We’ve featured a fair few high-risk, high-reward prospects lately, but Jayden Quaintance might be the ultimate prospect in that category within this class (primarily due to his injury history). Quaintance, still just 18 years old after two years of college, has shown tantalising film when he’s played; the problem, of course, is that he really hasn’t played a whole lot (I’ll get back to that).
But first, for those who aren’t familiar with Jayden, he stands at 6’9”, which is a tad undersized for an NBA
centre in terms of height, but his ginormous wingspan (7’5.25”) and 253-pound frame certainly help make up for that. People would be forgiven if they hadn’t really heard of Quaintance up to this point, and that’s because he only played in four games for Kentucky this year. He enrolled at Arizona State University a year early (which would have been his senior year of high school), and thus, wasn’t even draft-eligible after that season concluded, with the plan always being to spend two years in college.
During that year with the Sun Devils, Jayden tore his ACL; he then transferred to Kentucky with the goal of returning at the start of conference play. He did so, playing in four games (averaging 5.0 PPG and 5.0 RPG, and 1.3 stocks) and showing some tantalising flashes, but he then experienced swelling in that injured knee, and was shut down for the year.
Therefore, scouts will be in a bind as to where they place Quaintance on their boards, given the small sample size and lack of recent film. They will have to draw mostly from his high school and ASU film, and teams will obviously be trying desperately to get him in for a private workout. There have also been a good number of people pointing out that Jayden didn’t seem to want to land on his injured knee in the workout film that’s surfaced on social media, so teams will need to greenlight his medicals. As Finn noted, he did not particpate in athletic testing at the combine.
But as far as evaluation of the film we do have goes, the first thing that struck me about Quaintance is his defensive dexterity—that will be what gets him on the floor as a rookie. Despite looking a tad heavy-footed, he does not move like that at all. His ability to guard two players while defending in the drop—stunting to the ball-handler and recovering to the roller—is truly unique. He uses his massive wingspan to poke balls away and block shots you think are going to get to the rim or backboard. Put simply, he can do some freakish stuff on D.
On the offensive end, there is no jumper to speak of, but I think he’ll develop a floater game. You can tell that Jayden has huge hands to pair with his ginormous wingspan, which allows him to finish easily around the rim, “putting” the ball in the hoop a lot of the time (very similar to what I described with Karim Lopez). Ultimately, considering the number of guards in the 5-10 range of this draft, I wouldn’t be shocked at all to see Quaintance’s name called somewhere within the first 10 selections; it feels like some team is going to take a swing (if not in that range, then the lottery). Could that team be the Bucks? I wouldn’t be mad at it!
The Brew Hoop team would like to thank everyone who has participated in this year’s community draft board; it was great fun for all of us writing these profiles. Now to get to the real thing!
