Eh, I always find this to just be a hand-wavey explanation for why college stars aren't high draft picks from people who don't watch and aren't that interested in the NBA.
There's a reason Corey Kispert went 15th and Luka Garza went 52nd, to choose a couple of relatively land-bound college seniors who were All-Americans in the same year.
NBA basketball is quite different than college basketball, that's the place to start, not some airy notion about a model the NBA is drafting for that you're coding to mean "not actually skilled at the game".
The NBA game, unlike the college game, can allow teams to make Kofi Cockburn guard players he can't guard out on the perimeter every single time down the floor and just endlessly punish a team for putting him out there in a way his offense can't make up for. The same was true of Garza, though he was maybe a hair less disastrous in those situations and has a more familiar and NBA-friendly offensive game, but I don't see a long career for him despite being a superlative and unique talent.
Ayo's laterally athletic more so than vertically, but he's long and he can guard, those weren't the concerns though I think the offensive load he carried at Illinois made him a bit underrated in that regard. I also think NBA scouts gave an inaccurately low grade on his jumper (as did college scouts) which looks weird but works. He just didn't fit the mold in terms of an NBA PG. He still doesn't, by the way, and struggled when thrust into those situations in the half court.
Ayo got lucky that he landed with a coach that understood and could unlock his innate ability to create chaos and open floor situations on the court. He's devastating on the break, any scout could see that, but I don't think they appreciated the ease with which he'd be able to impose his game in an NBA scenario in a small-ball fun and gun team like the Bulls.