Gonzaga Basketball: NBA Draft profile on Bulldog big man Brandon Clarke
By Trevor Marks
Brandon Clarke from Gonzaga Basketball doesn’t fit into any one position, and that’s what makes him such a unique draft prospect. Forward, center, you name it, he brings value on both ends of the floor and is perhaps the 2019 NBA Draft’s most unheralded prospect.
“Great players create their own archetypes.”
This one six-word sentence, tweeted by Red Team Scouting’s Eustaccio Raulli, perfectly encapsulates Gonzaga Basketball’s Brandon Clarke, the short-armed, moon-shoe-bouncy forward whose NBA Draft stock is in limbo.
He’s unique, offering advanced skills inside a frame that doesn’t fit any one position, which makes his evaluation quite difficult and has him placed all up and down draft boards depending on where you look and who you look to. Some proponents of his game view him as a top 10 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, a defensive savant and basketball superhero capable of the extraordinary. Detractors worry about his age (he turns 23 in September), his frame, how he doesn’t profile as a typical small-ball center or power forward, and thus view him as someone of deserving a selection somewhere in the teens or twenties.
He doesn’t fit into any one archetype, which makes some people skittish about his chances to stick in the NBA. He’s not like other bigs because he’s the size of a wing, has the skills of a wing, and has the athleticism of a wing, yet plays flawlessly as a ‘4’ or ‘5’ at the college level. Despite playing at an elite level for Gonzaga this year, teams fret over how he can’t be pigeonholed into any one position or role, making it hard for them to figure out how he can be used in the NBA.
Player comparisons, albeit flawed, can help evaluators determine how players can potentially be used once in the league going up against the best athlete, the best talent, the best players day in and day out.
Is there a comp for Clarke? Is there an adequate archetype that he neatly falls under?
No. Not really.
This makes people worry — but it shouldn’t. If anything, his uniqueness and absurdity should be seen through the opposite lens:
He is not like anyone else in the NBA because no one in the NBA is like him.