(Nick Krug – KUSports)

Jordan Bell Was the Next Malcolm Brogdon. Who Is the Next Jordan Bell?

Jordan Bell doesn’t yet play a lot—only 90 minutes through ten games—but he has been excellent during those 90 minutes. A 6.1 Box Plus-Minus built on a game comprised of scoring efficiency (72% true shooting), passing (3.6 assists per 36 as a center who is not a focal point of the offense), and rebounding. As well as, his offensive strengths (9.2 rebounds per 36, a 10.7% ORB%) and other defensive contributions including but not limited to creating events (2 steals and 2.4 blocks per 36).

Of course, you might point out, his minutes right now are being gerrymandered to give them the greatest possible impact. However, this may be a strength rather than a drawback as long as the team’s coach realizes which situations the player is likely to be most useful*. It’s not that it wouldn’t be more ideal to find a player who played equally against all types of competition. It would be. But it’s rare to find such low-minute, plus-minus dynamos. The kind of players who, when the right matchups present themselves, can help the team create almost insurmountable gaps and in very short amounts of time. So far, this is the type of player Jordan Bell has been, even if we’re likely not going to see much of him against huge centers, as he sometimes struggled with even their less talented brethren in college.

On the one hand, these kind of players are difficult. They require astute coaching staffs to realize who they are, and to properly select their rotations. On the other hand, it’s fairly rare to find a player—any player—who can have a star-type impact at the NBA level, should the right environment present itself. The players in the NBA are amazing. For most, the right environment will never present itself. For a player like Jordan Bell, it may present itself eight minutes in one game, 15 in another, some games even 25 or as much as 30. This creates difficulty. The coach has to be creative in the player’s use, and yet, I’d argue, it’s much more valuable to have a player who plays like a star for an average of around 15-20 minutes a game (which is where Bell likely should ultimately end up) than to have a player play averagely for 30 or 35.

Of course, it would be impossible for a team to build an entire roster like this. The good thing is that a team will never have to try. These types of players don’t grow on trees. There just aren’t a lot of them out there. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be looking for the next one. It just so happens that college basketball has a few players that perhaps fit this profile. The best candidates: Robert Williams, Ethan Happ, Killian Tillie, Tahjai Teague, Gary Clark, Shakur Juiston, Brandon Clarke (sitting out), and Chris Lewis. Maybe one or two of them, if we’re lucky, is even a full-time guy.

Looking at the numbers superficially, it may be Brandon Clarke and Chris Lewis. Clarke will redshirt one year before resuming at Gonzaga. While Lewis, a rising sophomore at Harvard, has better measurements than Bell, standing 6-foot-9 with a 7-foot-1 wingspan and NBA-type athleticism.

Expect a big year from him, even though he plays some real competition, like the kids from Kentucky or Minnesota, and Reggie Lynch.

The reason why I highlighted the other players is for different reasons. Two of them, Killian Tillie and Tahjai Teague, do something that Jordan Bell does not: they shot threes successfully (or at least they did as freshmen). Killian Tillie also had an incredible net rating, partially propped up by Gonzaga’s poor conference schedule. Though there are reasons to believe he might be a better defender and defensive prospect than stock and rebound numbers suggest. Namely, that is he really lithe, and for a big guy, very heady and very fast.

The others—Juiston, Happ, and Clark—I highlighted because they do something on the court that was one of Bell’s hallmarks, only they do it quite a bit better than Bell. They pass the basketball. Juiston also happened to be, at least at the junior college level, an amazing rebounder. And Happ has already proved his rebounding prowess in major conference basketball. They are also both similar dimensions to Bell, and Happ, like Bell, definitely struggles with size. Not as good an athlete as Bell, but perhaps for that reason, Happ is an equally good bet to perhaps excel in minutes gerrymandered to his strengths. That is, when huge men like Joel Embiid or Marc Gasol are not in the game.

Gary Clark is a happy medium. He’s probably stronger than Happ, and like Happ, is an excellent college defensive player. He’s also shown some willingness to shoot from outside, though with a very deliberate stroke and mixed results. Add athleticism that will definitely allow him to guard NBA wings on switches, and maybe even full-time should he need to do so, he’s an interesting package and a guy who should be getting more publicity just in case the stroke does improve. (Three years ago, I was an advocate of a Roberson-like position switch for Clark, but the NBA getting smaller may allow him indeed to play power forward and center.)

Will these guys end up with a similar trajectory to Jordan Bell? It’s hard to tell. Jordan Bell may be the best college player among them, comparing favorably at that point to a guy like Shawn Marion. That’s a high bar. Nevertheless, were I looking for situational small ball bigs, knowing some of them may even be more than that, this is the group I’d start with, and one of the returning player groups on which I’ll be most focused.

*We shouldn’t make fun of the Bulls for selling the rights to Jordan Bell for cash. (Sounds kind of wrong.) Rather, we should perhaps be thankful as Jordan Bell would be. It is quite likely that Jordan Bell’s impact would be much less significant on the Bulls for a variety of reasons. But not least of all is this, I have very little faith that the coaching would have realized there are situations when a player like Bell probably should not be playing, since with weaknesses exposed, he’s perhaps as likely to hurt the team as help. And at the very least, likely to be quite a bit less impactful.

**There are many other players, like Bonzie Colson, Kenrich Williams, or perhaps even a guy like Zach Brown (should his jumper materialize), I could’ve included if just searching for seniors who could maybe make an immediate impact when they enter the NBA. But I decided to approach the question with more apples-to-apples comparisons, despite the potentially misleading bait-and-switch title.