{"id":47510,"date":"2022-06-05T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2022-06-05T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=47510"},"modified":"2022-06-04T11:28:31","modified_gmt":"2022-06-04T15:28:31","slug":"kofi-cockburn-2022-nba-draft-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2022\/06\/05\/kofi-cockburn-2022-nba-draft-profile\/","title":{"rendered":"Kofi Cockburn 2022 NBA Draft Profile"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kofi Cockburn<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>enjoyed an illustrious and successful collegiate career, and is now ready to take on the NBA.<\/p>\n

Kofi Cockburn 2022 NBA Draft Profile<\/h2>\n

College Career<\/h3>\n

Cockburn was a top recruit in 2019, widely seen as a top-50 high school player out of Oak Hill Academy in Virginia. As a matter of fact, he was high school teammates with Cole Anthony\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>of the Orlando Magic and\u00a0Cam Thomas<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>of the Brooklyn Nets<\/a>. Eventually, Cockburn chose to attend Illinois over a number of offers including Kentucky, Kansas, Syracuse, Florida State, and more.<\/p>\n

He saw immediate success right off the bat. As a freshman, Cockburn was named the Big 10 Freshman of the Year after putting up averages of about 13 points, nine rebounds, and a block per game.<\/p>\n

More success followed his sophomore year, as Cockburn was named onto All-Big 10 First Team as well as being a Second Team All-American. He averaged about 18 points, 10 rebounds, and a block per game.<\/p>\n

A common trend with Cockburn, he improved once again in his last collegiate season, averaging about 21 points, 11 rebounds, and a block per game. He was on the All-Big 10 First Team again, but this team a First Team All-American.<\/p>\n

Simply looking at the numbers, Cockburn is one of the most dominant collegiate big men of the last decade.<\/p>\n

Strengths<\/h3>\n

Cockburn absolutely has NBA-ready strength. His build alone is impressive, and he often looked like a man amongst boys at the college level. He stands at seven feet and weighs in at around 285 – 300 pounds. Adjusting to playing NBA centers, from a physical standpoint, will not be an issue for him.<\/p>\n

He’s a terrific rebounder. This is a statistic that may be overlooked at times, but is crucial to any team winning. His rebounding level alone puts him on an NBA radar.<\/p>\n

Cockburn is also an excellent offensive player down low. He finishes around the basket with ease and has a growing low-post game. Cockburn can generate plenty of points with putbacks off of offensive rebounds. This ability also allows him to get to the free-throw line quite often.<\/p>\n

Weaknesses<\/h3>\n

Outside of his offensive game in the paint, Cockburn will struggle to score in other ways. He needs to improve on his face-up game as well as his shooting. He doesn’t necessarily have to be the ultimate floor spacer, but it would do him a lot of good if he became a better midrange shooter.<\/p>\n

Although he gets to the free-throw line at a high rate, he can also improve his shooting from the stripe.<\/p>\n

Cockburn also isn’t the best shot blocker. He has a dominant presence at the rim and a massive build, so teams will expect him to deter more shots.<\/p>\n

NBA Comparison for Kofi Cockburn<\/h3>\n

Cockburn has the potential to be a similar player to\u00a0Steven Adams<\/strong><\/a>. He can score when needed in the paint, but his biggest assets will be his presence down low as well as his strong rebounding ability.<\/p>\n

NBA Draft Projection<\/h3>\n

Cockburn is a second-round prospect with the ability to become a solid contributor quite quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kofi Cockburn\u00a0enjoyed an illustrious and successful collegiate career, and is now ready to take on the NBA. Kofi Cockburn 2022 NBA Draft Profile College Career Cockburn was a top recruit in 2019, widely seen as a top-50 high school player out of Oak Hill Academy in Virginia. As a matter of fact, he was high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2248,"featured_media":47511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[556,1608,62],"tags":[4137],"class_list":["post-47510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba-draft","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-kofi-cockburn"],"modified_by":"Kunning Chen, Department Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}