While some have set a lower ceiling for Cameron Boozer and pointed to that as to why he shouldn't be picked ahead of AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, or even Caleb Wilson, that conclusion is certainly not the consensus.
It's important when looking for scouting and draft coverage to consume, you pick the right menus. Draftniks and Twitter experts may have their opinions, but they don't necessarily mean much.
Zach Lowe is different. The former ESPN NBA insider turned Senior NBA Insider for The Ringer is widely respected for his basketball acumen and working knowledge of the league. And he's all in on Boozer.
On a recent episode of his podcast, Lowe said that the first time he watched Boozer in college, he came away underwhelmed and then looked at the box score to see Boozer finished with a 20 and 12 game. That's the normal experience for Boozer - even when he "underwhelms, you look at the box score and notice he had a monster double-double.
But then Lowe dug deeper, and he came away with the belief that Boozer is going to be a really good NBA player right away.
Zach Lowe is buying all the stock he can in Duke's Cameron Boozer ahead of the NBA Draft
“I watched like half an hour of film on him and was like, holy f— this guy is good,” Lowe said. “Boozer is so smart and so crafty and has this super high IQ, where his vision and his IQ make him faster and more athletic than he actually is because he’s outthinking everybody on the court. He has such a smart sense of anticipation and angles; combine that with a workable 3-point shot - at least in college - a nasty streak, an ability to handle the ball in the pick-and-roll, screening the pick-and-roll, I [expletive] love that guy. …I think he’s going to walk in and be a really good NBA player right away."
Boozer's brain is his best asset, and that's not to say that his athletic profile or skill aren't tremendously high, either. They are. But his basketball acumen is special. It's Nikola Jokic-like, and the success of Jokic in the league has to resonate with scouts when they see Boozer.
He's dominated every level of basketball he's ever played. He was the runaway National Player of the Year at Duke despite being one of the youngest players in this class. He's six months younger than Dybantsa and Peterson, and a full year younger than Wilson. That matters, too.
It appears likely that Boozer is going to end up going No. 3 overall to the Memphis Grizzlies. There continues to be more smoke connecting Peterson to the Wizards at No. 1, which would lead to the Jazz landing the guy they've always coveted in Dybantsa.
If that's the way it shakes out, 10 years from now, we'll look and wonder how the Grizzlies got so lucky as to select the best player in the draft with the third pick.
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