By Nick Brinkerhoff
Bennedict Mathurin is the type of player NBA teams and fans will come to love. He’s an easy guy to root for, one that has overcome adversity, much more than hopefully any of us will ever have to deal with. Mathurin’s older brother, Dominique, passed away at the age of 15 after being involved in a bike accident. Using that as fuel, Mathurin continued his dream of trying to make it into the NCAA and eventually the NBA.
Background: As a Canadian high school basketball player, Mathurin realized he didn’t get enough attention from scouts, so he tried an alternate path that is not often traveled. He opted to leave Canada for Mexico, joining the NBA’s Latin American Academy in Mexico City at the age of 16. The first Canadian born athlete in that academy didn’t speak any Spanish, but as Mathurin has proven time and time again, he finds a way.
“I embraced it basically,” Mathurin told reporters at the NBA Combine. “I just felt like it was great for me to go somewhere where I didn’t know where I was going. Didn’t know how school was gonna work, how basketball was gonna work. I just hit the challenge of going somewhere far from where I’m from and just do my best to succeed in life.”
The Montreal native is in a great spot to accomplish his dreams on Thursday night in Brooklyn.
Strengths: The former Arizona Wildcat put plenty of his strengths on display during the NCAA Tournament this year, an audition for every NBA team. He’s the type of fearless player who brings the moxie that every team needs and wishes they had. So many people talk about wanting a player to have certain traits, but perhaps no trait is more coveted than being a big game player, someone who wants to ball in their hands late in games. And that’s exactly what Mathurin brings. His confidence never wavers, and his jumpshot is super smooth, fitting right in with the modern NBA game. He displays a high IQ, as someone always moving without the ball, something we don’t see a lot of in an isolation heavy NBA landscape. It’s all a part of the package his high motor brings, especially as he still plays the underdog role. There is no doubt the NBA Academy in Mexico had a great influence on Mathurin as a player.
Weaknesses: Mathurin has plenty of room to grow defensively, especially as someone that expends so much energy on offense. If he channeled some more effort and energy on the defensive end, he could become a much more reliable NBA player. He could also tone down the willingness to take contested jumpers, although it would be hard to see him getting that opportunity at the NBA level to have a constant green light.
Prediction: Mathurin is the type of player you cannot possibly root against. His story alone makes that difficult, but his on court ability makes it even harder. A late riser in NBA Mock Drafts, Mathurin looks like a lock to go in the top 10 and even potentially in the top five now. Although rookie of the year odds won’t be available until the dust settles, the guy from Montreal, the “city of underdogs,” as Mathurin likes to say, wouldn’t be a bad bet to capture the NBA award next season.