This spring will be the 63rd awarding of the Oscar Robertson Trophy, given by the United States Basketball Writers Association to the nation’s best college player. Of the previous 62 winners, each was chosen within the first 34 selections of the NBA Draft. Only two, Frank Mason in 2017 and Jalen Brunson in 2018, were taken in the second round.
But this year’s winner might not be selected at all. Iowa big man Luka Garza has as good a shot at the award as anyone. And he’s not even on some mock draft lists.
I find that to be a fascinating circumstance. While everyone cites the differences between the pro and collegiate game, no single player may have ever more embodied that contrast than Garza. The bulk of his horizontal skills simply may not translate to a vertical league.
And so much of what makes the Iowa center special is what he does around the hoop to worm through traffic, twisting and pivoting to spin shots up onto the glass and rim. It’s a legitimate concern that his earthbound style and, shall we say, deliberate deliveries will see a lot of the shots he takes now swatted into various second rows across NBA arenas. His feet aren’t nimble enough, his calves not explosive enough.
The sad thing is, Garza’s footwork and his ability to use his body are art. His moves just not quick or explosive enough to be that effective in a game where spring-loaded pterodactyls fly around the hoop waiting to spike any moving orb.
Further, Garza is going to be a defensive liability for whoever signs him. He’s just too clunky to guard anyone but the slowest backup bigs. So, he’d better be valuable at the other end.
I still believe in the kid. I think he’s going to make a roster somewhere and develop into a situational player who doesn’t fit into a regular rotation but can be spotted against reserve power forwards and centers.
That’s because I think this son of a motivational speaker dad and Slovenian national team mom is gonna figure out a way. In more than half a century watching Big Ten basketball, I’ve rarely seen anyone so maximize his natural gifts as Garza. That shows me his resolution and will. He is going to do whatever’s necessary, like water finding a crevice in pavement.
But one factor is why I believe in him: He can shoot. He’s one of the best shooting big men I’ve ever seen, both in the different types of shots he can make and his judgment of what a good shot is. His feet might be neither bouncy nor quick, but they get where they need to go to give him balance, especially when he shoots simple jumpers.
And so, I think he’s going to develop his shot farther away from the rim where the risk of it being swatted is less. If defenses are tardy for any reason, he’ll hit the mid-range shot. If they don’t guard the pick-n-roll aggressively, he’ll pop and hit the three.
That’s the shot that will keep him in the league. And he’s shown this season (.446 3P%) that he can hit it with an accuracy that suggests the extra half-meter (19 inches) in distance of the NBA 3-point arc won’t be an issue.
Iowa’s Luka Garza (55) shoots a jumper over Penn State’s John Harrar (21) last season at the Palestra in Philadelphia. Garza collected 34 points and 12 rebounds in the Nittany Lions’ 89-86 win.PennLive/Nick Jones
Garza doesn’t shoot the triple that much now (33-74 3PG) because Fran McCaffrey needs him down on the blocks. Three-point shooters, he has; the Hawkeyes are the 4th-most accurate on triples in the nation (.401 3P%) and have three dependable snipers to fill that role. Garza is literally the hub of the Iowa offense, the axle from which all the spokes fan. The threat of his post-up game makes the Hawks’ attack tick.
He will, then, need to overhaul his game to become valuable in the NBA. I’ve seen others do it and it’s always the guys with the same relentless can-do personalities. Two-guard J.J. Redick, who shared the Robertson Trophy in 2006, remade his physique and his game from catch-n-shoot driveway shooter at Duke into a wiry feral cat in the NBA, able to ball-fake the jumper and dip inside for an array of floaters and scoops and teardrops in traffic that kept defenders honest. He’s still playing.
No, Garza’s not a shooting guard. But there are plenty of slow-footed bigs who’ve not only figured out a situational niche but are starting and even exceling – because they can hit face-up jumpers, from the elbow, or 15 feet out the baseline, all the way out to 5 feet beyond the arc.
You have the quirky Euros like onetime 76ers castoff Nik Vucevic of the Magic who only recently began shooting threes and now is filling it up from out there (.401 3P%) to the tune of 24 points a game.
At the mere-survivor level, you have Michigan product Mo Wagner, hanging around getting 14 minutes for the horrific Wizards. But he’s been in the league three years now, has bumped his overall shooting percentage up to .561 and still gets a few starts in a pinch.
Between those two extremes are all sorts of middling cases. And let’s be clear, there are a lot of mediocre big men in the league right now because they’ve been devalued.
I have an old friend who’s decidedly on the other side of this Garza NBA argument and occasionally needles me about his plodding feet and lack of lift. And I don’t pretend it’s not an issue; it will be, especially on defense. Even Iowa has to hide him behind zones more often than not.
And Garza’s substandard effort against Michigan’s lithe freshman center Hunter Dickinson in the Wolverines’ emphatic 79-57 win on Thursday night enflamed my buddy even more. Garza in no way looked like an NBA prospect.
But we were seeing him at the end of a power-conference season in which he’s being depended upon for a large percentage of everything his team does, especially points. He’s getting a little worn playing 32 minutes a game, and that exacerbates his deficiencies. He won’t be asked to do nearly that in the NBA. More like 8-14 minutes against the opposing team’s second-string big. Big difference.
Moreover, Garza will not be put in a position where he must guard anyone like Joel Embiid. He won’t be out there. He will be asked to play against other marginal players all of whom have liabilities of one kind or another.
What Garza will do is what all smart players and resolute players do: he will learn to limit his liabilities and exploit his strengths. He will look for situations where he can do what he does best. And he won’t do what he can’t. If that sounds simplistic, well it’s not. Trying to prove they can do what they cannot do is the reason many NBA players never get off the bench. Their coaches cannot trust them.
But Garza, you’ll be able to throw him out there in the middle of January when nobody really wants to play that hard and he will play like his career depends on it. Because it will. What’s more, he won’t play dumb. He won’t be a coach-killer. He will help his team win close games against bad opponents when nobody is watching.
If that sounds like faint praise, it’s not. Wins are wins, whenever you get them, for teams trying to simply make the playoffs and for those who are secure but trying to boost their seeding and home-court standing. Think that’s not a valuable asset to a coach? It is.
Do you know who’s still going to be hanging around drawing a paycheck next year and the year after? Guys like Dwight Howard. Expensive veterans whose once-astounding physical gifts are waning and now must rely on basketball smarts they’ve never really had to develop.
Somewhere, there’ll be a mutt waiting to take that guy’s roster spot. Somebody like Luka Garza. And there’ll be a coach and GM who’ll think it over.
More PennLive sports coverage:
• ‘Hey, Jones!’: The next PSU hoop coach, dealing Ben Simmons, and how I was wrong about Lamar Stevens.
• If Penn State decides to move on from Jim Ferry, here’s a list of potential head coach candidates.
• Though PSU kept Ed DeChellis and Pat Chambers after many close losses, Jim Ferry can’t expect same luck.