The Purdue Boilermakers closed out the 2024-25 regular season on the road at Illinois, dropping a back-and-forth game to the Fighting Illini by the final score of 88-80. Purdue’s pair of All-Big Ten performers — point guard Braden Smith and forward Trey Kaufman-Renn — delivered in a big way, combining for 47 of the team’s 80 points, but it wasn’t enough for the Boilermakers to secure an 8th Quad 1 win of the season. The question we’re concerned with here is whether this performance, and many similar to this one, will be enough for the NBA to start taking notice of Smith.
Against the Illini, Braden Smith scored 18 points, pulled down 9 rebounds and dished out 12 assists, finishing 1 rebound shy of what would’ve been his first career triple-double. On the season, he’s averaging 16.3 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.3 steals and a Big Ten leading 8.8 assists per game, with impressive 45-40-83 shooting splits. But an untraditional athletic profile mixed with less than desirable measurables make Smith’s prospects of playing in the NBA questionable. That is, unless you ask Boilermakers head coach Matt Painter.
“They call it the most valuable player, right? Well, he’s (Smith) pretty valuable,” Painter said after Purdue’s loss in Champaign, per the Boilers In The Stands account on X. “I think he’ll play 10 years in the NBA.”
There isn’t a lengthy track record of players 6-foot tall or under being selected in the NBA Draft or having a great deal of success at the next level, but there are some recent examples of smaller stature players either being picked in the lottery or finding a well-defined NBA role.
Davion Mitchell (6-feet tall), Rob Dillingham (6-foot-1), and Reed Sheppard (6-foot-2) have all been lottery picks in the last four NBA Draft’s, and Payton Pritchard (6-foot-1) was a late 1st Round selection in 2020 and is now one of the league’s top contenders for the Sixth Man of the Year Award.
In all actuality, a career trajectory similar to Payton Pritchard’s is likely the best case scenario for Braden Smith, who like Pritchard achieved plenty during a multi-year college career. If Smith gets drafted to a contender, just as Pritchard did when he was picked 26th overall by Boston, he’ll have an opportunity to grow into larger role over time and end up looking like a late-bloomer steal for whoever selects him.
Smith plays bigger than his size, he’s scrappy as hell, he can shoot the rock and he has a tremendous feel for the game. While some teams will certainly be scared away by his height, a smart front office will ignore what a tape measurer tells them and see everything he does bring to the table.
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