To help readers get to know top NBA draft prospects, Insider offers a 360-degree look at many of them in a concise and thorough scouting report featuring three expert perspectives: Kevin Pelton (analytics), Fran Fraschilla (scouting) and Chad Ford (NBA front offices). Here's a look at Karl-Anthony Towns.
WARP projection: 2.8 (3rd among players in top 100)
Comparables: Patrick O'Bryant (98.4), Steven Adams (95.5), Greg Oden (95.2), Chris Bosh (94.5)
Strengths: Shooting%, Rebound%, Block%
Weaknesses: PF%
The analytics perspective
Besides an eerie similarity to Patrick O'Bryant, who dominated the Missouri Valley Conference but was a bust in the NBA, there's not much in the way of red flags in Towns' statistics. His only negative was a high foul rate (5.6 per 40 minutes) that can be explained in part by Kentucky's enviable post depth, which made foul trouble largely a non-concern.
Towns joined a growing list of elite Kentucky rim protectors that also includes predecessors Anthony Davis and Nerlens Noel and teammate Willie Cauley-Stein. He projects to block 5.0 percent of opponent 2-point attempts and secure 20.0 percent of available defensive rebounds as a rookie. Only one other player in my college database (Hassan Whiteside) reached both of those thresholds.
By comparison to Jahlil Okafor, Towns is a lesser scorer but he figures to become a useful offensive player as well. His combination of usage and efficiency at the college level is similar to Derrick Favors of the Utah Jazz during his lone season at Georgia Tech. And Towns' excellent free throw shooting for a big man (81.3 percent) bodes well for his ability to develop a mid-range game. As a result, he's atop my subjective draft board.
-- Kevin Pelton
The scouting perspective
The NBA draft has become a baseball draft.
Because of the relative youth of recent drafts, very few players each year can step into an NBA lineup and immediately contribute. So, like major league baseball, more and more selections are based on long-term (three-to-five-year) projections.
Which brings me to Towns. The 7-foot, 250-pound freshman with a 7-3 wingspan could be the No. 1 pick in June's draft. And although the 19-year-old is not as advanced as fellow Wildcat Anthony Davis was at the same stage, he is the basketball equivalent of a "five-tool" guy with a nice combination of skill, size, athleticism, youth and a "give-a-damn meter" that runs high.
However, unlike Duke's Jahlil Okafor, he is not the focal point of Kentucky's team even if he is the Wildcats' best NBA prospect. In fact, Towns did not reach double-figure field goal attempts in a game until Feb. 3.
The first subtle attribute that jumps out to me about Towns is that he is an alert player on both ends of the floor. Watch him closely for 10 minutes of any contest and you will notice that he has a good feel for the game. Something I notice as a coach is that rebounds he can't grab initially, he'll tip to himself.
On the defensive end, he is proving to be a prolific shot-blocker because of his considerable length, timing and instincts. In fact, his block rate, according to kenpom.com, was a robust 11.5, 19th best in the country.
In addition, he possesses good lateral quickness for a player his size which, combined with his high basketball IQ, allows him to effectively defend screen-and-roll and isolation plays. Playing the screen-and-roll well and defending away from the basket is a prerequisite for being a key defensive player on an NBA team. In this regard, he has a huge advantage over Okafor.
Offensively, Towns became an offensive force down the stretch of the season. When I first saw him as a young player on the AAU circuit, then for coach John Calipari's Dominican Republic national team, he was spending an inordinate amount of time playing on the perimeter and eschewing physical play around the basket.
That has changed in one season at Kentucky.
Towns has begun to embrace physical contact in the paint and that bodes well for his NBA future. He has begun to work hard for position and has all the attributes that will make him an outstanding low-post scorer. Not only does he have a soft shooting touch that, along with his size, translated well to the painted area, he also shows a willingness to score over both shoulders. That is rare for a young post player.
As an added bonus, Towns has a unique ability to stretch a defense with his outside shooting. While it was not encouraged this season at UK, it is a more-than-capable weapon that he will show off in the NBA. One NBA scout told me he watched Towns make 13 straight college 3-point shots during a pregame shootaround before a recent Kentucky game.
And if, as my ESPN colleague Kevin Pelton believes, that free throw percentage can be the best predictor of successful outside shooting, Towns' 81 percent free throw rate bodes well for him, also.
I used the baseball analogy earlier in part because I believe college basketball at its highest levels is the equivalent of Double-A baseball right now. More and more top players are leaving for the NBA early and the talent level, in my opinion, has been diluted. So starring at this level is no guarantee of future stardom in the NBA. (Look at how many of the first-round picks from June are not contributing for their teams.)
I've tried to watch Towns closely and I have talked with people close to him. The sense is that he loves the game, is very coachable and is willing to work hard to improve. It's the same sense I get about him from NBA people who are following him closely.
Towns is a young player with the long-term potential to be an NBA star but he will arrive in the NBA still relatively raw and physically immature, but with immense talent. He may not have had the polish Okafor showed early in the season, but he gradually closed the gap in that regard by the end of the season. It is why Okafor is no longer automatically the consensus No.1 pick.
-- Fran Fraschilla
The front-office perspective
Towns might be the most complete big man prospect in the country right now. He's proved to be an elite rebounder and shot-blocker at Kentucky, and has dramatically improved his offensive game as the season has progressed. He has a sweet little hook shot in the paint and is a terrific shooter with range all the way out to the 3-point line. Add in a crazy-long wingspan and solid athleticism for a player his size, and he appears to be an elite NBA prospect.
The only real knocks on Towns center on questions about toughness and consistency. He can sometimes back down when playing against physical defenders, and his motor from game to game is an issue. He's also a little more difficult to project than Okafor because of the role he plays at Kentucky. While Okafor is the center of everything Duke does, Towns is surrounded by other NBA prospects and plays a more limited role. NBA GMs and scouts thinking about drafting him No. 1 have to get past that.
Regardless, he's a very legit candidate for the No. 1 pick in the draft. While not as offensively polished as Okafor, his defense and better athleticism may make him the better long-term pick. Like Okafor, there are virtually no scenarios in which he falls out of the top three or four picks.
-- Chad Ford