2018 Draft: 5 Possible Top-5 Picks for the Atlanta Hawks
By Chris Guest
Marvin Bagley III
Marvin Bagley III out of Duke University has been injured of late, but before that, he was shredding the ACC with stellar performance after stellar performance.
He was playing so well, in fact, that he currently edges out consensus top-two pick DeAndre Ayton in terms of PER with a powerhouse 31.5 (just beating out Ayton by .1 percentage points).
Bagley is a gifted scorer at all three levels (21.2 points per game), and he also gets after it on the boards (11.2 rebounds per game). In terms of efficiency, Bagley is shooting 59.6 percent from the field and 35.4 percent from downtown.
His free throw rate is an immense 49.8 percent, which means almost half the time he touches the ball, he ends up shooting free throws. Sadly, he is only shooting 62 percent from the line, though that is something that the lauded Hawks coaching staff could certainly help with.
Again, pairing Bagley with John Collins up front would prove to be a formidable combination in terms of rebounding and scoring, though the fit here is not perfect – especially when compared to the plug-and-play aspect of Dončić or Ayton’s presence in the Hawks lineup.