When you think of the NBA Draft, the search for the next group of big men to enter the league usually leads the way. Last year, only one college center, Joel Embiid, was taken in the first round. This year’s class promises to be quite a bit better.

Here are links to all of the draft comparisons:

PG | SG | SF | PF | C

Below is a look at this year’s group of centers, along with the college big men taken in the past two drafts:

Centers

There are at least six potential first-round picks, after just one last year, all with very good size though varied body types. Every player on the chart is at least 6’10, though only four were heavier than 250 pounds, and three are in this year’s class. Jahlil Okafor tops the group at 270 pounds, though he may come in slightly lighter by the time a team officially measures him. Alex Len (255), Robert Upshaw (258) and Dakari Johnson (264) are the other three players weighing in at over 250 pounds, both being weighed at the NBA Combine which Okafor is not attending.  Three other players weighed in at 250 over the years, Steven Adams, Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns, though like Okafor, Towns is not at the Combine and won’t be officially weighed until he visits with a team.

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A player’s weight and body-type may not seem like a major issue, especially with more teams looking for more mobile, athletic big men, but the extra weight can be very useful when playing in the low post on both ends of the floor. Still, we have seen some lighter, more athletic big men drafted the past few years, with Mason Plumlee (235) and Nerlens Noel (228) in 2013, though oddly enough the player weighing the least this year, Frank Kaminsky at 231 pounds is not in the same athletic class as those two players.

Speaking of Kaminsky, he is one of only two players on the chart who averaged over 20 points per 40 minutes; Okafor was the other.  There is a wide range of scoring totals among the group, with no real correlation other than actual skill. Five players averaged less than 16 points per 40 minutes, Noel, Johnson, Willie Cauley-Stein, Steven Adams and Gorgui Dieng. All did play with more accomplished scorers in college, but looking at the list, none were known for having any real low-post offensive presence.

The players’ field goal percentage doesn’t really provide any clues. While the numbers are as disparate as the scoring averages, skill isn’t always the main factor. When it comes to Okafor, who topped the group hitting almost two-thirds of his field goal attempts, skill happens to be the main factor. However, when you look at Embiid, who hit over 62 percent of his shots, skill wasn’t as big a factor as him just being a lot bigger than the defenders who guarded him. This isn’t to say Embiid wasn’t skilled, but the difference between him and Okafor on offense as college freshmen is large.  Then you look at players like Noel or Cauley-Stein who weren’t as skilled as the rest of this group, yet still posted field goal percentages close to 60. Both are very athletic big men who scored their points mainly in transition or on passes to them at the basket off guard penetration. Traditional post moves were not really part of either’s college repertoire.

This highlights the flaw in limiting  player comparisons to statistical factors alone. When the context is missing, it can lead to a lot of flawed comparisons.

One last note on the field goal percentages – Dakari Johnson’s 50.4 percent is somewhat concerning for a 7-footer who plays exclusively around the rim. He’s still just 19 years old, but with his size, he should not have so much trouble finishing around the basket.

The true shooting percentages tell us a little more about the players. For example, Okafor, along with Noel, Adams, and Upshaw, all have true shooting percentages lower than their field goal percentages. True shooting percentage accounts for two-point field goals, three-point field goals and free throws. Since none of these four are three-point shooters, the decline is due to all having free throw percentages actually lower than their field goal percentage.  While not uncommon for big men to be poor free throw shooters, this group is especially bad.

On the other hand, Towns and Kaminsky both have true shooting percentages which are significantly better than their field goal percentages. In Towns’ case, his percentage was helped by shooting over 80 percent from the free-throw line.

Kaminsky is unusual for this group as the only true perimeter threat. There always seems to be talk about Towns’ perimeter shooting ability, though it has never been seen at a significant level.  Kaminsky was able to connect on 58 percent of his two-point attempts, as well as 41 percent of his three-point attempts. Add to that shooting 78 percent from the free throw line, and you understand why there is an 8-point difference between his shooting percentages. Along with his lack of bulk, there’s a good chance you will see him play as a stretch 4 or 5 at the NBA level.

The next area I want to look at is rebounding, namely looking for any numbers that seem extreme in either direction.  On the offensive end, Kaminsky’s 6.0 offensive rebounding percentage is by far the lowest in the group, though as I explained above, he is the anomaly as a big man who plays a great deal on the perimeter.  On the flip side, Okafor, Johnson and Towns posted the highest numbers in this year’s class, and overall only behind Steven Adams from two seasons ago. Again, it makes sense as these three are big-bodied players who take up a lot of space around the basket, making it tough for defensive players to box them out.

Cauley-Stein’s 11.1 offensive rebound percentage may seem a bit low for an athletic seven-footer, but it should be remembered that Kentucky almost always tried to have two big men at the floor as much as possible. It’s conceivable that many of Cauley-Stein’s chances came with Towns or Johnson on the floor, though he also had a tendency to be a bit lost on the offensive end, and with no real offensive post-game, wasn’t always in optimal position.

The defensive rebounding percentages showed a couple of players way ahead in this year’s class. Kaminsky and Upshaw were both near 25 percent, falling only behind Joel Embiid’s 27 percent last season. Towns was also over 20 percent, but Okafor’s 18.2 percent seems low for an elite big man. It’s an issue which will come up more as we get closer to the draft, but for some reason, Okafor doesn’t show the same movement around the basket as he does on offense, along with a lack of consistent effort to really go hard after missed shots.

I’ll stay on the defensive end to finish up by looking at the block numbers for these big men. There’s no avoiding how Upshaw’s 17.2 block percentage sticks out here, even beating well-known shot-blocker Noel by over four points. Though Upshaw’s season was limited due to being dismissed from his team, he was a tremendous rim protector with great extension and timing.  Karl Towns is the only other player in this year’s class to have a percentage over 10, while the previous two classes had three in total.

After Towns, the next two highest percentages were also Kentucky players, Cauley-Stein and Johnson. As I discussed with Cauley-Stein’s rebounding numbers, the percentages of these players may not be exactly as they seem.  The two-big system allowed one big to almost always play right around the basket. Towns is a good shot-blocker but he was also given a lot of easy chances due to Kentucky’s defensive system, which is to pressure the ball on the perimeter and funnel all the penetration to the big waiting at the basket. On the other hand, Cauley-Stein was a major defender on the perimeter for the Wildcats, and didn’t end up with as many chances as you’d expect given his shot-blocking ability. Truth is, Cauley-Stein is probably a better shot-blocker than Towns, even if the numbers don’t say that.

Okafor’s numbers again are somewhat concerning for a big man of his caliber, tied for the lowest block percentage in this class with Kaminsky, and only Mason Plumlee put up a worse number back in 2013. All of these issues with Okafor are tied together, and though not a major negative in the overall picture, he has a lot of work to do to improve.

As a whole, this is a strong class for big men, and great for the league after last year’s small group. The first big taken, Okafor or Towns, is also likely to be the number one pick overall, with the other having a very good chance of going at number two, so the expectations will be high. Each of the players in this year’s class has a good deal of potential, but as shown from all these comparisons, they all have a lot of work to so as well.