How Zach Edey helped his NBA stock this past season at Purdue

CHICAGO — Last year around this time, Zach Edey could have kept his name in the NBA Draft and let the chips fall where they may have. He probably would have been selected; after that, who knows?

His Player-of-the-Year junior season was a tough act to follow. But even though it was never his driving focus to improve his professional stock this season, that he did was certainly nice value added as the Boilermaker center repeated as Player-of-the-Year and cemented legend status in West Lafayette by leading Purdue to the Final Four.

Now, as Edey preps for next month’s draft at the NBA Combine here in Chicago, he does so in much more certain standing than he had 12 months ago. He will be drafted. He’s likely to go in the first round, which would come with the sort of assurances — both contractual and practical (in that teams are more likely to use such picks on players they expect to contribute right away) — he was looking for last year.

It is regarded as a thin draft, boosting the standing of all its entrants.

But there’s also no question that Edey, 22 years old but having not even played basketball half that time, gave the NBA reason this season to view him differently, to assess him as much more than a player of unparalleled dimensions. In Chicago, Edey has measured 7-foot-3-and-change, 306 pounds.

“He’s an NBA player,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “If he gets to a team where he gets an opportunity to be in a rotation, he’s going to be in somebody’s rotation next year.

“He just brings too many things to the table, and he’s very unique.”

Here’s how Edey may have changed opinions this season.

PLAYING AWAY FROM THE BASKET ON OFFENSE

The big change for Edey this season came organically via Purdue’s shift in offensive approach.

Playing Edey away from the basket more this season never meant shooting jump shots, though he’s likely showing people right now his crisp three-point shooting form. It meant playing in high ball screens and orchestrating offense from the elbow. He was outstanding in both this season, as he and point guard Braden Smith‘s distinct synergy in pick-and-roll unlocked something in Edey that is basically a must for NBA big men.

Edey was the most effective screener in college basketball — there are no stats to back that assertion up, but he was — and uncommonly nimble slipping to the basket, trucking the lane or rolling into post-ups, then catching and finishing.

It is a pick-and-roll league and any role-playing big man at that level’s offensive value is most likely to lie here, and on the glass.

As for the shooting, it was never in Purdue’s best interests for him to trade70-percent shots and bulk fouls drawn for lower-percentage (but extremely fun) shots.

Now …

IMPROVED DEFENSE VS. GUARDS

The NBA has become such a pick-and-roll league that it’s largely the reason players like Edey have faced extinction, because they’re most likely to get played off the floor by high-end guards in ball screens. Size tends to bring with it immobility that can be exploited. It happens to all great big men. Nikola Jokic is the MVP, but probably one of the most targeted players in the league by switch-hunting playmaking guards. Joel Embiid, another MVP, nears the top of that list, too. Rudy Gobert is one of the best rim-protectors of the past decade, but he’s been ushered straight to the bench in important games by the wrong matchup.

“His ball-screen defense and ability to switch are under-appreciated,” Painter said of Edey. “Do I think he’s elite at it in the NBA? No, I do not, but I think he’s above average, he’s good.

“It’ll surprise a lot of people how well he moves, how he can run and how he can move laterally. He’s a better rim-protector than his numbers show, because we really just had him wall up a lot to try to keep him out of foul trouble. You’d see that in the second halves he’d be more aggressive.”

The practical reality, too, is that in a presumed reserve role in the NBA, foul trouble won’t matter for Edey the way it did at Purdue. There’s no comparison to be made there.

“Can he get picked on?” Painter said. “Yeah, the whole league can get picked on.”

Purdue did ask much of Edey in its defensive scheme, not just in its NBA-style drop coverage vs. ball-screen offense, but in its switching rules. Generally, once a guard turned a corner and got downhill, Edey switched onto him, sometimes getting locked in to that matchup for the remainder of a possession if they cleared out.

Did it get exploited here and there? Sure.

Did it ever really matter all that much? It did not.

Purdue had to be pleased with how well Edey handled that big, big ask.

DYNAMIC REBOUNDING

This isn’t a senior-season development as much as it was a career-long asset for Edey, a 7-foot-4, 300-pounder who’s always rebounded outside his area like a 6-10, 240-pounder or some such thing.

The game moves faster in the NBA and Edey won’t have the same reach advantages at the next level, but rebounding normally translates, and Edey has been an elite college rebounder, probably the best in the sport when you take into account who he’s done it against.

For his career, Edey averaged a staggering 15.4 rebounds per 40 minutes.

PASSING

It might be tricky for pro evaluators to boil down tape of Edey doing everything for Purdue and pulling out the handful of things that might be asked of him in an early-career role. There’s plenty of value — and money — in just rebounding, defending and dunking in a league where the many are there to complement the stars. After two years of being the guy everyone else on the floor was there to make better, Edey now becomes that player for whichever team he lands with.

At Purdue, Edey was not just the star; he was the solar system. That’s overstatement, but the reality is that Edey is not going to have offense run through him in the NBA the way it was at Purdue, so whether his passing is anything more than just gravy, who knows.

But this season did afford Edey another three-plus-dozen games to hone his decision-making against defenses crafted specifically for him. He played more in the high post, did more post-to-post passing and played in NBA-style high-low actions. There aren’t a lot of metrics to speak of to illustrate the results, but his passing and reads were no small part of Purdue being one of the top offenses in college basketball all season, and one of the most complete.

“He’s an NBA passer,” Painter said. “He’s an NBA rebounder. A lot of the time scouts will come through and ask what you do well in an NBA sense. He can post up and score in the NBA. And he can pass the basketball. You can throw the ball to him and he can make reads and make decisions.”

WINNING QUALITIES

Not an insignificant part of this is the fact that Edey entered this season as the face of a team that lost to a 16 seed the year before. That certainly wasn’t his fault, but it did put a burden on him to be the change agent once he elected to play a senior year at Purdue.

Think of the heavy-lies-the-crown factor the reigning player-of-the-year played through this season, all the pressure that could have really affected other players. He set the standard really high for himself during his epic junior season, and managed to top it as a senior, despite triggering opposing fans at every turn and taking more social media abuse than probably any great college basketball player who came before him. All the while, he channeled anger productively while assuming blame when applicable and deflecting credit.

If the NBA cares about mettle and teamsmanship, there’s nothing more Edey could have done to check that box. How much that matters to draft stock, probably not as much as a lot of other factors. But it can’t hurt.

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