Chicago Bulls: Players Passed on for Denzel Valentine — Ivica Zubac
Current Los Angeles Clippers center Ivica Zubac, who was a 2016 draft selection of the Los Angeles Lakers, has proven his skillset as a commodity in the NBA.
He was a steal for the Lakers to get at number 32 overall, although they ruined the value by trading him for nothing just a few years later. Now a Clipper, Zubac has developed into a very nice role player when put in the right spots.
The big man has a ton of offensive moves that people don’t expect for a player his size. He is big, strong and physical on the court. Whether it be used for setting picks, crashing the glass or anything else teams ask a center in the NBA to do occasionally, Zubac is a pretty well-rounded traditional center.
Zubac was selected well after Valentine and is the perfect example of a player that is hard to compare because the Lakers have done a pretty good job at developing players selected after the NBA lottery.
Would the Bulls have put him in the right spots for success and helped him improve his game in all the right areas early in his career? I wouldn’t bet on it.
With Zubac already developing into a key piece on an NBA contender, it really isn’t debatable which of the two is off to the much better start career-wise. Valentine has a very specific yet limited game in terms of what he does and what he even can bring to the team.
Zubac, meanwhile, does a lot of things to impact the game on both ends of the floor and has done it on very good teams now.