Through Two Games of NBL Play, Rocco Zikarsky’s Draft Stock Is Plummeting

It is very early, but through two games of NBL play Next Star Rocco Zikarsky has looked borderline unplayable for the Brisbane Bullets and has put up two performances that could only cause his draft stock to plummet. The film looks even worse.

Rocco Zikarsky / fiba.basketball

The basketball season is long. In Australia, if you have a deep playoff run, it lasts close to six months. Currently, the season is barely a week old and only a handful of teams have played two games. Reactions to anything we’ve seen should keep that in mind. It’s rare to have anything worth panicking about this early in the season, except brutal injuries. 

It might be time to panic about Rocco Zikarsky. 

Panic may not be the best word given the circumstances: only two games, he only turned 18 two months ago, and the Brisbane Bullets simply may not be very good. That’s a glass half-full, the optimistic view. The pessimistic one is that in the Bullets opener, Zikarsky played only six minutes scored four points, and grabbed three rebounds. In their second game against the Illawarra Hawks, he finished with 10 points and three rebounds in 11 minutes.

Better? Not really. A good chunk of that came in closing time as the Bullets lost by a final score of 113-101 and trailed by as much as 17. 

Those are just box scores, though. Evaluating prospects is about a lot more than box score stats, especially over just a two-game sample. We’ve got to look at the film. Zikarsky has no optimistic outlook on what he has shown in his 17 minutes on the court. The concerns we highlighted for him earlier this season - slow, weak, and lack of a physical presence - seem to be worsening game-by-game. Not better. 

Zikarsky looks behind mentally and physically, on both sides of the ball. He is not processing the game quickly enough to get himself in positions to make plays. On the occasions when he is there promptly, he gets pushed out easily. His recovery efforts are laughable at this stage, flailing his arms like he’s trying to draw attention to a used car dealership. 

On offense, Zikarsky has offered nothing more than the occasional putback and a target to throw the ball high to. On a sample size of only eight field goal attempts, if you remove his three dunks, he’s only shooting 40 percent from the field. That’s unacceptable for someone who is 7-foot-3. 

The most infuriating thing is still how easily he is getting pushed around. Zikarsky is young and frail, getting moved by opposing bigs could be tolerated but recently opposing wings and guards have been able to body him out of the way and even to the floor. He is arguably the weakest player on the floor whenever he’s out there. 

Through two games, Zikarsky is uncoordinated and seems behind while processing the game. His best skill is that he is tall, and he often fails to make that impact. It is early days, but if the draft were tomorrow Zikarsky should be labeled a second-round stash. A late first-round pick could be tolerable, but a lottery selection is fireable. He must improve if he’s serious about entering the 2025 NBA Draft.

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