I find Nurkic very intriguing and have been trying to watch as much vid as I can on him.
The positives to me are
(a) His back-to-the-basket game. You just don't see many bigs with that skill anymore.
(b) His wicked fast feet. He's not a vertical leaper, but he's very quick with his feet.
(c) Strong as a bull.
(d) Very good hands and as someone else pointed out, an underrated passer.
The negatives to me are
(a) He's very young and raw.
(b) Needs to learn how to better use that quickness and strength on defense. Potential is there, but lotta work needed.
(c) Might be a bit of a hot-head who won't endear the refs much. Complains on every call. On the other hand, 'Sheed Wallace is probably headed to the HoF with a similar 'attitude'. And the few coach & teammate comments I've seen don't seem to point to any real character problem.
I think that I would definitely take him over Cauly-Stein. He seems to have a lot more potential on both ends of the floor. I don't expect him to slip to where our 2nd pick will be, though. Right now, that is #18. I expect Nurkic to go somewhere around 12-15.
If we somehow came out of this draft with Wiggins and Nurkic, I would be a very happy little Celtics fan. Not gonna bet $$ that that happens, though.
