6'9 forward with real athleticism, defensive ability, and some real production to back it up. But can his inside the arc scoring ability outweigh his lack of shooting? OFFENSIVE_EVALUATION: Caleb Wilson’s allure starts with his frame and athletic explosiveness he displayed at North Carolina. Highlight dunks in transition,In watching North Carolina games from this season, the best of Caleb Wilson is him and his opportunities in transition. Grab and go was the most fun watching Caleb to me, grab the ball off the rim and push the ball down the floor, and more times than not it ended in something good for the Tar Heels. Show off a bit of the ball handling ability he has, make some excellent passes, and absolute highlight dunks were common place in transition. In addition to the grab and go’s, Caleb was also able to nab some transition opportunities by forcing turnovers on the ball with his length, ability to read the floor, and in some instances pure effort. Some of the footwork and ability to maneuver around defenders when attacking the rim was impressive to see and in my opinion where a lot of the highlights that you would commonly see for Caleb come from. I think that his ability to operate in space an up tempo setting, which is a good chunk of regular season NBA play will translate for Caleb to the NBA level. In the halfcourt offensively one of the things that impressed me the most in Caleb’s game was his shot making as a mid-post player and his ability to hit mid-range jumpers out of post-ups. Rather that be him dribbling into a post-up or catching in the post and facing and rising and firing over defenders. High-post touches on BLOBs Going back through the Carolina games that Caleb played in some of the jumpers he hit were actually comical. Like some of those shots were really tough and he was able to bury them. Deeper in the post Caleb scored by chiseling his way through defenders with bumps and pivots, using his length to get an angle at the rim. Caleb also flashed some nice passing out of the post as well. With his ability to hit jumpers in the mid-range, defenses sent doubles at him on post-ups and he was able to survey the floor and make the right passes, now some of these passes could be telegraphed a bit, him showing the vision and willingness to is something to commend and could possibly improve as he continues to mature. Caleb also operated as a great play finisher and as a clean up guy around the basket creating second chance opportunities for his team. Rolls to the basket lead to dunks, slipping screens to dive to the rim for dunks were also a common occurrence, as well as high-low action between Veesaar and Wilson led to more points at the rim. I believe those aspects will initially be where Caleb Wilson would slot in an offense in the half-court. Up to this point offensively, we haven’t mentioned one of the most important parts of the game. A three-point shot, so yeah man…I’m not going to lie to you at this current moment it’s not really a factor in his production. On the season Wilson was 7/27 (25.9%), looking at some of the traditional shooting development indicators — FT shooting he’s at 71.3% this past season. In addition to that, some of the tough shot making displayed in the mid-post + some of the EYBL jumpers made there’s a chance there for it to improve. FG percent per distance 3-5ft (39.4% on 33 att.) 5-7ft (46.2% on 13 att.) 7-9ft (45.5% on 22 att.) 9-11ft (14.3% on 7 att.). To also be fair his shot frequency from 5-11ft peaked at 8.3% (22 att.). I have a bit less confidence in the shot creation department. While Caleb was able to score well at UNC, one of the reasons why Caleb took a lot of long, tough twos was due to a couple of things that are a bit of a pattern that I picked up on even watching a couple of pre-NCAA games. One is Caleb’s contact balance and two is lack of ball handling. Contact balance, Caleb has a tendency to not be able to absorb bumps really well when attacking. Most of the time when contacted while dribbling, the ball will be picked up. Early pick-ups put Caleb in awkward positions and taking some awkward looking shots. There were also instances of early pick-ups when he saw or was approaching a potential digging help defender. Some of this could be a product of how slight Wilson is, but it is a worrying trend in terms of creation. Now, I don’t entirely know if the contact balance was part of an equation and the other end of it is ball handling confidence/ability or lack of strength. Most of Caleb’s looks in the halfcourt were either assisted, looks via receiving passes or dribbling into post-ups. There weren’t a ton of self-created shots outside of catch rocker-step drives and those resulted in early pickups and pivots into shots or turnaround jumpers. While he made an impressive amount of those looks, living on a diet like that is really rough and theoretically will balloon more moving up to the highest level. DEFENSIVE_EVALUATION: Illustrating a full picture of his defensive level is a bit up and down. He has the stock numbers — 1.5 stls/game (87th percentile) 1.4 blks/game (88th percentile), Caleb is also a pretty solid as a defensive rebounder as well with a 22.2 DRB% (86th percentile). Caleb also flashed some solid action covering ground when the ball is swinging around and picking up on switches and guarding well. Moving away from those items, I do have some worries about the other aspects of defense, there were more than a few occasions of off-ball defense being lackluster. Situations where if he is targeted in an action he is a bit slow to read and react what’s happening and gave up open looks. In addition to that I also question his viability guarding smaller players on the perimeter especially with screens involved. I’m not quite sure if he has the bend necessary to effectively get over ball screens when guarding the ball. PROJECTION: Draft Range : 3-5 Best Fits: Chicago Bulls, Memphis Grizzlies, Los Angeles Clippers Predicted Draft Selection: Chicago Bulls