10 NBA Hidden Gems Nobody Is Talking About | CPT PPP Coverage

You aren’t alone if you didn’t pay much attention to the Charlotte Hornets after LaMelo Ball went down for good with an ankle injury on Feb. 27. But if you tuned out, you missed rookie center Mark Williams quietly turning into a quality starter.

From Feb. 28 until the end of the 2022-23 season, the 21-year-old averaged 11.5 points and 9.5 rebounds while hitting 61.6 percent of his shots from the field. That he was so productive without Ball, the team’s best facilitator by a mile, suggests even better numbers lie ahead in 2023-24.

The Duke product is listed at 7’0″ and 241 pounds, but he somehow appears even bigger than that on the floor. A forceful finisher, he was one of just two players to log at least 70 dunks in fewer than 900 minutes of court time last season.

Both of those figures will climb, as Williams should have full control of the starting job after opening just 17 contests last year.

If the 2022 No. 15 pick continues to improve as a defender in space, it’ll be much harder for opposing offenses to exploit him. Despite his inexperience, he managed to hold opponents to 62.6 percent shooting inside six feet—not a terrific number for a center, but roughly in line with what Joel Embiid and Jakob Poeltl managed last season.

Perhaps more importantly, opponents attempted fewer shots at the rim and more in the mid-range area when he was on the court.

Scorers clearly paid attention to Williams in the lane. This should be the year everyone else—fans included—takes notice of him, too.

Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale.