Zach Edey: Analyzing How the Traditional Big’s Game Can Potentially Scale to the Modern NBA

Chris Keesee shares his thoughts on why he believes Edey can be a serviceable big in today's NBA

If you were new to the NBA talent evaluation scene and weren't familiar with the different nuances pertaining to projecting college or international players to the NBA, you would be confused as to why Zach Edey isn't a projected lottery pick. The 7'4" 285lb big man out of Purdue wrapped up one of the most dominant collegiate seasons from a big in recent years, winning the Big Ten Player of the Year, a consensus First-Team All-American selection, and the National AP Player of the Year. Edey was clearly the most efficient high-volume scorer in the nation this year. Still, there's a significant issue pertaining to his game that's preventing talent evaluators from believing in his potential as an NBA player: He's a traditional post-up big.

In a pace-and-space league, in which post-up scoring only accounted for a median of 4.1% of total NBA possessions in the regular season (Synergy), it would seem like Edey's skillset would have zero place in this era of NBA Basketball; however, is that truly the case? Despite 66% of Edey's possessions deriving from post-up possessions, I believe Zach Edey has enough translatable traits to make a profound impact at the NBA level, despite the league deviating away from traditional post-up bigs.