2018 NBA Draft: Hawks Should Select Marvin Bagley 3rd Overall
By Chris Guest
With stunning measurables and an indefatigable motor, Marvin Bagley III should be the Atlanta Hawks selection at 3rd overall in the 2018 NBA Draft.
An insane, nuclear athlete, Bagley would immediately vault the Hawks into the national spotlight after his incredible first season at Duke.
Hawks GM Travis Schlenk has already said the team will be looking for the best player available will all 4 of their picks in the Top 34 slots of the draft, and if DeAndre Ayton and Luka Doncic are off the board at #3, which they should be, Bagley is the next best thing to those transcendent talents.
Bagley’s numbers were incredible in college, but he does come in with some question marks. For instance, which of his shooting percentages are more projectable: will it be his 39.7% clip from deep, or the less-than-ideal 62.7% shooting from the free-throw line?
Those numbers might make or break the Hawks decision to select Bagley here, but either way the team will have a bona fide college superstar on the team for the first time since drafting Al Horford in 2007.
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Bagley has immense upside, and he will only just have turned 19 on draft day if the Hawks take him. After reclassifying and skipping his senior year of high school, Bagley was perhaps the single-best athlete in the NCAA during the 2017-18 season, and will immediately transform the Hawks frontcourt into a terrifying tandem of length, speed and explosive athleticism when combined with All-Rookie Second Team member John Collins.
On the offensive end, Bagley showed supreme touch around the rim and also impressed with excellent footwork on post-ups – which accounted for almost ¼ of his possessions.
He is also a stunning roll man in the pick-and-roll, which is an important role that big men have to employ if they lack skills on the perimeter. Beyond that, Bagley’s canny off-ball movement allowed to slice through defenses for easy putbacks and dunks during his lone season at Duke.
Defensively, Bagley must improve his lower body strength if he wishes to develop into a rim protector. As of now, his skill set is much more suited to acting as a weakside rim protector, which is a duplicative skill set to John Collins. On the perimeter, Bagley can use his quickness, length and athleticism to harass and expose smaller, weaker bigs and forward, though he lacks the ability to contain guards with any consistency.
Though he has his flaws, Marvin Bagley III came into 2018 as the top high school recruit before reclassifying to Duke, and his elite physical tools and unstoppable energy and motor would boost the Hawks upside to an immense degree.
For a team lacking much of an identity, especially with a new coach in the fold, Marvin Bagley would provide a new face of the franchise and could grow with John Collins, Taurean Prince, Tyler Dorsey and whoever else the franchise selects in the 2018 Draft.
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As such, the Hawks should select Marvin Bagley 3rd overall in the 2018 NBA Draft in June.