1) Luguentz Dort. At first I was unsure. This was a bias merely because of the name. Luguentz Dort. An appellation that sounds on face like it should belong to an Austrian ski instructor, or a tragic-comic actor who stands off to the side of a heavily make-upped Donald Southerland in a Ferderico Fellini movie. Or maybe just the guy who commands the smoke machine.

Basically, it’s an awesome name, but not one which at first brought to mind the phrase “guaranteed NBA player”.

2) And make no mistake. That’s what Dort is. It’s weird for a guy rated so low out of high school, and yet possesses the rarest and potentially most important of qualities — first step athleticism — especially packaged in a 6-foot-4 or 6-foot-5 body with a 6-foot-8.5 wingspan and legit strength. List the number of current NBA players, 6-foot-4 or 6-foot-5, who can win off the dribble for layups without much offensive help.

James Harden. John Wall, Victor Oladipo, Jrue Holiday and Elfrid Payton. Maybe you want to add Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, Eric Gordon and Gary Harris. I’d make some arguments against the latter four, not as basketball players here, but as to the point at hand. But given that I don’t want to get bogged down in the minute, let’s add them. That’s pretty much the entire list. It’s a small one. Every player on that list is a real deal offensive guy. Even Elfrid Payton, the last year-and-a-half.*

What only a couple of them have is real deal NBA defensive ability, though more than a few were good there in college. Defense is an area where Dort, though inconsistent, does display some reason for optimism.

3) Dort is going to be on this list, instantly upon making the league. There are a couple of other college guys who might join him (Ty-shon Alexander and Jalen Pickett, for starters, neither of whom I’ve yet seen), but Dort is the best bet because of his fearlessness, his willingness to draw contact, his strength and his first step and lateral agility, both of which appear to be much better than his pure speed.

4) It’s like if you compared Antonio Brown (Dwyane Wade in this analogy) to Antwaan Randel El (Dort), both of whom were able to win at the line of scrimmage and make guys miss in the open field due to short burst quickness and ability, but only the first of which became an all-time great due to also possessing other athletic qualities, not least of them which is range speed, which Randel El simply did not possess.

The opposite of this would be comparing a guy like Santana Moss to Antonio Brown. Both have range speed and short area quickness, but Moss as a receiver lacked the technical acumen of Brown and Randel El. Consequently Brown became much better, despite the fact that Moss was indeed quite good.

Moss and Randel El can both be seen in some way as poor man’s versions of Antonio Brown, the archetype of perfection for a small receiver in players who possess some but not all of the qualities that made him great.

5) There have been a number of poor man’s versions of Wade to come into the league since his arrival. Not a plethora, since there just aren’t that many 6-foot-3 to 6-foot-5 guys who really can be compared in any way to Wade. But enough that we can make a list. Victor Oladipo, Donovan Mitchell, Dion Waiters, Tony Allen (if we consider defense) and Russell Westbrook, with guys like Marcus Smart and Eric Gordon being just off to the side.

Dort is perhaps the next among them. One of the few college players that makes plays that occasionally draw to mind the slithery long step style of college Wade’s drives, as here when he splits two defenders.

Or the preternatural right place right timeness on offense, as on this follow slam, which seemed basically destined to happen after the initial outlet pass.

6) Of course, that’s not to say he’s the only 6-foot-4 or 6-foot-5 guy I like. I really like Grant Williams, who should be spoken about in terms of the draft and more highly than he is. I also like my pre-season Youtube guy, Talen Horton-Tucker and Williams teammate, Admiral Schofield, and am intrigued by the athleticism of both Mattisse Thybulle and Ayo Dosunmu, as well as Alexander and Pickett, whom I mentioned above. But Dort is the one who probably has the best chance of being a go-get-em type offensive player. One hint about this, and one quality that makes Dort truly exceptional at a young age, is his ability to draw free throws.

Dort draws roughly 9 free throw attempts a game and 10 per 40 minutes. That means that right now Dort is on pace for 290-300 free throw attempts this season. The only two freshman to have so many are Ben Simmons and Julius Randle. And you don’t get to a guard sized player until the 270s with Eric Gordon and Trae Young.

How about I just list the freshman with more than 250 such attempts in a season? Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons, Allen Iverson, Demarcus Cousins, Kevin Love, Larry Hughes, Eric Gordon, Trae Young, Julius Randle, Collin Sexton, Michael Beasley, Jared Sullinger, Tristan Thompson, Tyler Hansborough, and three mid majors in Dikembe Dixson, Sirvaliant Brown and Martez Harrison.

Sophomores include James Harden, Blake Griffin, Iverson, Marcus Smart, Rodney Stuckey, Jerry Stackhouse and Elton Brand with Dwyane Wade missing by one. This is good company.

7) To reiterate, some players to average over 8.4 free throw attempts per 40 in a season with at least 2 stocks and 2 assists per 40: James Harden, Dwyane Wade, Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, Allen Iverson, Damian Lillard, Jimmy Butler, CJ McCollum, Jerry Stackhouse, Larry Hughes and Bonzi Wells, with pretty much the only complete flameout being Tony Wroten.

8) Why is this initiator body/athleticism so important?

Because ancillary dependent players don’t usually survive core rebuilds and when a team does commit massive money to them before their core is in place, rather than trading them at their apex in league value, they more often than not end up like the Washington Wizards and Otto Porter Jr., since these players add wins, which preclude picking up talent in the draft without immense luck, and have salaries that preclude adding talent through free agency, due to the presence of the salary cap.

There’s a potential exception here given to bigs, but not necessarily even to secondary initiators/defensive studs. Think about where Philadelphia and Denver maxed out playoff-wise with Andre Iguodala, who I believe is a hall-of-famer, in that exact role.

Teams almost always need to find their creators on offense before they find their players who will fill other roles. And the type of piece-meal team building that got the Pistons their championship in the early oughts is so rare that this team stands out amongst all the other champions on the last thirty five years as the only team to be put together in such a way. And people are perpetually wondering if it can happen again. Though funnily enough, we do have the best contender for this crown we’ve seen in probably fifteen years in this year’s version of the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors still had to trade a drafted star to find its champion caliber player in Kawhi Leonard, and got helped out tremendously, since Coach Popovich was fed up with Danny Green, despite Danny Green being generally very good, and just threw him into an already shoddy deal for nothing.

9) What else does Dort do well besides get to the basket and get free throws? He’s fairly good, but inconsistent, on defense for a freshmen. I saw one play where he got Tony Allen skinny on a lock-and-trail screen and a fair number where he got clipped. Some good switch recognition. Others where he lost his man. Typical freshman stuff, but a very good body to project for defense at 6-foot-4 with a 6-foot-8.5 wingspan, strength and vertical athleticism.

He’s also excellent at creating steals with 2.4 per 40.

He’s good at finding shots with absolutely ideal shot distribution: 23 true shooting attempts per 40, with only 6 percent of his shots don’t come from at rim or from 3. Almost 60 percent of his shots at rim as high volume guy less than 6-foot-9 is insane (table thanks to hoop-math.com).

10) Where does Dort struggle? Funny enough, with touch around the rim and with decision-making, which may actually be the same problem. This combination shows up negatively in two different stats (less than 50 percent at the rim and 5.4 turnovers per 40).

It’s a scary number at the rim, because it reminds us of draft disappointments like Stanley Johnson and Wade Baldwin who were both at or below 50 percent within 3 feet despite solid bodies and good enough athleticism, where the converses may be guys like Andre Iguodala as a freshman or Chris Paul in his sophomore season, who both struggled (I believe) to convert non dunks.

For Dort, the problem here may be more that his decision-making needs to improve.

Here Dort is attempting to score on essentially the whole Utah State team, drawing three defenders to the basket, and involving four in the play. That’s not exactly the best decision, but how many players dribble drives draw this kind of attention? That’s the power of a first step.

You can see Dort clearly has options to pass to. Three of them on this play. Two shooters and a center on a delayed dive. He takes none of them and its results in a bad miss. And we see this play on more than one occasion.

Again we see three open men, two of which are not difficult passes to make on the strong side of the play, both of which end up in wide open jumpers..

And here, again in the same half, a wide open weakside shooter is missed.

Here’s the passing lane.

And another.

Luguentz Dort missed four 2-pt shots in this game. They are all laid out here. Every single one of them was the result not of poor touch, but of bad decision-making. I would be willing to bet, though I don’t know for sure, that we see a similar pattern in other Dort games.

It’s not necessarily a bad problem to have as a prospect, since a change here — making the available pass instead of taking the impossible shot — leads to a potential three point swing in possible value on the possession. It also puts the defense in a better chance to succeed on the next possession, since bad misses at the rim are very often opponent transition opportunities, the driver having taken himself out of the ensuing play.

11) There’s no guarantee Dort learns to make this play, but it’s the type of play in which one change ends up making the player exponentially better, since you not only take a bad miss out of the player’s shot profile, but also add a wide open high value creation opportunity given to one of his teammates. That’s a huge swing in expected value on plays like this and a major reason why athletic players with ball skills (ala Durant or Oladipo) can make vast improvements via passing that just aren’t available to other players, even those who are more naturally talented passers.

These are not complicated passes, and just because Dort doesn’t see them now doesn’t mean he won’t see them in the future. One would hope that Bobby Hurley, who made a living making simple passes like these, would be able to communicate it to him by the end of the season.Or that self interest would do so, since that one play and the failure to make it may be the difference between being the 2nd or 3rd best player in the draft versus as a lower tier lottery guy.

12) We’re talking both millions of dollars and team wins, and making a sight adjustment on a single play type potentially being responsible for both, since Dort’s dribble drive distorts the court in ways only Zion can. The whole opposing team follows him to the rim. That’s a different type of gravity. Very few players, if any, in any given year exert it. It’s worth repeating that point.

13) The eight best Dort comparables are probably something like Jerry Stackhouse, Larry Hughes, Rodney Stuckey, Baron Davis, Victor Oladipo, Donovan Mitchell, James Harden (just in terms of shot profile and ability to draw free throws) and Dion Waiters. Maybe 6-foot-4 Nate Robinson would be a good one.

None are perfect. Hughes, Stackhouse or Stuckey is what happens if the jump shot and decision-making don’t develop, though Dort might end up providing more defensive value than either. The real point is that there are a wide range of potential outcomes for this type of player. It’s not so simple as to say “he doesn’t make good decisions now, he will never make good decisions in the future.”

14) Perhaps the other key point of emphasis should be Dort’s jump shot. Like a smaller Jimmy Butler, it’s possible he gets to the rim enough that he could be a really good offensive player with only an average jumper. But where players of this type have failed before is often largely because of a lack of proficiency jump shooting and there Dort is still a question. He can get the shots you want him to take. One just can’t be certain yet if Dort is the player you want taking them.

When the shots go in, they look like this.

But Dort is only 13-for-39 from 3, which is an alright number for how many he takes off the dribble, except that he’s shooting less than 65 percent from the free throw line and having already taken 62 free throws, I doubt his percentage from the stripe will improve that much this year. Of course, free throw percentage is one of the most likely statistics to improve as a player progresses in college, but it’s difficult to have confidence in a player as a jump shooter when their free throw percentage is so low.

All in all, Dort’s prospect profile makes him one of the more difficult players to project. Likelihood of NBA career high. Likelihood of top impact NBA career somewhat less so. But it’s also one of the potential outcomes for Dort, due to athleticism, strength, frame and driving tenacity, and it won’t be for most other players.

*If you want to add 6-foot-3 guys like Russell Westbrook or Donovan Mitchell, or players of the past like Dwyane Wade, Jason Kidd and Gary Payton, you still end up coming to a similar conclusion: the guys with legit first steps at this height and ability to win off the dribble (for some reason there seem to be fewer at 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-5 than below or above that range) are mostly positive offensive players and almost all, regardless of even that fact, definitely almost all guys capable of putting up a real career.