Gonzaga Basketball: 2020 NBA Draft profile for forward Killian Tillie

NBA Comparison – Dāvis Bertāns

After three seasons as a valuable backup for the San Antonio Spurs, Davis Bertāns broke out in a big way for the Washington Wizards in 2019-2020 – averaging 15.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.7 assists in 29 minutes of action coming off the bench.

While I don’t expect Tillie to put up those kinds of numbers on the regular, I do think Bertāns’ skill on both the offensive and defensive end of the floor match up quite well with what I believe Tillie will produce at the next level.

For his career, Bertāns has knocked down 41% of his three-point attempts, shooting about 4.5 per night. That obviously ballooned up last season, but even as a reserve in San Antonio, he was shooting 40.5% on 3.5 attempts – in just 16 minutes per night.

Tillie will likely be counted on to be a long-range shooter off the bench, or a pick-n-pop big man, either way allowing him to launch 3-4 three-point attempts even in a 15-20 minute per game role.

Health will obviously be a factor here, and I think it’s reasonable to expect Tillie’s role to be more in the 9-12 minute range at first, but the rate stats on threes, free throws (85%), and two-pointers (52.6%) that Bertāns has posted in his career all seem very attainable for Tillie.

Defensively, Bertāns has to work very hard to still be a slightly below average defensive big – another similarity I expect to see with Tillie. Tillie has an extremely high basketball IQ and is more nimble on his feet than some might expect, but his overall lack of physical strength and lateral movement no doubt caps his defensive potential.

Overall I think Tillie is a decent comp to Bertāns’ career with the Spurs, as a stretch four off the bench in 10-15 minutes of action, although I do think his defensive instincts and passing will be slightly superior to what we have seen from Bertāns so far.

There are a lot of other players who came to mind here, although none quite lined up as well as Bertāns. Mo Speights, Kelly Olynyk, Mike Muscala, and a poor man’s Ersan Ilyasova or Danilo Gallinari are comps I’ve seen or made myself – but with any player, no comparison is exactly perfect.