Draft Sleeper: Motiejus Krivas
November 2024: analysis of a FIBA legend
This was published in Swish Theory’s NBA Draft Underrated Returners Roundtable, published here in November 2024.
Motiejus Krivas is a big dude with some serious skill. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture him dominating college basketball in the near future.
Let’s start with the bad: Krivas could very well be at the horrific intersection of non-shooting poor finisher and limited defensive upside. He shot a middling 58% at the rim last year, and more worryingly, lineups with Krivas at the 5 consistently scored worse at the rim than with the starter, Oumar Ballo. Arizona shot 4% worse at the rim with Krivas on the floor, and of Arizona’s 5 most common lineups, the two with Krivas fared by far the worst at the rim. Part of this swing is that he was backing up a pretty monstrous rim finisher in Ballo, but it’s pretty inexcusable that Arizona shot just 54% at the rim with Krivas on the floor.
He may also appear to be low feel, averaging a whopping 6.1 fouls per 40 with a measly 4% assist rate, he took zero threes on the season, and perhaps worst of all, he garnered just a 3.4% block rate in 20 conference games. If you’re a non-spacer who does not contribute to positive rim scoring, you foul incessantly, and you’re unable to effectively pass or shoot OR protect the rim, what exactly are you doing on the floor?
But while we have 439 minutes of Krivas’s NCAA sample, we also have a 637 minute sample at FIBA U19/U18 Euros/U20 Euros, and 1000 minutes playing for Lithuania’s Zalgiris. Krivas wasn’t terrible in NCAA by any stretch, with a respectable 3.4 BPM in 36 games and an overall 4.5 lineup net rating across all competition. But Krivas was genuinely ridiculous in a number of important international events, and it would be foolish to throw away the international data we have for a low minutes NCAA single season sample.
Let’s talk about the shooting. It sounds pretty insane to say this about a guy who attempted ZERO threes in the NCAA season, but Krivas seems like a decent bet to get some threes up this year. First off, Krivas actually has a decent track record of 3P shooting volume in the past: he’s averaging about 1 3PA/40 across 28 FIBA games, and he put up 61 threes across his final two seasons in Lithuania.
Now for the fun stuff: Krivas is a ridiculously good free throw shooter with notable volume (especially considering he is a FT drawing machine). He shot 73% FT in his final season in Lithuania (139/191), 70% at FIBA (78/112), and he’s coming off a 78% FT season at Arizona (49/63). What’s more impressive is that Krivas has progressively become a bit of a touch god around the rim, with a strong diet of runners and hooks sprinkled throughout heavy post up usage. Across his FIBA U20 tourney this summer + Arizona, a whopping 17% of his total shots have come on hooks, making them on a staggering 58% (18/31). Bart has him at 13/29 on long 2s at Arizona.
To reiterate, we’re talking about a 7’2 mf who was putting up 3s in Europe as a teenager, is pushing the high 70s FT on extremely great volume, and has the proclivity to take and make hooks at a high rate. And he’s still technically a teenager. Again, it’s never a great idea to bet on a guy who literally took no 3s in an NCAA season. But shooting dev seems uniquely feasible for this particular case.
Personally, I don’t care too much if he shoots or not, since he’s also an absolutely insane rebounder. Krivas is coming off a 14.7% OREB/22.8% DREB season in NCAA: there have been only 9 drafted players since 2008 to match those numbers across their career. It gets crazier: Krivas averages the most rebounds per 40 in the TWENTY EIGHT YEAR HISTORY of the U18 Euros (10+ mpg). His 21.8 rebounds per 40 is well ahead of 2nd place Enes Freedom (20.2), with Usman Garuba (18.6) and Marc Gasol (17.7) not too far behind. Again, pretty much every good Euro prospect has played in the U18 Euros, including so many notable bigs since 1996. It is an absolutely huge deal that he is the most productive rebounder on a minute basis in the entirety of available data for this tournament.
He has similarly crushed the U20 Euros and Lithuania Pro League: he put up an unreal 19% OREB and 28% DREB across 48 games of LKL+NKL. He isn’t a Zach Edey/DeJuan Blair level rebounding prospect given the lower comp level, but Krivas really isn’t THAT far off. Throw on his massive 7’5 wingspan, and Krivas is pretty easily the best rebounding prospect in the class if he declares, and should be one of the best rebounders in the league from day 1.
Rebounding is often a measure of physicality, but in Krivas’ case, I think it’s a unique look at his unreal anticipation and impressive feel for the game. Again, his 4.2% assist/1.4% steal/6.1 FC may seem horrifying, but make no mistake: Krivas has a legitimately great feel for the game. This is a guy who has shown a history of racking up steals at a pretty great rate for his size: across ~ 100 Lithuanian league games, he was above 2% steal. He averaged ~ 1.5 steals/40 across all FIBA tourneys. Much of this is just being at the right place at the time: he’s able to anticipate reads through gaps and use his length to make easy pickoffs. But he’s also a legit great passer. He can make pretty solid reads out of the post, though he can be overambitious and thereby turnover prone (>17% TO in 100 NKL/LKL games).
But his passing feel is especially demonstrated through his FIBA numbers. Despite a middling 0.7 A:TO in FIBA and 4% assist rate in NCAA, Krivas has put up 12.5% assist, 20.4% assist, and 14.2% assist in his last 3 FIBA stretches. And before you question the value of FIBA Euros in ascertaining playmaking upside, consider an all time passing development case in Domantas Sabonis, who was a complete non passer in all NCAA and European pro league games but had a 7 game stretch where he was a productive primary initiator for Lithuania’s FIBA U18 team. With a consistent steal and assist track record, coupled with his sheer size and length, Krivas has a pretty cool combination of tools and feel that could lead to seemingly unexpected offensive development.
The list of strengths is getting a bit ridiculous. This is a dude who can rebound at an Edey-lite level, potentially shoot, generate steals and assists, and has one of the strongest FIBA production profiles ever. After all, he was 35 PER at U18 Euros, 35 PER at U20 Euros (led tourney), and 37.6 PER at U20 Euros (led tourney).
It’s probably important to reiterate that Mr. Krivas is a 7’2 individual with a giant 7’5 WS. I once wrote about the history of underclassmen who measured at the NBA combine with a WS over 7’4 WS. It is an insane list with an insane hit rate.
Oh, and he might sound like an uber slow Euro big with painful verticality and terrible lateral movement (well the verticality is probably true). But Krivas legitimately moves very well. In fact, he measured at 3.55 s for the sprint and 11.88 for the agility drill, which was significantly better than his peer Aday Mara (4.04 and 12.81, respectively) and somewhat comparable to Pacome Dadiet (3.47 and 12.29) and Salaun (3.63 and 11.84). This is obviously a tongue in cheek comparison, since Dadiet and Salaun are definitely faster and prolly just didn’t know how to game the system effectively (hence their massive leaps at the combine), but their relative closeness to Krivas still underscores how well he can move.
With his incredible wingspan, solid movement for size, and strong feel (adept steal and pass generator), Krivas theoretically shouldn’t be much of a defensive liability. In fact, most of his positive net rating was via defense: Arizona’s defense was 6.4 points better/100 possessions with Krivas on the court, and 7.7 p/100 against t100 comp. Much of this was through his rebounding goodness: opposing teams rebounded 3.3% worse and shot 3% worse at the rim with Krivas on the court.
Herein lies the issue: Krivas had an undeniably positive effect on defense this past year, but most of that came from mitigating second chance points and less from actually blocking shots. Despite his 7’5 WS, he measured with a paltry 22 inch standing vert that would be amongst the lowest in the NBA. He clocked a pedestrian 12.9% HC dunk rate, and had just a 4% block rate this year. He’s definitely a physical player capable of backing down guys in the post en route to a heavy postup diet, and he’s put up ~ 50 FTr in nearly every context; but the lack of verticality is somewhat of a stifler.
I think it’s fair to project a bit of improvement: he was hovering above 6% block in Lithuania, and he’s averaged a whopping 4 blocks per 40 (~10% block) across 14 FIBA games in the last two years. I am well aware that the NCAA and NBA are far different than FIBA tourneys (where bigs are much more prone to dominate given the differential rules) and Lithuania (LKL and NKL have “grown men” but its a pretty weak league generally). It’s not a 1:1 comparison, but is it not fair to project some improvements for one of the most productive youth FIBA careers we’ve ever seen?
Not every latent strength has to actualize for Krivas to return legit NBA value. European bigs tend to be a bit of a mystery box, even when we have significant track records for them in various youth simulacrums. The common thread does seem to be rebounding: from Sabonis, Mirotic, and Gasol to Freedom, Zubac, and Vucevic, there are tons of elite rebounding/productive Euro centers that found a role (because of their feel, productivity, and outlier rebounding).
We know Krivas is productive, we know he’s going to bring immediate offensive and defensive value with his rebounding, and we know that he has exceptional length, agility, and feel for position. But what’s stopping him from reaching the path of these European contemporaries? Is path to being a quasi-Vucevic possible for Krivas, especially since Vuc has a similar WS? Can he be a Nikola Mirotic type? If he stays in school a year or two more, can he emerge as a virtuoso passer on par with Sabonis and Gasol? Or will he never really put it together and have a Garuba type career?
I think there’s some very conceivable flaws with Krivas, some that he may never be able to overcome. But I think we’re also completely undermining a sneaky upside tail, one that may be particularly manifestable given the departure of starter Oumar Ballo. 7’5 wingspans do not grow on trees, nor do prospects with long ass wingspans have the feel or outlier rebounding or historic production profile of Krivas. One of the greatest producers in FIBA youth history is potentially eligible for the draft, and it’s about time he’s given his due credit.