18. Precious Achiuwa, Power Forward
Current Team: Memphis
The biggest threat to fall down draft boards early in the college basketball regular season is the Memphis freshman power forward and former five-star recruit Precious Achiuwa. Thought to be a solid bet for a lottery pick in the NBA Draft 2020, Achiuwa is starting to move out of that discussion quickly.
While Achiuwa came into the Memphis basketball program under head coach Penny Hardaway with a ton of hype, he hasn’t lived up to it so far. He really hasn’t even come close. Hardaway is shying away from getting drawn up looks to Achiuwa on offense early on, which is never a good sign.
Achiuwa even has yet to make a three-point shot this season. His distributing ability is also looking to be a big fault of his. He’s averaging 2.8 turnovers per game compared to 0.8 assists. And he’s not even one of the two highest usage players for Memphis this season. At least the rebounding ability (averaging 6.8 rebounds per game) is a redeeming factor.
What will continue to draw attention to Achiuwa is his smooth athleticism and high-level physical tools. At 6-foot-9 and with a wingspan just above 7-foot-2, he does have the ability to put it all together. If nothing else, there should be a high floor defensively and he should figure out slashing and getting to the basket and the free-throw line often given his gifted physical tools.