A lot was expected of Duke and Jayson Tatum coming into the 2016-17 college basketball season. But for both sides of that equation, things started slowly. Tatum sprained his foot and had his preseason and non-conference season cut short, and the Blue Devils struggled out of the gate as they searched for answers inside and at point guard. Then once Tatum got on the floor, he seemed to struggle with the speed of the game early on in his tenure.

But over the final 12 games of the season, Tatum’s abilities came into focus. He averaged nearly 19 points, eight rebounds and two assists per game on a 63.1 true shooting percentage, as Duke made a run toward the ACC Tournament title prior to being eliminated by South Carolina. That strong final run put Tatum’s final season averages at 16.8 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists, which made him only the third high-major freshman over the last quarter century to put up such numbers. The previous two? Carmelo Anthony and Ben Simmons, which seems like pretty solid company.

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What else is there to know about Tatum? Here’s a quick breakdown.

Strengths

The 6-8 wing with a 6-11 wingspan has solid size for the 3 position in the modern NBA, plus he displayed a nose for the ball and defensive rebounding skills to slide down to the 4 in smaller lineups. His frame possesses wide shoulders and a skinny torso that should allow him to fill out well in terms of adding strength as he ages.

His calling card is he is the most polished scoring forward to enter the NBA in a long time from college. Despite only average explosiveness, Tatum creates space better than most due to his terrific footwork and long legs that allow him to get to his spots. What he lacks in explosion, he makes up for with fluidity and coordination. That makes him a monster in isolation.

He’s a matchup nightmare in a league that is placing a premium on players who create shots off defensive switches. If you’re too small, he can take you into the post and score with a bevy of sophisticated post moves. Among the 643 players with at least 25 post-up possessions last season, Tatum was fifth in the country in efficiency. If you’re too big, Tatum is excellent at getting players off balance with a variety of jab steps, shoulder shakes, in-and-out dribbles and step-backs. His shooting ability is also solid if unspectacular.

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Tatum was right around the 50th percentile in college hoops this season both off the catch and off the dribble, and he shot 38 percent from 3 in conference play for Duke — which is important to note as it had given him time to recover from the aforementioned foot injury. The same goes for his finishing ability, where finished in the top-third of all players in half-court settings in efficiency at the rim, but struggled at times against bigger players.

The rest of his floor game is also intriguing. As mentioned above, he’s a solid rebounder for his size on the defensive end. His passing ability is also somewhat underrated. Early in the year, he made poor decisions as he was figuring out the college game, but as things slowed down for him, he showcased the ability to hit players on kick-outs off slashes. Defensively, Tatum makes plays with weak-side blocks and gets into passing lanes well for his size. He has also shown the ability to switch on defense and be put onto islands against quicker players.

Weaknesses

The questions about Tatum are whether all of these skills are quite good enough. Tatum is a tough shot-maker, but can he be consistently efficient enough as a shooter to make those shots worthwhile? If you don’t buy into the foot injury slowing him down early in the year, he did only shoot 34 percent from 3-point range over the entire season.

Tatum also displayed some struggles against bigger players finishing at the rim. He’s a longer strider and long jumper more than an above-the-rim finisher, which sometimes leads to him not being able to score inside. It’s fixable in that he needs to learn to take off from closer to the basket, but it’s a concern nonetheless.

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Tatum was turnover-prone at Duke, and his decision-making needs to improve, both in terms of shot selection and passing. He didn’t get a ton of opportunity to create out of the pick-and-roll, which is a skill he’ll need on the perimeter at the next level.

Defensively, Tatum could get beaten off the dribble. He’d get off balance closing out on shooters, in large part due to being caught straight up and down instead of being consistently in a defensive stance. If he is to play the 4 more, it would behoove him to put on lower body strength, as bigger players moved him around consistently when trying to establish position.

Overall Thoughts/Best Fits

Tatum is an extremely polished scorer, and he has a high floor because shot creation is at such a premium from the wing in today’s NBA. But just how high that ceiling is remains up for debate. There are clearly a few skills that Tatum needs to work on in order to reach his potential, and it starts with becoming a consistently excellent shooter.

The good thing about picking Tatum, though? His reputation among NBA executives in terms of work ethic is sterling. While some worry about the fact that he can occasionally avoid contact, he’s always going to work as hard as he can to get into the best possible shape and cultivate the best possible skills for his game.

Those intangibles make me believe that he is likely to get the most out of what is a considerable high-end set of physical gifts. It’s why I — along with many in NBA front offices — am higher on Tatum than most in the public sphere entering draft night. I have him currently at No. 2 on my board.

He’d be a tremendous fit in Los Angeles next to Swiss Army knife forward Brandon Ingram, terrific in Boston’s screen-heavy offense, great next to Dragan Bender’s skill and Marquese Chriss’ energy in Phoenix and a perfect replacement for Rudy Gay in Sacramento. Every team can use a wing in today’s league, and Tatum will be off the board quickly.

All situational statistics mentioned above come from Synergy Sports Technology, and all player statistics come from sports-reference.com.