The Path To The NBA For Tennessee's Igor Milicic Jr.

How the 6-foot-10, 225-pound 22-year-old can create draft buzz at Tennessee this season.

Tennessee forward Igor Milicic Jr. (7) and Tennessee forward Felix Okpara (34) during a UT preseason basketball practice at Pratt Pavilion on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. / Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Igor Milicic Jr., a senior transfer playing for the Tennessee Volunteers this season, is one of the more intriguing yet simultaneously underrated draft prospects in the country. Here lies a player that's shot 36% from three on 10 attempts per 100 possessions and 79% on free-throws in three seasons prior to transferring up, while also being able to put the ball on the floor and process the game well. Additionally, he has great positional size at 6-foot-10 and 225 pounds.

What appears to be the perfect modern-day big seems to be getting virtually no draft buzz...yet. How could that be?

Well, for one, poor competition. While he transferred up to Tennessee this season, he's spent the last three years playing against weaker competition in the AAC for the Charlotte 49ers. And he wasn't dominating at this level either. Per 40 minutes last season, Milicic Jr. averaged 15.9 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 2.1 assists on 63.2% true shooting. Impressive, but not outstanding and certainly not NBA-level production against lower-level athletes.

The second factor is age. To breakout onto NBA draft radars at this point in his age-22 season, Milicic Jr. would have to produce some very eye-popping numbers. The saving grace here is that he's been doing just that through three games thus far.

Per 40 minutes this season, the Volunteers big man is averaging 21.0 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 3.8 assists on 70.7% true shooting. He's been fantastic as a driver and is boasting 6:1 assist-to-turnover ratio; though it's at an extremely small sample size right now, he was at 0.9 last year and 0.5 the year before that, showing year-over-year improvement. The Rick Barnes offensive system gives Milicic Jr. the chance to pad those numbers with simple reads in a motion offense, but that proven development could go a long way in verifying his decision-making aptitude.

Along with his efficiency as a driver and passer, Milicic Jr. will have to find ways to shoot more, grab more rebounds, and make more events happen defensively. After shooting over 10 threes per 10 possessions at Charlotte, he's at under eight this season. Bringing that number up would help bolster his shooting projections. On top of that, he needs to bring up his measly 2.5% offensive rebound, 1.9% steal, and 0.0% block rates to prove that he's at least a decently functional athlete at the high-major level.

Igor Milicic Jr. and the Tennessee Volunteers take on Austin Peay today at 3:00 p.m. ET in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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