|
David Levine -> RE: 2024-25 Postmortem Offseason and Draft (6/25/2025 10:01:03 PM)
|
Long post from Vecenie's free draft guide:
STRENGTHS:
• A terrific athlete for a center. Moves fluidly and has some gifts. Gets off the ground quickly as a leaper. Not Yves Missi in terms of high-pointing the ball but effective as a rim runner and finisher. Plays fast Has speed and plays with a strong motor. Always running and moving at full speed. Plays in transition and runs the court extremely quickly. Unafraid of bigger, stronger players in the physical Adriatic League.
• Doesn't project as a switch defender but moves well enough defensively to buy his mobility. Can cut off offensive players either in blitz and recover situations or in higher drop coverage against the quick offensive players. Runs the court incredibly well. Plays with bend. More flexible than most 7-footers.
• Has phenomenal hands and catches almost everything in his area. Scouts who have been to Cedevita have commented on his enormous hands, and he uses them effectively in traffic.
• Offensively, Beringer projects best as that low-usage, high-efficiency rim-runner type. Good athlete who gets downhill and gets off the ground quickly, but again, the key is that he can catch everything. Has an enormous catch radius. That's what separates him from someone like Khaman Maluach or Missi. Catches consistently out of his area. Will catch the ball below his waist on rolls to the rim without stopping his momentum. Catches in traffic and can do so at full extension even in tough areas.
• Constant lob threat because of his leaping ability and length. Great in transition on the move at catching and finishing all in one fluid motion, even from awkward ball placements. Always screening or running toward the rim on offense. It's a simple game, but he maximizes it by playing hard and having a strong work rate.
• Has a sharp, natural intellect for timing his cuts to the rim. Good at sitting in that short-roll area and then eventually diving to the rim on drives when the help commits. Excellent at finding little areas to sink into in the Hunker spot Constantly trying to dunk. Of his 80 made shots this season, 37 were dunks.
• Has shown flashes of putting the ball on the deck to drive to the rim, be it in short rolls or out high in sets involving dribble-handoff rejections. Because he plays with bend, he can get some leverage on other bigs. Also, because he is so coordinated, he can stop and use his pivot foot to spin around and use up-and-unders to find open angles around the rim. These are rudimentary works in progress, but they're a starting point for adjustments hell need to incorporate versus bigger, longer defenders.
• Awesome offensive rebounder. Had some ridiculous moments this season on tip-outs and tip dunks. Good second jump. Gets off the ground quickly and can tip the ball to himself before catching. Great motor. Constantly chasing rebounds on the offensive end to try to create second chances. Averaged L6 offensive rebounds per game in just 18 minutes per night.
• Defensively, it's all about his athletic traits as opposed to his technique or reaction time. He's sharp and active as a weakside rim protector. Constantly trying to rotate around and swat shots. Really likes to swat at the ball and block shots with authority. Good timing and gets off the ground quickly. Also shows potential in terms of committing to a shot late. Because he's so twitchy athletically, can stay home on his man for a split second longer, then long-stride out and cover the ground he needs to get home and contest a shot while minimizing the risk of a dump-off pass. Averaged L4 blocks per game in just 18 minutes this season, which is an awesome rate.
• Has excellent recovery traits. It'll seem like a guard has beaten him off the bounce and turned the corner before he just goes up and erases shots. Loves to turn and run, and when he does that, he covers an immense amount of ground with how fluid he is and how quickly he jumps. Fluid hips allow him to flip around and swat or contest a shot from behind if he gets beat. Light on his feet. Not at all a lumberer out there. Changes direction easily. Should have no issues by center standards with scrambling around on defense when he has to close out on shooters. Had some blocked jumpers this season.
• Has good flashes in ball screens as a drop coverage defender that show upside potential. There are moments when he looks like he's trying to bait a ballhandler into making a pass by committing too far, then using his athletic traits to back off and either deflect or steal a lob attempt over the top. Because he has no issues changing direction and can turn and run, he has the potential to handle rejections or misdirection by guards or re-screens by bigs well. Light on his feet
• In general, he has active hands on defense. Constantly has his arms out trying to cut off angles for guys handling the ball in front of him. Extends his length out wide in drop coverage. Makes his presence felt and gets deflections as well as blocks. Sometimes he can get too handsy, but I'd rather start from a baseline of him being active and engaged while working to reduce what he can do.
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT:
• Not massive for an NBA center. Great athlete but came in atjust 6 feet 10 with a 7-foot-4 wingspan at the combine. This has potential to hinder him given his role.
• Needs to keep putting on strength. Can get moved backward when defending in the post and trying to anchor to establish any position. He also sometimes got moved around by sealing bigs a bit too easily. But he's not afraid of contact, so I would expect this to improve as he gets older and stronger.
• The skill set is limited, and I doubt he'll become a shot creator. In 43 games this season, he made only one self-created shot out of a post-up or isolation situation. Doesn't have any post footwork. Was never used this way, and it's easy to see why. He does show some ability to put the ball on the deck in straight lines and counter with pivots occasionally around the rim, but there's no feel for how to change pace or direction. He's going at 100 percent all the time. Not a lot of nuance. Will be a typical rim-running big man who likely ends up with a low usage rate.
• Unsurprisingly, as he's still new to the game, he rarely saw passes out to his teammates. Will be raw in how he sees the court Had only 13 assists in 753 minutes this season. Not sure I saw any cross-corner kickouts in short-roll situations when he caught it near the foul line. Didn't see a sharp dump-off or anything off a pass fake on the interior. Everything is rudimentary. This can be improved as a player grows and gets more comfortable within the game. Clint Capela, for example, figured out how to make reads off his rolls to the rim after being in this ballpark pre-draft. But it's going to take time, and you can't expect much more than simple reads.
• I haven't seen much that makes me expect Beringer to develop any shooting range even though his touch doesn't look bad. Has made a couple of mini-hooks and floaters in the 8-foot range and is an adequate foul shooter. But I haven't seen anything this season in terms of him getting his feet organized to stop and pop to take midrange shots or to take pick-and-pop 3s. Did not attempt a 3-pointer all season. Made only two jumpers, per Synergy, and in those attempts, it took him forever to load up and align himself to the rim. Again, it's hard to take anything off the table with him because of how early he is in his basketball journey, but a team shouldn't go into selecting him with an expectation of midrange jumpers. Made only 60 percent of his free throws.
• On the interior, his efficiency through contact when he wasn't exploding upward through the air as a high-flyer was questionable. If someone bumped him or stopped his momentum, he was comfortable pivoting around but would at times lose his touch. Misses easy layups too often. Had some head-scratchers where you wonder how he missed by as much as he did. Had some ugly hook shots and floater attempts. Made only 51 percent of his layup attempts, per Synergy.
• Defensively, Beringer is still learning the best way to use angles and his feet in drop coverage on defense. Can sometimes get off his line and doesn't always keep offensive players in front of him. Gets caught in no-man's land occasionally even if he has the absurd recovery ability. With the increased space in the midrange area in the NBA, it'll likely take him some time to get comfortable.
• Also in ball screens, he can look uncomfortable when he's asked to do things other than drop and play in the one-on-two. If he's asked to play more at the level, he can get too aggressive and get slipped by his big and end up chasing. Can also get off his line in re-screen situations or when he has to guard one screen followed by another. Pick-and-pop bigs also caused him some issues this season, as he'd drop too deep and couldn't recover for a late contest Takes awkward angles to get back into plays at times. Feels like he's guessing out there more often than reacting to what offensive players are trying to do.
• Can be a bit foul-prone. Averaged about 2.5 fouls in just 18 minutes per game, which is high. That comes with his active hands. Can get overaggressive there and send guys to the line. Ends up late to plays more often than you'd like. The team that drafts him is in for a project.
SUMMARY:
Where you fall on Beringer will ultimately be determined by your willingness to take on a project. It's going to take time to get Beringer up to speed across the board. He's still exceptionally raw and learning the game. Things move fast for him right now, and his reactions can often be slow in the way that they tend to be when you're first learning how to do something. Still, there's not a big man in this class who moves better than Beringer. He's exceptionally twitchy when he's on the floor and when he lifts off the ground to block a shot or dunk. He also is flexible and plays with genuine bend. Not many people this size move like this.
Given that he's also highly regarded from a character perspective, it's hard not to buy into him as an NBA player at some point. At the very least, he could turn into a backup center. There is more upside than that, as he could easily turn into a Capela-style big man who runs the floor, defends well and finishes on the interior. The athletic traits are ridiculous to go with his hands. But realistically, every NBA team will feel differently about whether it is willing to take on Beringer as a project. Some do not have interest, and others see him as a starting center of the future if they can get him the right coaching and development
|
|
|
|