CHAMPAIGN — Kofi Cockburn doesn’t have a great comp in the NBA.
Not really.
At one end of the spectrum are guys like Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic. Two players with a similar physical makeup to the Illinois center, but who boast a significantly different, more versatile skill set.
The other end of the spectrum holds similarly physical centers like Hassan Whiteside, Boban Marjanovic and Jahlil Okafor, whose roles fall under “situational” as backups.
In between is the largest group. The more modern NBA bigs. Guys with size who aren’t out of place skill wise in guard-heavy lineups.
Cockburn’s place in the NBA isn’t clear. That’s the purpose of the pre-draft process.
Workouts and interviews with different organizations could help the 7-foot, 285-pound Illini center find a professional home.
Current NBA draft projections have Cockburn as a late second round pick. That’s if the Kingston, Jamaica, native gets drafted at all. The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie has Cockburn going No. 54 to the Indiana Pacers in his latest mock draft.
“I think there’s a chance he gets drafted, but in a case like this with Kofi, it doesn’t really matter as much as going to a team that’s a good fit and has a plan for him because he is sort of a specific player,” said Jeremy Woo, who covers the NBA and the NBA draft for Sports Illustrated. “Being a post-centric college player, you’ve got to have different wrinkles to your game to be more versatile in the NBA. We’re talking about a guy who’s maybe a backup center — maybe a situational 10-15 minutes per game player — because that’s kind of what these guys are now.”
Cockburn had a breakout sophomore season for Illinois in 2020-21, putting up career-highs in scoring (17.7 points) and rebounds (9.5), while shooting 65.4 percent from the field. He earned consensus Second Team All-American honors in the process.
Not that there aren’t questions about how his game translates to the next level. Cockburn has attempted exactly zero three-pointers in two seasons at Illinois, took 70 percent of his total shots at the rim and finished the 2020-21 season with just five assists.
“There are couple of weaknesses I think are scary,” Woo said. “He’s obviously not a good shooter — doesn’t shoot threes, bad free throw shooter. I don’t think we can reasonably expect that to suddenly change, (and) he doesn’t really pass well. One thing, especially now in the NBA if you’re going to be a player they even consider running offense through in the post, you’ve got to be able to make plays out of that.
“Kofi’s so big he should be drawing double teams in college — and he he does — but he’s not making plays out of the post. He’s not skipping a crosscourt pass off the block. … That’s going to limit sort of what you can do with him.”
Woo, though, still sees an NBA organization taking a chance on Cockburn despite the way the league has changed. Two decades ago or more, there wouldn’t have been a question about where Cockburn fit in the league.
A situation like Udoka Azubuike found would be ideal. The former Kansas center was the No. 27 overall pick in the first round last year and went to a team — the Utah Jazz — that is more traditional in its use of centers. The 6-10, 280-pound Azubuike still played just 15 games this season and was inactive the majority of the year.
“Azubuike’s a great rebounder and an underrated athlete,” Woo said. “I don’t think Kofi’s as good a physical specimen as Azubuike was, but if you think about it in a broad lens, maybe a team does take a chance on him in the second round thinking maybe they could turn him into a situational bench guy.
“I think someone will probably give him a shot. I would be interested to see what it looks like. The NBA, they still take chances on bigs and see what they’ve got, but I think it’s just an uphill climb because of the way the NBA has changed.”
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