When Yante Maten declared for the NBA draft last year, the feedback he received from scouts said he needed to improve his shooting range, his scoring and defense in the post and his rebounding. So Maten returned to Georgia and did all of those during a standout senior season that culminated with him being voted SEC player of the year by the Associated Press.
That should be enough to get him a shot in the NBA, either as a draft pick in the second round or via free agency (NBAdraft.net projects Maten will be selected with the 59th out of 60 picks). Maten was among six prospects at a pre-draft workout for the Hawks on Tuesday.
“You are going to a man’s league now,” Maten said. “Everybody is the best and everybody is tough. At this point you’ve got to feel confident, and that’s just through hard work and working on your game.”
In his final season with the Bulldogs, Maten had outstanding production as a scorer, rebounder and shot-blocker. He attempted more 3-pointers (85) than he had in his previous three seasons combined and made 34 percent of those tries.
However, Maten did most of his scoring around the basket on post-ups and put-backs. That will be more difficult to do in the NBA because of his physical disadvantages. He also will have to show he can guard the NBA’s longer and more athletic front court players and defend in space against ball-handlers on switches.
Maten is undersized for an NBA power forward. At the combine he measured 6-foot-8 ½ inches with a 7-foot-0.5 wingspan. Maten is stout at 246 pounds and led all combine prospects with 18 repetitions in the bench press. But Maten isn’t an exceptional athlete and probably can’t play small forward in the NBA.
There are some undersized power forwards who figure out how to make it in the league, among them former Hawks All-Star Paul Millsap and Warriors All-Star Draymond Green. Both players are very good rebounders, draw a lot of fouls and shoot at least adequately from the outside.
Maten fits that profile as a senior at Georgia. He’s likely to get a chance this summer to prove he can make the transition to the NBA.
“At the end of the day, all you can really do right now is just show your game and hope somebody likes you,” Maten said.
