Jayhawks' strengths get stronger with Cheick Diallo

ByJOHN GASAWAY
December 4, 2015, 5:26 PM

— -- Cheick Diallo now has his first college game under his belt, and if all goes according to plan, Kansas fans will have the next four months to enjoy watching the potential 2016 NBA draft lottery pick play in Lawrence.

What can we expect from the 6-foot-9 freshman and, more broadly, from the Jayhawks now that they're at full strength?

A one-and-done big man comes in handy even if he's not Anthony Davis

To get some sense of what Diallo might bring to the table, I pulled up the college numbers of the 15 big men since 2006-07 who have been drafted in the first round following their freshman seasons. Of course, "big man" can be in the eye of the beholder, so in the interest of clarity, here are my guys: Greg Oden, Spencer Hawes, Kevin Love, Anthony Randolph, Kosta Koufos, Byron Mullens, Derrick Favors, DeMarcus Cousins, Daniel Orton, Anthony Davis, Andre Drummond, Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jahlil Okafor.

The good news for KU coach Bill Self is that if Diallo follows the path blazed by his predecessors, he'll be a reliable scorer inside the arc as a freshman. On average a one-and-done big man will connect on fully 59 percent of his 2s, play 63 percent of the available minutes, account for 23 percent of his team's shot attempts while on the floor, and commit four fouls per 40 minutes.

Naturally, there's a wide range of performance levels recorded by those 15 previous one-and-done big men. At one extreme, a guy like Davis was national player of the year, and Love arguably should have been. At the other end of the spectrum, Randolph had what was correctly seen at the time as a middling season, while Orton couldn't even get on the floor for that season's Kentucky team. (Both players were drafted anyway.)

Where will Diallo fall on that spectrum? Kansas is, of course, already loaded with options on offense. Perry Ellis, Wayne Selden Jr., Frank Mason III and Devonte' Graham are all capable of putting points on the board, as is Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk coming off the bench. Diallo won't post the high possession-usage numbers we saw from, say, a Cousins or an Okafor. Instead, one likely trajectory for Diallo is that he'll take somewhere in the neighborhood of 22 or 23 percent of the team's shots during his minutes -- minutes that may be limited by fouls as much as by Self's discretion.

Diallo's most important contribution could come on the boards

One deficiency Kansas exhibited last season was a highly unusual degree of weakness on the defensive glass. In Big 12 play, the Jayhawks rebounded just 65.6 percent of their opponents' misses, a number that was not only slightly below the league average (68.9) but also well below normal for KU.

This is where observers occasionally point an accusing finger at starting center Jamari Traylor, and indeed it's true that last season his individual defensive rebound rate (11.2 percent) was exceptionally low. The 6-foot-8 Traylor is no world-beater on the glass, surely, but he is a fair rim protector who's also mobile and can get out and defend pick-and-rolls. Self obviously values these abilities because he gives more minutes to Traylor than he does to an even better rim protector in  Hunter Mickelson, or to a better rebounder such as  Landen Lucas.

But now Self has still another option in Diallo. (I haven't even mentioned Diallo's fellow freshman teammate  Carlton Bragg Jr. yet. Self is not lacking for depth.) The average one-and-done big man has personally rebounded 21 percent of the opposing team's misses during his minutes on the floor. If Diallo hits that number he'll rank as the best individual defensive rebounder Self has had since the Thomas Robinson days.

In addition to rebounding, Diallo also arrives billed as a rim protector. His 7-foot-3 wingspan should allow him to alter shots; in his debut against Loyola (Maryland) this week, the freshman recorded three blocks in 16 minutes.

Note, however, this could be one area of Diallo's game that pro scouts have far more interest in than Kansas fans. Under Self, the Jayhawks have reliably held Big 12 opponents to a very low success rate inside the arc; this was the case last season with Ellis and Traylor getting many of the minutes at the 4 and 5 spots. It's a fairly safe bet KU will be able to force 2-point misses no matter whether Diallo is on the floor.

Still, let's not forget: Kansas is much more than just Diallo

Kansas lost Kelly Oubre to the NBA after last season, but otherwise this is largely the same team that won yet another Big 12 regular-season title in 2014-15. Even without Diallo, the Jayhawks were ranked No. 4 nationally in the preseason.

True, Self has fretted on occasion about getting smaller in 2015-16, with the 6-foot-5 Selden taking the minutes at the wing that last season went to the 6-foot-7 Oubre. But the early returns on this defense are encouraging enough (KU's worst outing on D came when Michigan State scored 79 points in its 74-possession win), while the offense has been nothing less than explosive. Whether your preferences run more toward depth, talent, paint defense or perimeter shooting -- assuming Self can be persuaded to give a green light -- this team has you covered. 

That sounds like a national championship contender to me. With Diallo now available and, perhaps, a relative dearth of "great" teams this season -- think Duke and Kentucky last season -- Kansas has an excellent opportunity to reach its first Final Four since 2012.