Prospects for Sixers to consider with 28th pick: Chris Duarte
As a team hoping to contend for a title year in and year out, you need players able to produce right away, and that’s exactly what Chris Duarte is. Having just turned 24, he’ll be the oldest player in the draft, and while there may not be much room for growth at this point, you know what you’re getting, and that’s a knockdown shooter with good size for a guard and plenty of experience.
Duarte played two years of junior college ball at Northwest Florida State before transferring to Oregon and making an instant impact. His senior season saw him improve on his junior year in every percentage across the board, as well as points and assists in about the same amount of minutes. He won the Jerry West Shooting Guard of the year as he showed a promising jump shot from deep (42.4 percent on 5.5 attempts per game).
Accolades aside, there’s a lot to like about his game and how it’ll translate to the NBA. He’s an excellent and timely leaper for someone his size, making him effective on the fast break as well as cutting off ball. He’s smart in passing lanes and is able to contort his body to get shots off in traffic and through contact. He can shoot 3s in rhythm or off the catch, both valuable skills if Simmons remains on the team. He’s not too shifty or horizontally explosive for a ball handler but he makes up for it with timing his drives well and being as effective shooting the ball inside the arc as he is from deep. He didn’t look to pass the ball too much his senior season, having only amassed more than four assists on four occasions, but you’d be drafting him to fill a scoring guard role anyway.
Duarte is very much a player archetype prone to go in the 20s, as he’s a ready now player who can fit just about anywhere, and while he’s almost certainly be gone by pick 28, he’s the type of guy a team in our position would love to have.