2024 NBA Draft: Zach Edey Flying Up Draft Boards
College basketball this season has been absolutely exciting to watch. We have seen a ton of exciting games come down to the wire and a variety of different star players have big-time games. The biggest name this year is Zach Edey who is leading the Purdue Boilermakers to the top as they are currently ranked No. 1 in the country.
The 7-foot-4 big man is currently fifth in the nation in scoring as he averages 23 points per game and 12th in rebounding at ten boards per contest. Edey has been a double-double machine all season long, even against the best teams in the country which has led to his stock skyrocketing up draft boards.
To simply put it we haven’t seen a player this dominant in college basketball since Zion Williamson in the 2018-19 season. The difference here is that Edey is a senior that has been dominating for multiple years.
Two underrated skills that the potential first-round pick has are his impressive footwork down in the paint and phenomenal touch at his size. He has a feathery touch on his hook shots and his free throw shooting percentage is a good indicator to back it up as he’s shooting 76% from the line which is a ridiculously high percentage for someone at that size. The combination of unreal size and skill has made him remotely unstoppable on the offensive end.
It has gotten to the point where opposing teams are just forced to foul Edey and make him earn it from the free throw line but with him being such a good free throw shooter it puts opposing teams in extremely difficult situations. The college superstar has led his team to some big-time victories over teams like Arizona, Marquette, Tennessee, Gonzaga and Alabama. Purdue currently only has one loss on the season in a closely fought road overtime game versus Northwestern.
As far as stock goes, where does Edey project to be drafted at and how good will he be in the NBA?
As of right now it seems that the 7-foot-4 center is hovering around the late first-round to mid-second-round range as there are still some valid concerns about his ability to consistently defend the pick-and-roll against top-tier scoring players and the inability to defend in space. If all goes well, he should serve as a solid big man off the bench that can give you a productive ten to twenty minutes a night.
Sure Edey has his flaws, but the production is so overwhelming that it could lead to him getting drafted higher than anticipated due to the lack of top-tier star talent at the top of the draft. The crazy thing about this situation is that the star big man has the option to return to Purdue to play one more season which would be absolutely phenomenal for the college scene.
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