After two truly dominant runs throughout college basketball, UConn star Donovan Clingan is headed to Portland.
The Trail Blazers selected Clingan with the No. 7 overall pick in the NBA Draft on Wednesday night. The 7-foot-3 center is fresh off back-to-back title runs with the Huskies, which made them the first program to pull that feat off in 17 years.
Though both Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr held a clear advantage in the race for the No. 1 overall pick, Clingan was gaining steam in recent days. After Sarr declined to meet with the Hawks, the team narrowed in on Risacher — who they eventually took No. 1 overall — and Clingan.
Even though he slipped a bit from the top, Clingan is one of the safer prospects available in this otherwise weak draft class for at team looking for help inside. The 20-year-old averaged 13 points and 7.4 rebounds while leading UConn to its national championship earlier this spring, which came a year after he was a key bench player in their 2023 championship run. He looked significantly better physically near the end of his second season with the Huskies, and he did a decent job defending and outlasting Purdue star and two-time player of the year Zach Edey, who has a few inches on him, in the title game.
Clingan has already proven himself capable of being a defensive cornerstone for any NBA team inside. With a near 7-foot-7 wingspan, he can be a huge rim protector and a rare true center in the league for years to come. But his offensive game has only improved in his two college seasons. He’s been a dominant pick-and-roll and inside threat already while being incredibly efficient around the rim. He shot nearly 64% from the field last season.
Clingan will be able to jump right in and anchor a defense for the Trail Blazers inside. That on its own is plenty of reason to want to pick him up and build a team around. But there’s plenty of room for growth for the 20-year-old, who Dan Hurley didn’t hesitate to compare to a younger Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokić.
“What we talked to him about was don’t get caught up in mastering the game inside and out,” Hurley said, via ESPN. “We’d show him Nikola Jokić from an offensive standpoint when he was younger. So that Donovan would understand that when Jokić was 19, that wasn’t what he was doing right now. You’re watching what he’s doing right now and thinking I should be doing that right now. Well, that’s not what he was doing [at that age].
“If he was, well f***, he wouldn’t have been drafted in the second round.”
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