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Hollinger: Wembanyama, Duren and other young bigs are story of NBA’s first week – The Athletic
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Reminder: Big guys are cool again.
The NBA’s opening few days of play served up a quick reminder of that fact, led by the klieg lights of attention (and ratings!) on the debut of 7-foot-4 San Antonio Spurs rookie Victor Wembanyama. Opening night served up newly crowned champion Nikola Jokić getting his ring before torturing the Los Angeles Lakers one more time, and Sunday gave us 7-foot reigning MVP Joel Embiid putting up a 35-15-7 night with six blocks.
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Joker and Embiid remain the gold standard, but the conversation this year may increasingly tilt toward four young bigs who might mark the next generation. Three are rookies, three are still teenagers and all four were fairly impressive in the opening days of the season.
Obviously, there’s Wembanyama, who — despite being handcuffed by a point-guardless starting lineup devoid of spacing — has oozed potential and upside out of every pore in his first three games. Yes, there have been some rough moments along the way. His ballhandling adventures have yielded a plague of turnovers, and given his size, you’d like to see him get more chances at the rim and take fewer jumpers. Nonetheless, a teenaged rookie center having a 30.4 percent usage rate is a pretty absurd set of circumstances, especially in a Spurs lineup seemingly designed to make his task as difficult as possible.
Meanwhile, Wembanyama’s defense appears to be every bit the weapon as advertised. Already he’s had some monstrous closeouts that have dissuaded shooters from taking what initially appeared to be extremely open shots; his incredible length also has him pushing for the league leaderboard in steals, as his giant mitts reach in from distant lands to deflect dribbles that were presumed safe.
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The other highly drafted rookie center, 2022 second pick Chet Holmgren, had an impressive first two games for Oklahoma City before he got served in his first matchup against Jokić on Sunday. It’s not like he was terrible, with 19 points in 25 minutes, but his physical frailty definitely was exposed. Jokić repeatedly sealed him deep in the paint for easy looks, and the Nuggets ate like kings on the offensive boards.
News flash: Jokić cooks everybody. Welcome to the club, Chet.
Holmgren’s overall line from the first three games has been tremendous — averages of 15 points and six boards, 70 percent true shooting and a 23.3 PER. One wonders if he’d be even more effective with a beefy power forward next to him; given Holmgren’s mobility and rim protection, the strategy against a Jokić or Embiid would be to have a stout four take the assignment while Holmgren roams as a help defender on the weak side. The Thunder’s roster, alas, offers no such player, which left Holmgren to get pounded and Jokić to point out after the game that “I think he needs to be a little bit fatter, to be honest.”
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If you’re looking for a deeper cut, consider 19-year-old rookie Dereck Lively II in Dallas. While he doesn’t offer the obvious star upside of Wembanyama or Holmgren, his rim-running and defensive mobility at 7-1 offer a Tyson Chandler starter kit that already has been weaponized to the tune of seven dunks in his first two games, including a 16-point, 10-rebound opener against Wembanyama and the Spurs. Paired with an elite pick-and-roll partner in Luka Dončić, he seems likely to feast on lobs all season.
Nonetheless, I have completely buried the lede, because the fourth young big guy has been without a doubt the most impressive of the bunch … and he’s only 47 days older than Wembanyama. I’m referring to Detroit’s Jalen Duren, a second-year pro selected with the 13th pick in 2022 but still a teenager until mid-November.
Despite his youth, Duren has been key to Detroit’s surprising 2-1 start. In three games, he has totally dominated around the basket, recording a league-leading 18 dunks (only two other players have even half as many), blocking eight shots and averaging 18.0 points and 14.5 rebounds. He leads the league in offensive rebound rate and is fourth in overall rebound rate.
It’s been amazing to watch because the Pistons otherwise seem almost unchanged. Through three games, it’s the same, familiar Pistons movie: Cade Cunningham labors through nonexistent spacing to meh efficiency, Killian Hayes starts, still, while opponents ignore him, Jaden Ivey offers occasional flashes and occasionally front-rims a breakaway and lands on his back, and Alec Burks rescues the second unit. Nothing new here.
Except Duren. This is new and important. Duren’s gravity on rim runs is going to make the game easier for everyone, including Cunningham. There may not be much horizontal spacing, but there is vertical spacing now. Let Duren catch on the move, and look out below.
Cade and JD doing what they do🤝#DetroitBasketball pic.twitter.com/fhLDeUsf5k
— Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) October 28, 2023
Throw it down big fella 💪@CadeCunningham_ ➡️ @JalenDuren pic.twitter.com/4pHWf7ekHY
— Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) October 28, 2023
Just imagine how this could look with real spacing. Eventually, the Pistons will find somebody on the perimeter who can shoot and is younger than 30, and when it happens, they hopefully won’t trade that player for James Wiseman. (It remains objectively hilarious that the Pistons not only moved Saddiq Bey for Wiseman after they already had Duren, but also made Duren Wiseman’s backup for the final quarter of last season.) Whomever it is will feast on weakside 3s as roll-taggers fret over Duren.
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The icing on the cake, though, is Duren’s passing ability, which operates as a force multiplier for his rim-running threat. For a player so young, he has a real knack for reading the game on the move, and his ability to thread tic-tac-toe passes through tight spaces keeps the Pistons’ offense humming even with extremely limited shooting in the starting group. (When Isaiah Stewart is the best shooting threat … yikes.) Teenaged centers aren’t supposed to average four assists a game, but Duren’s ability to spread the wealth makes him a dangerous roller even when he isn’t dunking, and it means he’s much more than a lob threat; he can short-roll against traps and make something positive from pocket passes.
Watch here, for instance, as he makes a quick, on-the-move read on a pocket pass to set up a cutting Ausar Thompson for a dunk.
Ausar flying above the rim early pic.twitter.com/prkRdPsgzQ
— Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) October 28, 2023
No assist here, but same idea. Duren reads the passing lane for the steal, then his quick outlet to Cunningham creates the fast-break advantage for Stewart’s dunk.
A whole lotta #DetroitBasketball on both ends of the floor right now… https://t.co/3KJJZBmp7E pic.twitter.com/5QsEcHeimn
— Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) October 27, 2023
Yes, Detroit can point to a couple other small reasons for its strong start — the overall defense is better and more cohesive thus far under new coach Monty Williams, and adding Thompson to the perimeter group has certainly played a role in that. And obviously, Cunningham’s return from injury helps.
Nonetheless, the biggest difference by a mile between the last two seasons in Detroit and this one is Duren’s breakout. Yes, it’s only three games, but among centers, only Jokić and Embiid stand above Duren’s 29.5 PER. He’s going to challenge my preseason pick, the 76ers’ Tyrese Maxey, for Most Improved Player.
Overall, the new season has given us four young centers to be excited about. I’d still take Wembanyama over all of them, but the matchups among this quartet should keep us entertained for the next decade.
My opening foray of the new season took me to Milwaukee this past Thursday for a quick trip to see Dame Time against the James Harden-less Philadelphia 76ers. While the undercurrent from Harden’s absence was the main focus of my journey, I should note the vibes for Lillard’s Brewtown debut also were immaculate — with the crowd roaring during his introduction and Lillard delivering with 14 points in the final four minutes.
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Sadly, I wasn’t able to squeeze in a World Series game at American Family Field into the trip (dare to dream, Brew Crew), but Milwaukee is low-key one of the circuit’s more comfortable stops as long as you can snag a decent flight — a fun-sized Chicago with a walkable downtown minutes from the arena, multiple good breakfast spots, a reliable coffee scene and a 20-minute drive from the airport to Fiserv Forum. (It also helped that I lucked into a 70-degree day rather than freezing.)
As for the Bucks, the opening weekend did underscore the potential of a Lillard-Giannis Antetokounmpo pick-and-roll partnership (or Antetokounmpo-Lillard, for that matter; Dame as a screener could prove lethal). Even with Giannis adjusting to playing out of the short roll, Khris Middleton laboring through 16 minutes as he works his way back from knee surgery and a brief stint with a five-man bench unit that hopefully won’t be a recurring theme, the Bucks hung 118 points on 103 possessions against a pretty solid defensive team in the opener.
Depth and perimeter defense questions will hang over this team all season — Milwaukee is 28th in defensive efficiency after two games, and the supporting cast couldn’t overcome Lillard’s stinker in Sunday’s loss to Atlanta. Despite that, I’d consider Thursday’s debut proof of concept that the Bucks’ newfound half-court offensive potency provides Milwaukee more championship-contender equity than did last season’s incarnation.
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College basketball doesn’t tip off for another week, and overseas teams are still in the early stages of their seasons, so while we have a minute, I wanted to talk about a relatively low-key prospect I recently saw in person.
Last week, Overtime Elite played against the South Florida-based Explorers program in their home gym in Atlanta. With the opponent featuring the top player in the high school Class of 2025 (Cam Boozer) and at least two other high-profile prospects, it was a showcase for Reynan dos Santos — a 19-year-old Brazilian lefty — to show his place in the pecking order.
He was the best player on the court on this night, with a 15-point, 11-rebound, four-assist performance in his team’s somewhat surprising 75-71 win. Yes, he was at least a year older than most of the opponents he played against, and that factors in. On the other hand, I’ve seen little draft buzz for dos Santos yet (as opposed to Boozer, who is seen by most as the top pick in 2026), and he’s draft-eligible in 2024.
Dos Santos’ game right now is mostly built on attacking and energy; he loves to grab a board and push the ball full speed to attack the rim, and has a nonstop motor. (Example: He had seven offensive rebounds and 16 free-throw attempts in a single game at the FIBA U-19 World Cup. Reminder: He’s a guard.) Notably, dos Santos had one incredible Eurostep finish against Boozer when he came in from the left side and swooped into a reverse lefty finish from the right side of the rim.
19 year old Brazilian Prospect Reynan Dos Santos full of confidence vs the Boozer twins 🇧🇷💪pic.twitter.com/ajtb5LsKaL
— 🏀 (@basketwrld1) October 21, 2023
Dos Santos has a strong frame and is a plus athlete at this level with a great nose for rebounding, although he’d likely look more average on an NBA court; at this point, he’s also very left-handed and will need to improve his right hand. That fits in a larger theme of tightening up his skill package; his shot isn’t broken, but he needs to become a more reliable perimeter threat, and he needs to pick his spots to dial it back rather than going 100 mph every time.
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Still, given his age and resume, he looks like a draftable talent. Dos Santos played sparingly for Franca last season, but his output was solid. Also, his body of work from Brazilian age-group competition is respectable, including being Brazil’s go-to option with 16.6 points per game at the FIBA U-19 World Cup last summer. Additionally, because he played professionally for France in Brazil, I’m told he’d likely face some eligibility hurdles if he tried to go to the NCAA next year.
Overall, he’s going to be a strong name for teams to consider in the back half of the second round, especially if there are stash possibilities, and could still move up the board with a strong year and more skill demonstration at OTE.
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(Top photo of Jalen Duren: Rick Osentoski: USA Today)
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John Hollinger ’s two decades of NBA experience include seven seasons as the Memphis Grizzlies’ Vice President of Basketball Operations and media stints at ESPN.com and SI.com. A pioneer in basketball analytics, he invented several advanced metrics — most notably, the PER standard. He also authored four editions of “Pro Basketball Forecast.” In 2018 he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Follow John on Twitter @johnhollinger