Johni Broome 2025 NBA Draft Profile

Johni Broome 2025 NBA Draft Profile

We are less than two weeks away from the 2025 NBA Draft. Today, we will be previewing two-time All-American Johni Broome, who put together quite the five-year college career as one of the oldest players in this class!

Height (no shoes): 6’9.25 (7’0.25 wingspan, 9’0.5 standing reach)

Weight: 249.4

Draft Age: 22.9

Position: Big

Broome was a three-star recruit out of Tampa Catholic High School in Tampa, Fla., as the 41st-best recruit in the state of Florida and 79th-best center in the 2020 recruiting class. He originally chose Morehead State over offers Bryant and Jacksonville, according to 247sports.com.

In two seasons there, he netted two All-OVC All-First team honors and won the conference’s defensive player of the year as a sophomore in 2021-22 after rejecting an absurd 3.9 shots per game.

He joined Auburn the following season and blossomed, improving in each of his three seasons with the Tigers. In 2024-25, he became a consensus All-American, averaging 16.5 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game. Let’s dive into his profile!

Strengths:

Most of Broome’s scoring came out of the post; he was one of the most effective post scorers in the country. He had a Hall of Fame bruiser badge. Broome had good touch and understood how to out-leverage college bigs with his upper body. Broome was quite effective as a pick-and-roll play finisher, and knew how to close space when he would attack defenders off the bounce, even without a quick first step.

He’s an elite rebounder. Over his five year career, he corralled nearly 20 percent of available rebounds, including 13.4 percent of available offensive rebounds. Over his three seasons at Auburn, his 12.8 offensive rebounding percentage is the 11th-best mark of 248 forwards and centers (shorter than 7-foot) that played at least 2,000 minutes over that span.

Broome was an effective passer in the mid-post and from the elbows. He did a fairly good job locating cutters and developed patience and passing accuracy. His passing accuracy and decision-making weren’t always perfect, but he made legitimate strides in that department.

The All-American is also one of the best shot-blockers in this class–like Ryan Kalkbrenner and Thomas Sorber. He has very good timing as a shot-blocker with good size despite lacking vertical pop.

He wasn’t as effective of a defender as a senior, but his 8.7 percent block rate was the fourth-best mark of 99 bigs 6-foot-9 or taller over that span (min. 2,000 MIN), according to Stathead. He led the SEC in block rate twice and averaged a remarkable 3.5 blocks per 75 possessions.

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Weaknesses:

Broome’s shooting to me was a concern. He’s always going to go to his left, and he shot just 31.0 percent from deep on 1.9 3-point attempts in three years at Auburn, including a dismal 27.8 percent from 3-point range on 2.5 attempts. His sub-60.0 percent free-throw shooting over those three years don’t lend much room for improvement, even though he was a better long-range shooter in his first four seasons.

He’s a grounded athlete with pretty stiff hips. At 6-foot-9, while he ran the floor well in his role, he’s not a fluid mover by any stretch. He doesn’t have much vertical pop around the rim, which is why I think he has a limited upside as a finisher if he can’t use both hands effectively.

Broome is also an undersized center. I still think he can play drop, but I don’t think he’ll be able to stay in front of opposing forwards as much at the next level, nor do I think he will be strong enough to defend 5s consistently as a rookie. He was versatile at Auburn and knew how to cut off angles; he should also still be an effective rim protector, but I have far more questions about his role defensively than I did at Auburn.

Projection:

I have a hard time believing Broome won’t find a role as a rotation big, despite his lack of 3-point shooting and athleticism. I’m curious to see what his role will be offensively and I’m curious to see if he can improve his foot speed and become more athletic at the next level. At worst, he’ll be a rim-runner who can block shots–which, sometimes, is all a team may need you to do at the 5.

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