🏀 Kira makes it official- he's headed to the NBA and has hired an agent.

[TerryP]

 

[BamaFan334]

Man, wish we had him one more year, but I wish him only the best. He was fun as heck to watch. Having him and Sexton back to back was a treat.

 

[rocknthefreeworld]

Unsurprising. Most mocks that include him have him around 20-25 th pick.

 

[bama alum]

 

[18Champs]

Lewis has long been on the minds of the more data-driven draft folks, as he’s one of the most productive players in the country for his age. As I recently wrote in a story with our Philadelphia writer Rich Hofmann, Lewis “averaged 18.5 points, 4.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists on a 56.0 true-shooting percentage, and did so while playing his entire sophomore season at 18 years old after reclassifying to enter college early. Alabama had the second-fastest tempo in America under Nate Oats, but the production puts Lewis in lofty company. Given that he’s younger than most freshmen in this class (Lewis turned 19 earlier this month), it’s worth noting that the only freshmen in the last 28 years to post numbers hitting at least those thresholds are Dennis Smith Jr. and D’Angelo Russell … I feel confident that he’ll be gone before the Sixers pick (No. 22).”

That confidence isn’t based purely upon conjecture, either. In conversations with evaluators around the league now that they’ve caught up on his tape, I’d feel much more confident pegging his draft range from 10-20 than I would purely in the back half of the first round, which is where Lewis seemed to be sitting for most of the year. He has a chance to end up in the lottery by the end of the process. It’s easy to see why, too.

Lewis obviously plays at tremendous speed, especially in the open court. He was one of the fastest players in college basketball, and operated Alabama’s offense at a breakneck pace. In the full-court, he’s terrific at finding open targets off the live dribble, finishing, or stopping and popping. More than that, though, I was impressed with how Lewis grew as a halfcourt operator this year. He did an excellent job distributing out of ball-screen scenarios. Again, his ability to diagnose the way defenders played him improved a lot — although that has some room for growth, still — and his actual passing talent out of a live dribble was really impressive. Then on top of it, he became a terrific shooter in all scenarios. Lewis hit catch-and-shoot shots at a 61.9 effective field goal percentage, then knocked down pull-up jumpers in the half court at a strong 46.3 effective field goal clip.

Basically, it’s really hard to find the right way to play against him, and he’s versatile. Because of the shooting ability off of the catch, you can play him off-ball next to a high-level wing creator. If he’s on ball and you go under on a ball-screen, he can pull up and hit a jumper behind it. If you hedge, he’s excellent at splitting defenders with his ballhandling ability and quick-twitch reactivity.

Once he gets into the middle, he’s good at reading where the help is coming from and hitting the kick-out target quickly with either hand. Lewis didn’t really have a great threat as a roller this year, but as a freshman he showed strong chemistry with Donta Hall on lobs. In transition, he’s a blur. The only true weakness here is his frame, which is very slight and gives evaluators plenty of pause. He doesn’t play with much force, and he struggles to finish inside at the basket.

Still, NBA teams are almost always going to believe that they can fix a teenager’s body and add strength to his frame. Lewis is young, productive, versatile, and has a lot of skills that fit into the modern NBA. That’s what everyone is looking for now, and teams seem to have caught on.

 

[#80]

I hate to see Kira go but I'm happy for JQ he has been more than patient. It's time for him to shine.