The New Orleans Pelicans have four picks in the second round of the upcoming NBA Draft and could try to use one or more of them to take a high-ceiling but raw prospect.
The second round is the place to take chances, as most of the players don’t make it anyway, so you might as well go for guys with potential that might need development in the G-League or overseas.
This year’s NBA Draft has a number of these players and the Pelicans might actually be able to find some talent with their four picks.
One guy who is a complete mystery is Makur Maker, who is the cousin of NBA player Thon Maker, who was also considered a high ceiling mystery in the NBA Draft.
New Orleans Pelicans NBA Draft: What to make of Makur Maker
I can’t remember a prospect who was harder to gauge than Makur Maker, who was once considered a five-star prospect and one of the best high school centers in the country.
He was recruited by all of the NCAA heavyweights but chose to go to HBCU Howard, which I thought was a pretty cool move, as he was trying to show that not every top player has to go to Kentucky or Duke.
It didn’t really work out for him, as he got injured after only playing two games for Howard, but now here he is in the NBA Draft anyway.
He’s going to draw comparisons to recent draft pick Bol Bol for a number of reasons, namely that they are both tall guys with connections to Sudan, but their games aren’t too dissimilar and they project to have the same types of strengths.
Maker’s sample size is small but he does potentially have some of the strengths the New Orleans Pelicans could use.