Adou Thiero 2025 NBA Draft Profile

Adou Thiero 2025 NBA Draft Profile

We are less than three weeks away from the 2025 NBA Draft! Today, we will be previewing Arkansas wing Adou Thiero! Let’s jump right into it, shall we?!

Height (no shoes): 6’6.25 (7’0 wingspan, 8’8.5 standing reach)

Weight: 218.4

Draft Age: 21.1

Position: Wing

A four-star recruit out of Quaker Valley High School in Leetsdale, Penn., Thiero was the No. 3 player in his class during the 2022 recruiting cycle–behind only Dereck Lively and Daniel Skillings, according to 247sports.com. He joined Kentucky over offers from Xavier, Maryland and Pittsburgh, among others. He hardly played his freshman season while receiving limited playing time as a sophomore, averaging 21.4 minutes across 25 games (21 starts).

Thiero transferred to Arkansas with John Calipari, becoming one of their most featured two-way players. In 27 games, he averaged 15.1 points, 5.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game on 60.5 percent true shooting, though he missed time toward the end of the season with a hyperextended knee.

Strengths:

Adou Thiero is a bulldog.

Think of an ancient battering ram: That’s Thiero to a T. He doesn’t care if you’re a 6-foot-2 guard, a 7-foot-1 rim protector or a stone structure with plenty of fortifications–he will do everything in his power to go through you.

Thiero is one of the most explosive athletes in his class. He didn’t test at the combine, but he allegedly tested with a 46-inch max vertical in 2023. Do with that as you will.

Hey, it popped off on tape. He was an excellent play finisher in the open floor, always using his athleticism and length to finish as well as anyone could. He was capable of finishing with either hand and, when he was off-ball, was a gifted vertical spacer with an insane catch radius. Throw it to the top corner of the backboard and he’d climb up to go get it.

The 6-foot-7 wing is a quick-twitch athlete who didn’t need a ton of space to explode off the ground. He routinely dislodged bigger defenders, creating more separation to rise up within 5-10 feet of the rim.

Adou Thiero was excellent at drawing fouls. In 2024-25, he sported a 69.2 free-throw rate with a near 70 percent free-throw percentage; his 69.2 FTAr was the 11th-best mark in the country out of 1,031 guards and forwards who attempted at least 250 shots, according to Stathead.

Arkansas would use him as a screener and he knew how to attack space in the short-roll. Thiero was not afraid to contact, but his athletic and physical tools offer him a higher upside than that of someone who’s 6-foot-6. He shot 75.0 percent at the rim, including 66.2 percent in the halfcourt, according to Databallr.

Combining his length, physical playstyle and over-arching athleticism, his hang-time around the rim is pretty absurd, too; Thiero could start on one side of the rim against a rim protector, but somehow have enough gas in the tank to finish around the defender on the other side. I also loved his activity as an offensive rebounder, hunting for tip-outs and extra possessions.

Defensively, he was incredibly disruptive with a high motor. He was incredibly active off-ball, especially in the passing lanes and as a weakside rim protector. Thiero did a good job of stunting and recovering, tagging defenders as a low-man and providing any additional help that he needed between ball and man.

Thiero, however, wouldn’t be afraid to swat your shot into the third row nor was he afraid to pick your pass off like he was roaming a secondary. He averaged 2.6 steals and 1.1 blocks per 75 possessions; that alone tells you all you need to know, but his motor on that end really stood out. He was all gas, no brakes all the time. He could defend multiple possessions with enough lateral agility and length to disrupt and stonewall quicker ballhandlers.

Weaknesses:

While I loved watching Thiero play … he was quite chaotic at times.

He only averaged 2.6 turnovers per 75 possessions. But his handle and ball security in traffic was quite questionable at times. At times, he would lose control of the ball as he was bumping into defenders, or the ball would get poked at by a help defender when he was navigating tight quarters. I never felt comfortable with his handle when he was trying to get to the rack. That’s a concern I have.

His long-range shooting was also very questionable. He shot just 25.6 percent from 3-point range, albeit on 1.7 3-point attempts per game. Thiero took just 17 percent of his attempts from distance.

We know he loves to close space–physically–but offenses will be playing 4-on-5 with him at the next level if he can’t figure his shot out. I love his ability to draw fouls but get to the free-throw line, but the majority of NBA defenders he’ll face are more disciplined than the ones he faced in college. There’s no question that I believe he can finish over (or through) them, but I have serious questions about his long-range shooting.

He had good in-between touch from ~10 feet. Though he looks like he’s pushing his shot like a shotput instead of it flowing off his fingertips. Mechanical adjustments will need to be made.

Koby Brea 2025 NBA Draft Profile

Projection: Late First Round

I don’t mind turning in the card for Theiro if I have, say, a late first-round pick beyond 25. Thiero has everything I want in a player … except the ballhandling and shooting. Thiero’s ceiling won’t be maximized if he’s not able to self-create consistently–and efficiently–in the halfcourt. His defense will translate; his athleticism will translate; his physicality will translate. But we’ve seen, far too many times, players flame out because they can’t shoot. That can’t happen with him, point blank.

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