NBA Draft Stock Watch: Romeo Langford Down, Bruno Fernando Up

Is Romeo Langford really worth a lottery pick? And is Bruno Fernando bargain bin DeAndre Ayton?

The March Madness bracket will be out in a month, and conference championships are just around the corner. College basketball is heating up, and our first Duke vs North Carolina matchup is here so this is getting real. As fans turn their attention to basketball, now is a great time to check in on NBA draft stock around the league with a few names each week.

We started two weeks ago with Matisse Thybulle dominating Kevin Porter Jr. and Jontay Porter moving ahead of Keldon Johnson in my lottery. Last week was stock up for a couple potential lottery players in Isaiah Roby and Nickeil Alexander-Walker but stock down for two others sliding out of my first round, Naz Reid and Iggy Brazdeikis.

Today we’ll look at two more Big Ten players moving in opposite directions. Romeo Langford came to Indiana with all sorts of pedigree and hype, but he and the Hoosiers have disappointed. Instead Bruno Fernando and the Maryland Terrapins have been one of the season’s surprise teams. Let’s take a look at why I’m intrigued by Fernando but frustrated by Langford. We’ll do this every week or so from now on, so check back again soon!

STOCK DOWN: Romeo Langford, Indiana

I don’t remember which game I first saw Romeo Langford in, but I could not have been less impressed. I didn’t love his feel for the game and saw a lot of hero ball. On initial impression, I was out. What brought me back was Langford’s body, his pedigree, and his potential.

Langford has a great body for the NBA. He stands 6'6 with long arms and a near-seven-foot wingspan, which gives him a lot of defensive potential as a wing and even more as a lead handler. Langford is strong and plays physical, and his bread and butter is his driving ability and body control. Romeo absorbs contact well and finishes at an elite level on runners and near the basket (though that’s waned some in conference). He draws a ton of free throws, too. You look at the body, the driving ability, and the pedigree and Langford just oozes potential.

The problem is the list of concerns is much longer. Langford is not an explosive athlete, so he relies on his strength and driving ability for most of his scoring. Against a tougher opponent Romeo is unable to use his strength to drive and then there’s not much left, because Romeo Langford is a shooting guard that can’t shoot. His shot form is really rough. It’s just all over the place. The mechanics are all off, he often fades right, and it’s super inconsistent both by form and result. The shot looks a long ways away. I’m also not positive Langford can finish with his left hand. Multiple times I’ve seen him get to the rim and contort himself to finish with his dominant hand. If Langford is one-handed and can’t shoot, he won’t stay on an NBA court long.

The bigger problem with Langford is I just don’t see the intangibles or results. I don’t see the motor, the drive, or the passion in his game. I don’t see Romeo make his teammates better. Instead I see someone that plays at three-quarter speed much of the game, someone that loses his guy on defense and on the boards. For all that length, I don’t see a ton of defensive impact. Instead I see bad habits on both ends, and I still don’t buy his feel for the game.

Major outlets like ESPN and Yahoo still have Romeo Langford tucked safely inside their top ten. I don’t see it. I don’t have him in my lottery, and the only thing keeping him in my first round right now is his pedigree and potential. And with each passing game, I’m giving those things less and less prominence.

STOCK UP: Bruno Fernando, Maryland

I never would’ve expected to be a Bruno Fernando defender, but here we are. I don’t understand why no one seems to be talking about Fernando. It feels like he would’ve been a top-ten lock a decade ago, and his clear comp, DeAndre Ayton, just went first overall in June.

Fernando is a prototypical center. He’s ox strong with a couple go-to post moves, and he clearly has an NBA body. He has a nice touch near the rim and, if left single-teamed, tends to get hot and take over for at least one extended stretch just about every game. Fernando has improved a ton at Maryland. His assist rate is way up and his passing out of the double team has improved by leaps and bounds. He also flashes a nice looking shot, which he doesn’t get to use much for the Terps but which could double his value in the NBA. Right now that’s mostly 15- and 20-foot jumpers, but combine that with a 75% free-throw percentage and it’s easy to project Bruno hitting threes soon enough. Fernando is at least a useful backup NBA center on offense right now. The passing and shooting abilities give him potential to be so much more.

A lot of the usual big man bugaboos are there. Fernando gets into foul trouble frequently. He’s a bit slow processing and doesn’t always handle double teams well, and his feel for the game comes and goes. I’d like to see him fight for rebound positioning a bit more instead of relying on his body, and he’s a little too reliant on the same couple post moves that NBA scouting will take away.

Of course, the most important part of playing NBA center in 2019 is defense, and Fernando is often disappointing in that regard. He has solid lateral movement and ability on the perimeter, but he’s often out of position and a bit slow in recovery. Fernando has a great 8 DPBM (and 14 BPM overall), but a lot of that feels like it’s due to his overwhelming size at the college level. He isn’t awful, but defense isn’t the reason he’ll be drafted. Fernando’s also not does not quite match Ayton’s body. He’s three inches shorter with a smaller reach. In some ways, it feels like Fernando is something akin to 85% of Ayton.

An NBA center either needs to shoot or defend to stay on the court in 2019. This isn’t the 90s, when teams just dump the ball into the post and let their big man work. That’s why I usually hate this type of player archetype. Post-ups are one of the most inefficient methods of scoring, and centers that can’t play defense get picked apart on switches and hurt their team far more than they help. I’ve consistently been one of DeAndre Ayton’s biggest detractors. I ranked him 8th on my draft board and thought it was ludicrous that he’d be taken ahead of players like Luka Doncic, Trae Young, and Jaren Jackson.

So how can I be so far out on Ayton but like Bruno?

The answer is all about team building. I wasn’t out on Ayton entirely. I had him top ten. I was “out” on Ayton because he was going to be a top-two pick. That’s a huge pick investment and it means a significant chunk of salary cap. It also means an overcommitment to getting him touches and keeping him on the court at all costs, even if it’s not working, and it means a team is far more likely to invest in a hefty, overpriced second contract and compound the problem even further, a la Andrew Wiggins.

Fernando won’t have all of those problems, because he’ s not likely to go in the top ten or even in the lottery. Instead a team may take him with the 15th pick or somewhere in the 20s. Now the whole equation has changed; now expectations are lower. I’m not sure Fernando is a starting center, and I don’t think he’s a franchise player. But I do think he’s an NBA player, one that could be pretty good punishing opposing second units off the bench.

Ayton will never get a chance to be that player, not with the pick and money invested in him, and even if he is that, it’d still feel like a disappointment. If Fernando gets taken in the 20s and ends up a decent bench center that plays 15mpg at $2 million a year for four seasons and that’s it… that’s enough. That’s a perfectly fine outcome for a late first-round pick. It’s a good one, really. Every team needs a big man to eat minutes and play the right matchups. Fernando looks like he can be that sort of player.

Bruno Fernando might be bargain bin DeAndre Ayton. And in a team-building sense, that could make all the difference.

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