After they added guard Kingston Flemings with the eighth overall pick, the Hawks‘ second pick of the night is big man Zuby Ejiofor, who comes off the board at No. 23.
Ejiofor, 22, is a four-year college player who became automatically draft-eligible this spring. The 6’9″ forward/center barely played during his freshman year at Kansas and didn’t have a much bigger role after transferring to St. John’s for his sophomore year, but he entered the Red Storm’s starting lineup as a junior and made a significant impact during the back half of his college career.
In 37 games in 2025/26, Ejiofor averaged 16.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and an impressive 2.1 blocks in 30.0 minutes per contest. He was named the Big East’s Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year and won the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar award as college basketball’s top center while leading St. John’s to its first Sweet 16 appearance in 25 years.
Ejoifor is somewhat undersized to handle the five on a regular basis in the NBA and hasn’t developed a reliable jump shot, but he has a 7’2″ wingspan, has shown impressive defensive versatility, and plays with a ton of energy.
The Hawks were open to moving the 23rd pick and told teams they would listen to offers as they were on the clock, per Jake Fischer of The Stein Line (Twitter link), but opted to keep it to select the high-motor big man, who fills a positional and archetypal need. Ejiofor will bring some much-needed toughness to the Hawks, who lacked physicality up front. He could be the primary backup power forward or the even small-ball center at times.
Ejiofor will be joining a core that features Flemings, Jalen Johnson, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels and Onyeka Okongwu. Interestingly, Okongwu is another undersized big man, but his ability to stretch the floor should enable Atlanta to play them together at times.
While Ejiofor got to the free-throw line at an impressive clip in college (7.0 attempts per game), he’s unlikely to have that sort of offensive role in the NBA. Improving his outside shot would give him a clearer runway to a long NBA career — he made just 30.5% of his 1.6 three-point attempts per game in ’25/26.
