The Charlotte Hornets have been connected to an intriguing big man.
The Charlotte Hornets boast one of the best collections of young talent in the NBA, but they still have some work to do when it comes to establishing themselves as legitimate contenders.
Part of that will come with age and experience, but the Hornets also need to add some more pieces to their nucleus.
While Charlotte is not exactly a free-agent hot spot, the Hornets have built their squad via the NBA Draft, anyway, so that's surely where they will turn for another key player this summer.
Bleacher Report's Jonathan Wasserman recently ran a mock draft and had Charlotte ending up with a very interesting player, predicting Charles Lee's squad to select Kentucky Wildcats big man Jayden Quaintance with the 13th overall pick.
While Wasserman has compared Quaintance to Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo, Quaintance — who transferred over to Kentucky from Arizona State — is surrounded with question marks because of his injury history.
Jayden Quaintance. Credit: Jordan Prather-Imagn Images."The long-term ceiling that looked so appealing at Arizona State hasn't changed. But with questions around his availability, health and current stage of development, it's becoming more likely that he could lose support from certain teams desperate for a sure thing," Wasserman wrote.
Quaintance tore his ACL last year and played just four games for the Wildcats this season before exiting with knee swelling, so his stock has dropped quite a bit. That makes him a high-risk, high-reward bet, but if he gets healthy, the Hornets could strike gold here.
"At full strength, Quaintance looks like an outstanding defensive prospect due to his frame, length and shot-blocking rate," Wasserman added. "He was always behind offensively, but he's delivered enough flashes of low-post touch, driving ability and shotmaking for scouts to picture some long-term scoring potential to unlock."
Charlotte already has a couple of talented young bigs in Moussa Diabate and Ryan Kalkbrenner, but there is little doubt that Quaintance has the higher ceiling.
During his freshman season at Arizona State, the 6-foot-10, 255-pound center averaged 9.4 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.6 blocks over 29.5 minutes per game while shooting 52.5 percent from the floor.
As Wasserman noted, Quaintance's offensive repertoire is incredibly raw, but so was Adebayo's when he first entered the league out of Kentucky back in 2017.
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