Thomas Sorber

Offense

Thomas Sorber is a physical, intelligent big who excels at screen-setting, scoring, and passing. Sorber thrives as a traditional roll man, combining strong screens, good timing, and high effort to create advantages in pick-and-roll actions. He rolls hard, has soft hands, and offers a large catch radius thanks to his long arms and size. While not an explosive leaper, he finishes well through contact with both power and touch, using his strength and broad frame to shield defenders and carve out angles. Yes, he’s a below-the-rim player, but shows enough coordination, fluidity, and creativity to score effectively in tight spaces.

Sorber is also a savvy player who diversifies his screen attempts and reads the defense. He will set a hard screen and roll on a couple possessions before slipping a screen or popping. And he is not very effective on the pop yet, but if his shot comes around it will help strengthen his impact allowing him to create spacing and gravity.

Sorber brings impressive skill to his interior scoring. He’s comfortable finishing with either hand, uses shoulder fakes and pivots to manipulate defenders, and has the functional strength and concentration to score through contact. He consistently uses pump fakes, jab steps, and subtle movements to create seams or disrupt his defender’s timing. His footwork is sound, and he shows real composure when operating inside using his body to bump defenders and create a sliver of space he can use to get his shot off. However, against longer or more athletic frontcourts, especially ranked opponents, he can struggle to finish over length and can be blocked when attempting to power through defenders or extend around them without sufficient lift.

While Sorber’s post bag is promising, he can settle for hooks or touch shots from farther out than ideal. He holds his ground well with a low center of gravity, but doesn’t always gain ground with his backdowns. That can lead to forced shots when his initial move is stymied and he ends up forcing some post moves from further out than you (or he) would like.  However, he was a freshman posting up against often older, more physically mature big men.

Sorber’s shot is a developing part of his game. His jumper isn’t very consistent and he can rush it a bit. He can land inconsistently and his mechanics can look a bit off at times, but ultimately, his mechanics look ok. I don’t expect him to shoot off the move or off the dribble anytime soon, but I won’t be surprised if his shot smooths out and he’s able to hit midrange shots and eventually three-pointers in rhythm. He already flashes some ability from mid range and the free throw line.

He also shows some straight-line driving ability with functional handles with a bit of wiggle, though he remains limited in this area. His drive attempts are basic and sometimes predictable, and he can lose the ball in traffic or get stripped on his gather.

Sorber is a very strong rebounder on both sides of the ball, with great instincts and a willingness to box out.  He has good size, strength, coordination, and feel.  He’s not especially fast getting to the ball.  But if it’s in his vicinity he’s got a good shot at it.  Offensively, he’s especially good at tipping in second-chance points, even if his limited vertical leap makes it tough to catch and finish quickly in midair.

Perhaps most impressive is his passing ability. Sorber is an outstanding decision-maker with legitimate vision and strong accuracy. He can facilitate from multiple areas, such as the high post, low block, short roll, or even on the move. He throws accurate bounce passes to cutters, skip passes or kick outs to shooters, dump-offs in traffic, and can hit players cutting around him in variations of the DHO in stride. He reads double teams well and routinely finds the open man, helped by him having the height to see over the defense. He shows good anticipatory passing, taking passes and immediately swinging the ball to open players, including a pretty impressive no look pass to Peavy in the corner on one play that made me smile.

While generally sound with the ball for a young big man, Sorber had two patterns to his turnovers to note.  First, he had a few too many passes he tried to force into traffic. He can have a bit of a windup to his passes at times and they can be picked off. Second, he was stripped or lost control of the ball going inside. Sometimes stripped by a single defender and sometimes in traffic. He needs to tighten his dribble and be a bit more carful driving into traffic.

Defense

Defensively, Sorber is a mixed bag. His lateral quickness is below average, and he lacks great ability to change direction either east to west or north to south. He is a bit lumbering and can be beaten in space, especially when pulled out by stretch bigs or switched onto guards. In these cases, he often plays back and tries to use his length to contest from a distance, which is a necessity since he can’t play up otherwise he’s vulnerable to both quick drives and countermoves.

If he gets set and gets lower into a stance, he does better as it can be trickier to get around his wider shoulders and turn the corner, and players can’t rely on driving into his body.  Even then, he’s still very vulnerable to counter moves due to slower change of direction.  Step backs and hesitations can just freeze him . NBA teams will likely target him in space until he proves he can survive them.

That said, Sorber is an excellent paint defender when set. He has the strong legs, functional strength, and length to anchor against post-ups and doesn’t give up deep position easily. Opposing bigs often had to work around him rather than through him. His frame is already tough to dislodge, and with continued development, he projects as a strong post defender at the next level.

As a rim protector, Sorber excels due to his length, width, and timing. He consistently alters shots, walls up well, and avoids fouling.. If players try to drive into him, they wind up hitting a brick wall and often ended up throwing the ball up into his arms or threw up a wild shot. And the plus side to not having great hops is that even if he bites on a fake, he’s right back on the ground and often able to still contest the shot attempt. Sorber is a pretty strong rim protector who doesn’t just block shots, but alters entire driving paths, forcing drivers into wild shots, turnovers, and abandoned attacks.

Sorber also racks up a lot of steals for a center.  While he had a few strips and rips, most of his steals were using his long arms and anticipation to bat down passes. Both from his own man like a D-lineman at the line of scrimmage and playing safety and knocking away passes intended for his man or other players on cross court passes or throws inside, including some attempts by guards to fire the ball inside to their roll man when Sorber was defending the P&R

He’s not the quickest rotating out the the perimeter, but a bit more spry than you’d expect and has the size and length to contest and bother shots provided he can get close enough  However, once his momentum is going, he doesn’t stop of change directions very easily and he gave up a number of blow bys after contesting on the outside. NBA players will absolutely take advantage of this.

Note: Sorber suffered a season-ending left foot injury on February 15th against Butler and will underwent surgery to repair it.