Depth will make 2021 Huskies hard to defend
There is currently not a player that will suit up for the Uconn men’s basketball team this season that has the same bucket-getting ability as James Bouknight, one of college basketball’s elite shot generators as a sophomore last season.
That’s no slight to the 13 players on Uconn’s roster. There are few players like Bouknight in the entire country, coach Dan Hurley said, let alone in Storrs.
The idea that Bouknight — or any player of his caliber — can be replaced by one player is less than realistic. Where the Huskies may lack a leading man, they make up for in depth.
“You can’t replace a star like that with somebody else,” Hurley said. “What we do have, though, is a number of really, really good players. We probably have seven,
eight, nine, potentially 10 guys that can get us somewhere in between seven and 14, 15 [points per game], which is very similar to what I had in Rhode Island on my great teams there. We had such tremendous balance, and so many different types of people can beat you on any different night, so we were very, very hard to prepare for.”
Oklahoma City Thunder
First-round picks: 6, 16, 18
Only so much stock can be put into mock drafts, but The Athletic, The Ringer, ESPN and Bleacher Report all project Bouknight to be picked sixth overall by the Thunder on Thursday night.
In the position Oklahoma City is in — rebuilding, stockpiling assets and looking toward the future — player fit isn’t the highest priority, though the uber-athletic Bouknight would create an explosive backcourt with 23-yearold guard Shae Gilgeous-alexander, who averaged 23.7 points this season. With the addition of Uconn great Kemba Walker over the summer, Bouknight’s exact position with Oklahoma City might be unclear. If Walker were to be the primary ballhandler with Gilgeous-alexander playing a combo guard role, Bouknight could see minutes backing up both.
“I had a great workout,” Bouknight said. “I got to eat dinner with [general manager] Sam [Presti] and other guys in the front office. They’re also great people. They have a great organization, they’ve got a young team. I could see myself fitting in with them.”