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Dana Altman’s phone had been ringing off the hook in the weeks leading up to the draft as NBA personnel continued to reach out around the clock about his 7-foot-2 center. From the intel Altman had received, Bol Bol was to be selected with one of the first 30 draft picks but sitting just a few feet from the one-time projected lottery talent in the green room at Barclay’s Center, Oregon’s coach could sense disappointment and frustration emanating from the 19-year-old who still was waiting to hear his name called well into the second round.
“He was hurt. He thought he was going to go higher. I did too,” Altman told BSN Denver. “I received so many calls I was convinced he’d go in the first round. It hurt, but to his credit, he just said, ‘I’ve got a lot of work to do, coach. I’ve got to prove everybody wrong’ and sometimes that’s a great motivator. But his feelings were hurt, his mom’s too. But they’re wonderful people and I think he’ll bounce back and I think this will serve as a little bit of motivation for him.”
Bol’s fall all the way to pick No. 44 where the Nuggets traded into the draft to select the big man was one of the biggest storylines to come out of last week’s draft. A foot injury that ended Bol’s season after just nine games contributed to his tumble into the second round, but the newest Nugget said shortly after Denver acquired him that he’s 100% healthy and fully recovered from a stress fracture in the navicular bone in his left foot.
Questions around Bol’s slight frame and inconsistent effort level reportedly sunk his draft stock as well. ESPN’s Jonathan Givoney and Mike Schmitz wrote in the lead-up to the draft that Bol, “came into college with plenty of questions regarding his approach to the game, especially regarding his work ethic.”
Altman speculated that some of those reports can be traced back to Bol’s prep career where he bounced between several different high schools in Kansas, California and Las Vegas before ultimately graduating from national powerhouse Findlay Prep. Bol’s work ethic and approach to the game were never in question at Oregon, according to his former coach, and Altman relayed that message to anyone who phoned his office wondering about Bol’s makeup ahead of the draft.
“He was in the gym, he practiced hard,” Altman said. “Everybody grows up at a different time, but he did a great job for us and I told everybody that. The few months that I got to spend with him he was in the gym, he was working on his game, came to practice, he did a great job for us. Something like that gets started, but we spent six months with him and the six months he spent here at the University of Oregon he worked his tail off. You don’t average 21 (points) and 10 (rebounds) by not playing and practicing hard.”
Denver was more than happy to take a gamble on Bol and his unique skill-set when he slipped to the second round and sent $1.2 million to the Miami Heat and the lower of its 2022 or the Philadelphia 76er’s 2022 second-round selections to complete the deal. The Nuggets had Bol pegged as a lottery pick on their draft board and president of basketball operations Tim Connelly said on draft night that his natural tools and skill-set prompted Denver to aggressively trade into the second round after beginning the night with no picks.
As the Nuggets saw throughout their pre-draft evaluation, the uniqueness of Bol is the first thing that jumps out when watching film of the seven-footer from both the high school circuit and at Oregon. Bol moves incredibly well for his size and runs with the fluidity but not quite the coordination of 7-foot-3 Mavericks center Kristaps Porzingis. He should be a menace on the offensive and defensive glass at the next level and has superb touch around the basket for someone of his size. Bol shot 70.5% at the rim and 55.6% from the short mid-range last season and also converted on 52% of his 3s. Bol attempted nearly three triples per game at Oregon on his way to averaging 21 points and 9.6 rebounds. He was also one of the more productive players on Nike’s EYBL circuit in high school and has been a fixture in USA Basketball’s program since 2017.
“I’ve never coached anybody with that skill-set,” said Altman.
In a November matchup against Syracuse, Oregon positioned Bol at the foul line in the middle of their opponent’s 2-3 zone and the Ducks’ freshman had a field day. On his 19th birthday, Bol finished the night with 26 points on 11 of 17 shooting, knocked in a 3 and converted on a plethora of mid-range push shots and tip-ins around the rim. Bol also tallied nine rebounds, five of which came on the offensive glass.
Defensively, Bol has a ways to go however, his 7-foot-8 wingspan will serve as a natural deterrent at the rim. He averaged 2.7 blocks per game last season but will need to get stronger to check some of the more physical interior players that he’ll be matched up against at the next level. Bol will also need to work on his foot speed and gain some lateral quickness if he wants to be successful defending in the NBA where teams will surely target him if he’s caught switching out onto a smaller guard or wing.
“As you look around the league now, the teams that are having a lot of success are using their bigs to shoot it and spread the floor and open up guys’ abilities to get to the rim and he definitely can do that,” said Altman. “Defensively, he can change some shots. He does have to work a little bit on sliding his feet and guarding the dribble, but they’re still going to have to shoot it over his length and I think that will give people problems.”
Bol’s natural ability is too hard to ignore. He gets his height from his father, 7-foot-7 Manute Bol, who played 10 seasons in the NBA from 1985-95 and developed into a fan favorite for his gangly frame, reputation as a practical joker and propensity to shoot 3s late in blowouts before he passed away in 2010 at the age of 47. It’s impossible not to think of Manute as Bol glides up and down the floor with one long never-ending stride after another.
“He’s a unique talent, someone that I think as he gets stronger will get better and better,” Altman said. “He’s only 19-years-old. He’s going to get stronger. He’s going to get more physical, and when that happens, because of his skill-set he’ll be someone that’s very unique also to the NBA.”
The Nuggets took Bol with a long-term view in mind, just as they did when selecting Michael Porter Jr. 14th overall, and Jarred Vanderbilt 41st in last year’s draft. Like Bol, both 2018 selections fell due to concerns about injuries they suffered in college but Vanderbilt returned to court in late-January and flashed the skill-set in the G League and in garbage time minutes with Denver’s varsity team that had Nuggets brass beaming they picked him in the second round. Porter’s Summer League debut is just over a week away and the Nuggets continue to be optimistic about his outlook.
“(Porter) resembles the player we saw prior to all the injuries,” Connelly said on draft night.
The Nuggets haven’t announced whether or not Bol will play alongside Porter and Vanderbilt in this year’s Las Vegas showcase, but the expectation is that Denver will take it slow with its second-round selection and not rush him in his development. It’s an action plan that the Nuggets have experience with and one that would yield the most fruitful outcome for Bol.
It will also give him the best chance of proving the 23 teams that passed on one of the draft’s most intriguing talents in the first and second rounds wrong.
