Early Returns From Rocco Zikarsky In The NBL

Rocco Zikarsky has appeared in 4 NBL games during the 2024-25 season so far and has averaged 11.5 minutes per game. How has he been producing in these minutes?

fiba.basketball / FIBA.com

Rocco Zikarsky is a name that has been atop 2025 NBA Draft boards for years now, thanks to consistently dominant production in similar-aged competitions and his debut in the NBL last year at just 17-years-old. After averaging 16.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, and 5.2 blocks per 36 minutes on 59.7% shooting from the field for the Brisbane Bullets last year, Zikarsky was widely considered a top-five prospect coming into this season.

However, his production hasn't entirely matched those expectations early on. Although he's averaging 21.1 points and 13.3 rebounds per 36 minutes through four games, he's averaging just 0.8 blocks, a disappointing number for someone who's primary sell was rim protection. After averaging 1.0 blocks per game in 7.0 minutes last season, he's averaging 0.3 blocks in 11.5 minutes so far this year.

The good news is that there may be a simple explanation for these early-season struggles: injuries. Zikarsky is reportedly actively recovering from an ankle injury, and isn't yet 100%. That checks out with the film too, where he looks a tad less explosive vertically compared to years prior.

Rocco is also dealing with an ankle injury. Worth keeping in mind to compare how he does later in the season

— Boris Beric (@_borisberic) October 19, 2024

There may be questions to have about his versatility as a leaper and ability to rise up quickly out of nonideal stances, but it's not really fair to criticize him when he isn't fully healthy. It'll be interesting to track his rim protection productivity throughout the season; if he gets close to the mark he was at last season, he'll surely get back into those top-five conversations he was in.

One thing that has positively popped with Zikarsky so far is his spatial awareness that shows itself in two areas: his playfinishing and offensive rebounding. He's active finding open pockets of space for dumpoffs, which pairs awesomely with being a massive target at 7-foot-3 with a 7-foot-6 wingspan.

That spatial feel and awareness also intersect with elite length, motor, physicality, and ball tracking to power his monstrous offensive rebounding. He's averaging a ridiculous 7.0 offensive rebounds per 36 so far this season after putting up 4.8 last year, culminating to 5.2 in 31 total games over the two samples.

Versatile, dependable play finishing and offensive rebounding are two of the most important traits for non-spacing bigs to be viable on offense, so Zikarsky being impactful in both aspects early on is very encouraging. Whether or not there'll be improvements to his screening and if he gets back to his defensive dominance or not are two things that should be tracked throughout the cycle, along with the stability of those offensive rebounding numbers.

---

Want to join the discussion? Like Draft Digest on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest NBA Draft news. You can also meet the team behind the coverage.

---