It's Easy for Aday Mara | The Prospect Overview
Michigan junior Aday Mara's finishing, offensive rebounding, passing, and shot blocking are NBA-level skills. A full scouting report on one of the best centers in the 2026 NBA Draft! PLUS: QUICK HITS!
When I’m going through my scouting process, I like to see players who are productive. It’s a lot harder for me to project future NBA success when a prospect is struggling to get the job done against lesser competition. But what I like to see even more is when the production looks easy. It’s one thing for a guy to score a ton of points, generate assists, grab boards, and garner stocks. But there’s a difference between the player who is fighting tooth and nail to get that done as opposed to the player who does it effortlessly. I’ll certainly show respect to the motor of the player who has to scrap to eat. That’s not meaningless, and I love hard-charging players. But I don’t want there to be room for doubt. Whether it’s physically or mentally, I want to feel like a player is so far ahead of the pack that I won’t have to worry about them maintaining their advantages at the next level.
This article is going to cover Michigan’s Aday Mara. He’s long been an analytical darling due to his stat sheet stuffing production and ridiculous size (7’3”, 255 pounds). The icing on the cake, though, is how easy it all looks on tape.
Interior Scoring
Aday Mara is a great interior scorer. Per Synergy, he’s made 75% of his half-court rim attempts this season, which is well above-average relative to long-term NBA centers during their pre-draft seasons. Best of all, it looks scalable and easy. Everything happens right at the rim. When he catches a post entry, he keeps the ball high before dropping it in the basket. If he’s rolling with a runway, he’ll easily elevate off the floor before sending home a dunk. Plus, he’s awesome on the offensive glass, as evidenced by his career 12.6 ORB%. Mara’s nose for the boards helps him generate easy second-chance looks time and time again. He’s also not “just tall,” he’s skilled. Mara has a post-counter game, soft touch, and the ability to hit hook shots over both his left and right shoulders. While he is a prolific dunker, the fact that he’s not totally reliant on jamming the ball adds a layer to his game. The numbers here are awesome. Mara shoots a higher percentage on his touch shots, he dunks a lot, and he owns the offensive glass. But the fact that it’s so easy for him because of his size and technique is what makes his NBA translation all the more encouraging.
Playmaking
This is where we really start cooking with gas. Aday Mara is a big-time passer, and that matters a lot. The pre-draft assist rates and assist-to-turnover ratios for big men are much higher now than they were a decade ago, and that trend will only continue forward, given how much ball movement across the positional spectrum does for an offense. Mara’s 18.6 AST% is a stellar mark for a center prospect, and his 2.5 APG to 2.0 TOV points to his reliability. It’s really abnormal for a player this large to sling assists like this. Currently, he’s tied for the best assist rate and best assist-to-turnover ratio in the history of the BartTorvik database for players 7’2” and above.
I want to start out by focusing on how Aday Mara helps his team get out and run. When I think about bigger, slower centers, one of the first questions I ask myself is, “How can this player help his team score early in the shot clock?” Sometimes, this type of player can slow down a team’s pace and prevent them from getting those high-efficiency looks in transition and early offense. I like to see some type of weapon in this context, for instance, the ability to knockdown a trailer three. For Mara, the answer lies in his ridiculous outlet passing game. Obviously, we’re drafting basketball players here, but if we had to draft a football team out of basketball prospects, Mara would be QB1 on my board. He’s a good defensive rebounder (21.3 DRB%), and those numbers could be suppressed given that he plays alongside two other good defensive rebounders in Yaxel Lendeborg and Morez Johnson. Once he secures a board, Mara is able to look deep down the floor and hit a teammate in stride with a Hail Mary pass. It’s not the most traditional way to do it, but Mara’s ability to get his teammates out in transition as a passer does a lot for his team’s overall offensive efficiency.
Mara is awesome in the halfcourt, too. It’s impossible to ignore his size in this context, too. His length allows him to utilize passing angles that other players are simply not capable of generating. He can stay poised against double teams on the block before spraying out to shooters. He’s also already proven that he can operate out of the short roll thanks to Michigan’s modernized offensive concepts. Mara can catch the ball on the move before quickly and effectively finding teammates for clean looks. There’s some real craft to him, too. Mara does an excellent job of utilizing head and eye manipulation to bend defenses and further open up his targets. Mara’s length, creativity, and accuracy set him far apart from most center prospects.
Defense
Aday Mara has been one of the most effective defensive anchors in college basketball this season. Again, his size is a huge factor in that. Ball-handlers are cautious of going too deep into the paint when they see him looming in drop coverage. Mara excels at using his arms and hands to keep opponents guessing while taking away clean angles for them. When players do actually test Mara inside, it doesn’t go well for them. His length, reaction time, and hand speed have helped him tally a 12.9 BLK% on the year. He’s not toast out in space, either. While he does cross his feet sometimes and he’s not the smoothest mover, Mara makes himself as big as possible and extends his drive-side arm to take away good looks at the basket. His size, rim deterrence, and shot blocking should give him great defensive value at the NBA level.
Pushing Back
There are fair reasons to be skeptical of nearly every draft prospect. For Mara, one of my biggest worries is whether or not he can sustain a hefty load of minutes over the course of an 82-game schedule. While Michigan’s outright dominance has surely played a role in this, Mara is only averaging 22.6 MPG on the year. To be fair, one of his signature performances this season saw him play 37 minutes against Wake Forest. But at times, Mara can appear tired and start to get up-and-down the floor a bit slower. I also have concerns about him closing out games, as he’s a 49.1% free-throw shooter on the year and could be a prime Hack-A-Shaq target in crunch time. I’ve seen gripes about Mara’s turnover rate, but I don’t sweat that too much. Generally, players tend to refine themselves and get better at reading the floor at the next level. On defense, he has a bad tendency to play too close to his man off the ball on the weak side of the floor, even if they aren’t a shooter. Given that he’s not the fastest player in the world, he can be late to rim rotations because of this habit. It’s something he will need to refine, especially given how much wider the spacing can tend to be on an NBA floor.
Conclusion
I get why evaluators might not be head-over-heels in love with Aday Mara. He’s not an ironman, he doesn’t stretch the floor, he can’t make free throws, he’s not the twitchiest mover, and he has some frustrating habits. But at the end of the day, I cannot help but think that Aday Mara is going to play in the NBA for a very long time. He’s a high-level finisher, an exceptional passer, and an awesome rim protector. Best of all, because of his size and processing, it all looks easy for him. I believe that Aday Mara’s blend of tools and traits warrants lottery consideration.
QUICK HITS
-Mikel Brown Jr. has been scorching hot lately. I’ll admit it—I’d started to fade him after his rickety start to the season. To his credit, Brown was better than I’d anticipated in his prior "problem areas.” His downhill burst, rim finishing, and foul-drawing were all highlights for him. However, his tendency to launch exceedingly difficult shots early in the clock and his lackluster defensive effort worried me. Brown’s scoring process has tightened up, and he’s gotten healthy. Now, he’s hit over 40% of his threes on high volume in conference play. He’s also been a genuinely good rebounder for a guard and a solid off-ball defender. When you throw in his great downhill improvements, this is a guy who deserves to be back in the “top end of the lottery” conversation.
-It’s been fun to watch Texas Tech’s Christian Anderson take a leap. The 6’3” sophomore guard is an absolutely lethal shooter. If his man gets clipped by a screen and the big isn’t at least at the level, he’s going to pull the trigger and make the defense pay. I also really like his poise with his handle out on the perimeter. His lack of strength is an issue. He doesn’t like to go deep into the paint and gets bossed around on the interior defensively. While I think this year’s loaded guard crop probably means he’s best staying with the Red Raiders for another year, this high-feel, caretaker, sweet-shooting point guard archetype has a good hit rate.
-We are 26 games into the season, and Milan Momcilovic is still shooting over 50% from three despite taking 14.6 attempts per 100 possessions. He’s got a high release to shoot over contests, deep range, and he’s a strategic off-ball mover who knows how to get himself space even if he’s not the most natural separator. Plus, he’s strong enough to pound out smaller guys inside. I get that he’s a lackluster lateral athlete and that he has a plodding downhill driving game, but I think his size is going to keep him viable on an NBA floor. He’s a guaranteed contract range guy for me.
-I feel like Kentucky’s Otega Oweh is getting overlooked. I get it, the Wildcats haven’t lived up to expectations this season. But Otega has NBA tools. He’s an awesome pick-six playmaker in passing lanes. Offensively, he’s a blur downhill and can put people on posters (30 dunks on the year!) and get to the free throw line (.475 FTr). Plus, he’s been reading help better on the move, leading to a significant assist rate increase. While he’s not the best shooter in the world, he’s decent on solid volume. If Oweh can just hit enough shots at the next level, he’s going to stick. His athleticism, disruptive defense, and potent driving game are all up to snuff.
-Utah State junior Mason Falslev has quietly put together an excellent junior season. The 6’3” guard has long been a great second-side attacker and snappy decision maker on the move. Plus, he’s always racked up a ton of steals via his ability to play in gaps. Still, I was skeptical whether he could actually shoot. He hit 39% of his threes last year but only made 57.9% of his free throws. This year, he’s at 41.9% from deep and 76.9% at the charity stripe. He’s long played more of a “secondary initiator” type of role. If he can genuinely lead an offense next season, that should get him over the hump, even though he’s quite old for his class. There’s sort of a Jordan Goodwin/Collin Gillespie hybrid thing going on here that really resonates with me.
