Auburn basketball HC Bruce Pearl made waves when he said that Walker Kessler will be a better NBA professional than Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren.
Auburn’s seven-foot-one shot-blocking specialist (4.6 per game in 2021-22 for the Tigers) is expected to be a first-round pick, having been invited to the green room by the league in anticipation of an early selection.
Holmgren, meanwhile, was tabbed as a potential No. 1 pick from the start of his career at Gonzaga and is now expected to go No. 2 overall to the Oklahoma City Thunder behind Kessler’s frontcourt mate Jabari Smith.
Skip Bayless of FS1’s Undisputed shared Pearl’s opinion with a tint of skepticism:
Bruce Pearl says his center, Auburn’s Walker Kessler, will be better in the NBA than Chet Holmgren. What??? Now on @undisputed
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) June 23, 2022
Walker Kessler is better built for the NBA than Chet Holmgren is
This is actually not hard logic to follow in the slightest. Holmgren played a soft schedule in the West Coast Conference while Walker Kessler battled future NBA draft picks in Arkansas’ Jaylin Williams, Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe, and LSU’s Tari Eason during the Tigers’ 2021-22 SEC basketball slate. Holmgren needs to fill out significantly, barring him developing into the next Kevin Durant, while Kessler can be plugged into any NBA lineup and fit as a physical rim-running two-way presence. Holmgren has perhaps the lowest floor of anyone player projected in the top 10 of the draft, while Kessler could become an immediate contributor in the right situation.
People like Skip Bayless need to undermine such a point by the Tigers HC to stir debate and generate social media attention, but what Bruce Pearl said is true.
We can revisit this a year from now and see how it pans out, but Fly War Eagle would go as far as to say Kessler has a better shot at NBA Rookie of the Year in the right system than Holmgren does with the Thunder.