NBA Draft Prospect Review: Jarace Walker

Houston’s historic defensive stud will enter the NBA Draft as a proven workhorse, enamoring teams with his offensive improvement.

Anh Le/The Cougar

Before their epic loss to Temple at the same time that the Bengals were advancing to the AFC Championship, #1 ranked Houston University was the giant in the NCAA. This abnormal loss that exposed the holes in Houston’s offense made me take a closer look at what went on when the Cougars played basketball, and even with their disappointing exit in this year’s NCAA Tournament, one player stuck out to me while watching this game: Jarace Walker, a 6’8 forward with a 7’2 wingspan that was possibly the best defender in the NCAA.

Defensively, Walker has incredibly quick hands, even when he arrives at the ball late. He can close out cleanly, able to change directions at lightning speed considering his built frame. He avoids fouling jump shooters by keeping his hands high rather than jumping out of control and finding himself in the landing space of the shooter. This also helps with resisting to fall for pump fakes. 

He doesn’t have great blocking ability, but he can cover a lot of ground very fast, which is why NBA teams are so high on him as a weak side defender. Imagine he’s guarding Jeremi Grant of the Portland Trail Blazers as Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic are running a two-man pick and roll action. The two defenders in the pick and roll will both come up to avoid giving Dame any space, and here is where the luxury of having Jarace Walker falls into place: he can get to the wide open Nurkic quickly if Dame passes it inside, but he is also capable of closing out to Grant in the corner if Dame kicks it out.

Off-ball defense is extremely undervalued by NBA fans and media because it isn’t pretty, but NBA teams should absolutely love having this type of defender on their roster.

Walker’s offense is a topic of discussion among the media, and most see him as a raw offensive player with a ton of room to grow, but they tend to be very high on his development. Here is what I noticed.

He likes to hang out in the dunker's spot, which is not going to fly in the NBA. His lane awareness isn't good either; he hangs out in the paint even when teammates are driving successfully. In the NBA, you have to be able to spread the floor to give the driver room to get to the rim. He is quick to pick up his dribble, and he doesn’t have good on-ball driving IQ. He has a package of very awkward dribble moves, although at least he is willing to put the ball on the deck unlike defensive specialists he’s being compared to (namely Onyeka Okongwu and Precious Achiuwa). If he has time and space, he can be a willing passer who hits cutters well in stride. He struggles passing out of double teams, but that will only become a problem if he morphs into an NBA offensive star. He doesn't have the tightest post shots, and he doesn't shoot confidently in traffic or have good touch on close jumpers. He does have a very nice mid-range game that many think can expand to the 3-point line in the NBA.

I see his floor being Onyeka Okongwu, which is a pretty high floor. An NBA team can look at it this way: at the very least, you have a defensive specialist that struggles to spread the floor on offense but helps make up for the team’s superstar's defensive holes (in the case of Okongwu, this player is Trae Young).

Walker’s ceiling, to me, is Paul Millsap. Millsap is Okongwu that learned to spread the floor by his peak. He never averaged more than 18 points per game, but he did play a lot of games at around 33 minutes per game, played great defense, occasionally incorporated a post move or two on offense, but mostly stayed out of the way, set solid screens, and had a nice mid-range jumper. By his peak, we can see increases in his 3-point attempts and accuracy as he began to adjust to the ultra-spread-out NBA offense. Although I don't think Walker has star potential, having someone like Paul Millsap on a really good team is more valuable than some of these guys that have higher offensive ceilings but are not as complete. Jarace Walker should be drafted between sixth and twelfth.