{"id":802097,"date":"2026-08-02T17:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/802097\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T17:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:45:20","slug":"an-early-look-at-duke-basketball-star-pat-ngongbas-nba-draft-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/802097\/","title":{"rendered":"An Early Look At Duke Basketball Star Pat Ngongba\u2019s NBA Draft Status"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">They\u2019re correct to say that, while he\u2019s a good athlete, he\u2019s not elite. However, intelligence is a more valuable asset than raw athleticism. Look at some guys who have carved out nice NBA careers despite limited athleticism, at least by NBA standards: Jared McCain, Jalen Brunson, and Luka Doncic, to name a few. Now look how many great athletes have washed out of the league or failed to live up to expectations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Never bet against smart players.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Ngongba needs to prove he can stay healthy, but assuming he can do that, he has a lot to offer, and not just post play: \u201cNgongba will have to be much better to overcome his age, and potentially even add some skills not yet seen. Though it\u2019s not out of the question the NBA values his play-making big archetype, and ancillary skills, enough to take a shot on him in the late-lottery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cRegardless, he should be a locked-in first-round selection with even limited improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The ancillary skills include his passing game, which is superb. He brings a lot to the table for any team, and we may see aspects of his game this season that we haven\u2019t see before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re correct to say that, while he\u2019s a good athlete, he\u2019s not elite. However, intelligence is a more&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,37710,6,12],"class_list":["post-802097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-basketball","tag-main","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117027164892507935","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}