There's no questioning Williams production or improvement throughout his tenure at Tennessee..
What will keep him out of the lottery is his projection to the next level.. Ultimately the biggest question is where does he defend? I don't think he has the lateral quickness to consistently guard 3's and doesn't have the length to consistently guard 4's.. His character and BBIQ will help him overcome those and likely be a solid team defender but the individual matchup questions will still exist...
He can definitely be a productive player as a part of a 8-9 man rotation, but I'm not sure his ceiling is a starting level player which is why I'd be more comfortable with him in the late 1st then the late lottery...
I can't get the Ryan Gomes comparison out of my head, and I don't say that with any disrespect to either guy...
I'm not old enough to remember Gomes as a prospect, but at least on paper, he was a complete non-presence as a shot blocker in college. Williams, while not elite, is certainly par for the course for a PF prospect with a career 2.1 blocks per 40 (vs. 0.5 for Gomes). I think he'll hold up fine there in the NBA. He's arguably the most impactful defensive player on his team at the college level, which I think is a good sanity check for projecting whether or not a guy will be at least average at the NBA level. Makes key plays too, including yesterday:
Burns, who had 35 points a week ago to give Colgate the conference championship, and then 32 points against Tennessee yesterday, splits the defenders in a bid to cut the deficit to 4:
Williams watches him, careful not to rotate too soon and give up the easy dump off:
He hops into position:
Goes straight up to avoid any chance of committing a foul:
And spikes the ball straight to his teammate:
The point I'm making is that this isn't just a 6'7" guy masquerading as a big. He really knows what he's doing defensively, and he's strong and athletic enough to translate those fundamentals into real impact.
Makes even less sense when considering where the aggregate ranks someone like PJ Washington.
Yeah, nonsense, right? Hachimura is the big head scratcher to me. He's older than Williams, and worse in every way as far as I can tell. Even mainstream CBB pundits seem like they'd generally agree that Williams is the better player. But somehow Williams is supposed to stop developing yesterday, while Hachimura is expected to improve meteorically at the NBA level.
