San Antonio Spurs Prospect Watch: Jericho Sims

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It is official, the San Antonio Spurs now have the 12th pick in the NBA Draft. However, a player that should get some good looks in the second round at pick 41 will be Texas big man Jericho Sims. The 6-foot-10 (in shoes), 250-pound big man is a great athlete who knew his role at Texas and played it extremely well. He can bring that same mentality of playing his role to the Spurs and could find some playing time early on while working on other aspects of his game.

He is not a shooter by any means and basically doesn’t shoot the ball outside of the paint. However, he does a few other things that make him valuable to a team and there were even times former Texas coach, Shake Smart, had him on the floor in place of likely lottery pick Kai Jones. He knew where to be on both ends of the floor and he almost always made the right decision and play. Here are his stats from the past season.

Stats

  • 9.2 PPG, 1.1 BPG, 0.7 SPG, 7.2 RPG
  • 69.6 FG%, 52 FT%
  • 21.7 PER, 117.0 ORtg, 93.5 DRtg

Sims certainly helped himself at the NBA Draft Combine with his measurements and play. He showed his supreme athleticism at his height with a 37-inch standing vertical and 44.5-inch max vertical. Of course, he can actually play too and caught the eye of Draft Express’ Jonathan Givony.

He played well in his two scrimmages at the combine and showed that he’s a bit more than just a hustle guy. Like the tweet above says, he’s an excellent pick-and-roll defender, is a good screener, and finished well at the rim. He’s shown more over a week at the combine than he did at Texas in the last year. There’s a strong belief now that he could develop some post moves or be more than just a lob catcher in the half court.

Sims has not shown great touch on his free throw shooting as of yet, but if he can improve that like he’s done with his footwork, then he’ll be alright. Even just extending his range to 15 feet would go a long way for him. However, he’s already a good rebounder and defender. He can hang with smaller guys for bursts and short switches without giving up a lane to the driver.

While Sims might have started off as a likely Summer League invite, he has absolutely pushed himself into second round talk. Should a team be able to tap into his slumbering skills, they’ll find a sleeping stud in there. Sims likely needs a year or two in the G-League to unlock those skills, but it will be worth the wait at the 41st pick.

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