Dream Fit: Wizards, Spurs, Kings

Overall Grade: 59.84

Projected Position: C/PF

Strengths:

• Solid speed in drop coverage

• Great length & verticality at the rim without fouling

• Good maintained physicality defending drives without fouling

• Solid lateral mobility

• Good touch in the post & reads leverage well

• Solid change of direction & extension defending pull-up looks

• Good passing feel in the post

• Good timing on commits in drop coverage

• Functional handle & great post spin move

• Good rebounds in traffic utilizing his length & tracking the ball well

• Good hands

• Great touch on push shot

• Good hustle for rebounds

• Good feel for open space to recieve passes

• Solid hands in press

Weaknesses:

• Poor roll positioning taking wide angles & late to roll at times

• Solid screens, but pushed to much at times, needs to add some weight

• Can get pushed under the rim on boxouts

• Poor athleticism

• At times late on rotation

• At times poor feel as a screener moving into teammates driving lanes

• Can expose the ball too much on drives & get it stripped

• Fouls a lot trying to contest drives where he has to recover from a closeout

• Suceptible to being blocked by secondary defenders, lack of jump & can choreograph moves

(20/5) TBC

Olbrich is a genuinely accomplished basketball player at 21 years old, who should his maturity show in the combine scrimmage games.

NBL champion (2025) NZNBL champion (2024) NZNBL Grand Final MVP (2024) NZNBL Most Valuable Player (2024) NZNBL All-Star Five (2024) NZNBL Most Outstanding Forward (2024) NZNBL Youth Player of the Year (2024) NBL1 Central champion (2023) NBL1 Central Grand Final MVP (2023) 2× NBL1 Central All-Star Five (2022, 2023) 2× NBL1 Central U23 Player of the Year (2022, 2023) Big West Freshman of the Year (2023)

Doesn't have the size of a typical 5, but looks like he has long arms, as well as good physicality to make up for his lack of size.

Non shooter. Complete non shooter at this point who didn't take them in the NBL.

Great footwork and fell in general. Clearly polished from years of pro play.

Poor athleticism. Plays below the rim.

Does the dirty work. He crashes the glass, dives for loose balls, and sets strong and smart screens.

He is very comfortable operating out of hand-offs and playing off the roll. Olbrich is a quick decision maker

Comp:

GSW position: PF

Strengths: a cutter, a finisher at the rim, guards straight up, can defend a little on the perimeter, rarely TO the ball, can playmaker a little (good at finding the 3pt shooters and cutters as well)

Weaknesses: rebounding went down, does not shoot have a good 3pt shot, his closeouts when a player is going down hill are not always the best, he is an underside big man, lacks burst, will have to get stronger

Draft Comparison: Luka Garza

1. Has the potential to contribute off the bench

2. Relatively smooth finisher

3. Youthful

Tier 8:

Strengths:

• A tremendously coordinated, skilled basketball player. Knows how to use the combination of his balance and leverage on the court. Has good hips that move fluidly and comfortably, and his footwork is remarkable.

• Has fantastic hands and seems to catch everything in his vicinity. Can catch with either hand and put the ball on the deck immediately. Catches the ball below and above his waist easily. Far more control over the ball than most players his size. Great feel for the game as well. Sharp in how he thinks through actions.

• You can see the influence of Nikola Jokic on Olbrich's game. He's nowhere near as skilled with the ball, is smaller by a couple of inches and can't shoot, but stylistically the influences are there in the way he eats up space and sees the court. There's a creativity to how he moves. He moves the ball quickly but can also post with quick, awkward moves. He grabs and goes.

• Does a solid job on the glass, especially on the defensive end. Finds his man and gets a body on him, then reads the ball off the glass well. He's also excellent as a grab-and-go big who can start the offense. That might be where he's the most dangerous at the next level. The combination of handle, coordination and feel really plays up. Immediately looks to eat up space. Good at finding hit-ahead passes off a live dribble to get his team an advantage and can also drive to the rim and finish if no one picks him up or if a slower big tries to stop him. Has some mismatch abilities.

• Olbrich's a versatile offensive chess piece as a big man. He can run ball screens with ease as the big, and can be an effective screener before rolling into the lane. Excels at making contact with the defender and making sure his ballhandler gets some space. Very detail-oriented in that regard. Probably best right now off the short roll, where he can catch as a safety valve for his guard and put the ball on the deck to get to the rim.

• Good in dribble-handoffs because of his feel for the game and ballhandling. Have to be aware of the potential reject handoffs with him and also have to be aware that he might obliterate you on a screen. Can be used to attack defenders who don't guard him from outside the 3-point line. Really smart in the short corner and dunker spot. Knows where to move off the ball and is good at screening away for his teammates off the ball.

• Largely a below-the-rim finisher but has great touch around the rim. Made 69.1% of his attempts at the basket in half-court settings, a very strong mark. Can finish with both hands with ease. Makes them on drives and out of post-ups. Has a nice array of gathers using Eurosteps and pivots on his drives to throw off the defender. Against defenders, he's very happy to bump and initiate contact to score. Maintains his balance through bumps.

• Olbrich has fantastic passing ability. A really sharp ball-mover across the court. Has great vision and can throw passes with either hand off a live dribble, particularly out of the post. Does not have wide hands but weirdly had the longest hands at the combine, and it feels like that allows him to control the ball a bit. Throws cross-corner and cross-wing kickouts out of the post. You can't double him. He'll find the open man easily. Constantly keeps his eyes up even when driving to the rim, which can hard for bigs. Averaged 1.6 assists per game in just 16 minutes per night.

Areas for Improvement:

• Stands 6 feet 8.75 without shoes with a 6-11.25 wingspan and an 8-11.5 standing reach. That's undersized for the combo big man role he'll have to play in the NBA despite his skill level. He's more of a center than a forward, which will make those measurements particularly tricky on defense.

• While he's very skilled and polished with his footwork, he doesn't have much explosiveness, and that hinders him on the defensive end. Doesn't have much in the way of vertical pop, and his first lateral stride is not quick.

• Defensively, there are some real concerns given the intersection of his size and speed. Illawarra largely used him in drop coverage, and he was not wildly effective in those moments. Knows where he's supposed to be, and his lines are generally right. When he's not backpedaling and can use his size to wall up, he's pretty solid. But if a guard attacks him aggressively, he doesn't seem to hold up well as a rim protector. Despite being able to initiate contact as a scorer, he struggles to absorb contact defensively while. maintaining his verticality. Plus, he doesn't have much verticality as a rim protector to begin with. I worry that NBA-level players will just go into his chest and then finish over the top of him.

• Doesn't scramble well on defense. Seems to be a bit heavy-footed here and can get beaten on both pick-and-pops and when he has to get out to a floor-spacing big man in a spot-up situation. Wasn't great at stopping drives there or at confusing the space. Often felt like he would get stuck in no-man's land between not contesting the shot well enough while trying to cut off the drive, or committing fully to the shot and not succeeding there. Knew exactly what his assignments were as the low man defensively on the back side and would regularly tag the roller, but it felt like he couldn't effectively get all the way back out.

• Also, his hands weren't disruptive on defense. Tended to have his hands down in drop coverage. Rarely seemed to get his hands on the ball in deflections. Only averaged 0.5 blocks and 0.3 steals. There is some room for growth if he can improve his footspeed and get lighter on his feet, especially when playing the four. But won't be a difference-maker on this end.

• Offensively, I really worry about what the lack of jump shot means for his game. Only took 10 jump shots all season for Illawarra, and missed all but one of them. Made one 3-pointer this year. Has also never been much of a free-throw shooter, with his percentages consistently sitting in the 50s. The jumper doesn't look great, despite his touch around the rim. Has an outward right elbow flare that will need to be fixed, and the ball doesn't really even go straight up into the shooting pocket. Going to take a lot of time to fix this; if it ever happens.

• Olbrich occasionally had problems with stronger, more physical defenders on the interior in the NBL that he couldn't put his shoulder into and move back. Given that every NBA big has that kind of size, he will need to keep working on his craft to get to a truly elite level to be successful.

• What exactly is his NBA role? He's not quite big enough to be a five and doesn't protect the rim well because he doesn't absorb contact through his chest. But then he also doesn't particularly move his feet well on defense to guard out there. On offense, he's a skilled big who can't really shoot. He's essentially a man without a position in the NBA right now, even though he's quite skilled and talented.

Summary:

You want to buy into Olbrich because he knows how to play the game. He's sharp with his off-ball movement and has a unique game that allows him to make plays offensively in a variety of situations. He's an awesome screener who can put the ball on the deck and finishes well on the interior for a below-the-rim guy. I expect him to be a decade-long stalwart on the Australian national team. But I'm just not sure what you do with him on defense in the NBA. The tools aren't quite good enough to project much in the way of improvement, and he's fairly stuck between positions. If I bough into him defensively, it would be much easier to ignore the shooting issues. But for now, I think he's a strong draft-and-stash candidate in the 50s on draft night. Leave him over in Australia for a year or two, see how his game develops, and maybe you could end up with an interesting, offensively-minded backup center at some point.