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June 13th Kings Pre-Draft Workout Report: Kemba and Vucevic

By | 0 Comments | Feb 17, 2019

We only got to see about 10 minutes of the competitive 3-on-3 workout in which Kemba, Vucevic and Amaning played against Hurtt, Williams and Casto, followed by interviews with Kemba and Vucevic.

After the jump, my impressions from what little I saw, as well as video of the interviews.

Kemba was the main attraction, the reason I made the trek from Folsom to Natomas.  But from what little I saw, I came away relatively unimpressed.  Let's start with the good first though; Walker is very quick, especially with the ball in his hands, and his first step is lethal.  He had no problem getting past Hurtt, a much bigger and longer player.

He got to the rim a few times in the 10 minutes but failed to make his layup attempts on each of them, and he didn't shoot a jumper during the time I watched.  He was plainly trying to play a more facilitator-like role, and he did a decent job, finding Amaning and Vucevic open a couple times after driving in and sucking defenders to him.

Defensively is where Walker really lagged behind though.  Hurtt blew by him on more than one occasion, and on one possession simply rose up and shot over the smaller Walker, who didn't really have the size to contest.  It was a bit of a bad matchup for Walker in that respect, because Hurtt was so much bigger (about 6'4.5").  Walker also had trouble when Williams or Casto would set a screen on him.

Aside from his quickness, nothing really stood out for me in the positive from Walker like I thought it would.  Again, very small sample size.

Here's the Kemba Walker Interview, from Kings.com:

Vucevic was the most impressive guy at the workout in my opinion.  He has legit Center size and length, and while he still needs to get stronger and gain a bit of weight, he's not exactly a stick either.

Vucevic was active on both ends of the floor, grabbing rebounds, going for tip-ins, setting screens, working off the ball to get open for jumpers (of which he hit a couple).  On defense he kept his hands up and got a few deflections that way.

Offensively he showed a very skilled game, both outside and in.  His post-game is already more advanced than most bigs that come into the league, and he was able to score around the basket with either hand.  He also had a couple nifty passes.

In his interview he said that he wants to model his game after Dirk and Pau, both very skilled big men who can play both outside and in.  He is currently working on making his NBA three-point shot more consistent.  There is no doubt in my mind that he's a 1st round pick in this draft, possibly as early as the mid-late teens.

Here's the Nikola Vucevic Interview, via Kings.com:

Jordan Williams looked a bit skinnier than he did in college, but was still overweight and didn't impress me.  He couldn't guard Vucevic at all, and was beat out to several rebounds, which is supposed to be his strength.

Justin Hurtt played aggressively and really attacked and tested Kemba.  His decision making wasn't great, turning it over a few times, but he hustled on both ends.

Matthew Bryan-Amaning looked decent defensively, and on offense he had one big dunk on Casto that drew oohs and ahs in the media viewing room.

The biggest thing of note I saw from Casto was getting dunked on by Amaning.

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