UCLA Basketball: Insider Considers New Bruin A Top 10 NBA Prospect Among Class

Well, it looks like your 2023-24 UCLA Bruins suddenly have themselves a bona fide blue chipper in newly-added international prospect Aday Mara.

And just in time too, as the club lost several key upperclassmen to the pros. Ex-Bruins small forward Jaime Jaquez Jr., and guards Amari Bailey and Jaylen Clark were all selected in June's 2023 NBA draft.

Kevin O'Connor of The Ringer ranks the 7'3" Spanish center with a 7'7" wingspan as the sixth-best prospect ahead of the 2024 NBA draft in a newly-released preseason player ranking.

"Mara is a Spanish center who towers over opponents at 7-foot-3 and 245 pounds, with a 7-foot-7 wingspan," writes O'Connor. "His best skill is his passing, which gives him the potential to be a coordinated offensive nucleus who stands out across the board with soft hands, calculated footwork in the post, and adaptive screening. Mara can score too, with a repertoire that includes scoops, hooks, and ambidextrous layups—if he’s not dunking through defenders. Reports say Mara will attend UCLA this coming season, and the big question on scouts’ minds is how he’ll hold up defensively. He gets roasted on the perimeter and at times doesn’t offer the type of resistance you’d expect from a center with his enormous stature. But if he can regularly become a blockage and deterrent at the rim while also growing on offense, he’ll be locked in as a top prospect."

The addition of Mara to the club, along with another elite overseas addition, Berke Buyuktuncel, instantly vaults UCLA back to heady terrain among the Pac-12, in the final season of the conference's existence. And likely the final season of Mara's college career, despite bing the first.

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