Zach Edey critics were wrong: What NBA Draft analysts missed about Grizzlies rookie’s unique potential

By | October 18, 2024
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Zach Edey was supposed to be a dinosaur in the NBA.

The center’s heavy reliance on post-ups, slow-footed defense and lack of outside shooting made skeptics believe that his game was too much of a throwback to work in the league. Yahoo draft analyst Krysten Peek called the Edey selection at No. 9 “one of the worst picks I’ve seen in draft history.” 

Edey hasn’t played in a real NBA game yet, but that criticism is already looking way off base. There are some important factors many analysts missed when it comes to him. He’s not going to have to adjust to the league. Rather, the league will need to change how it guards him.

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What NBA Draft analysts missed about Zach Edey’s potential

Edey post-ups are going to be a great weapon in the NBA

Edey was a monster in the post at Purdue. Their offense was designed around those back-to-the-basket touches, and there was skepticism about how that would work in the NBA given that post-ups only comprised 3.7 percent of the Grizzlies’ possessions last year. 

The league has come a long way since five years ago, when Rick Carlisle lectured reporters that a post-up is no longer a good play. At the time, Carlisle was right — post-ups weren’t as efficient as pick-and-rolls, and they became phased out of most teams’ offenses. 

A funny thing happened as those post-ups became less prevalent. They grew to be much more efficient, to the point that they completely reversed and became one of the most effective play types in the half-court. Teams became selective about who gets to post up, and the true masters of the post have still dominated the league. 

Nikola Jokic led the league last year in post-ups, scoring 1.14 points per possession on his six post shots per game. Joel Embiid was right behind him in terms of volume and also scored 1.14 points per attempt. That is a great result when the average half-court possession was worth 0.99 points.

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Edey is averaging an unbelievable 1.41 points per post-up during the preseason, blowing the best post players out of the water. The sample here is only 21 possessions and that number will go down particularly as teams start double-teaming him more, but he has been one of the best offensive weapons in the league thus far, better than Jokic, Joel Embiid or any of the other elite scorers.

Edey’s touch down low has been amazing. He’s hitting 13-foot hook shots like they’re nothing. It is going to be near-impossible to prevent him from using his 7-4, 305-pound frame to establish great position. He’s been a killer lob threat, and while he still almost exclusively goes right, he’s developed a nice counter when teams sit on that move (thanks to coaching from Marcus Smart).

We still need to see how well Edey passes out of double teams because he simply cannot be guarded one-on-one like teams are doing in the preseason. We do know that he is way more dominant in the post than many expected, to the level where the Grizzlies should change their offense to incorporate them more. 

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Edey can move on defense

The concerns about Edey’s defense look overblown as well. There’s no denying that he’s not the fastest guy down the floor and he did have some trouble recovering to pick-and-pop big man Myles Turner during the preseason, but his ability to guard the perimeter has been much better than expected. 

Edey has been a capable drop defender, nixing concerns about how he would perform in a pick-and-roll-heavy league. He’s altered a ton of shots with his 7-11 wingspan, doing even more damage than his 1.3 blocks per game in the preseason suggests.

Opponents are shooting just 62.5 percent against Edey in the restricted area so far this preseason, which is better than the 64.6 percent that Victor Wembanyama gave up as a rookie. The Grizzlies have also defended well as a team with Edey on the floor. They’ve posted a 106.0 defensive rating during his minutes, which is one of the best marks of anyone on their team and better than any Grizzlies player who played at least 20 games all of last year. 

Edey was a tricky player to evaluate during the draft because there just aren’t a lot of comparisons for a player with his size, touch, footwork and particular weaknesses. The league has missed big time on players like that — Draymond Green and Jokic are the two most notable examples. Players who don’t look the part of a current NBA player but are exceptional at certain skills are the ones who tend to defy expectations. Edey falls into that bucket.

We know that Edey is going to be one of the top five post players in the league now. That should mask his other weaknesses, and his ceiling is a lot higher than first imagined. Even before his first NBA game, it’s already time to eat crow on those bust predictions. 

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