Quaker Valley graduate Adou Thiero headed to Lakers in 2nd round of NBA Draft

Quaker Valley graduate Adou Thiero is headed to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Thiero was chosen with the sixth pick of the second round of the NBA Draft on Thursday night, 36th overall. The Lakers were apparently eager to pick him, moving up from 55th with a pair of trades to acquire the selection, which originally belonged to Brooklyn.

“It feels good. A dream come true,” Thiero told the Los Angeles Times. “Just happy to be here. Playing for the Lakers, too, that’s a blessing for sure.”

Thiero will join a roster that includes two of the game’s biggest stars in LeBron James and Luka Doncic.

“LeBron!” Thiero said. “It’s going to be fun learning from everybody. But you got Bron, you got Luka, (Austin Reaves). It’s a lot of people on that team. I’m just ready to get with the guys and work.”

Thiero is coming off a strong junior season at Arkansas, where he averaged 15.1 points and 5.8 rebounds, showing marked improvement in each of his three seasons of college ball.

Coming into the draft, Thiero was rated as a prospect on the borderline of the first and second rounds.

According to Thiero’s NBA.com scouting report, he’s perhaps the most explosive player in the draft who can draw fouls and finish spectacularly at the rim. Questions remain about the consistency of his shooting.

At the draft combine, he measured 6-foot-6¼, 218 pounds with a 7-foot wingspan.

“Adou Thiero is a first-round draft pick, and I’m going to tell you why,” Arkansas coach John Calipari said on the Pat McAfee Show last week. “The league, I love the physicalness of the league right now. I love it. You’ve got to work to get a basket. It ain’t HORSE anymore. … Adou can play in a physical game and athletically be in the top one percent.

“He’s somebody that if you pass on him, they’ll look back and say, ‘How many people passed on him?’ He’s that good. And a good kid. From Pittsburgh.”

Thiero, whose father played at Memphis and Duquesne and whose mother played at Oklahoma City University and was a WNBA Draft pick, was only 5-11 as a freshman at Quaker Valley.

By his senior year, Thiero was the WPIAL’s most dominant force, a 6-6 guard who averaged 23.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 3.9 steals and 2.3 blocks for a Quakers team that won a WPIAL championship and finished as PIAA runner-up.

His father played for Calipari at Memphis, and Thiero followed in those footsteps when making his college decision, committing to Kentucky.

Thiero’s role was limited as a freshman, but he began to play a more prominent role as a sophomore, averaging 7.2 points and 5.0 rebounds.

When Calipari took the Arkansas job in 2024, Thiero followed and was a key player for the Razorbacks, improving his draft stock. He missed eight of the last nine games of the season with a knee injury and was limited in his predraft workouts.