Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Jayhawks Portal Target: Anton Bonke is a 7'2" Giant with Mobility | Could Self Add Charlotte Center?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Anton Bonk is a gigantic human who's got a little more mobility than you might think. Does he make sense? This is a Floribungo replacement for KU. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on, Derek Johnson, another episode of the show. And today we're going to be deep diving, breaking down Anton Bonk, a transfer portal target for KU basketball as they look for a new center.

Starting point is 00:00:36 with Florida Bedungut gone to Louisville. We'll get into his fit with KU, his scouting report, and we'll start right here. Bonk is a 7-foot-2, 260-pound behemoth who comes from another country, international player, goes to Eastern Arizona Junior College, and he puts up about 10 and 6 per game there, kind of a raw basketball player, like not somebody who was playing basketball at 12, 13 years old, learns the game late. but he's gigantic, so you know, figure out basketball, right? He turns that Juko opportunity into attending Providence, which an impressive opportunity

Starting point is 00:01:13 to get to go to the Big East. Unfortunately, he only plays 16 games at Providence. Didn't see a ton of action. So he goes to Charlotte where he's just, you know, as a developing player looking for reps, looking for opportunity to get to play, and he breaks out at Charlotte. I do believe he'll be a senior this season. But anyway, this past season at Charlotte, he registered 10.6 points, 8.3 rebounds, and one and a half blocks per game in a little over 25 minutes per game.

Starting point is 00:01:37 He shot 58% from the floor, 34% on threes, limited attempts, but he ended up with one less make than Bryson Tiller. So if you're getting similar three production from your five, as you had from the four last year, like that's totally fine. And then 65% on foul shots. He had three games of 20 or more points. His season high came 25, and then he had 10 games with double-digit rebounds with a high of 15 rebounds.

Starting point is 00:02:02 He also had seven different games registering three or more blocks. And some of his notable games in terms of opponents, he played at Virginia Tech, obviously a Power 5 team. He had 15 and 10 at Virginia Tech on six of nine shooting. He played against Utah State. That's a Utah State team that won an NCAA tournament game and gave Arizona a bit of a challenge. He had seven points on two or four shootings, it's not a ton of offensive action there,

Starting point is 00:02:24 but he had 13 rebounds. Then in the AAC tournament, his scoring wasn't great, seven points per game in the AAC tournament. But what he did do in the American tournament as his team went to the AAC title game and he helped him win a couple games there, 34 rebounds over the three games. He also averaged close to two assists per game in that stretch. They'll average in over 10 rebounds per game, over 11 rebounds per game in that stretch in the tournament. So you look at 24-7 sports, it has him rated as a four-star in the portal rankings. On three has him even higher, 93-rated four-star who's like barely outside of the top 100. at Evan Mia, a little bit lower on him, has him closer in the 400s for projected BPR.

Starting point is 00:03:04 But the metrics are solid here on Bonk, who, again, has a great last name to begin with. 76th percentile in RIPM, 83rd percentile mark on offense, 53rd on defense, 82nd percent on wind shares per 40, with an 88th mark on offense, 48th on defense. So again, in both of those, interesting that the offense, much higher defense, more close to average on defense. Ninety second percent on P.R. 94th percentile and wins above replacement player. So again, these are good.

Starting point is 00:03:32 As far as on-off rating goes, Charlotte was actually nine and a half points better per 100 possessions when he was on the floor. They were better on both ends of the floor. They were like four points better on defense and then the rest better on offense. But I found this number really interesting. When he was off the floor, Charlotte's offensive rebound rate was like in the mid-20s. When he was on the floor, their offensive rebound rate was in like the high 30s, which is like, if you have a high 30s,

Starting point is 00:03:58 offensive rebound rate, you were like one of the most elite offensive rebound rate as a team jumped over 10 percentage points. It's not just that he's a good rebound, except by being so dang large, she's opening up rebounds for other guys. And that is something that we know, Kansas was not a good enough offensive rebounding team this year.

Starting point is 00:04:15 That does have to peak your interest a little bit, right? But this is such a hard player to figure out for me, because it's one where like the metrics are pretty good, the size is great, are good. Like, there's more mobility than you would think. You could also counter this and say, well, literally just a year ago, he was transferring from Providence because he couldn't get on the court. Did one year change all of that to be able to play at Kansas? And again, you could flip that around and go, okay, but he is a late developing basketball player. He's a player who joined basketball

Starting point is 00:04:47 late. So he just needed to get some reps and opportunity to improve, right? Like, it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like if you're you're a developing player and you don't get to play, you're not going to get to develop, you know? So very interesting player, very interesting. What would the role be? Is this a backup? Is this a starter? You know, I think a lot of questions with this one. So let's get into the scouting report and try to dig into those a little bit deeper. Our episode of the show is brought to you by Fanduals sportsbook. The NBA playoffs are here where every possession matters. Every matchup is magnified and every game can swing a series. Right now Fandwell's giving you customers a great way to get it on the action.

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Starting point is 00:06:17 One has got to be rebounding. I mentioned the difference in rebounding for Charlotte when he was on the floor, but it's also the individual numbers. 95th percentile. That is absolutely elite, both at offensive rebound rate and defensive rebound rate. Incredible rebounder, right? I think that's the biggest selling point here. Also, good action.

Starting point is 00:06:36 88th percentile block rate, really strong at avoiding foul trouble, too. That is something that caught my eye. He's not the shot blocker floor he was. And obviously, if you have an 88th percentile in the AAC, what does that transfer down to the Big 12? Are you going to be in the 70th percentile? Still going to be solid. But the thing that, again, really strong.

Starting point is 00:06:55 out to me. It was really good at avoiding fouls and foul trouble. I don't know if that's just because he just realizes, hey, I'm gigantic. I'm just going to be big and throw my hands up vertically. And I think that's the right way to do it. And has kind of a big impact there. So I did like to see that. You can also stretch it out a little bit to the three point line. It's not a huge number of attempts, right, but it's 34%. And just the ability to do it at all is kind of nice to have. He also ranked 73rd percentile in pick and pop efficiency. So again, you're kind of just doing things that you haven't had the ability to do last year. You could do it a little bit with Hunter Dickinson. It's not going to be your staple of your offense, but it's nice to kind of have an outlet like that, right? And then even though

Starting point is 00:07:36 it's not Power 5 level competition at Charlotte, his metrics did carry over in the bigger games. Now, again, even when I talk about the 11 quad one plus quad two games he played this year, six of which were Quad 1 games, it's not a lot of games again. against, you know, Duke and Kansas and stuff. So that does kind of remain to be seen, but you want to see how it scales up against at least the, you know, more consistent end of the competition you'd be playing. And even in just those 11 quad one plus quad two games, he was in the top quartet of college of basketball in RAPM, wins shares per 40, PERR, wins above replacement player.

Starting point is 00:08:14 He also maintained a 78th percent out or better in a block rate, both sides of the rebound rates and field goal percentage. So he was able to maintain a high level of play even against better competition. Now, again, it's not the elite of the elite competition. It's not playing Michigan and Duke in some of these schools, but at the very least when they were playing the teams that say Kansas would play when they're playing like UCF and Oklahoma State and Colorado, those types of schools, he was able to maintain a very high level of play. Now, you look at some the weaknesses here. Below average of getting to the free throw line, he can also get turnover prone a little bit at times.

Starting point is 00:08:49 it's not something I'd be worried about too much, but I would be worried in specific matchups. Like you think what Iowa State and Houston do, where they really pressure the basketball, they really pressure the post, how are you going to do in those types of games, right? He also doesn't really get steals, which I think that probably comes with being newer to the game, probably doesn't have as much of the basketball, I don't know, just like feel or acumen to get those steals and where they're coming from, right? He also doesn't have great touch further from the hoop on twos, like he was good at the rim. One side I saw had 66% at the rim. One side I saw had 68% at the rim. You're going to get different numbers because some classify at the rim within four feet. Some say it's within three feet, right? So that's why you get that. But good numbers at the rim. You look at the highlights, he had a good ability to use both hands. He could dunk it pretty well again, more athletic than you might think for a seven two guy. But on the short mid range shots, so kind of the, if you get pushed out a little more and have to take a long hook shot or that kind of flow to range. area. He was only 40%. So he's definitely somebody who, if you can push him off his spot,

Starting point is 00:09:55 has a tough time, you know, knocking them down, kind of similar to Flory a little bit there. He's also not a great pick and role player, which we know KU spammed this past year with Floreen Tiller. Now, I would imagine Bill Self would adjust a little bit and say, hey, we were better at it with this guy, like we're going to use you a little bit differently. But he was only in the 40th percentile at Biggs cutting and rolling efficiency when you look at the top 100 only games. That would certainly be a question of how they would use him. So what exactly is the fit here? Are we talking this to take? Are we talking starter? Or we're talking off the bench? We'll get to that next. Today's episode is brought to you by TurboTax. It is tax time, but for a lot of us, the old way of

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Starting point is 00:11:22 deep dive on it yesterday as well and plenty of other player deep dives here on lockdown jhawks what is the fit here for bonk i think that like in general i think this is a pretty interesting player right and i do think it's important to note that obviously this is not power five level competition but this isn't you know he's not playing meyak basketball the american athletic conference has had some some pretty good jump-ups of players to power five schools um like the ac The AAC, sorry, is the 10th highest rated league on Kenpom. It's not coming from the Big South or the Patriot League that are like in the 20s. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:11:59 And again, in the bigger games, he did well or did okay. So is it a jump in competition? Yes. What do you have to figure that out? Yes. But is this like impossible to overcome? No, I don't think it is. Right.

Starting point is 00:12:13 This is the classic like cost and roll one for me because, okay, let's start with the role. if the role coming in is for him to be your backup big man fantastic i would love bonk as a backup big man being able to throw right especially if you have paulambia and bonk where you can say hey battle it out and see who the best guy is you know what i mean or even play three centers this year if you're not going to have a florie a center who's giving you 30 minutes a night because you're clear number one and you rotate three centers and keep them all fresh and you know that they're all have their own skills like that can be fine too you know um So I would love him as a backup edition because then it's taking a bigger kind of home run swing of that position while still knowing you're at least getting rebounding and shot blocking rim protection, which can be a good thing.

Starting point is 00:12:59 If this is a conversation of him coming in to be a starter, I think that conversation then comes down to the cost conversation, right? Like, I'm actually okay if you bring in Bonk to be a starter. But it comes again with the cost conversation because if you're paying Anton Bonk, say, I don't know, million dollars, million a half, two million dollars, right? The rumors are Flory got like $5 million, for instance. I can only imagine what some of these other centers like Somto C-Role to go to Miami or, I don't know, Brandon Garrison to go to Alabama. That's probably a worst example because he's probably not getting this much.

Starting point is 00:13:34 But I don't know, David Punchmore of Power for it. I'm blanking on some of the centers who have committed already. The point being J.P. Estrella out of Michigan, some of these centers who have already committed, like what are they getting? Flore's getting five. They're probably not getting that. but are they getting four? You know, I don't think I would roll that out.

Starting point is 00:13:52 And so do you view it as your Kansas is going, hey, if we can bring in this center that, you know, there are going to be some questions, but we're only going to have to pay them again, say $2 million, and you're saving $2 to $3 million at that position to where you can lump on an extra $1 million to add in another card, to adding another wing, to adding a power forward? Or you can say, we're going to put an extra $3 million on just one player just to make sure we get the guy we want. Or we're going to say we're going to split up that extra $3 million to make the best bench we've had in several years. Whatever you do with that money, that makes sense to me as long as you make it work in the right way. Like if you have an elite roster one through four and you're only average

Starting point is 00:14:29 at the center position because you cheaped out on it, that's okay. It's almost like in the NFL. You invest in all these positions and then you have certain positions where you feel like you coached them really well because there's a salary cap and you go, hey, we're not going to pay that guy that long-term contract because we feel like we can we can at least get average level play there at a cheap cost and the positions maybe we struggle with developing we're going to invest the money and the draft capital and whatever else so i look back at 2023 can't this which had awesome two through four when you look at gradie dick kevin mcculler and jalen wilson you had kj adams rotating with freshman at the five you know i look back to some of landed Lucas teams which i i loved landin's game

Starting point is 00:15:14 I thought he was kind of the ultimate teammate and really good rebounder and stuff. But like, you know, it's not like Landon was an all-American center for KU, but they had really good rosters around it. So if if Bonk being a starter means that you're going a little cheaper at the center position to make sure you have an elite roster around it, I'm totally in. So again, it's either the role. If he's backup, great. Or if it's a starter, but the cost is right to make the rest of the roster elite, great.

Starting point is 00:15:40 If it's neither one of those things, then I'm not as much in. But I hope that kind of makes sense. So plus I would just love saying bong all season long. All right. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Jayhawks Portal Target: Anton Bonke is a 7'2" Giant with Mobility | Could Self Add Charlotte Center?

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