NBA Draft 2020: 5 underrated lottery candidates from 2019 recruiting class

Kai Jones, Texas

Center | 6’10 | 205 lbs | No. 50 overall recruit

Another year, another one-and-done center from Texas. Last year it was Jaxson Hayes. Two years ago, Mo Bamba. Three years ago, Jarrett Allen, and five years ago, Myles Turner. The Longhorns have become a bona fide NBA factory when it comes to big men, even if head coach Shaka Smart has proven that he doesn’t know how to optimize them. The next in line is none other than Kai Jones.

While Jones may not even be the most highly-rated big man in Texas’ recruiting class – that title belongs to Will Baker – he is certainly the most talented, and I expect him to come away with the starting center job early on in the season. Jones, like his predecessor Hayes, runs the floor with incredible fluidity. He resembles a gazelle while running the floor, moving in a way that no person of his size should be able to. Basically, he’s an athletic outlier, which in turn makes him a more than capable rim runner and shot-blocker at the high school (and likely college) level.

If he was your typical rim runner, though, Jones wouldn’t be on this list. Unlike the Longhorn centers that came before him, he has a functional handle and is capable of going coast to coast with the ball in his hands:

That is a play that very, very few players of Jones’ size are capable of pulling off, but he does it with what looks like relative ease. Having a center who is capable of this type of play opens up a lot of things for an offense, and as you may be able to imagine, it makes a team – and more specifically, Jones himself – nearly impossible to defend in transition.

Defensively, Jones’ instincts need to improve, but that’s the case with nearly every big man as a high school senior. He has some incredible flashes and the tools to be an absolutely dominant defender, especially as he fills out his frame. Texas’ defenses have been very good under Shaka Smart, and every one-and-done center who has entered the draft under Smart has had a reputation as a strong defender. I don’t see any reason for this to change with Jones, who averaged 2.5 blocks per game on the AAU circuit this year.

As I mentioned earlier, Smart doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to maximizing the potential of his ultra-talented big men. But it also hasn’t seemed to have an effect on their draft stock, and this past season, Jaxson Hayes was still able to take a fast track to stardom within Smart’s system. Jones will stand out just as much, if not more, than the centers that went through Austin before him, and it’s very possible that it will result in him getting drafted in next year’s lottery.