Draft Express report from 2008:
Skill-wise, he’s showcasing some truly impressive stuff from the low post. He can deliver really refined moves that include fakes, spins, and reverse-moves, as he exhibits excellent footwork and the versatility to use both hands to finish around the basket. As you can guess, he’s not a banging type of post guy, but he neither avoids contact; in the end, his great size and abilities makes it work on a regular basis. He nicely complements his low-post game with a pretty solid spot-up mid-range jumper, although perhaps released a bit slowly. He also can easily put the ball on the floor with both hands and work his way to the layup, particularly against centers, showing excellent coordination in the process.
We often miss a degree of aggressiveness in Tomic’s offensive game. For example, it’s extremely rare to see him dunking the ball, which is pretty uncommon for a 7-2 and relatively athletic guy. Even when it seems like the logical and easy choice, he usually goes for the layup. It would probably help his pick-and-roll productivity, which is not particularly high at this moment.
That aggressiveness is also missed on defense. To start with, Tomic looks rather underwhelming when it comes to using his great length to intimidate. As fluid as he can look displaying an offensive move, he often seems a bit stiff on defense. His lateral quickness is poor, as he often doesn’t bend his knees enough and sometimes struggles recovering his position after a rotation. On top of that, he’s not physical with his opponents, with his physical weakness being part of the problem. However, he does seem to care about rebounding and makes an effort to box out his match-up.
Anyway, he’s a talented guy with a high basketball IQ, well reflected in his passing game, as he can find his teammates either from the low post or facing the basket.
It’s hard to recognize the best scenario for Tomic. By all accounts, he’s not ready for the very physical NBA, but at the same time, it’s not clear that waiting another year will help his draft stock. To move to a better European team might not be easy as well depending on his contract situation. We’ll see what happens, but it would be a pity to waste such a special player.
This report was from 2008 when he was 20 and is still fairly accurate. It's interesting to note that post players have a tougher time in in euro play due to the short 3 point line which makes double teams easy as pie. There are very few dominant big men in Europe because of this. Marc Gasol, for instance, didn't have any better stats then Tomic in his euro league days, but his game translated much better to the NBA with the extra room to operate.
