Ugonna Onyenso, who blocked shots on a loop at the 2026 ACC Tournament, is making a surprising move in the mock drafts ahead of the 2026 NBA Draft.
Onyenso – 6.5 ppg, 4.9 rebounds/g, 2.9 blocks/g, 64.7% 2FG, 27.8% 3FG at Virginia in 2025-2026 – is in the #50 spot in the latest ESPN mock draft, and at #57 in the latest CBS Sports mock draft.
My fear with Onyenso: that front offices would devalue him because of his limitations in defending the pick-and-roll on the perimeter.
NBA coaches will run pick-and-rolls at you all night long if you can’t slide over and defend the guard in space on the switch.
Virginia opponents who had bigs that can handle the ball up top – for instance, Duke, with Cam Boozer, a swiss army knife four with an above-average handle – went at Onyenso with ruthless abandon.
Not everybody at the college level has a big like a Boozer, obviously, but most NBA teams do.
That said, I can see Onyenso eventually playing his way into being a limited-minutes rotation guy at the five spot, giving teams minutes off the bench with the second unit.
A generation ago, when seven-footers ruled the earth, he could have been a Dikembe Mutombo.
Basketball at the NBA level isn’t played the way it was a generation ago.
In any case, being a 10- to 12-minute-a-night guy in the NBA still pays well, particularly for a guy who averaged 3.0 points and 3.3 rebounds a game in his first three college seasons.
Onyenso should have been the Most Outstanding Player at the ACC Tournament, even with Virginia coming up short in the title game – he averaged 10.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 7.0 (!) blocks per game, with eight blocks in the 81-74 win over NC State in the quarterfinals, and nine in the 74-70 loss to Duke in the championship game.
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Chris Graham
