NBA Draft Film Room: Is Kevin Knox next up in a long line of successful Kentucky one-and-dones?

In the lead-up to the NBA Draft on June 21, BSN Denver is taking an in-depth look at prospects the Nuggets might target in the first round. Each draft profile will be accompanied by a podcast available on BSNDenver.com and wherever you normally download your podcasts from. To submit questions for the podcast, reply in the comments section at the bottom of this story.

BSN Nuggets Podcast: The great Kevin Knox debate

THE BASICS

Kevin Knox — Forward — Kentucky

NBA Role: Combo forward/Secondary scorer

Player Comparison: Marcus Morris

Standing at 6-foot-9 with at least a 7-foot wingspan and 8-foot-10 standing reach, Kevin Knox checks off a lot of boxes for general managers and front office executives looking for another wing who can fit the modern NBA. In theory, Knox should be that guy. He averaged 15.6 points per game last year, which led Kentucky, and 5.4 rebounds.

He’s tall and long enough to guard threes and fours and could theoretically switch between both forward positions on offense. But Knox is raw, incredibly raw. He won’t turn 19 until after the draft and had an up-and-down freshman season on a young but deep Kentucky team, which makes him an enticing but potentially dangerous prospect to gamble on in the lottery.

An adept but sometimes streaky shooter

NBA offenses can rarely excel with non-shooters on the floor, especially in playoff environments. Defenses are too smart, coaches scheme too well and spacing is too valuable in today’s game. Teams won’t have to worry about that dilemma with Knox. Whichever team selects the Kentucky product, who’s projected to go in the late lottery to mid-first round, will get a player whose shot garners respect from the defense.

Knox shot 34.1 percent on 4.5 three-point attempts per game last season. He also hit 77.4 percent of his free throws, which bodes well when projecting his value as a shooter at the next level. Per The Stepien’s shot chart, Knox hit a healthy 36.9  percent of his attempts from NBA three-point range during his freshman season. Out of the 167 three-pointers Knox took last year, 111 would have come from beyond the NBA arc.

On catch-and-shoot jumpers, Knox’s form is sound. His mechanics are solid, he puts a good arc on his ball and jumps straight up and down. Knox also has a great looking follow-through and good finish on his shot. Overall, he shot 44.5 percent from the field on 11.9 field goal attempts per game.

But Knox’s jumper can run hot and cold. Toward the beginning of conference play, Knox couldn’t find the bottom of the net from distance. He shot 4-21 from three across four-straight games in January and ended the season by shooting 14-45 from distance over his last 10 games.

He can get hot, though. To start the year, Knox sunk 11 of his first 27 threes and during a three-game stretch in January, where Kentucky earned three consecutive hard-fought conference wins, Knox went 11-18 from three. His season-high 34-point performance against seventh-ranked West Virginia when Knox converted five of his eight three-point attempts and helped Kentucky to an impressive 83-76 road win, was his most impressive offensive showing of the season.

Although he’ll likely come into the league as more of a catch-and-shoot threat, Knox flashed potential as a someone who can attack the defense and rise up off the dribble. Like this three-pointer, the mechanics on Knox’s mid-range jumper are sound. He jumps straight up and down and shoots a good ball with a ton of arc. His jumper is fluid, repeatable and consistent. He can also take advantage of smaller matchups in the post and showed off a pretty hook shot around the rim with both his right and left hands at Kentucky.

What kind of athlete is he?

Knox has all the measurables of a plus-athlete. He’s long and lean with a fairly chiseled frame for an 18-year-old. Knox’s length helps him finish around the rim, contorting his body into every angle needed to slither by defenders on the way to the hoop. He’s got a fairly soft touch around the basket and shot 68 percent at the rim last season which placed him in the 74th percentile among all wings in the NCAA.

He can sky for alley-oops over defenders and covers a ton of ground when attacking the paint from the three-point line. Knox is dangerous in transition too as a finisher.

However, Knox isn’t the type of quick-twitch athlete that will blow by his defender off the dribble. He relies on his size and length more than his quickness or skill when attacking the basket. He doesn’t possess that one go-to move that can get him all the way to the hoop at will. Knox also doesn’t have a great handle, which limits his ability when attacking off the dribble.

That lack of quickness shows up on defense. Knox played a ton of small forward at Kentucky, and while he’ll also mostly be on the perimeter in the pros, he’ll be guarded by fours rather than the shiftier guards that he matched up with at times last season. Those smaller players found little resistance when attacking Knox off the dribble.

Because of his length, Knox could sometimes make up for his lack of quickness and recover in time to block the shot. But he only averaged 0.3 blocks per game last season, and his future as a rim protector is cloudy at best. Will he be able to switch onto smaller guards at the next level? That’s a huge question mark facing Knox in the pre-draft process.

The verdict

Knox is what every NBA team covets: a long and athletic combo forward who can shoot from three and do a little bit of everything on offense. While he struggled when guarding smaller players in college, there’s reason for optimism about his future defensive upside if he’s guarding more like-sized players at both forward positions. Is Knox really a power forward who masqueraded as a perimeter player at Kentucky? Or can he play both spots at the next level?

For a team like the Nuggets in need of wing depth and more players who can play and guard multiple positions, Knox seems like a fit. But he’s raw and shouldn’t be expected to contend for a spot in any rotation early on next season.

Knox could be next in a long line of Kentucky one-and-dones who flourish in the NBA. He just might take a little time to get there.