is why everything about O-Max screams "some playoff team is gonna wanna keep everything really quiet about him"
He is a good defender, but more so than your classic "3-and-D" archetype, I'd argue he's actually more of a 3's and Dunks who can also defend and oreb type of guy whos max energy. IIRC he had something like 40 dunks and 40 3's on the season n there was only a handful of players in the nation who did that.
The thing with the Kings is like this too... Denver just won the chip, Sabonis is in fact one of the closest C's in the league to Jokic, could Prosper be groomed to function for us like an Aaron Gordon off the bench? AG is one of those 3s n Dunks n defense n energy n oboards types...
Full disclosure -- I'm an unabashed biased O-Max supporter and have been for years actually so take that into consideration, I was keeping an eye on him at Clemson... I've been pointing him out on this forum for the Kings picks (at first it was at the bottom of the 2nd rd) for many months prior to all this hype he's gotten recently too.
