Why Zach Edey is first round pick on our 2024 NBA Draft board

Let’s dive into Zach Edey’s NBA Draft projection, scouting report, and best team fits for the Purdue center

Zach Edey was never supposed to be a generational college basketball star. For most of his life, he didn’t even want to play the sport.

Edey played hockey and baseball growing up in Toronto. By the time he graduated eighth grade, he was already 6’10. To that point in his life, he had never played basketball. Edey first picked up the sport as a high school sophomore standing nearly 7’2. He eventually transferred to prep powerhouse IMG Academy in Florida, but still didn’t attract much hype on the recruiting trail.

When he committed to Purdue, Edey was ranked as the No. 436 player in his class, per 247 Sports.

Now a senior for the Boilermakers, Edey is the most decorated men’s college hooper in more than four decades. He’s poised to become the first back-to-back national player of the year since Ralph Sampson in 1982-1983. For all of his dominance, Edey’s college career has to this point been defined by a game his team lost. Purdue became the second No. 1 seed ever eliminated by a No. 16 seed during the 2023 NCAA tournament. Edey returned to school on a mission to eliminate that memory and lead Purdue to its first national championship in program history.

Edey and the Boilermakers have been laser focused from the very start of the season. Purdue tore through a non-conference schedule that included wins over five eventual Sweet 16 teams: Tennessee, Marquette, Arizona, Gonzaga, and Alabama. Add in a 2-0 record against one from their own conference, Illinois, and Purdue essentially aced an extremely difficult schedule. Edey was their singular star the entire way, somehow besting his impossible production from his junior year to truly etch his name among the sport’s all-time legends.

Purdue is now in the Sweet 16. As he enters college basketball’s biggest stage, Edey’s translation to the NBA has become a hot topic. I never viewed Edey as a first round pick before this season, but I’ve softened that stance this year. Entering the tournament, our latest mock draft had Edey going No. 18 overall to the Phoenix Suns in the 2024 NBA Draft. That’s the highest end of his draft stock, which stretches to the early second round. Either way, Edey will get every opportunity to prove he belongs in the NBA.

Let’s dive into the case for Edey as a first round draft pick, why he’s one of the most polarizing prospects in this year’s class, and how his game could ultimately translate to the highest level in the world.

Zach Edey will be the biggest player in the NBA

Edey’s signature quality is his immense size. He’s listed at 7’4, 300 pounds, with a 7’10.5 wingspan. His standing reach is 9’7.5. That compares very favorably against the NBA’s biggest players.

Edey will be tied with Victor Wembanyama and Boban Marjanovic as the tallest player in the NBA next season. He will surpass Jusuf Nurkic (290 pounds) as the heaviest player in the league. He will have the league’s second longest wingspan behind Wembanyama’s 8-foot wingspan.

It’s good to be big as a basketball player! Of course, size doesn’t mean everything in the NBA. Tacko Fall measured at 7’6 with an 8’4 wingspan and 10’2 standing reach, and couldn’t cut it in the league. Mo Bamba had elite measurements as the No. 6 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft and never lived up to the hype. Still, Edey’s size is a feature, not a bug, for his NBA translation. Unlike those guys, Edey is legitimately one of the best college basketball players of the last 40 years.

Zach Edey is historically productive

Box-score plus/minus is an all-in-one metric that “estimates a basketball player’s contribution to the team when that player is on the court.” It is not a perfect stat, but it’s one of the better public metrics for capturing individual performance.

Edey has two of the best single-season ratings ever for BPM since it started being tracked in the 2010-11 season. Here’s the list:

The majority of players on this list had good NBA careers. There are two stars (Williamson and Davis), one budding star (Holmgren), and one former star whose prime was cut short by injuries (Oladipo). Delon Wright has been a solid role player for a decade, and Brandon Clark and Jackson-Davis are on a similar paths for the Grizzlies and Warriors respectively. Keegan Murray is tracking as much more than a role player for the Kings. There are also a few busts on here, but still: it’s a pretty good list to be on, especially with two elite seasons like Edey.

PER is another imperfect all-in-one metric that captures player performance and has been around forever thanks to John Hollinger. According to RealGM’s calculations, there have only been five seasons in the modern era of a PER above 40. Edey has three of them.

To put that in context, a PER of 20 is typically NBA All-Star level. The fact that Edey has three seasons double that is just totally wild.

Zach Edey projects as a dynamic play finisher

Edey can dunk the hell out of the ball. He currently has 102 dunks this year, per Bart Torvik. No one else in the country even has 90 dunks, and only three players had more than 80.

Edey consistently wins the battle for post position inside with his 300-pound frame. Tennessee center James Aidoo has NBA-like size at 6’11, 240 pounds with a 7-4 wingspan, and he has no chance to stopping Edey one-on-one.

The NBA’s longer three-point arc will give Edey even more space for his deep post touches. He’s very comfortable spinning right, and gets off the ground with solid quickness for a player his size.

Edey has continued to improve his conditioning in his senior year, and it shows up in his willingness to dunk the ball. There were times last season when he settled for a lower percentage layup because he was too tired to finish strong with a flush. He has 26 more dunks this season than he did year ago entering the Sweet 16.

If he’s close enough to the basket, Edey is going to do everything can to dunk it.

Edey is also going to punish switches, even against bigger, stronger, and older NBA players. Forcing a guard to switch onto Edey is advantage creation in its own way. For as good as Purdue has been at entering the ball into him, the extra spacing and superior talent and creativity of NBA passers should increase the types of deliveries he’s getting when he has a mismatch.

Edey proved his motor was outstanding all year. One of the best things you can say about him is that he plays up to his size.

Zach Edey is an offensive rebound vacuum

Edey was No. 1 in offensive rebound rate for all of DI as a sophomore. He was No. 1 as a junior, too. This season, he slipped — and was merely No. 3 in the country. He has three of the top-20 seasons in offensive rebound rate since 2008. The numbers show him to be an all-time great glass cleaner when his team misses a shot.

Edey’s length allows him to high-point the ball even if he doesn’t have inside position. You can put a textbook box out on Edey and he can still get a putback.

Indiana center Kel’el Ware is going to be draft ahead of Edey in June. He’s exponentially better as a run-and-jump athlete. Some outlets have Ware with a 7’7 wingspan, which is massive if true. He still couldn’t keep Edey off the offensive glass.

Hitting the offensive glass typically feels even more important in the playoffs — just look at what Mitchell Robinson did to the Cavs in the first round last year. It’s an area of Edey’s game that should translate. He’s going to generate a lot of extra possessions for his team even against NBA competition.

Zach Edey is a free throw magnate

KenPom keeps track of a stat called “foul drawn per 40 minutes.” Edey was No. 1 in the country this year at 9.8 percent. Only one other player this season was even at eight percent.

Edey averaged 11.2 free throw attempts per game this year — again, No. 1 in America. He knocked down 71.4 percent of 392 free throw attempts. Last season, he made 73.4 percent of 241 free throws. He’s not exactly money from the line, but he’s not a huge liability there either. The fact that he generates so many free throw attempts is still a good thing for an offense — especially if he can keep improving at foul shots.

Zach Edey has very good touch with his hook shot

Edey has very good touch on his hook shots. He made 42 percent on non-rim twos this season, per Bart Torvik. That number is down from his junior season, when he made 49.2 percent.

Edey scored 1.044 points per possession on post-ups this year, per Synergy Sports. He’s most comfortable going right. This bucket comes against Arizona center Motiejus Krivas, who is listed at 7’2, 260 pounds. He couldn’t do anything to bother Edey’s shot.

Attacking from the left block, Edey shot 56 percent from the floor, per Synergy. He’s money when he can spin right and shoot with his right hand over his left shoulder. He’s not nearly as effective going the other way, though he has made strides there this year. He shot only 40.3 percent from the field attacking from the right block.

Edey’s biggest weaknesses is his foot speed — and it feels like a fatal flaw for his NBA stock

Let’s be honest: there’s a reason Edey has played four years of college basketball. It’s because the NBA has never really wanted him despite his offensive dominance.

Why? His lack of foot speed is a massive red flag that opposing teams will try to exploit whenever he’s on defense. There’s no 3-in-the-key rule in college, meaning Edey can camp out all day in the paint. That’s not the case in the NBA, when defenders can only stay in the paint for three seconds. When Edey has to defend in space against NBA guards and wings, he’s going to be a major liability.

One of the most important traits for an NBA big is coverage versatility. Edey doesn’t have any of it. He’s too slow to play at the level of the screen with any consistency, and he’s not going to switch. Instead, Edey is going to be in a deep drop most of the time. That will make him susceptible to floaters and pull-up jumpers from the guards who don’t want to challenge him going to the basket. Those are tough, generally inefficient shots even for NBA players, but the good ones will burn you more often than not. Edey can close some of that space with his enormous wingspan, but the second he gets too jumpy, he’ll get burned to the basket.

Edey will also be a liability defending the pick-and-pop against bigs who can shoot. Being able to close out quickly and under control is vital for any NBA player. Edey is just too slow to do it. If he makes a true effort to block a three, an offensive player can pump fake and go right around him. Most of the time, he’s just going to let the other big shoot and hope he misses.

Even more athletic centers in the “rim runner” archetype have trouble staying on the floor in critical moments. Just look at the Dallas Mavericks, who selected Dereck Lively II with a lottery pick, and traded a future first for Daniel Gafford at the deadline. Lately, Dallas has kept both of them on the bench to close with Maxi Kleber at the five, a 6’10, 240-pound player who is quick enough on defense to switch, and can also shoot threes on offense.

Lively and Gafford are significantly more athletic than Edey, but they’re also both mostly drop coverage big men. Drop is an effective strategy ... to a point. It’s critical for NBA bigs to have more than one tool in their toolbox, and defensively Edey doesn’t.

Edey isn’t a strong passer, shooter, or handler on offense

NBA teams run their offense through the big man more and more in today’s game. No one does it better than Nikola Jokic, a basketball genius who is the best player in the world and one of the best passers at any position in league history. Domantas Sabonis, Bam Adebayo, and Nikola Vucevic are three more bigs who can act as a hub of halfcourt offense with dribble-handoffs, short roll passing, and the ability to hit cutters.

That’s not Edey’s game. While he’s grown some as a processor in his senior year, he still struggles to quickly map the floor and get the ball out of his hands. Edey enters the Sweet 16 with more turnovers (77) than assists (73). He’s had more turnovers than assists all four years of his career.

Edey also doesn’t shoot from deep. He took his first three-point attempt ever this season, and is 1-for-2 on the year. Even if he works on it, it’s hard to ever project him as a floor spacer in the NBA. That just isn’t his game. He’s also not someone who is going to put the ball on the floor and attack off the dribble. Even a slow-footed big man like Vucevic does this often, but it’s outside the scope of Edey’s abilities at 7’4.

Where should Zach Edey be taken in NBA Draft?

It feels like Edey is under-appreciated as a college basketball player. He’s not “just big” — he’s tremendously skilled, plays with a high motor, and has worked hard to get in better shape. Winning back-to-back national player of the year awards for the first time since Ralph Samson is a serious accomplishment.

As an NBA prospect, Edey has a pathway to success in the right role, but it’s unlikely to come as a player who can handle heavy minutes. Even in his best case outcomes, it’s hard to envision him as a player averaging 30 minutes per night and closing important games. To me, Edey is ideally suited as a situational big whether he’s starting games or coming off the bench. A role where he’s playing about 20 minutes per game seems reasonable as a higher-end outcome.

Finding the right fit for Edey will be more difficult. He’ll need to go to a team with multiple strong point-of-attack defenders to make his drop coverage viable. He’ll need to be surrounded by four other shooters on the floor at all times. He’ll need to play in lineups that have enough passing to consistently deliver him the ball where he likes to get it when he has a deep seal or a mismatch inside. He’ll need a team that doesn’t mind playing at a slower pace.

ESPN has Edey projected at No. 14 overall in their latest mock. That’s a little rich for my tastes, but not by too much. Edey’s draft range should start in the 20s and go into early round two. I like the fit with Phoenix in our latest mock draft. The Suns have tons of shooters, and they play slow. Phoenix’s lack of strong on-ball defenders would be problematic, though.

The Toronto Raptors could be another good fit for the Canadian big man. The Raptors have some excellent point of attack defenders and so much length on the perimeter. They also have a shortage of shooting which would make maximizing Edey’s offense more difficult. Toronto is slated to own the first pick in the second round currently, and that feels like a better value spot for Edey. The Pelicans — currently slated to pick No. 23 — could also be an interesting fit. New Orleans has a solid combination of defensive length and shooting. Jonas Valanciunas is a free agent after the year, and Edey could be a reasonable replacement for a team that can also go small with Larry Nance in the middle.

Role players rarely get the luxury of finding such a perfect fit. The best of them are malleable to different lineup constructions, which is almost a must given the rapid turnover on NBA rosters from year-to-year. Edey is not a well-rounded player, rather one with some elite strengths and fatal flaws. But even as a four-year college player, he’s still only 21 years old until May.

Edey is not a finished product even after four years at Purdue. Remember, he’s only been playing basketball for about six years, and still has plenty of room for improvement. While developing a three-point shot will probably be viewed as his biggest area of upside, I think it’s more vital and more realistic for him to develop as a passer. Purdue coaches told The Athletic Edey had never been coached on how to pass before walking onto campus. If he can become a short roll passer or someone who can handle a heavy diet of dribble-handoffs, his offense becomes a lot more intriguing.

Still, Edey can have a solid NBA career as play-finisher on rolls and from the dunker’s spot, and by attacking the offensive glass. We usually think of bench scorers as smaller guards like Lou Williams and Jason Terry. Edey can be a bench scorer as a supersized center, slamming home post feeds and putbacks in situational lineups.

Edey’s production has been so impressive, so historic that it’s intellectually dishonest to say he’s “just big.” The fact that he’s entering a 2024 draft class that feels like the weakest of the last 10 years should only help his case. He can succeed in the NBA, it’s just going to take a precise fit.