Adou Thiero selected No. 36 overall by Lakers | 2025 NBA Draft Grades & Instant Reaction

Adou Thiero selected No. 36 overall by Lakers | 2025 NBA Draft Grades & Instant Reaction

at 36 that pick changing hands multiple times it was once the Nets then the Timberwolves and then now the Lakers and the Lakers used that selection to take Adoro out of Arkansas how do you do he led Arkansas in points per game rebounds per game steals per game last season a really talented young man and Adoro going to the LA Lakers your grade for this is what uh I’ll go B he’s a physical specimen he’s 6’7 with shoes on he’s got a 7 foot wingspan he’s powerful he He’s athletic he excels at getting downhill he’s got a ton of potential defensively in fact I think that’s going to have to be his niche at the NBA level the transition scoring that we saw in college that maybe he was known for not going to be as applicable in the NBA game it’s all going to come down to finding a niche on the offensive end of the floor and for someone like this who’s going to be able to guard threes and I think probably maybe fours maybe twos he should be fairly switchable can he make open catch and shoot threes shot 21% last year on open catch and shoot threes that number is going to have to change and it’s going to have to change pretty significantly if it does he will stick as an NBA player if it doesn’t it’s unclear this is one of those moments that remind me I’m not getting any younger because in a previous life it feels like I was just a newspaper reporter covering the University of Memphis men’s basketball program for the Commercial Appeal and among the young players John Caliperryi brought into that program was Almami Theierro his son is Adoo who went on to play for John both at Kentucky and now at Arkansas so just on a personal level it’s kind of cool seeing somebody I knew when he was young have a child raise him and then have them experience this moment what an awesome deal now to the basketball stuff like F said “Oh buddy he looks the right way.” If Janai Broom doesn’t look and move the right way Dutiero clearly does body’s perfect if you were trying to build a basketball player a wing you’d want him to walk off the bus it look like this the question is what else does he bring to the table he’s an incredible athlete he can drive it and try to dunk on you but can he change speeds can he make a shot uh is he going to be a basketball player so far and this is true I think at in for basketball for a while just being built like him can get you by through high school and can get you by through college you can lead an SEC school in scoring just by being built the way he’s built but in this league it ain’t enough you got to be able to play and that’s the big question does he have the skill will he ever have the skill to be a meaningful NBA player well he’s going to get the chance to learn alongside LeBron and Luca is this one of those picks that you make and I know that they they they moved up to make this pick but you talked about it earlier before the draft started about these are the kind of picks you’re looking for these lowlevel deals so that you can fill out your roster especially now that the Lakers ownership is changing hands you’re seeing it in Boston right now they’re having to shed salary roughly a year after winning a title now that is in part connected to the Jason Tatum Achilles injury but either way they were going to have to retool their roster because they had in the simplest of terms too many people making too much money um these second round picks are more valuable than they’ve ever been in my opinion because with that second apron operating more or less like a hard cap for these franchises you have got to have meaningful players on little bitty contracts in Memphis where I live the Grizzlies have tried to do this take second round picks give them four years 8 million and hope that they hit if they don’t it’s not a big cost if they do you got somebody meaningful making $2 million a year so if you’re the Lakers absolutely you need to hit on these types of things and with the Arrow specifically it’s interesting because where Philadelphia I think is right now operating in a very specific Joel Embiid window once the Lakers made that Luca trade they’ve got two windows now they’re trying to sure maximize the end of LeBron James career but there is life after LeBron in LA now and it’s in the form of number 77 i’ll take that even farther this isn’t about building around LeBron anymore this is now about building around Luca and believe it or not Dallas actually did a pretty good job of that and one of the things they did is they found big versatile defenders on the wing and I think this is an indication that LA is going to try and replicate that to an extent because if he can’t guard surround him with people who can there you go so the Lakers trading up to get Adoo Theo out of Arkansas they make a deal there as we continue our coverage here on the clock as you take a look at the last five selections elijah Martin the latest from Florida helped them win a national championship and he is headed to the Toronto Raptors we’ll be back here throughout the night with plenty of updates from the second round of the NBA draft presented by Jeep [Music]

Adam Finkelstein and Gary Parrish join CBS Sports HQ to grade Adou Thiero being drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers at No. 36 overall.

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