For the past two offseasons, we have been looking at players coming to the NBA after playing at least as season overseas. With the lockout, we are going to have plenty of time on our hands.  With that being said, I plan on doing scouting reports for each of the 30 first round picks from this past draft.

Past Editions: Kyrie Irving (#1) |Derrick Williams (#2) | Jan Vesely (#6) | Bismack Biyombo (#7)

Tristan Thompson is a athletically gifted 20 year old (and physical freak – 6’8″ with a 7’2″ wingspan) who didn’t have the most consistant freshman season that we have seen, but he did show tremendous flashes of potential this year. Still, it was a surprise that the Cleveland Cavaliers took Thompson with the fourth overall pick with Jonas Valanciunas still on the board.

Strengths

Off Ball Offense

Thompson is pretty raw offensively, which should make it no surprise that he had the most success offensively away from the basketball, and it is a skill that seems like it could translate well when he makes the jump to the NBA.  Offensive rebounding and putbacks consisted of 17.3% of Thompson’s offense at Texas.  On these putback attempts, Thompson is shooting 54.2%:

Watching Thompson work on the offensive glass, you really get to see the high work-rate that he has on the offensive end.  Thompson does a very good job of reading the ball off of the rim and putting himself in a position to use his athletic ability to grab that rebound.  Once he does get the rebound, he does a very good job of quickly going back up with it and not wasting a lot of motion or time by taking extra dribbles or bringing the basketball down.

16.7% of Thompson’s offense comes off of cuts, where he shoots 70.9%.  Once again, this is something that can definitely translate to the NBA right away:

Thompson’s cuts came in two varieties over at Texas.  First, off of dribble penetration where he does a very good job of making himself available reading the defense, reading how his man helps, and putting himself in a position to where it makes it easy on the passer, allowing him to make the catch and quickly go up for the finish.

The second type of cuts is where Thompson had success is off of lob plays and it shows off his athletic ability.  If a defender plays off of him or takes their eyes off of him, giving him the space around the rim where he can go catch a lob, meaning that you can’t really help off of Thompson even though he doesn’t really scare you with the basketball (more on this later).

Post Defense

Unlike most high potential athletic type of players Thompson has pretty good body already.  He’s going to get stronger in the upper body (as most 20 year olds) but he already has a very good lower body and that allows him to play very good post defense.  At Texas, Thompson was able keep his man from getting good position and then prevent them from backing him down once they did make the catch, holding opponents to 0.704 points per possession on 35.7% shooting:

Another key is that Thompson simply didn’t foul in post up situations, sending his opponent to the line just 7.4% of the time.  Thompson does a good job of going straight up and not really swinging his arms or flailing at block attempts.  Thompson goes straight up, if he gets the block great, but he seems content contesting the shot and forcing the miss, which isn’t a bad thing.

Weaknesses

Post Offense

Where you really see Thompson’s youth is on the offensive end, when Thompson tries to do work with the basketball, especially on the block.  Working on the block, Thompson posted a PPP of just 0.749 (which put him in the bottom half of all college players) on 42.5% shooting.  Thompson shows a lack of sophistication and a lack of go to post moves, which usually results in Thompson settling for shots as he falls away from the basket:

Again, you see Thompson’s lower body strength as he usually establishes good position, but the problem is after he makes the catch.  If Thompson can’t make the catch and go up with it right away, he usually isn’t going to get a decent look at the rim.  In addition to his lack of variety on the block, when defenses send a double team at Thompson he tends to get flustered, leading to turnovers (Thompson turned the ball over 14.8% of the time he posted up on the offensive end).

Defensive Rebounding

Another area where Thompson shows his youth is on the defensive glass, where he averages just 5.1 defensive rebounds per 40 minutes (while adjusted for pace). This is interesting considering the fact he is so strong on the offensive glass.  However, the numbers and the tape do support this:

In most cases, poor defensive rebounders in college are guys who don’t box out or stand around and watch the basketball (like Derrick Williams).  Thompson on the other hand is usually in position, boxing out or at least attempting to.  Thompson’s problem is that he doesn’t hold his box out and he often ends up jumping for the basketball instead of letting it come to him.  When this happens, Thompson mistimes his jump at times causing the ball to go over his head and directly to the player that he was boxing out.  If Thompson holds his boxout instead, there isn’t much of a chance that the ball goes over his head, instead it would come to him, allowing him to secure the defensive rebound.  This shouldn’t be a problem for a player like Thompson, especially considering that he can read the ball off the rim well and he already has a strong lower body.

—

With the trade of J.J. Hickson to Sacramento, it is fairly obvious that the Cavs are going to let Tristan Thompson learn on the job during the rookie season as they basically handed him the backup power forward job and didn’t force him to compete with Hickson for it.  Bringing Thompson off of the bench is definitely the right move in my opinion as it allows him to use his high energy offense and post defense in stretches while limiting the amount of time opponents can expose Thompson’s poor on-ball offense and poor defensive rebounding.

Thompson should have a solid rookie season, but until he learns to be more comfortable with the basketball, he isn’t going to reach his potential.