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Dean On Draft

~ NBA Draft Analysis

Dean On Draft

Category Archives: NCAA

Should NBA Teams Worry about Brandon Miller’s Role in Fatal Shooting?

24 Friday Feb 2023

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA

≈ 10 Comments

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brandon miller

Recently it was revealed that Brandon Miller got a hockey assist on a fatal shooting where he drove the gun to teammate Darius Miles, who gave it to shooter Michael Davis, who then killed Jamea Jonae Harris.

Based on descriptions it seems like Miller should be an accessory, but he isn’t being charged and coach Nate Oats said he was merely at the wrong spot at the wrong time.

What’s not clear is how naive Miller was to the situation. It is not clear whether he is avoiding charges because he was going to pick up his teammate without being aware of the situation vs getting preferential treatment for being a star basketball player and cooperating with the police.

Twitter seems to err on the side of this being nefarious, as most people believe this should lead to a significant decline in his draft stock:

How should this news story affect Brandon Miller’s draft stock:https://t.co/TCT1GJsbhX

— Dean (@deanondraft) February 21, 2023
So before getting into law and order, let’s review his basketball season thus far.

Subverting Expectations On the Court

Miller entered the season as #11 RSCI, and seemed to fit a good NBA mold as 6’9 defensive oriented wing. But his upside seemed limited, as he was sophomore aged turning 20 in November, and averaged 13 points per game on pedestrian shooting percentages in AAU.

Most of the bigger freshman surprises tend to come in younger players. For instance– it is less surprising that Ja Morant ended up at Murray State considering that he was a year younger than his peers, and it is difficult to stand out as a 16 year old competing with 17 year olds. But as a 18 year old competing with a 17 year old, it is hard to *not* stand out as a future NBA player.

OJ Mayo was hyped as the next LeBron in high school, but had a lackluster NBA career after getting picked 3rd overall. Shabazz Muhammad was #1 RSCI and completely flopped as the #14 overall pick in the draft. Like Brandon Miller, both of these guys turned 20 in November of their freshman seasons. They built hype based on dominating younger competition at a developmental age where one year makes a huge difference, and it is incredibly difficult to live up to that hype as the younger peers catch up and surpass the older prospects in college and the NBA.

It is difficult to think of older prospects who have crushed expectations like Miller has. Chet Holmgren lived up to the hype last year, but he entered as a strong #1 overall candidate and was 6 months younger for his class than Miller. Prior to that, Evan Mobley and Jalen Suggs were pleasant surprises, but they were both 7 months younger than Miller. Joel Embiid might be the strongest recent example, as he was only 4 months younger than Miller as a freshman and absolutely smashed expectations. But Embiid was also slightly different in that he had a late start, and an obviously huge upside.

There’s not enough information to draw firm conclusions that he will be an Embiid level overachiever in the NBA, but Miller’s performance thus far hints that he may have special off court intelligence.

Learning to Score Inside

Miller didn’t enter the season with much hype, but he was able to build it with hot 3 point shooting in his early games. However, he was not reputed as a shooter coming into college, and he also showed some nasty warts in his first 3 games against high major competition at the Phil Knight invitational, as he shot 8/34 (23.5%) inside the arc against Michigan St, UConn, and UNC.

He had a knack for driving directly into shot blockers, and even when he found space at the rim he did not seem to have the body control to finish. He followed it up with 0/3 @ Houston shortly thereafter, and it seemed that he may be another overhyped old guy who was getting overrated based on unsustainably hot shooting.

But in 18 major conference games since then (counting Memphis + Gonzaga), he is 67/112 (59.8%) inside the arc to raise his 2P% on the season to a solid 50.6%. This is in part due to beating up the weaker SEC teams, but if you limit the sample to top 100 kenpom teams he is 43/76 (56.6%) in 13 games. This is in part because he has been attacking a lower volume, but has nevertheless been an impressive adjustment from early season where he looked woefully bad attacking off the dribble.

Further, he has continued to shoot well, making 43% 3P, 83% FT thus far on good volume. And perhaps most impressive has been his impact on Alabama, who has been a major overachiever in the midst of their best season ever. And Miller seems to be the primary driver of their success, especially when you look at his on/off splits per hooplens.com:

College on/off splits are extremely noisy, and that team defensive 3P% with Miller on the court is benefitting from a significant chunk of luck. But it is a nice bonus that not only is Alabama bigly overachieving, but all of their success is coming when Miller is on the court.

There is some downside to all of this surprise goodness– namely that he could be due for regression, especially in his shooting with his NCAA sample size still being limited. Cade Cunningham and Jabari Smith are two high profile prospects who recently surprised with elite NCAA shooting and have struggled to make 3’s early in their NBA career. They still may become good or great 3 point shooters, but it’s always a bit scary when a player has so much stock hinging on his shooting ability without a limited sample of success.

But the upside is that he seems to have some unique level of intelligence and work ethic. And for a guy who fits such a coveted NBA mold of 6’9 athletic shooter, he seems like a good bet to be a useful NBA player.

What does this incident mean for Miller’s future?

It’s difficult to say. Some people may argue that criminals have lower intelligence, which give them lower odds of long term success on top of bad optics that may not make them worth rostering.

The Spurs recently released Josh Primo after allegations of sexual misconduct, and Miles Bridges turned himself from a hot free agent target to out of the league (for now) with his domestic violence charges.

This would present multiple layers of risk in drafting somebody with higher risk of criminal behavior. They may lack the intelligence and focus to reach their upside, and even if they become good they can nuke their value at any moment with a big enough mistake.

But the trouble with applying this logic to Miller is that he is not a criminal. He is neither being charged with anything nor punished by his team. And his off court intelligence certainly does not seem subpar based on his outlier exceeding of expectations for an older freshman.

The simplest answer here is that he is only getting prosecuted by people with limited information on social media, and this should not heavily price into his NBA valuation without any clear evidence he did something wrong.

But since so many people seem to believe he is an accessory to murder getting preferential treatment, let’s put on our tinfoil hats and assume the worst by seeing how he compares to past athletes who have been connected to a killing.

Killer Instinct

Between NFL and NBA, there are 5 players who have been connected with killing somebody

Javaris Crittenton
Rae Carruth
Aaron Hernandez
OJ Simpson
Ray Lewis

But Crittenton and Hernandez were highly erratic guys in a way that does not seem consistent with Miller. Carruth killed his girlfriend who was 8 months pregnant with his son, which is the opposite behavior of Miller showing up to support his teammate. OJ Simpson killed his ex-wife who he obsessed over (he was acquitted but if you watch ESPN’s excellent documentary “OJ: Made in America” it’s clear he did it), again the opposite behavior of Miller.

Ray Lewis is probably the most similar situation to Miller, where him and his two companions got in a fight with another group of people resulting in two stabbing deaths. All three were indicted on murder and aggravated assault charges, but Lewis got his charges dismissed in exchange for testifying against his friends (who were eventually acquitted) and a guilty plea to misdemeanor obstruction of justice.

This was Lewis’s only legal issue in a hall of fame career as one of the best defensive players in NFL history. He was elite value for the #26 overall pick in his draft, and makes a strong case against doubting an athlete who hangs out in a group capable of killing. Imagine if this happened pre-draft and caused him to slide— lots of teams would be feeling silly down the road.

This is not to say that Miller’s involvement should be seen as a positive. But it is a reminder that a player doing something morally wrong is not always predictive of failure. Miller’s incident was far more mild, as Lewis was actually charged and a victim’s blood was found in his limousine. Further, Lewis’s white suit he wore that night was never recovered. Even if Miller should have been charged as accessory, his involvement seems significantly more limited than that of Lewis who went on to win numerous accolades in a hall of fame career.

The most similar NBA incident to Miller was perhaps Tyreke Evans being the unwitting driver in a drive by shooting. He wasn’t charged and went onto a decent NBA career, although it was underwhelming for a #4 overall pick and ended prematurely when he was suspended for 3 years for violating NBA’s anti-drug program. Evans showed immense potential early in his career winning rookie of the year over Steph Curry, but then failed to progress. Between his underwhelming development and suspension, he is an example of how being present but not culpable for a shooter could be a badge signal.

Also similar was Tony Allen’s involvement in a shooting where a member of his entourage shot a man twice. Allen was never charged, but the victim’s lawyer claimed that Allen urged the shooter to “fuck him up” shortly before the shooting. Even though the victim survived, Allen was more directly involved in the altercation. It is difficult to say what is worse between his situation and Miller’s.

Allen had a solid NBA career and was a good return on a late 1st pick, and provides a positive counter example to Evans. And when you factor an outlier success case in the NFL such as Ray Lewis, it’s difficult to conclude that this incident is any sort of clear negative signal for Miller.

Optics

Now some may argue the above section misses the point, and that it is not a matter of whether Miller is likely to succeed, but that somebody even loosely involved in a murder is not fit to play in the NBA.

But the irony of killing is that even though it is arguably the worst crime, it is also the most commonly portrayed as badass or cool in pop culture. It’s difficult to think of any TV show or movie that ever portrayed a rapist or wife beater as a likable protagonist, but it happens all of the time with killers, especially when it comes to mobster or gangster culture.

Of course this isn’t the case with the majority of murders. There is nothing redeemable about an OJ or Carruth killing a loved one, and an erratic thug like Hernandez or Crittenton at best gets portrayed as an entertaining side character who eventually dies due to lack of intelligence.

In this instance, there is nothing redeemable about Miles or Davis who are actually being charged. They somehow let getting rejected by a woman escalate into a beef where they killed a single mother, which is ridiculous and not cool in any way. But Miller had nothing to do with the altercation, and likely was not privy to the details. He wasn’t even out partying. He was just down to get his teammate’s back when he needed help.

The worst thing that can be said about him is that he *might* be somewhat of a gangster. This may be a turn off to some NBA fans, but it resonates with another large subset of fans. Players such as Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, and Zach Randolph all portrayed gangster images and were all time fan favorites. Would their fans turn on them if any of those guys were there when one of their friends killed somebody but they weren’t charged? It’s extremely unlikely given that their fans never expected them to be choir boys to begin with.

As mentioned earlier, nobody cared when Tony Allen was directly involved in an altercation that led to a non-lethal shooting but didn’t get charged. He later got in a fight with teammate OJ Mayo where he punched him in the face and was considered the protagonist of the story. Even though he was merely a defensive role player for the Grizzlies who never averaged double digits scoring, he remains one of the franchise’s all time fan favorites as he embodied the team’s grit and grind culture.

Even assuming the worst about Miller’s involvement, it’s highly unlikely this prevents him from being beloved by NBA fans. And in reality, most people will not care, forget about this, or never even know it happened since he’s a 20 year old who was neither charged nor punished by his team.

Bottom Line

While Miller’s involvement with the shooting looks a bit shady, people are currently overreacting to the situation.

Most importantly, there is no clear evidence he did anything wrong. He isn’t being charged, his coach says he did nothing wrong, and his lawyer insists that he has exonerating video evidence.

Social media is an inherently judgmental environment, and to tank his stock people are making the judgment that the details are much worse than law enforcement and his coach are letting on as well as the judgment that this is predictive of turbulence in his NBA future.

Given his surprising NCAA performance, it’s hard to buy any narrative that he is prone to underachievement. The biggest concern would be this makes him more likely to have legal issues in the pros, but this is not a significant enough concern to drastically affect his stock.

It’s really difficult to spin this in a way such that it’s a major concern. The most common outcome will be that this quickly becomes a distant memory of the past, and that teams will feel silly if they pass on him for prospects like the Thompson twins.

Personally I was leaning toward him being the #3 prospect in the draft before this news broke, with Gradey Dick and Anthony Black being right behind him. The news did not affect my rating, and then he followed it up with a monster performance against South Carolina that suggests that he is cool under pressure and adds further evidence that he is very good at basketball.

It makes sense for teams to have some minor apprehension about future legal issues, and do their due diligence on Miller before drafting him. But given that his coach and AD are going out on a limb for him, and his outlier progression, odds are that the intel on him will be good enough to draft him so long as he is the best player available.

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2023 Draft Preview

14 Thursday Jul 2022

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA

≈ 8 Comments

There are no obvious stars in this class at this time, but there is a DEEP cluster of interesting guys who could emerge between now and the draft. Info on most of these guys is still fairly thin, but it is an interesting class.

The #3 through #20 range is particularly interesting because it could end up re-arranged in any order (with inevitably some guys falling out) after a full season of additional information.

  1. Scoot Henderson
  2. Victor Wembanyama

I don’t think these guys are quite as locked into the top 2 as everybody believes, but they definitely have the inside track at this time with no clear cases to leapfrog them without quality NCAA performance.

Scoot is a tough evaluation at this stage because there are still such few prospects to start off in the G League as teenagers, let alone at age 17 like he did last year. But he definitely seems good.

First his physical tools are awesome as he is listed at 6’3 with an alleged 6’9 wingspan and excellent athleticism. He also seems to be a real PG with 2:1 assist:TOV ratio and had good rebound and steal rates. His shooting is the biggest question mark as he only shot 11/51 from 3, but his 77.8% FT (42/54) helps that from being a major concern.

A conservative comp would be Derrick Rose, where he is a fine #1 overall pick that could look good if he develops well (pre-injury Rose) or be merely fine if not (post-injury Rose). But if we do a quick and dirty comparison of their per game stats:

AgeMinsPtsRebsAstTOVStlBlk2P%FT%3PA
DRose19.229.214.94.54.72.71.20.40.5210.7122.6
Scoot17.927.914.34.84.22.11.60.20.510.7782.4

They are nearly twins in spite of Scoot being 16 months younger playing against grown men. I am not sure he is quite as explosive, but he seems close enough to not sweat it.

Through this lens there is a decent case that Scoot is a generational PG prospect. The last PG prospect who was clearly above him was likely Magic Johnson. Jason Kidd + Kyrie Irving have arguments to be better (IMO Kyrie NBA career was a disappointment relative to his talent level). But if he makes a significant leap next year it will be difficult to put those guys above him decisively.

So right now I believe he is the best prospect in this draft.

Wemby the Weirdo

Wemby appeared to be a generational prospect last summer as a 17 y/o competing in FIBA u19, but that did not translate to playing against adults as he struggled in both Euroleague and Jeep Elite.

Granted, Euroleague is the toughest non-NBA league in the world and he was starting the season as a 17 year old, but the warts he showed were fairly gross. He carried a high usage offensively but had terrible efficiency.

He badly struggled to finish inside the arc with a stomach churning 37.2% 2P, and had a poor 6 assists vs 17 turnovers. He did block 1.9 shots per game in 17.5 mins, but his rebs (3.9) and steals (0.4) were a bit underwhelming.

His main selling point is his shooting ability, but he only made 27.5% 3P 68.4% FT. Historically he is a low-mid 70’s FT shooter, and the shooting potential is real given his age, but he still has a ways to go.

It was only 228 minutes in 13 games, but in the much softer Jeep Elite he showed similar flaws over 347 minutes.

He should be better next year, especially if his frame fills out a bit, so we will have more information then. But at this time there is no clear evidence that he is going to be significantly better than Kristaps Porzingis.

And even if he does make a major leap, he is so tall at 7’3 that it is a concern that he cannot stay healthy in the NBA. Ralph Sampson is a physically similar prospect who went #1 overall in 1983, had a few decent years, and then got derailed by injuries.

Currently there is not enough information to project Wemby’s NBA future with high confidence since he has such a polarizing profile and is still so young. But the one thing that is clear is that he is not a generational prospect, and is definitely not even the best international in recent memory as Luka Doncic was clearly superior.

There is some chance he re-claims #1 with a strong season next year, and there is also a chance that he slides further (at least in my eyes) if his flaws continue to linger too strongly

3. Nick Smith

One of the biggest surprises of the Nike Hoop Summit was Nick Smith’s defensive activity and disruption.

He is reputed as a scoring SG, which at 6’4 is not my type. But he was all over the place on defense with strips, deflections, and contests of shots.

It’s still not clear exactly how good on defense he is, or whether he will live up to his offensive reputation. Is he going to be a two way star? Or will he be a big time scorer with OK enough D? Or a Jrue/Smart type who has great D while falling short of offensive reputation? Or is he just another overhyped undersized SG recruit who disappoints?

He does not turn 19 until shortly before next draft in May, so for now we will err on the side of optimism until getting to know him better for Arkansas next year.

4. Cam Whitmore

Whitmore is one of the youngest prospects in the draft, as he doesn’t turn 19 until July after the draft.

The defining feature of his game is that he loves to dunk. He dunked a ton in both the Hoop Summit and FIBA u19 this summer.

The question mark for him is whether he has enough well rounded goodness to be a complete player, or if he just a one dimensional dunker at 6’6 or 6’7.

If he shows a well rounded skill set and has good measurements, he is one of the more exciting prospects in the class. If he is only 6’6 with meh length and doesn’t do much else it may be hard to quit him entirely but that is a weird mold to get too enthusiastic over.

5. Kyle Filipowski

Filipowski is exceptionally good at passing and moving his feet defensively for 6’11. He does not seem to be much of an athlete or scorer which should limit his draft stock, but seems like the type of guy who inevitably gets underrated in the draft. He has shades of Mike Dunleavy Jr. (who ironically did not get underrated in the draft) but is 2″ taller.

6. Cason Wallace

Wallace is an athletic 6’4 PG who seems to do a bit of everything based on his AAU stats where he averaged 15.2 pts 6.9 rebs 4.8 asts 2 tov 1.2 stls 1.4 blks with solid small sample shooting percentages.

Maybe he shows some weakness once he starts playing games for Kentucky but based on the limited evidence available it is hard to pinpoint anything clearly lacking with him.

7. Amen Thompson
8. Ausar Thompson

I do not understand Overtime Elite. It seems conceptually stupid since they play almost nobody– for prospects who want to skip college what advantage does it offer over G League or overseas?

But the Thompsons are interesting talents. They are super athletic and fill the stat sheet with rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Their shooting is a work in progress, but they are high upside molds if they are 6’7 with 6’10 to 6’11 wingspans as reported.

The frustrating part is discerning whether they are actually good, but they did well performing against top AAU teams together in high school and this weekend they play in the The Basketball Tournament against a bunch of former college players. They open vs. a Creighton team that has no quality big men so it will be interesting to get some real info on them (albeit small sample) before they go back to playing nobodies.

The risk here is that they both could be non-shooters so you need to really be confident in their hooping ability to take them this high.

9. Dereck Lively
10. Kel’el Ware

The big boys of the class.

Lively was the best player to my eye in Nike Hoop Summit. He only played 14 mins but scored 8 pts on 4/4 shooting with 3 rebs 1 assist 1 steal 1 block 2 turnovers with at least one of the TOVs being Dariq Whitehead’s fault.

He looked fundamentally sound in the post with impressive passing and is huge and capable of rim protection. And it is only a matter of whether he can shoot and hold his own matched up with perimeter players, both which seem like somewhat dicey but plausible propositions.

The big question for him is whether he is just another Jahlil Okafor or Vernon Carey who does not fit in the modern NBA or a legit good player.

Ware

Ware is an explosive finisher with traces of shooting ability, and seems active at stuffing the box score. He is young for the class not turning 19 until April, and there is definitely upside there. The only apprehension is that he seems a bit awkward and uncoordinated at times. He was 0/2 finishing lobs in Hoop Summit and he struggled to corral a loose ball.

But he had an excellent summer in FIBA u18 Americas so there seems to be some clear potential there.

Both of these guys are on the fringe between really good and exciting vs. boring bigs that don’t fit the modern era.

11. Dariq Whitehead

Dariq managed to be Nike Hoop Summit MVP while also being the worst player on the floor and being responsible for about 5 of the 10 worst plays in the game.

How? He got hot from 3 making 5/7 but otherwise was mediocre at best shooting 1/5 from 2P with 4 assists and 3 turnovers, which seems like a minor miracle that he only had 3 turnovers with all of the poor decisions he was making. Although a number of them were taking awful shots that had zero hope of going in.

That said he did have 3 steals and a couple of them were fairly nice. He definitely has some natural processing power in his brain, he is merely a terrible decision maker.

But it is difficult to skewer him too badly since he is the youngest prospect in the lottery turning 19 in August after the draft. And he averaged 3.0 assists vs. 1.7 TOVs EYBL, so perhaps he is not always this sloppy and dumb with the ball.

He reminds me quite a bit of RJ Barrett. 6’6 guy with some PG skill, some shooting ability, a young birthday, and a frustrating amount of shortcomings. On average I would anticipate that he is less good than RJ, but he does have outs to be better if the Hoop Summit is not indicative of his typical self. We’ll see what he has to offer for Duke this year.

12. Dillon Mitchell
13. Anthony Black
14. Jordan Walsh

These are the super role playing wings who do a bit of everything but shoot and score. All are roughly in the Dalen Terry mold but with (hopefully) more upside.

Walsh is a fascinating sleeper with an ’04 birthday at 6’7 with 7’3 wingspan. He averaged 12.2 pts 7.4 rebs 3.2 ast 2.1 tovs 2 stls 0.3 blks in EYBL. It does not look bad compared to Dillon Mitchell who is a few months older and averaged 12.2 pts 4.3 rebs 2.5 asts 1.1 tovs 1.5 stls 0.5 blks.

But Mitchell was a more efficient finisher shooting 76.7% 2P vs 50.8% for Walsh. That is likely playing a role in his higher draft rating.

Black is a complete weirdo in his own rite. For FIBA U18 Americas this summer he averaged 4.7 pts 7.8 rebs 4.2 asts 1.8 tovs 1.8 stl 2 blks on 36.4% TS and his only FGA in Hoop Summit was an open dunk attempt that he badly missed getting rejected by the rim. He is elite at everything basketball related but seems to have some major scoring issues, so he will be a slippery guy to evaluate.

15. Julian Phillips
16. Jarace Walker

Don’t know much about either but they both seem to have solid wing tools.

17. Keyonte George

George is an undersized SG at 6’4. Maybe he can play but he is a worse mold so he needs to get in line behind some other better molds until he proves that he can.

18. Amari Bailey

In the Hoop Summit Bailey looked like a really good player who just cannot shoot, which is a problem at 6’4 but also makes him a somewhat interesting sleeper.

19. Sidy Cissoko

One of the funnest players in the Hoop Summit. His offense was a largely disaster although he had some nifty passes and a few too many spin moves. But his defense was absolutely smothering.

He only measured 6’7.25 with 6’9.25 wingspan so it would be more exciting if he was just a bit bigger. He had just turned 18 in April during Hoop Summit, so perhaps he can still grow a bit more.

But he had a couple of good possessions vs 6’11 Kyle Filipowski and seems like he may be super switchable regardless. My interest is piqued.

20. Chris Livingston

It’s hard to find anything exciting to grasp onto about Livingston, but he is a 6’7 5* freshman playing for Kentucky which is enough to make him worth keeping an eye on.

Now the Returning Players

21. Oscar Tshiebwe

I already wrote about Tshiebwe being an exciting draft sleeper before he decided to come back for his senior year.

22. Tyrese Hunter

Hunter’s freshman offense was raw for a little 6’0 guy, but he is highly athletic and capable of making plays on both ends of the floor. He is also still 19 years old, so if he makes a big sophomore leap he will be somewhat interesting.

23. Trayce Jackson-Davis

An awesome dunker– perhaps TJD has a bit of Brandon Clarke upside?

24. Colby Jones
25. David Jones

A couple of well rounded 6’6 SGs who rebound exceptionally well for their size. They are a bit boring, but this is the part of the draft where exciting players are off the board

26. Jaime Jaquez
27. Coleman Hawkins

Both well rounded and solid dudes to help round out round 1.

28. Henri Veesar
29. Mark Mitchell
30. Gradey Dick

A few more young guys round out round 1.

Henri Veesar had a pretty good 5 game run in FIBA u18 Challengers with 16.2 pts 11.6 rebs 2.6 ast 2.2 tov 1 stl 3.8 blks 3.6 3PA 71.4% FT. That is a complete profile for a big, and he committed to play for the best big man coach in college basketball in Tommy Lloyd. I would bet on him making it onto draft radar at some point or another.

No idea what Mitchell is but he is 6’8 and 5* committed to Duke so seems like the type of guy who can leap up the rankings if he randomly plays well and can still be a solid late 1st prospect if he plays merely decently.

Gradey Dick was one of my least favorite players in the Hoop Summit because he had a horrendous defensive play where he helped and jump at a pump fake when his teammate was already there jumping at the pump fake. The result was two players jumping at a pump fake and a wide open layup for Dick’s man. Perhaps he is not always so overzealous, but it was really bad. He also missed a wide open layup.

Can’t be all the way out on him because he is 6’7 and can allegedly shoot, but if his shooting proves to be fake (which is common at this age) and that one play is indicative of his typical BBIQ then he could be really terrible.

31. Brandon Miller

Miller is technically a freshman but he is sophomore aged with a late ’02 birthday. He is actually a pretty decent mold of 6’8 who got rebounds, steals, and blocks in EYBL, but he was not a scorer in spite of being a year older than everybody.

If he can play the age cannot be sweated too hard because he is the right NBA mold…but the age should inspire skepticism that he really can play. We will see.

32. Pete Nance

Pete Nance seems probably too slow for an NBA big, but he can handle, pass, and shoot well and overachieving in the draft runs in the family with his dad Larry and brother Larry Jr.

33. Kevin McCullar

McCullar is 6’6, athletic, and does a bit of everything.

34. Norchad Omier
35. Terry Roberts

A couple of interesting mid-major guys who transferred to high major for this season. Omier is 6’7 and stuffed the stat sheet with all sorts of steals, blocks, and rebs for Arkansas State. His top 2 kenpom comps are Kenneth Faried and Brandon Clarke, so he is definitely a guy to keep an eye on this year for Miami FL.

Roberts is an athletic 6’3 PG who transferred from JUCO and was a stud for Bradley stuffing the stat sheet with a bit of everything and playing excellent D. The main issue is that his offense may be too raw for his age to make it far in the NBA, he is fairly turnover prone and his shooting of 34% 3P 70% FT is OK but less than you would hope for his size and age. He plays in the SEC for Georgia this year, so let’s see how his offense translates to a higher level of athleticism.

36. Zach Edey

Is Edey too slow of a giant 7’4 monster to fit in the NBA? Probably. But he is too much of an elite outlier to write off entirely. At minimum he can be a Boban type, and possibly quite a bit better.

37. Harrison Ingram
38. Matthew Mayer
39. Azuolas Tubelis

Not much to add about these guys, they are all on the fringe of not good enough vs maybe slightly interesting if they hit.

40. Leonard Miller

I think Miller just doesn’t know how to play, but he is young and toolsy and has a chance to prove me wrong in G League this year.

41. Marcus Sasser
42. Terquavion Smith

It’s funny I was thinking Sasser may be a decent UDFA in this draft, and then suddenly he pops up at #27 in ESPN’s mock for next year. I guess they really just need some warm bodies to fill out round 1. It’s hard to figure out what returners are good.

But him and Terq are roughly the same thing. They are undersized 3 point bombers. Sasser is older and less athletic, but also has a higher BBIQ.

It seems like a terrible decision for Terq to return to school. He had all of the undeserved hype in the world, and he goes back to a bad NC State team that will likely be bad again next year. And what is there for him to build on his game?

He really needs to show some semblance of PG skills and make FT’s. But he really seems like an inefficient chucker who can’t guard anybody in the NBA, and if he looks that way at age 20 and NC State still sucks teams may need to question whether he belongs in round 1.

Rating him lotto ahead of some of these talented freshman is really bad. He probably just isn’t good enough for the NBA as a one dimensional shooter who only made 69.8% FT as a freshman.

Off the Board
Arthur Kaluma

ESPN has him #31 while CBS Sports has him #13 and the Athletic has him #15.

At a glance you may say well he is 6’7 and could be in line for a big freshman leap after having a career game in the tourney vs Kansas scoring 24 pts 12 rebs 3 assists. But looking at the big picture he has flags on flags on flags.

First– he was a sophomore aged freshman who turned 20 in March. He isn’t that young.

Further, every indicator for NBA perimeter ability looks bad for him. He had half as many assists as turnovers, an anemic 1.3% steal rate, and shot 26.5% 3P 67.1% FT.

So to stomach all of this weakness there should be a unique selling point. Which in his case I guess it’s that he has OKish wing tools? He is 6’7 with 6’11 wingspan and OK-ish athleticism. But he isn’t much of a rebounder, shot blocker, or interior scorer, so how does he make his bacon in the NBA?

The answer is he doesn’t. Don’t be scammed into drafting this guy, let him be somebody else’s mistake.

Nolan Hickman

Hickman doesn’t have that much hype being just #32 ESPN #29 CBS…but it is difficult to see how he belongs on draft radar at all. He is 6’2 and averaged 5.1 pts 1.5 rebs 1.3 ast 0.6 stl 0.2 blk with 30.8% 3P 66.7% FT in 17.2 mins as a freshman for Gonzaga. He is young and did not turn 19 until after the season, but he is a little guy with practically nothing to build on.

It is difficult to see how he should ever be valued above fellow Zag Julian Strawther who is far from a world beater, but is 6’7 and can at least somewhat shoot.

Emoni Bates

It is crazy how much Bates hype has evaporated as he has gone from the next Kevin Durant to #33 in ESPN’s latest mock.

Honestly that’s still probably too high. The fact that he transferred all the way down to a terrible Eastern Michigan program likely indicates that he has some major red flags and just is not good enough for the NBA.

What Does The Shaedon Sharpe Mystery Box Contain?

18 Saturday Jun 2022

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

bennedict mathurin, Shaedon Sharpe

Shaedon Sharpe is the big mystery box of the draft, as he was #1 RSCI in the 2022 high school class before re-classifying to spend last season on Kentucky’s bench. Now he is a top 10 prospect in this year’s draft, with limited information to discern his true value.

Here is the list of the last 19 #1 RSCI prospects coming out of high school.

LeBron James
Dwight Howard
Lou Williams
Josh McRoberts
Greg Oden
OJ Mayo
Brandon Jennings
Derrick Favors
Harrison Barnes
Anthony Davis
Shabazz Muhammad
Andrew Wiggins
Jahlil Okafor
Ben Simmons
Josh Jackson
Marvin Bagley
RJ Barrett
James Wiseman
Cade Cunningham
Chet Holmgren

LeBron and Dwight were obvious #1 overalls straight out of high school. Anthony Davis and Ben Simmons were obvious #1 overalls after a year of college. Andrew Wiggins, Greg Oden, and Cade Cunningham were not obvious #1 choices after a year of college, but wrongfully went #1 because of all of their RSCI hype.

Everybody else went #2 or later, including a high number of mediocre careers in the high lottery. Bagley and Wiseman were both major mistakes at #2 overall, with Wiseman sharing a commonality with Sharpe of low information. He had 3 good games in college and then seemed eager to not play anymore to preserve the draft hype he had attained. This worked to perfection, as he tricked the Warriors into drafting him over LaMelo Ball among other more capable prospects on the board.

The problem with low information is that it gives an aura of infinite upside, but in reality is more indicative of a weak median outcome. The draft is hard enough to predict working with full seasons of high major NCAA play, but if we are working with AAU data it is far more difficult. This is why top RSCI’s are so boom or bust– high school scouts can discern if somebody is in a good mold, but being able to tell if they are NBA caliber is much more difficult for 16 and 17 year olds.

Let’s talk about long armed SG’s

And if there is one player on this list that Sharpe stylistically compare to, it is Shabazz Muhammad. They have similar dimensions as long armed SG’s with 6’11 wingspans (Muhammad is an inch taller at 6’6 vs 6’5), and the strength of both players is being able to get buckets without turning it over. Muhammad did this capably in the NBA, but he was too selfish and one dimensional and fizzled out of the league after 5 underwhelming seasons.

Granted, Muhammad somewhat tricked RSCI by being secretly a year older than listed. But Sharpe is no spring chicken himself, as he was only 6 months older relative to his HS class where he was ranked #1. It is important to be leery of older prospects beating up on high school opposition that may happen to be less developed.

Long armed guards is a fairly common mold for draft disappointment among high RSCI’s. Xavier Henry (#6 RSCI) and went 12th in the draft after shooting 41.8% 3P and 78.3% FT for Kansas, and then completely forgot how to shoot in the NBA and badly busted. James Young (#9 RSCI) showed promise due to his youth and length but failed in the NBA due to lack of maturity.

Markelle Fultz is a famous example of a #1 pick SG who was heavily dependent on his shooting but only made 64.9% FT in NCAA. Sharpe only made 63.5% FT (33/52) in EYBL, so there is good reason to worry he could have similar issues as he is the same age as Fultz on draft night in spite of moving a class up and not playing and did not show nearly the same PG skills in high school.

Romeo Langford, Rashad McCants, and Lonnie Walker are a few other examples of long armed scorers who flopped in the NBA.

The last hit was on Anthony Edwards, who was outlier young for his class. He was a few months younger than Sharpe even after Sharpe reclassified. He also has outlier positive energy, whereas Sharpe seems to have a terrible attitude based on interviews floating around.

And prior to Edwards it is tough to find a top 20 RSCI SG with long arms hitting. Lance Stephenson had a couple of decent years, but was not consistent enough to be a major draft prize. Gerald Henderson did not bust but never became better than mediocre. James Harden and Tyreke Evans are moreso PG’s and not the same mold. The best example of a win may be Jason Richardson who was ranked #14 RSCI all the way back in 1999.

Ultimately this mold is dense with busts, and every once in a blue moon you get a Jason Richardson who never made an all-star game or an Anthony Edwards who seems on track to become an all-star, but his career is still TBD. If we go back a few years further to the days before RSCI there are more inspiring examples such as Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter, but anybody who has been chasing one of those guys over the past 20+ drafts has experienced mostly pain and frustration.

Where Are Shaedon Odds of Success?

This is difficult to say, as we have not gained much information to work with this draft process. But the Sacramento Kings did share this interview clip:

Projected lottery pick Shaedon Sharpe on how he'd fit with the Sacramento Kings 👑 pic.twitter.com/Qa1CXaJfdh

— Sacramento Kings (@SacramentoKings) June 18, 2022

This might be the worst pre-draft interview clip I have ever seen. First, he does not seem to know a single player on the Sacramento Kings, including De’Aaron Fox who played for the same school and coach as Sharpe.

Most star players are big fans of the NBA entering the league, but it seems that Sharpe instead believes that the NBA should be a big fan of him. In spite of his highest level of basketball played being the EYBL Peach Jam, he believes he can come in and give proven NBA players like De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis “their little shine” by finding them when they are open.

This is a wild intersection of bad awareness and gross arrogance, as if he is above the NBA without even proving that he can be a competent college basketball player.

Typically focusing too much on interviews over on court performance is going to lead to more bad opinions than good ones, but there is no on court performance for Sharpe to analyze. If the only bit of information that Sharpe provides this draft process is a transparently awful attitude, why should that be taken lightly when there is close to zero information suggesting that he will be a useful NBA player.

Even without this video it seemed most likely that he would be a Shabazz Muhammad, James Young, Romeo Langford, or Xavier Henry type with just a tiny shred of hope that he would be Kobe Bryant or Vince Carter.

But while Sharpe is a good athlete, he is not a generational athlete like Kobe or Vince and needs to develop perfectly to achieve that level of greatness. This video should disqualify him from that, as those guys entered the league with far more humble mentalities. This pre-rookie video from Kobe conveys the opposite mentality of having studied all of the great NBA players and being excited to learn from them.

So now we are hoping for something more like Jason Richardson, which is a nice payoff on a mid-lottery pick but far from franchise changing, and even still it is difficult to imagine J-Rich having such a bad attitude. But for the sake of argument, let’s say that Sharpe’s distribution of NBA outcomes is something like

10% Jason Richardson
10% Lance Stephenson
80% Bust

Is that really worth a lottery pick? It is not a particularly exciting distribution of outcomes, and 10% odds of becoming J-Rich may be too generous for Sharpe.

Where Does Sharpe fit in 2022 Class?

This year is full of SG’s in a similar mold to compare Sharpe to, so let’s run through them.

Bennedict Mathurin is an inch taller at 6’6 with 2.5″ less length at 6’9, but is the better athlete, more proven shooter, and more proven basketball player having won Pac-12 player of the year for Arizona this past season. Sharpe is only 11 months younger– if he transferred to Arizona to play next season, it is unlikely that he would win 2022-23 Pac-12 player of the year. Sharpe has clearly inferior median outcome to Mathurin without any reason to believe in more upside.

My first impression was that Sharpe was a better gamble than Jaden Ivey who showed myriad warts on the floor for Purdue. But Ivey nevertheless showed some baseline competence offensively that Sharpe may have not matched, and there is no strong reason to expect Sharpe to be any less bad on defense. Further, Ivey is the clearly more explosive athlete and seems to be much more coachable than Sharpe. For all of my doubts about Ivey and his bust risk, he seems clearly above Sharpe.

AJ Griffin is another SG worth questioning given his reliance on shooting with unorthodox shooting mechanics. But he still has a bigger sample of better shooting numbers than Sharpe, he has proven to be a useful NCAA player who was efficient and avoided turnovers, and he is 0.5 to 1″ taller and longer. He is also 3 months younger than Sharpe. Sharpe is the better athlete, but everything else points toward AJ being the better value proposition.

Malaki Branham has similar dimensions with 1.5″ less length, and proved to be a competent player for Ohio State with an intriguing shooting making 41.6% 3P 83.3% FT. He still likes the mid-range a bit too much and needs to stretch his range to NBA 3, but he nevertheless has more evidence suggesting he can shoot than Sharpe does. And they have the same birth month, even if Sharpe is a little bit longer and a bit more athletic, there is not a clear reason to value him higher.

Johnny Davis and Ochai Agbaji are the tougher comparisons as they have more transparent offensive limitations and lower upside, but they likely do have better median outcomes than Sharpe. You could debate whether it is worth gambling on Sharpe’s upside when the odds of it hitting since fairly bad, but it is safer to instead just not draft any of these guys since they are all unlikely to provide any sort of compelling payoff in the lottery.

It’s difficult to rank Sharpe with precision based on the low information. It seems like a fairly safe assumption that he is not going to be useful, but there is still enough intrigue to take a punt on him at some point in case it works out. But even in late round 1 or early round 2 I would rather take a high IQ non-athlete like Trevor Keels over a dunce like Sharpe.

Median vs Upside

Everybody is obsessed with upside in the draft, and for good reason. Most of the value of a prospect comes in the scenarios where he hits his upside and provides a major payoff to his drafting team.

But upside is heavily tied to median. Let’s say that hypothetically, Bennedict Mathurin and Shaedon Sharpe have similar upside scenarios if they max out their development. But let’s also say that Sharpe has a 50% chance of being a significantly worse shooter, 50% odds of translating to NCAA play poorly, and 50% odds of underwhelming development due to his bad attitude. Odds are that 7/8 times, one of those things will undercut his value and make him at least a notch less good than Mathurin.

So if we believe that Mathurin is going to be an all-star 15% of the time, that means that Sharpe will be the same all-star less than 2% of the time. Who cares about theoretical upside if it does not hit?

It is already a difficult parlay for most players with solid information to hit their upside, but for a mystery box like Sharpe the parlay requires additional legs that make it even further unlikely and make the median bad, which places a major hit on the expected value of their draft rights.

Perhaps these are harsh estimates on Sharpe’s odds of falling short, but even if we say he has 30% odds of disappointing in each category, he is still just 34% to match Mathurin overall. That is really bad relative to a guy that he is currently mocked just one slot behind.

Ultimately it is difficult to rank Sharpe with precision, but the safest thing to do is to simply not draft him. It’s a pure degen variance fest praying that he hits his mysterious upside when there is not much information suggesting that he is likely to hit. You are basically playing a parlay with multiple legs that are unlikely to hit and your reward is a fringe all-star at best.

The smart move is to let somebody else gamble on the mystery box and end up with tickets to a crappy comedy club.

2022 Draft Tier 2: Sorting Through the Best Non-Top 3 Prospects

28 Saturday May 2022

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

aj griffin, bennedict mathurin, dyson daniels, jaden ivey, jalen duren, jeremy sochan, keegan murray, kendall brown, mark williams, Shaedon Sharpe, tari eason, trevor keels, walker kessler

Draft rankings are brutally difficult to execute with consistent accuracy. This year it was season long challenge for me to decide between Paolo and Jabari for #1, and even though I settled on Paolo and would take him in Orlando’s shoes, I still have no criticism for Orlando if they choose Smith at #1 as reported since he is an excellent wing prospect.

And even though I have been firm on Chet being #3, it also is not a clear mistake if OKC choose him over Paolo at #2. I would still take Paolo even if he is an odd fit with Shai + Giddey as it leaves too many offensive hubs who need the ball. You can always trade one of the three for 3 + D help down the road, and the main priority should be to try to hit on a future top 5 MVP candidate which Paolo has better odds of than Shai, Giddey, or Chet.

But if OKC chooses Chet, they are nevertheless left with an excellent trio of potentially 3 future all-stars, with Chet being a perfect 3 + D fit next to their guards. While Chet has less creation upside and a bit more weirdly skinny frame downside than Paolo, he still is an excellent player in his own rite and could be the best player in the draft long term.

That tier was challenging enough to rank, and then at #4 we are left with a much thicker tier of 13 guys to fill out the lottery (with a few underrated guys who will inevitably slide) that is even more challenging to parse through. I have expressed doubts that Jaden Ivey is the correct choice, and skimmed through some possibilities at #4 focusing on high upside molds.

But it is not clear that swinging for the fences with an Ivey, Sharpe, or Duren at #4 is necessarily the correct answer, as it is difficult to be confident that any of them are going to be good at all. Let’s discuss all other options, and try to estimate how closely they compare to one another.

Dyson Daniels

Last summer when Australia played USA in FIBA, Dyson Daniels was the clear 2nd best prospect on the floor behind Chet with 18 pts 5 rebounds 4 assists 1 turnover. Australia lost by 21 but was only -6 in Daniels’ 25 mins on the floor.

Since then Daniels has grown 1.5″ to solid SF size at 6’7.5 with 6’10.5 wingspan, and had a productive season for G League Ignite averaging 31.6 mins 11.6 pts 6.8 rebs 4.7 ast 2.7 tov 2 stl 0.7 blk with 53% 2P. His sole weakness was in his mediocre shooting at 30% 3P on 3.4 attempts/game and 53.3% FT on a small sample of 45 attempts.

But apparently he shot the lights out during his pro day. It is a slippery point to read too heavily into, but he is making a number without touching the rim and goes on a few long streaks without the camera cutting away. We should not expect him to be an actively good shooter based on this, but it does mitigate some concern raised by his G League shooting %’s.

He was already the non-top 3 prospect who had the highest odds of being a useful NBA player. And he isn’t lacking in upside– his passing and defense are both great for a young SF. If his shot creation and shooting progress well he can be an all-star.

If we want to turn optimism to the max, there is nothing disqualifying him from being a Scottie Pippen. It would require almost everything to go right, but it is more realistic than Jaden Ivey becoming Russell Westbrook.

A more common outcome would be something along the lines of Boris Diaw as a versatile role playing wing is more of a passer than a scorer. Diaw would not be a thrilling outcome for a top 5 pick, but it will be better than most of the guys who go outside of the top 3 this year, and there is still arguably as much (or more) upside for Daniels as there is for anybody else.

Hard to see him disappointing unless he simply cannot make an open 3, which is still of some concern. But collectively Daniels seems to have the highest odds of being decent of anybody outside the top 3, and he seems to have as much upside as anybody outside the top 3, and I would currently lean toward him being the correct choice at #4 overall.

Jeremy Sochan

Sochan has been frequently compared to Dennis Rodman for changing his hair color, and his pest like approach to the game where he regularly irritates his opponents. But stylistically, his freshman numbers are more similar to another player with a colorful personality. Per 100 possessions:

AgePtsRebsAstTOVStlBlk2PA2P%FT%3PA
Sochan18.621.414.84.13.62.91.610.10.5850.5896.3
Draymond18.817.417.44.43.531.311.40.5630.6150.1

Draymond was a bit better rebounding and passing, but Sochan 2.5 months younger and played a bigger freshman role averaging 25 mins/game compared to 11 mins for Draymond. Sochan also attempted substantially more 3PA, but that may be a product of the modern era more than anything.

Sochan didn’t get measured at the combine, but is listed at 1.5″ taller than Draymond at 6’9 vs 6’7.5 with less wingspan at 7′ vs 7’1.25″.

In all likeilhood Sochan will not be as good as Draymond, but anybody who is that similar at a young age is automatically interesting in this year’s lottery.

More commonly he will be a Rondae Hollis-Jefferson type who hopefully learns to make an open NBA 3 pointer in time. This may seem boring to most, but RHJ was legit good for a non-shooter, and at least Sochan believes in his shot enough to chuck up attempts at a moderate rate. RHJ with a competent outside shot would be a solid NBA role player.

Sochan has excellent wing dimensions, a great motor, his gets good rebound, assists, steals, and blocks, and he is a somewhat dirty player who gets under opponents’ skins. It seems like players like this are almost always good on defense, where he can possibly make a major impact.

Sochan’s lack of offense is likely getting in the way of him generating much draft hype, ranking 15th on ESPN’s latest big board and 18th on their most recent mock. But his positive assist:TOV ratio, efficiency inside the arc, and not completely hopeless shooting given his youth could sum up to a decent player offensively in time.

There is a decent case to be made that he is one of the top 5 prospects in this draft. Perhaps it is too much of a gamble on his dicey shooting ability and limited offensive package, but most everybody outside of the top 3 have major warts on at least one side of the ball.

Between him and Dyson Daniels, I would lean toward Daniels having the edge. Sochan is 1.5″ taller, but Daniels is a better passer and better bet to shoot.

If we are putting him against guys like Mathurin, Ivey, Sharpe, Duren, etc it becomes a fuzzier comparison but it just doesn’t seem that crazy to project Sochan a bit more valuable than all of those guys. You cannot have enough versatile defensive wings in the modern NBA, whereas there is a limit to how many bigs and chucking SG’s you can play at a time (one).

Bennedict Mathurin

Mathurin makes for an easy comparison to Shaedon Sharpe and Jaden Ivey because they are all athletic SG’s. This is especially the case for Ivey since they have high major NCAA samples at a similar age. Per 100 possessions:

AgePtsRebsAstTOVStlBlkDunks
Mathurin19.5309.54.331.60.51.75
Ivey19.933.19.35.851.71.11.50

Ivey is higher in the public eye because he is the more outlier elite athlete, and uses it more functionally to pressure the rim and create a high volume of offense. This led to a higher scoring and assist output than Mathurin. But he also turned it over much more, and Mathurin has the better assist:TOV ratio (1.42 to 1.17).

In spite of being the less explosive athlete who attacked the rim and scored in the paint less frequently, Mathurin dunked slightly more often than Ivey. This is likely in part to his 2″ height advantage, and that Mathurin is an excellent athlete in his own rite.

Based on sophomore shooting stats Mathurin is the slightly better shooter at 36.9% 3P 76.4% FT vs 35.8% 3P 74.4% FT for Ivey. But if you include freshman #’s the gap widens, with Mathurin 38.3% 3P 78.9% FT vs Ivey 32.2% 3P 73.9% FT.

Both players project to be defensive liabilities, but Mathurin seems slightly better on D. His 2″ height advantage is significant, his NCAA team defense was much better, and he eye tests as a bit better.

So if we sum everything up, is it really clear that Ivey is better? He has a bit more athleticism and potential for a high usage role offensively, but it’s not clear that he has the basketball IQ to merit a high usage role for an NBA team. And if you are drafting somebody to be a #2 or #3 guy, Mathurin is a better fit since he has an edge in both 3 and D and scores more within the flow of the offense with fewer turnovers.

That said, Mathurin is not a world beater, he could easily be just a Ben McLemore or Terrence Ross. In slightly more favorable outcomes, he may be a Kentavious Caldwell-Pope or Tim Hardaway Jr. His more exciting outcome would be Jason Richardson, and perhaps he has some small outs to be a Devin Booker, although his shooting and scoring would need to take some major leaps to get there.

But it still seems like he has an easier path to decency than Ivey, who will have some bad common outcomes like Jordan Crawford or Dennis Smith Jr.

If Ivey makes a big shooting leap and figures out how to navigate NBA defenses, he could be a Zach LaVine. His more common useful outcome would be a Jordan Clarkson type.

Westbrook comps are ridiculous– Russ was 9 months younger posting 7.9 assists vs 4.5 turnovers per 100 for UCLA sharing the PG duties with junior Darren Collison compared to Ivey’s 5.8 ast 5.0 tov as the primary perimeter ball handler for Purdue. Russ may be wild and make questionable decisions at times, but he is a far more natural PG as well as likely the most explosive athlete in NBA history.

To my eye, Ivey’s basketball intuition is a buck short of what it needs to be for him to place in the top of this tier. You can argue a number of players belong ahead of him, and Mathurin has a fairly solid case of 4 months younger, 2″ taller, better shooter, less bad D, and plays better within the flow of the team while being only slightly less athletic.

Mathurin vs Sharpe

We can extend the comparison to Sharpe, who is stylistically more similar to Mathurin than Ivey. He is slightly shorter than Mathurin at 6’5.25″ vs 6’6″, but has a solid length advantage at 6’11.5″ vs 6’9″. Dimensionally they are similar tier, with perhaps a tiny edge to Sharpe for his length.

Both Mathurin and Sharpe are guys who rely on shooting and athleticism to score a high volume without turning it over. Neither guy gets many steals or blocks defensively, and you are drafting them mostly for their offense and hoping their D is not too bad.

Sharpe has that mystery box upside, but Mathurin likely has a better floor for his proven performance at Arizona. One concern with Sharpe is that while he made 36.4% 3P on 6.4 attempts/game in 12 EYBL games, he only shot 33/52 (63.5%) FT. This is a slightly uncomfortable point given how much he needs to be able to shoot to succeed. Mathurin is likely the favorite to be the better shooter with his 78.9% FT in 2 years at Arizona. And even though Mathurin was 2 classes ahead of Sharpe in high school, he is only 11 months older, Sharpe does not have that much of a youth advantage.

The advantage for Sharpe is simply that he has more upside to be a big time scorer. Mathurin showed good scoring capability and his athleticism leaves room for it to grow, but he will be a medium usage complementary scorer more often than he is the go to guy in the NBA.

Sharpe has more potential to be that #1 scorer, but has lower FT%, and unlike Mathurin did not prove he can be a quality NCAA player as he was Pac-12 player of the year at age 19.

This makes it tricky to pick between these two. Sharpe has higher upside but based on his AAU stats, age, and the way scouts talk about him he is probably not going to be Vince Carter or Ray Allen. There’s a clear case to be made that Mathurin’s proven performance is worth more than Sharpe’s extra sliver of upside, since there are decent odds Sharpe would not have been as good as Mathurin if he stayed for a year of college.

AJ Griffin

AJ Griffin is a close stylistic relative of Sharpe + Mathurin while trading athleticism for a bit of size. He is much less dunky with a mere 0.51 dunks per 100 possessions compared to Mathurin’s 1.75, and rarely creates his own shot at the rim.

He is presumed to be 6’6 with 7′ wingspan, although did not measure officially. He likely has a small dimensional advantage over Sharpe + Mathurin, and his main calling card is his efficient offensive play as he showed promising shooting making 44.7% 3P 79.2% FT with a microscopic turnover rate at the young age of 18. In spite of being a class ahead of Sharpe, he is actually 3 months younger.

But Griffin gets messy because there are a number of reasons to skew his projection in either direction. First his shooting just does not look that smooth, especially not relative to his #’s. On average I would trust the actual numbers over the eye test for shooting, but there have been guys who shot the lights out for small college samples that failed to do so in the NBA. For instance– Xavier Henry shot 41.8% 2P 78.3% FT on slightly more 3PA (165 vs 159) and solidly more FTA (115 vs 53) than Griffin and could not shoot a lick in the NBA. Aaron Nesmith made 52.2% 3P 82.5% FT as an NCAA sophomore, and has shot 31% 3P in 245 NBA attempts between regular season and playoffs.

Shooting is weird and difficult to predict, and for Griffin’s biggest selling point it is slightly uncomfortable that the eye test does not align with his relatively small statistical sample. His 3P%, FT%, and 3PA rate are all slightly better than Mathurin’s career numbers while Griffin is younger, but Mathurin has a bigger sample of attempts and looks smoother. Who is the favorite to be the better NBA shooter? It is not clear.

If Griffin’s shooting does prove to be a SSS ruse and he is average or worse shooting in the NBA, it is difficult to imagine him being a useful pro. He has an anemic steal rate considering his length, and he has mediocre defensive awareness and is often caught napping for backdoor cuts. Also for his size he is a mediocre rebounder and rarely gets to the line, and he seems to shy away from physicality a bit. He is physically capable of defending in the NBA, but he has clear risk of being a liability, and without official measurements he may be closer to a SG than a true wing size.

Another point for downside is that he missed large chunks of his last two high school seasons with injuries. Some people will argue that this gives him extra upside for future growth, but repetitions at ages 18-20 are not the same as repetitions from 15-17. It is difficult to see this as anything other than a flag that he might be made of glass.

So between his injury history and minor doubts regarding his shooting, there are a couple of ways that Griffin’s career can go sideways. But if he stays healthy and shoots as well as his freshman numbers imply, he is a nice offensive piece that can space the floor, avoid mistakes, and hopefully develop competent defense in time.

And having an NBA father in Adrian Griffin is a plus, as these prospects tend to work out with a higher success rate than average prospects. Tim Hardaway Jr and Gary Trent Jr are fellow NBA dad juniors with similar games who were not quite as strong as pre-draft, so there is no major obstacle that prevents him from being as good as those guys or even better.

If we are stacking him up against his fellow SGs in Mathurin, Sharpe, and Ivey we are left with more razor thin decisions. He is the youngest of the group, turns it over the least, has the best shooting %’s, and his NBA dad could easily propel him to be the best of the bunch. But he also is clearly the least athletic, has the lowest possibility of randomly expanding his offensive role in time, has the scariest injury history, and eye tests as a bit more wonky than that crew.

Analyzing the draft is really hard. Between Mathurin, Sharpe, and Griffin we could easily have one guy become a Michael Redd or Jason Richardson or even Devin Booker level hit, one could be a THJ or KCP type of kinda boring but kinda useful role player, and one could be a dud like Ben McLemore or Xavier Henry. But it’s really hard to know which ones are most or least likely to fall into each path, and most people will resort to ranking them based on some arbitrary heuristic and hope for the best.

Keegan Murray

Murray absolutely stuffed the stat sheet for Iowa this past year, but you would hope so given that he is by far the oldest player in the lottery and projected #4 in ESPN’s latest mock.

Murray turns 22 shortly after the draft in August, and his biggest issue is that he is a 3 + D wing who may not be good at either 3s or D. He has solid rebound, steal, and block rates, but his D does not always look as good as his statistics imply. His lateral quickness is only OK, and he is prone to being beat off the dribble. In the NCAA tournament he was bullied in the paint for an easy bucket 3 times in a row by 6’7 Nathan Cayo who averaged 9.1 points for mid-major Richmond. This is not the best look for an older prospect.

But presumably at 6’8 with 6’11 height he has pretty good wing dimensions and at least does some things on defense, so he has potential to be either a positive or negative on this end. I would lean slightly toward the negative side, but he is decidedly a mixed bag.

Offensively he made 39.8% from 3 as a sophomore, but backed it up with an unspectacular 74.7% FT. Over his two seasons at Iowa he shot 37.3% 3P 74.9% FT on a middling rate of 3PA, which is fine but not great for an older prospect.

His main value is his ability to score a high volume of 2 pointers with a microscopic turnover rate. He is a difficult player to finger. He has a number of statistical parallels to Frank Kaminsky, but is smaller and closer to Kyle Kuzma stylistically.

He’s a pretty decent wing prospect, but he is just too old with too many blah points in his profile to be a compelling choice in the top 5. He is likely worth taking somewhere near the end of the lottery, but his weirdness makes him difficult to predict with precision.

Tari Eason

Eason is a fascinating weirdo who measured with dreamy dimensions for a wing at 6’8 with 7’2 wingspan.

He anchored LSU’s elite #6 defense, as he led the team in TRB%, STL%, and BLK%. He has a great motor and an excellent intuition for pressuring the ball on defense, and was able to use his length to force a boatload of turnovers for the Tigers.

Offensively he is a capable shooter making 80.3% FT and 35.9% 3P for LSU (32.7% 2P 75.7% FT for his 2 year career) and can create his own shot at the rim, making 56.4% 2P on high volume.

But he has major holes in his basketball IQ, as he is often sloppy and out of control. He only played 24.4 minutes per game for LSU because of foul trouble averaging 2.8 per game, and he had a poor 0.45 assist:turnover ratio. He frequently makes questionable decisions, and often attacks at bad times. This is exacerbated by being a relatively old sophomore, having turned 21 in May shortly before the combine.

This is a fairly significant wart, and puts him behind other wings with high defensive potential like Daniels and Sochan. But he also has bigger strengths than most of the prospects outside of the top 3, which makes for an interesting value proposition.

It is most interesting to compare him to Keegan Murray. Eason is 9 months younger and longer with clearly better defense, they are in a similar boat as shooters with perhaps a small edge to Keegan, and Keegan is far better at avoiding mistakes with drastically lower foul and turnover rates.

This is another close comparison. Perhaps it is wise to simply favor the guy who does not have bizarre warts for his age in Murray as consensus does. But Eason’s length + defense add enough sex appeal such that it’s crazy that one of these guys is projected inside the top 5 and the other out of the lottery. The sharp play is clearly to pass on Keegan earlier to take Eason later.

The Bigs: Jalen Duren, Mark Williams, and Walker Kessler

Duren is compelling for his physical tools and youth, and it is easy to get enthusiastic for his upside if he develops well. But he is so raw and his skill and decision making have a long way to go for him to sniff that upside, and he will have plenty of boring common outcomes like Derrick Favors or Andre Drummond. How much value can you place on hitting on a big like that when bigs are getting valued less and less?

So how high is it worth gambling on him hitting a big upside and becoming an Alonzo Mourning or Dwight Howard when most of the time he is not that interesting? And it is not even clear that he is a favorite to be better than Mark Williams who should be available later in the lottery.

Williams is a bit older and less strong and athletic, but has actual center dimensions and is much more efficient for Duke. There is a good case to be made that Williams has the higher median outcome while Duren has the higher upside, and it is not clear exactly who should have the higher draft value.

But the concern for Williams is that for a big who is largely a garbageman and rim protector– does he protect the rim at a high enough level? Duke’s defense was solid but far from elite at #49 in the nation, and it was slightly better with the 20 year old Williams off the floor.

Perhaps the galaxy brain take is that while Duren + Williams are perfectly solid prospects, it is pointless to take them lotto with Walker Kessler lingering in the 20’s. He is a bit weirder and less attractive as the not as athletic white guy, although you would never be able to tell by looking at the stats.

Kessler is only slightly behind Duren + Williams in dunks and rebounds, but dwarfs them in steals and blocks as he set the record for D1 block rate among players who played at least 400 minutes. He blocks almost everything, and is decently mobile for a 7′ rim protector. Offensively, he has the worst FT% of the 3, but is the only one of the group who regular attempts 3’s as he shot 10/50 as a sophomore, attempting 1.5 3P per game. Otherwise he is hyperefficient with an elite 70% 2P and microscopic TOV rate, much like Williams.

There is quite a bit of goodness in Kessler’s profile, and not really anything to strongly dislike. He seems to be getting the short end of the stick due to assumptions that he is a big white stiff, but he does not look stiff on the court and he has a unique intersection of strengths.

Ultimately I tend to agree with consensus ranking of Duren > Williams > Kessler, but disagree with the space between them in mock drafts. It seems pretty close to a three way coinflip between these guys, as any of them could be the best of the bunch or the worst.

Kessler being underrated should not be a huge knock on Duren and Williams, but he is indicative of the bigger trend that teams are averse to heavily investing in non-elite bigs, and it is an easier position to play moneyball since obviously good ones can fall through the cracks in the draft like Kessler. Duren + Williams both seem like reasonable top 10 picks, but given the market value of bigs, is it really necessary to draft them that high? It’s not clear.

The Weird Combo Guard: Trevor Keels

Keels is the one guy who is unique enough to be difficult to directly compare to anybody in this draft, because he ticks to his own beat as a prospect and it is tough to find a historical comparison for him.

On paper he seems extremely boring as an undersized SG at 6’4.75 with 6’7.25 wingspan. He also had some of the worst athletic testing for any non-big, as he graded similarly to the unathletic euro guards Hugo Besson and Matteo Spagnolo and well below any domestic guard. And he did little on the court as a Duke freshman to dispel any athletic doubts, as he finished the season with a mere 2 dunks and 2 blocks.

Let’s compare past NBA draft prospects who are somewhat similar to him with similarly low block and dunk numbers:

AgePtsRebsAstTOVStlBlk2PA2P%FTAFT%3PADunks
Keels18.422.36.75.32.42.40.19.60.5225.20.679.30.11
Pritchard18.915.16.97.42.92.40.25.30.4553.30.737.50
Herro18.925.68.24.5320.611.50.5384.60.9358.30.2
C Joseph19.4196.55.52.71.90.69.90.4293.70.6996.40.05
Brunson19.423.74.36.24.51.709.40.516.60.7747.90
T Ennis19.4246.310.23.23.90.3150.4298.10.7654.60.11
A Rivers19.427.363.74.11.70.112.60.4779.50.6588.20.16
Kennard19.525.97.83.31.72.10.49.90.52860.88910.50.12

Pritchard has largely succeeded in the NBA because he became a 41% shooter through his first two seasons, but at the same age Keels was not far behind as a shooter. He is confident in his shooting and takes a good volume of 3PA in spite of only making 31.2%, and given how young he is he has plenty of time to become decent to good at shooting.

And even if he does not shoot as well as Pritchard, he had a similar assist:TOV while scoring at a much higher rate, and his greater size gives him more potential on defense.

Herro and Kennard are not quite the same because they are such obviously better shooters, but they nevertheless have had NBA careers without being overall more productive than Keels.

Cory Joseph is a fairly juicy comparison. He was a role player who was never that valuable, but he provided a solidly above average return on a late 1st pick at #29 overall as he consistently has found significant minutes throughout his career. And when you put him side by side with Keels, it is not close. Keels was a much more efficient and productive scorer at a full year younger, and has similar potential to be a pesky defensive player with slightly more versatility given his extra 1.5″ of height and length. It does not seem right to let Keels go as late as Joseph did in a weak draft.

Jalen Brunson is fascinating comparison because not only did he have 0 dunks and 0 blocks as an NCAA freshman, but he was similar to Keels with less size, a year older, and far more turnovers. His only significant advantage was in shooting. It’s crazy how well Brunson has done in the NBA– there was no clear signal of his potential statistically or athletically. In fairness he did quite a bit better than Keels in athletic testing, but there was no evidence of any athletic prowess on the court for him.

Austin Rivers is also interesting to compare to Keels, because he was essentially better at nothing as a freshman while having nearly identical dimensions to Keels and being a full year older. Rivers had a bit more volume scoring on mediocre efficiency, but Keels had significant advantages in assists and turnovers as well as more rebounds and steals while being a full year younger.

Rivers was a subpar return on #10 overall as he has never quite been useful, but he has been close enough to useful to hang around the NBA for a long career. If Keels can be a Rivers but with better efficiency, passing, and defense, that is a decent NBA player.

The big cautionary tale on the list is Tyler Ennis, who crushed with assist:TOV ratio while scoring a high volume and completely flopped in the NBA. His low athleticism likely played a role, but he also racked up stats in a dumb Syracuse offense where they jacked up a bunch of mid-range shots and then offensive rebounded them at a huge 38.1% rate. This is reflected in his 42.9% 2P and his team having the 2nd worst 2P% in ACC– it is easier to generate a high volume of offense without turning it over if you are settling for lower quality shots.

Granted, this does not completely negate his offensive production, he still had a compelling amount of output and his limited athleticism likely played a significant role in him succeeding. But as somebody who saw potential in Ennis at the time, I believe I gave his statistical production a bit too much credit given how much it centered around mid-range chucking.

Perhaps I missed a good example or two to compare, but overall this seems to be hardly a death knell. Granted, most of these guys either skipped athletic testing or scored better than Keels, but on court athletic performance should typically trump combine testing for athleticism.

And in terms of on court performance relative to age, Keels seems like he is better than all of these guys. Perhaps you could make a case for Herro or Ennis having a small edge on draft day, but Keels clearly performed better than everybody else as a freshman. And this group collectively performed fairly well relative to draft stock.

There are no huge wins who became stars, which is a reason to somewhat temper enthusiasm for Keels. But there is also no clear signal that limited athleticism should place a major pessimistic skew for young productive guards, and it would seem that with an ESPN ranking of #27 the pessimism for Keels’ athletic limitations has gone too far.

The Tortoise and the Hare

AgePtsRebsAstTOVStlBlk2PA2P%FTAFT%3PADunks
Keels18.422.36.75.32.42.40.19.60.5225.20.679.30.11
Ivey19.933.19.35.85.01.71.113.90.531110.7449.51.5

It is interesting how similar these two prospects are outside of being on opposite ends of the athletic spectrum. They have similar dimensions, similar shooting, play similar roles, and the main difference is that one of these guys has a massive speed advantage and the other has a massive IQ advantage.

At a glance you may think that any IQ disparity is likely not that big. Ivey plays a significantly bigger offensive role, and his additional turnovers are not so bad given the higher scoring and slightly higher assist totals.

But consider that Keels is 1.5 years younger and needed to share the ball with four other first round caliber prospects at Duke. It is exceptionally rare for a guard that young to create as much offense as Keels did for himself and his teammates while turning it over so rarely.

With an extra year of experience and more ball handling duties, Keels could see a significant sophomore leap if he returned to school. This would be especially true if he played in a favorable situation like Ivey at Purdue where he was always playing with an elite big man and 3 shooters.

It is difficult to overstate how favorable of a situation Ivey was in this past season. Purdue returned everybody from a top 25 team last year, and gave Ivey a bigger offensive role in more minutes. The team had major upside, but hardly even improved.

Part of this is because of a significant regression in their defense. The defense has simply been dreadful whenever Ivey has played over the past two seasons, and he seems really bad on this end. Keels is not an elite stopper on defense, but he is solid and in spite of being much slower than Ivey is overall a solidly better defensive player. Athleticism certainly helps on defense, but it is secondary to intelligence and Ivey’s defensive IQ is ultra bad where Keels is good.

Offensively Ivey’s IQ is decent enough since he is able to score with high efficiency and post more assists than turnovers for the #2 NCAA offense behind Duke. But he still made a few too many questionable decisions for a 20 year old– especially in Purdue’s tournament loss to Saint Peter’s, which may be the worst tourney performance of all time for a projected lottery pick.

Intuitively, I have a difficult time buying that Ivey has the basketball IQ to be trusted as a lead guard for an NBA offense. He seems more like a microwave scorer for a bench unit.

Meanwhile there has to be something special about Keels’ basketball IQ to have such solid creation as an infant aged freshman while managing to avoid turnovers.

Granted, athleticism gets valued more in the draft for non-trivial reasons. One because a significant percentage of stars are high end athletes, and two because it is easier to discern than basketball IQ.

For instance, it is easy to underrate the basketball IQ of Russell Westbrook who is prone to playing out of control and making bad decisions at times. This makes it easy to overlook his excellent basketball intuition and that he showed rare floor general skills for such an elite athlete at a young age.

Conversely, it is easy to overrate the basketball IQ of guys like Doug McDermott or Jimmer Fredette when they have a common level of NCAA success as non-athletes at an old age.

And this is where the draft gets tricky…Ivey gets top 5 consideration because it is difficult to discern that his basketball intuition/IQ is levels below that of Westbrook, and if you pass on him and he turns out to have similar intelligence and athleticism then you are risking missing out on a big time star.

Intuitively I believe Ivey’s basketball IQ is simply not good enough to run an NBA offense, and that anybody who takes him top 5 will feel scammed in due time. But I cannot assess his BBIQ with perfect accuracy, and there is some wiggle room that needs to be left that his intelligence proves to be decent enough for him to be a good NBA player, even if he is never an MVP candidate like Westbrook.

But most of the athletes that get picked highly in the draft and fail are due to a poor basketball IQ, and most of the best steals who slide out of the top 20 are non-athletes who just know how to play.

While it is difficult to directly compare two prospects with such athletic and intelligence disparities, it would be highly unsurprising if Keels turned out to be the solidly better pro than Ivey. Does this necessarily mean he is the better prospect? I am not sure. There is a reasonable case to be made for it, but it is unclear.

What is clear is Keels’ path to be solidly better at a fraction of the cost based on current draft consensus makes him a drastically better value relative to draft slot.

Kendall Brown

Brown is a curious case where I wonder what sort of terrible impression he must have made in interviews to be rated #28 on ESPN’s big board.

He has excellent physical tools for a wing as he is 6’7.5″ with 6’11” length and elite athleticism. He had the second highest max vertical leap in the combine behind Kennedy Chandler and 36% of his made FG this season were dunks.

He only turned 19 in May shortly before the combine, and has pretty decent statistical production for a young and toolsy prospect in the coveted mold of 3 + D wing.

Granted, he is not particularly good at either 3 or D. He made 34.1% 3P 68.9% FT which seems decent enough, except he sparsely attempted 3’s with just 1.2 attempts per game in 27 minutes.

His steal, rebound, and block rates are decent, but they nevertheless pale in comparison to fellow NBA prospect teammates Matthew Mayer and Jeremy Sochan. Baylor’s offense and defense were both solidly worse with him on the floor. While Brown has ideal physical tools to defend NBA wings, his defense is largely unrealized potential at this point.

He seems capable of scoring at a decent volume as well, as he has a basic ability to create off the dribble and finish as he converted an excellent 63.8% 2P. But he attacked oddly infrequently, and only averaged 9.7 points in 27 minutes for Baylor on the season.

You may be noticing a trend that Brown has significant potential across the board but his current output is underwhelming in all regards. He has this passive and floaty approach to the game which is frustrating– he should take more 3’s, he should attack the rim more, he should be more disruptive on D, but his mental approach cuts into all of this and leaves a mediocre imprint on the game.

It seems that draft consensus is so offput by this that he is at risk of sliding out of round 1, which seems a bit crazy. There have been floaty players in the past who were not nearly as punished for their limits:

AgePtsRebAstTOVStlBlk2PA2P%FTFT%3PADunks
H Barnes18.629.3112.73.71.40.815.30.476.30.759.90.99
Wiggins18.830.310.42.74.12.11.7150.49311.50.7756.41.88
K Brown18.620.910.543.72.20.811.80.6384.70.6892.62.78
RJeff Fr18.522.69.65.74.91.30.812.70.528.90.7762.3N/A
RJeff Jr20.523.211.15.561.51.712.60.5356.50.6555.2N/A

You can see compared to Wiggins and Barnes that in spite of their floaty nature, they still scored considerably more than Brown and were better shooters, which likely played a role in help keeping their draft stock afloat.

But Brown was much more efficient inside the arc. He actually made slightly more 2P per 100 in spite of taking so many fewer attempts, and he had a better dunk rate than either. He also had a much better assist:TOV ratio, which is fairly important for predicting success for NCAA prospects to translate to NBA wing.

The main difference was really that Wiggins + Barnes were better shooters and shot far more frequently. But Brown’s shooting does not seem all that broken, he can close the gap by improving over time and simply pulling the trigger more often.

Richard Jefferson is an example of a prospect with a more similar distribution to Brown. They seemed pretty close as freshmen, but what is surprising about RJ is how his production barely improved over his three years at Arizona and in his final pre-draft season his production was essentially the same as his freshman year with more turnovers.

Perhaps there was some subtle nuanced advantage that drove Jefferson to be selected 13th overall while Brown likely falls to the end of round 1. Maybe Brown just doesn’t like basketball that much and it is apparent in his interviews with teams.

But it is odd that somebody with his physical profile, youth, and mold is getting such little love in the draft. He has a stench of mediocre underachieving that makes it difficult to have much faith in the guy, but prospects with his strengths are normally a lock for the lottery even with some nasty warts attached.

Personally I’m not sure what to exactly think about Brown, but it is difficult to see how he is valued appropriately in the late 20’s.

Let’s talk about #4

26 Tuesday Apr 2022

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Jalen Durren, Shaedon Sharpe

This draft has a good and clear cut top 3 overall between Paolo Banchero, Jabari Smith Jr., and Chet Holmgren. It’s a good year to land in the top 3, but then the draft falls off a massive cliff and whoever picks #4 is left in a brutal spot unless another team makes the mistake of taking Jaden Ivey in the top 3.

There are 3 clear upside pulls on the table for #4 overall: Jaden Ivey, Jalen Duren, and Shaedon Sharpe.

I have already written about Ivey, he is enticing for his elite speed and athleticism and ability to get to the rim, but his limited size for SG and questionable basketball IQ add a fair amount of downside to his profile. He is currently slated to go #4 on ESPN’s mock draft, but he has enough red flags such that it is worth considering other prospects for that slot, so let’s get into the other two options:

Sharpe

Shaedon Sharpe is currently projected #6 overall and is a fascinating mystery box, as he was #1 RSCI in this year’s high school class before reclassifying to Kentucky where he did not play this year. We are working with thin information on him, as his 12 game EYBL sample is the only somewhat meaningful stat sample to go off of.

He averaged 22.6 pts 5.8 rebounds 2.7 assists 1.5 turnovers for UPLAY Canada with 36.4% 3P on 6.4 3PA/game and 63.5% FT. He is listed at 6’5 or 6’6 with a 7′ wingspan, and is a good athlete but not outlier elite like Ivey. He turns 19 in May, which makes him slightly old for his high school class.

The good news for him is that he has the golden SG dimensions, especially if he measures 6’6. It seems that 6’6 with 6’11 wingspan is the baseline where players are capable of being elite without being point guards or generational 3 point shooters with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Vince Carter as 3 big examples of guys with approximately those dimensions. It would be nice to get confirmation with official measurements, but Sharpe seems to make the cut.

The downside is that while he is a clearly + athlete for the NBA, he still may be a notch down athletically from those guys which makes it a bit more difficult to get hyped for him having hall of fame upside. He is athletic enough to not be ruled out entirely, but it feels overly optimistic to bet on him landing in that tier.

Also he does not seem to be a defensive stopper, with just 10 steals in his 12 EYBL games in spite of his monster length. He is physically capable of defending in the NBA and may become adequate on this end in time, but this is a bit of a red flag.

He nevertheless can get off a high volume of offense without turning it over, has great physical tools for a SG, and is young enough to have a compelling upside. His realistic upside comparisons are likely along the lines of guys like Michael Finley, Michael Redd, Jason Richardson, or Rip Hamilton. Which isn’t bad in a weak draft outside of the top 3, and he has some outs to surpass this group.

But without any thick reason to have conviction in him hitting, he also has downside risk and could be a Ron Mercer or Shabazz Muhammad.

It’s difficult to get overly enthusiastic on Sharpe with such little info, but there is no major obstacle to him being an all-star caliber SG if he develops smoothly. This should be enough to put him in the conversation for #4 overall.

Jalen Duren

Duren has an exceptionally intersection of youth and tools, as he is 6’10 with a 7’5 wingspan, a chiseled 250 pound frame, good athleticism, and does not turn 19 until November.

He is still raw in terms of basketball IQ and skill, but he did show some glimmers of potential as a passer and made a respectable 62.5% from the line.

The big selling point with his is that when somebody is so clearly + at each of height, length, strength, and athleticism, it is not particularly difficult to be a good NBA player. He has one comp that is basically his twin in Derrick Favors who was also 6’10 with 7’4 wingspan. Per 100 possessions:

ProspectAgePTSTRBASTSTLBLKTOVPF2PA2P%FTFTADunks
Duren18.126.718.12.81.84.75.06.118.160%862.5%5.46
Favors18.526.518.02.21.94.45.35.617.361.3%8.562.9%3.14

They are basically the same thing, except Duren is 3 months younger with better passing and more frequent dunks, and should have the higher upside tail. Favors was considered to have elite intangibles pre-draft, which would likely be his biggest advantage over Duren. Overall these prospects seem equal with possibly a small edge to Duren.

Favors had a solid career for a non #1 overall pick, but he also would be fairly boring as we enter an era where bigs are less commonly used.

Now let’s compare him to some prospects who are not as identical statistically, but have similar physical profiles since that is the defining feature of Duren:

ProspectHtWingWeight
Jalen Duren6’107’5250
Alonzo Mourning6’107’6240
Dwight Howard6’107’5240
DeAndre Jordan6’117’6250
Andre Drummond6’11.757’6.25279
Damian Jones6’11.57’4244
James Wiseman7′7’6240

It may be a bit optimistic to compare him physically to Howard or Jordan, the same way it is overly optimistic to compare Sharpe to MJ, Kobe, and Vince. They have the same body and dimensions, but there is nevertheless a significant difference between being an 80th or 90th percentile NBA athlete vs 99th percentile explosive freak.

It is unlikely that he matches Dwight’s MVP caliber play in Orlando, although Dwight never developed his passing or shooting so there is some non-zero chance that Duren can reach that level if his skill level develops particularly well.

For now let’s focus on comparisons between Duren and guys who actually played in college, starting with Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning’s freshman season at Georgetown as well as his career averages over 4 NCAA seasons.

ProspectAgePTSTRBASTSTLBLKTOVPF2PA2P%FTFT%
Duren18.126.718.12.81.84.756.118.160%862.5%
Mourning18.926.314.61.40.99.93.96.815.460.9%11.566.7%
Mourning20.431.716.42.20.97.24.76.416.857.2%16.275.4%

Just looking at freshman year Duren had some significant advantages….he was 9 months younger with double the steal and assist rates as well as more points and rebounds. Zo destroyed him on blocks and had a higher FT rate and FT%

Mourning settled to 69.2% FT over his NBA career and that skill edge made him a 7 time all-star who finished top 3 in MVP voting twice, as he was defensive player of the year twice with his elite rim protection. It’s not clear if Duren is as athletic as Mourning, but they seem close enough physically such that this is a fairly exciting comparison if Duren develops his shooting and is able to make a major defensive impact in his own rite.

ProspectAgePTSTRBASTSTLBLKTOVPF2PA2P%FTFT%Dunks
Duren18.126.718.12.81.84.756.118.160%862.5%5.46
DAJ19.425.619.31.50.645.26.116.861.7%1143.7%?
Drummond18.421.916.611.85.93.44.818.754.1%5.729.5%5.25
D Jones18.527.213.70.50.73.34.48.119.854.3%10.454.5%2.83
D Jones20.530.615.22.50.53.64.37.220.859%11.253.6%2.59

DAJ and Drummond were slightly bigger and true center sized while Duren is slightly short for the position at 6’10, but in terms of on court production, he is solidly better than both. The first thing that stands out is that they were terrible NCAA players and it is stunning they had as much NBA success as they did.

In spite of being more than a full year older than Duren, DAJ had substantially fewer steals and assists, fewer blocks, more TOVs, and a much worse FT% that he hardly improved in the NBA. He required multiple outlier leaps from his first two seasons to reach his peak, so this isn’t what should be typically expected of a player who shows so many flaws in college. But when you are a physical freak these leaps are possible.

Drummond also was dreadful for UConn, as his profile is flaws on flaws on flaws. He scored a low volume with worse efficiency than Duren, had a microscopic assist rate, and his FT rate and FT% were both outright pathetic. And Duren dunked slightly more often in spite of being slightly smaller. Drummond was never quite as good as his box score production suggests, and is a somewhat boring type of player in the modern NBA, but he nevertheless had a surprisingly long and productive career considering his myriad flaws while being 3 months older than Duren.

Damian Jones was the most similar negative comp I could come up with, but he is not in the same ballpark as a prospect as Duren. James Wiseman is likely a better negative example since he had Duren’s pedigree and hype going #2 overall as a fellow Memphis alum, but it is still difficult to compare him because we only saw his disappointing rookie season and he lacked a real NCAA statistical sample with some major statistical flags in AAU.

Wiseman is likely a reasonable enough cautionary tale, because all he needs to do is not have an outlier DAJ improvement arc and he is not going to be a particularly useful NBA player. But on average guys in this mold who are not good college players are capable of doing surprisingly well in the NBA.

Ultimately Duren is in a similar boat as Sharpe where it is difficult to have conviction in his goodness based on what he has done on the floor thus far, but he has not disqualified him from being a future all-star in any clear way and has plenty of upside between his youth and physical tools.

Other Options at #4

Ivey, Duren, and Sharpe seem like they should be the choices at #4 since they have the juiciest upside tails, but without any clear reason to have conviction that they will hit it is worth pondering if it is worth taking a guy with lower upside but higher median above them.

ESPN’s latest mock has Keegan Murray at #5, which seems too high. He is in a nice 3 + D mold, but his physical tools are meh, he turns 22 in August, his defense seems soft, and how much do you really want to bet on a 74.9% NCAA FT shooter becoming an elite NBA shooter? Too much bleh in his profile to take him above those guys.

AJ Griffin is slated at #8, and he has youth, length, and efficient role playing on his side as he was an elite spot up shooter for Duke. He rarely turned it over, was efficient from all levels, and has an NBA dad which bodes well for his NBA development. He could be similar to fellow Dukie with an NBA dad in Gary Trent Jr., and if things go well enough he has upside to be better. But he is somewhat mechanical in his movement to get too optimistic for his upside, and his shooting is somewhat of a small sample to have too much faith in. I would slate him later in the lottery.

Dyson Daniels is #10 and Jeremy Sochan is #15 currently. These are 3 + D guys who are most interesting to me as types who have easy paths to goodness and are in molds that will be coveted by every NBA team if they hit. But their shooting and offense are both fairly weak, so it is difficult to have enough conviction to place them in the mix at #4. It is something worth considering if I watched enough film and was particularly impressed by either, but that has not happened at this juncture so for now they are in the 7-10 range.

Mark Williams is another guy who seems like a solid guy who is easily useful at #13, but the question is whether he has enough upside to vault ahead of the #4-6 guys. As of now I’d likely keep him in the same tier as Daniels and Sochan.

Benedict Mathurin is a wildcard at #11, as he is an exceptional athlete and turns just 20 in June. There is some chance he can develop into a Devin Booker type of big time offensive player. But there is also a chance he is mostly a spot up shooter on offense with mediocre to bad defense, and he only shot 78.9% FT in college so no guarantee he is an elite shooter in the NBA.

Then #7 Johnny Davis, #12 Ousmane Dieng, and #14 Ochai Agbaji simply do not belong in the lottery conversation. The easiest way to get an edge over other teams picking in the lotto or mid-first is to simply take these guys off your board.

Bottom Line

Dyson Daniels, Jeremy Sochan, and Mark Williams are all sleepers who could be better than all of Sharpe, Ivey, and Duren, but it feels like too much of a hot take to rate them there without heavy film watching that I have yet to do.

So for now it would seem the realistic debate is between Ivey, Duren, and Sharpe.

For me, Ivey is the weakest link of the group because even if he is clearly the most athletic, he has the most red flags between his limited size and mediocre basketball IQ. And he is already 20, and had the worst tourney game of any prospect against Saint Peter’s where he made an endless stream of bad decisions resulting in Purdue’s upset loss.

Ivey’s main value is going to be as a ball handler getting to the rim, and if he does not significantly improve his passing and decision making it is hard to believe you should want to build an NBA offense around him as the primary handler.

#4 on my board will in all likelihood come down to Duren vs Sharpe, which is a difficult decision. It seems that Duren’s mold hits more commonly since it is so easy to be a useful NBA player with those tools. But Duren also may be less coveted in his more common outcomes where unskilled bigs are not that valuable any more whereas length and shooting are perpetually in demand.

Gun to my head I will take Sharpe with the lowest conviction possible. This is how I would rank the lottery for now:

1Paolo Banchero
2Jabari Smith
3Chet Holmgren
4Shaedon Sharpe
5Jalen Duren
6Jaden Ivey
7Dyson Daniels
8Jeremy Sochan
9Mark Williams
10Bennedict Mathurin
11Tari Eason
12Trevor Keels
13AJ Griffin
14Keegan Murray

The Bigger O: is Oscar Tshiebwe a Sleeper in Round 2?

03 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA, Scouting Reports

≈ 13 Comments

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Oscar Tshiebwe

Oscar Tshiebwe was recently named the AP and Naismith men’s college basketball Player of the Year. And he deserved it– he had a monster year for Kentucky, posting elite statistics including the most rebounds per game (15.2) in NCAA D1 since 1979. He led a not so great Kentucky cast to 6th best kenpom team in the country.

While Kentucky had a disappointing round 1 upset loss to St. Peter’s, it was anybody but Tshiebwe’s fault (mostly TyTy Washington’s), as he posted 30 pounds, 16 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks on 11/16 FG.

He is currently projected to go round 2 at #44 on ESPN’s latest mock, which at a glance seems reasonable given his limitations. Tshiebwe is 22 years old and while he was dominant inside the paint and on the glass, he is not a true rim protector at 6’9 and he lacks the passing and shooting to project as a perimeter player at this age, so he does not have a clear niche in the modern NBA. He is somewhat of an obsolete old school power forward, so it makes sense that his NBA draft stock does not align with his NCAA dominance.

Best Round 2 Steals:

Let’s analyze who have been the best round 2 picks in the lottery era dating back to 1985. We can start with most career win shares of round 2 picks over that time:

YearPickProspectWin Shares
198646Jeff Hornacek108.9
199957Manu Ginóbili106.4
200647Paul Millsap95.4
200835DeAndre Jordan94.1
199832Rashard Lewis90.9
198627Dennis Rodman89.8
199229P.J. Brown89.8
198936Clifford Robinson89.7
200748Marc Gasol85.3
200235Carlos Boozer80.3
201441Nikola Jokić79.1
200351Kyle Korver73.4
198625Mark Price71.1

Internationals (Jokic, Ginobili, Gasol) and high school (Lewis) provided some of the best value because the NBA struggles with the lower/different information and drafts these types less efficiently than domestic college players.

Unfortunately this year’s international crop is incredibly weak, and it is unlikely that there is any sort of elite hidden gem in either round this season. So if we focus on domestic college players, that leaves these 9 plus active players Khris Middleton and Draymond Green, who could eventually reach this group and even if not had better peaks than some of the players on the list.

Carlos Boozer was never as useful as his box score stats implied because his lack of mobility made him a defensive liability. Cliff Robinson and PJ Brown had long and productive careers, but neither peaked high with one all-star appearance combined between the two of them.

So if we replace those 3 with Middleton and Green, that leaves a reasonable top 8 domestic round 2 picks with college experience. Perhaps we could include Gilbert Arenas to make 9 because of his 3 year peak of excellent box score stats, although he had no longevity and it is not clear that he helped his team win as much as his box score numbers suggested.

Among those 9, only 5 have 2%+ Hall of Fame Probability according to basketball-reference: Dennis Rodman (75.3%) is the only person actually in with Draymond (59.7%) having a solid chance of making it eventually and Arenas (21.6%), Price (18.3%), and Millsap (5.5%) all projected to be a buck short.

If we are looking for patterns, two guys who consistently show up as elite steals from any angle are Dennis Rodman and Paul Millsap. They share the commonality of extreme outlier NCAA rebounding, as well as surprisingly good steal rates but slid due to limited passing and shooting for undersized bigs. Interestingly, this description fits that of Tshiebwe.

Other Comparisons

The monster rebs + high steals + low skill is a distinct brand of prospect that 5 prospects clearly fit, with the two others being Kenneth Faried and DeJuan Blair who were drafted 22nd and 37th respectfully. Perhaps I am missing another example, but it is rare enough to find guys who rebound at this rate let alone guys who can rack up steals to boot.

Here are per 60 possession stats of their final college season:

ProspectAgePtsRebASTTOVStlBlk2P%FTAFT%3PA
Millsap20.920.814.11.22.61.92.40.5716.50.6230.5
Tshiebwe22.118.916.51.12.11.91.70.6065.30.6910
Rodman24.624.417.80.83.41.81.60.6457.40.6550
Faried21.118.615.61.12.822.50.6237.40.5830.1
Blair20.721.216.71.71.72.11.30.5936.30.6140

Note that Rodman’s minutes + pace are unavailable, so I just used his per game stats. He was a 24 year old man playing D2 basketball, so it is difficult to directly compare to these other guys, but you can see the similarity in his output.

Another odd (and perhaps meaningless) similarity is that Rodman, Millsap, and Tshiebwe all had lower steal rates in their first two seasons before seeing a big spike in their 3rd season.

Faried + Blair had relatively disappointing outcomes, but they did not flop completely. They had solidly productive careers relative to draft slot, but couldn’t find a niche to make an impact as their length and steal rates did not translate into NBA caliber perimeter defense and they were too small to guard bigs. And while their garbageman skills translated, they did not have enough shooting or skill to overcome their defensive warts.

Rodman and Millsap did prove to be good, versatile defensive players, with Rodman winning two defensive player of the year awards and Millsap making NBA all defensive 2nd team once. Millsap also became surprisingly good on offense, as he became a competent NBA 3 point shooter and developed some point forwards skills.

Collectively box score production has translated to NBA for all of these guys, and the biggest factor swinging outcome is whether they hit their low end defensive outcomes (Faried, Blair) vs their high end (Rodman, Millsap).

Now let’s look at measurables:

ProspectHeightWingWeight
Tshiebwe6’97’4255
Millsap6’7.257’1.5258
Rodman6’77’2210
Faried6’7.57′225
Blair6’6.57’2277

Being 2″ taller than any of these guys is an interesting advantage for Tshiebwe’s defensive versatility. He is still too short to defend star bigs like Jokic or Embiid, and is not a true rim protector, but that extra height does give him potential to play at least situationally as a small ball center.

And if he develops into a quality perimeter defensive player like Millsap or Rodman, he has the size to match up with big star wings like Giannis, Durant, and Luka.

This gives Tshiebwe an easier path to finding a defensive niche than these guys, as well as a bit more defensive upside outside of Rodman who was more athletic.

Next Closest Comps

This super long, super rebounder in a thick wing body mold is so distinct that there are not many other guys who even loosely pass for it. Let’s throw out some of the closest examples to be found:

ProspectAgePtsRebASTTOVStlBlk2P%FTAFT%3PA
Tshiebwe22.118.916.51.12.11.91.70.6065.30.6910
T Robinson20.819.913.3231.21.00.5056.80.6820.5
Sullinger19.820.710.91.52.31.41.30.5317.30.7681.3
McGary20.814.312.11.42.32.21.30.5922.90.5130.1
B Wallace21.315.913.30.72.41.34.70.57.70.3740

Thomas Robinson had all sorts of disadvantages. He was a worse rebounder, especially offensively which has more predictive gravity, and his steals and blocks were curiously low. He played a slightly bigger offensive role, but was a fairly inefficient scorer. And this was after he played a small bench role for his first two seasons. It’s curious that he seems like a poor man’s version of the mold, but he went 5th overall when these types typically go late 1st or round 2.

Jared Sullinger was a much worse rebounder and slower with fewer steals and blocks but had more skill. Not really the same.

Mitch McGary was a fascinating weirdo. He was taller at 6’10 and didn’t have a monster wingspan at 7’0, but still had a crazy steal rate. But he had other holes in his numbers, and he couldn’t stay healthy enough to be an informative data point.

Ben Wallace is the best undrafted free agent of all time, and these are his numbers guessing a 65 possession/game pace for his D2 Virginia Union team. It is surprising that he was not a bigger rebounding outlier playing D2, but he continually improved his rebounding rates in the NBA until leading the league in rebounds per game in his 6th and 7th seasons. He also had a higher steal rate in the NBA than his final year in college, although he did get more steals in his prior NCAA season.

But he had his differences from OT, as he was a vastly better shot blocker while being unskilled to a tragic extent. That turnover rate and 2P% for a relatively small offensive role at D2 makes it easy to see why he went undrafted, and he never leaned to make free throws shooting 41.4% for his NBA career.

Ultimately Wallace and Tshiebwe are different players, but it is fairly encouraging that Wallace shares the outlier rebounding trait to provide another example where it led to major draft overachievement.

Summary

It is interesting that how outlier rebounding has been a commonality in some of the best domestic prospects to slide out of round 1 in the lottery era. Ben Wallace and Dennis Rodman are the only two Hall of Famers over that time that played college basketball and did not get picked in round 1, and Paul Millsap has one of the better hall of fame cases even though he likely will not make it.

It’s not quite fair to compare him to Rodman and Wallace who are better athletes and multiple time winners of defensive player of the year. But it should be encouraging to know that Tshiebwe has some commonalities with them and with more offensive skill could become a better offense, lesser defense version– essentially Paul Millsap.

Granted it is a bit of a longshot that he both becomes a Millsap level defensive player and develops his perimeter skill, but the similarities between them are too strong to rule it out like we can rule out similar upside for most second round prospects.

And even if he does not hit his full Millsap ceiling, there are a number of other outcomes that are a happy return on a late 1st round pick or early 2nd rounder.

If he posts Kenneth Faried or DeJuan Blair box score production with a more competent but still not great level of defense, that’s a good return on a draft pick. Faried and Blair both accumulated top 20% career win shares for their draft range, and bad defense is the only thing that precluded them from being particularly useful toward NBA team success.

Of course he could also be “just” a Faried or Blair type role player who doesn’t really add value outside of eating regular season minutes at a passable level, but everybody outside of the top 3 could be bad this year. It’s not a scary floor outcome.

Where Does Oscar Fit in 2022 Draft?

Tshiebwe seems to be somewhat obviously the highest upside prospect currently projected to go in round 2. The other compelling options are mostly guys who could be quality role playing wings who cannot honestly be compared to past prospects who became multiple time all-stars.

He definitely is a first round value, but how high in round 1 does he go? This is where it gets tricky because he is so weird with such few similar past examples. Perhaps Blair + Faried are the more likely outcomes for this mold, and Millsap is an outlier with a career arc never to be replicated again. Or perhaps the mentality that goes into that level of rebounding is predictive of success in other aspects.

But he has obviously better upside than a number of 1st round guys. For instance, 6’5 SGs such as Johnny Davis, Malaki Branham, Ochai Agbaji, and Blake Wesley are all projected top 20, but none of them fit anything resembling a high upside NBA mold. It is difficult to fathom how it is correct to pick any of these guys ahead of Oscar.

Looking in Tshiebwe’s height range, internationals Ousmane Dieng (#19) and Nikola Jovic (#23) are younger, but have no interesting selling points toward their NBA upside. It seems clear that neither should be valued higher than OT.

Or if we compare him to a fellow old with elite college stats, Keegan Murray is only 9 months younger and projected at #5 overall. Keegan had slightly better PER (37.8 vs 35), WS/40 (.311 vs .297) and BPM (15.7 vs 13.3) and fits a more traditional 3 + D mold, so it is understandable that he is ranked higher.

But Tshiebwe has a much better wingspan (7’4 vs 6’11), better on/off splits, and outlier rebounding has been more predictive of late draft steals than Murray’s outlier low turnover rate historically. And even though Murray is the much better 3P shooter, Tshiebwe is not too far behind in career FT% at 69% vs 74.9%. There is some chance Oscar learns to make NBA 3’s and their shooting peaks relatively close, with Tshiebwe being much better defensively where Keegan appears to be soft.

So it seems like it should be fairly close between the two. Perhaps Murray belongs in the back end of the lottery and Tshiebwe right outside of the lottery. It is difficult to say because both are fairly weird and unique prospects. But it is curious that for older guys with gaudy box scores that Murray is getting every benefit of the doubt while Tshiebwe is stuck all the way back in mid round 2.

What is clear that Tshiebwe has upside, and when he hits he is going to hit harder than anybody else in round 2 and a number of round 1 prospects in a weak class. It is difficult to see 20 guys that belong ahead of him, and he has potential to be steal of the draft.

Where Should Jaden Ivey be Drafted?

27 Sunday Mar 2022

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA, Scouting Reports

≈ 7 Comments

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jaden ivey

In a draft with a Big 3 of Chet Holmgren, Jabari Smith, and Paolo Banchero, Jaden Ivey looms as the dark horse at #4, with some hype of belonging in the top 3.

6’4 Ivey is incredibly explosive, and likely will be a top 1% athlete in the NBA. He uses his speed and athleticism to blow by defensive players and finish at the rim. He is also a competent shooter, making 74.4% FT and 35.8% 3P on 5 attempts per game. This makes him a versatile scorer at all levels, and he leads the #1 NCAA offense with 17.3 points/game.

He is more of a combo guard than a true point. He essentially finished in a 3 way tie for his team lead in assists per game (3.1), slightly more than his turnovers (2.6). This puts him on the fence where it is unclear if he can develop the floor general skills to run an NBA offense.

He has a wingspan reported anywhere from 6’7 to 6’10 and a nice frame, and does not shy away from physicality in the paint getting to the line regularly with a 46.9 free throw rate. This gives him potential to play bigger than his size, and possibly match up with taller perimeter players.

But he is nevertheless undersized to guard wings, and right now he is not a good defensive player. This flaws in tandem suggest that he will probably be a bad defensive player in the NBA, and could be a major liability.

Overall Ivey’s athleticism and scoring gives him tantalizing upside, but he needs a number of things to go right between the development of his shooting, passing, and defense for that upside to hit.

Nuclear Athlete = future MVP Candidate Upside?

Given his nuclear athleticism for a lead guard, it is worth wondering how close he can come to NBA MVP candidates such as Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Ja Morant:

AgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
Ivey19.933.19.35.851.71.10.5319.5110.744
Morant19.437.38.715.37.82.71.20.5567.212.50.813
Rose19.230.09.19.55.42.30.70.5215.310.30.712
Westbrook19.123.67.28.04.53.00.30.4973.67.20.713

These guys are fairly similar in a number of ways, but Ivey is significantly behind in terms of assists and steals in spite of being 6 to 9 months older than the rest of the group. He has nowhere near the natural PG skills of this group, which makes it hard to see him having similar offensive upside.

Westbrook had the excuse of lower offensive output while sharing PG duties with junior Darren Collison. Ivey had the keys to an offense surrounded by elite shooters, and does not have that same excuse.

Let’s shift our focus toward all-star caliber combo guards who are common comparisons: Victor Oladipo and Donovan Mitchell:

AgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
Ivey19.933.19.35.851.71.10.5319.5110.744
Oladipo20.728.713.34.34.84.61.60.64447.60.746
Mitchell20.328.18.84.933.70.90.463125.70.806

These guys were a bit older than Ivey, and similar in a number of categories, except there are a few significant divergences. First– both guys absolutely crush Ivey at steal rate, which is a vitally important signal toward becoming a + defensive player at combo guard size (and NBA star in general). Oladipo also massively outrebounded Ivey (especially ORB% 10.4 vs 3.1 for their careers) and Mitchell is a solidly better shooter with a much lower turnover rate.

Ivey is more explosive and proficient at creating his own shot at the rim drawing free throws than these guys, but as his only major strength he is not quite as multidimensional as these two.

Let’s shift our attention to combo guards whose value largely comes from scoring, such as Jamal Crawford, Jordan Clarkson, and Zach LaVine:

AgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
Ivey19.933.19.35.851.71.10.5319.5110.744
Clarkson19.630.27.14.74.91.710.4616.810.10.784
Crawford19.827.04.57.35.11.81.50.4689.64.80.784
LaVine18.822.15.94.22.72.10.40.4948.14.30.691

Now Ivey’s assist + steal rates are more in line with these guys, and is a more reasonable forecast of what to expect. His superior athleticism shows with better rebounds, 2P%, and FT rate, but all of these guys became good NBA shooters which is far from guaranteed for Ivey. And even though Clarkson + Crawford were more slithery than explosive, they still were able to create their own shots at the rim.

LaVine had a smaller offensive role given that he was playing on a loaded UCLA team with a more experienced Kyle Anderson, Jordan Adams, and Norman Powell handling the ball. Had he stayed an extra year and assumed a larger role, it would have been reasonable to expect him to have a similar sophomore performance to Ivey.

So this seems reasonably good for Ivey. MVP candidate seems unattainable, but he still has some loose comparisons to all-stars like Oladipo and Mitchell, and more realistically you are getting something on a scale of a more athleticism Clarkson or Crawford to a Zach LaVine.

But while athleticism offers potential for a player to overperform college production in the NBA, it does not guarantee it. Consider a couple of elite athletes with a high level of draft hype: Andrew Wiggins and Dennis Smith Jr. Neither are precisely like Ivey– Wiggins is bigger with more defensive versatility, but did not show any floor general ability in college. Smith was a small PG, but did show an ability to lead an offense. Let’s see what happens when we take the midpoint of their NCAA production:

AgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
DSJ19.1297.39.85.43.10.70.5097.6100.715
Wiggins18.930.310.42.74.12.11.70.4936.411.50.775
Dandris Smiggins Jr.1929.78.96.34.82.61.20.5017.010.80.745
Ivey19.933.19.35.85.01.71.10.5319.511.00.744

This may seem like an odd comparison, but I was a pre-draft skeptic of both Smith and Wiggins as their flaws seemed to outweigh their athletic strengths. It is interesting that Ivey’s numbers are near identical to the mid-point of their freshmen stats in spite of being a full year older, as he offers a similar intuitive feeling that his warts are too nasty to become a star.

Of course this does not mean that Ivey will necessarily disappoint as badly as these two, as elite athleticism always provides some attainable path to the upside. But there are such few prospects with similar mold and athleticism as Ivey, Smith and Wiggins may have the strongest pre-draft parallels as Ivey essentially hits the exact midpoint of their size, stats, and draft slots.

Now let’s move on from mythical busts to real ones:

AgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
Ivey19.933.19.35.85.01.71.10.5319.511.00.744
Jordan Crawford20.431.18.25.24.52.30.40.4948.76.70.765
Markelle Fultz18.635.78.89.14.92.51.80.5027.810.40.649
Jerryd Bayless19.434.64.97.15.21.70.20.4898.513.10.839

None of these guys are exactly like Ivey. Crawford has shorter wingspan at 6’5.5, much less athleticism, and his career college stats are similar to Ivey’s in spite of staying until a later age. This is why he was available in the late 1st at 27th overall.

But Ivey was only a slightly better college basketball player than Jordan Crawford, and his athleticism only offers the *possibility* that he is much better in the NBA, nothing is guaranteed. If that potential goes unfulfilled, it should not be surprising if he has a similar NBA career to Crawford.

Fultz shared similar dimensions to Ivey and although he was not as explosive, he showed a stronger knack for running an offense and making plays defensively. The big issue with Fultz is that his 64.9% FT proved to be a bigger flag than expected, as his shooting has prevented him from being an effective NBA player.

Ivey shouldn’t struggle as an NBA shooter to the same extent as Fultz, but Fultz was more multidimensional and productive at 15 months younger and went #1 overall for valid reasons. If his shooting disappoints a bit, he could struggle in the NBA to a similar degree as Fultz.

Jerryd Bayless is smaller at 6’3″ with a much shorter wingspan at 6’3.5″, and played smaller with much worse rebound and block rates than Ivey. But he was an excellent athlete in his own rite who showed better shooting and passing than Ivey at 6 months younger. If Bayless and Ivey were in the same draft, it would be difficult decision who to take first. Bayless ultimately provided a disappointing return on 11th overall.

What Does This Amount To?

Ivey is largely a one dimensional scoring combo guard, and this brand tends to be overrated in the draft with significant risk of bust or mediocrity, and a capped upside even when it hits.

What makes him special is his athleticism, giving him an easier path to hitting his upside. But he can still be a meh bench player like Jerryd Bayless, Markelle Fultz, or Jordan Crawford. And even if he turns out a bit better, a microwave scorer off the bench like Jordan Clarkson or Jamal Crawford isn’t exactly what you hope for in the top 5.

And even if he becomes a low end all-star like Zach LaVine, it is debatable how valuable that is as it is a difficult mold to build around. The Bulls did well with Lonzo Ball + Alex Caruso healthy, but have struggled with them injured. If LaVine is battling Nikola Vucevic for 2nd best player on a .500 team, is that really an all-star impact?

For him to surpass LaVine, Ivey needs to develop his passing and/or defense well beyond what he showed at Purdue. And it is difficult to be optimistic, because it is not like he is playing for Kentucky in lineups full of 5* PG’s and bigs. At all times he was surrounded by 3 shooters and 1 elite big, he had the keys to the offense and was in an ideal situation to rack up points and assists. He did well with the former and only OK-ish at the latter.

Defensively, his steal rate isn’t quite up to snuff and Purdue is coming off their worst defensive season in 10 years. In both of his college seasons the defense was significantly better with him off the court, and he seems likely to be a major liability on that end. One major selling point of athleticism is for defensive purposes, but without the size or IQ to capitalize on it, it will not matter all that much.

Ivey turned 20 in February, he is still young with time to develop but old enough for this season to be accepted as his likely true colors.

The one silver lining for him is that his athleticism is so rare, it is difficult to find many fitting comps. Perhaps his NBA projections should be heavily skewed toward the upside because life is easy when you are that athletic. But Zach LaVine upside is not quite enticing enough to heavily gamble on this hypothesis.

Where Does This Leave Him in 2022 Class?

Some people believe that Ivey belongs in the top 3, but given all of his limitations this seems like it would be a critical error. It is too much of a gamble on athleticism without enough meat or versatility in his profile to be worth it.

Outside of the top 3, he still could be the correct pick at #4, it’s not clear. After the top 3 everybody is flawed. This is a horrible year to get the #4 pick, and anybody who lands there should 100% be trying to trade up into the top 3 or down or out of the draft.

There are some guys you could argue above him. Jalen Duren is not quite the athleticism outlier, but because it comes attached to elite height, length, and frame, his physical profile is likely collectively better. If his upside comps are Dwight Howard or Alonzo Mourning vs Zach LaVine, I will take the former all day. Duren is still very young and raw and has all sorts of blah risk of his own, but he does have some case to go higher.

Shaedon Sharpe also has a case to go higher if he stays in the draft. He seems similar to Ivey in a number of ways, but with less information maybe his flaws do not cap his upside as badly. Or maybe the less info is hiding even worse flaws. It’s difficult to say with such limited info.

These are the guys that can be realistically ranked ahead of him. The players that seem slightly more interesting to me but more boring to the typical NBA GM are Mark Williams and Jeremy Sochan. Williams is somewhat limited as a role playing big in a world where nobody cares about bigs anymore, but he seems like such a solid bet to be a useful NBA player with upside to be a Robert Williams or Tyson Chandler. He is currently ranked #21 on ESPN, but should be rising with a strong tourney performance. I would suspect there are decent odds he becomes a better pro than Ivey, but they are so different it is a difficult comparison.

Sochan is also a difficult comparison because he is a one way defensive prospect to counter Ivey’s one way offense. But with his activity and versatilty on defense, and enough handling, passing, and shooting to work with offensively at a young age, the Draymond comparisons do not seem all that insane. And taking Draymond who is one of the most valuable pieces on a dominant championship team over Zach LaVine who is equally valuable to a .500 team should not be anything resembling a debate. Of course Draymond is one of a kind, but it is easy to see Sochan delivering a better pay off than Ivey.

Other than that, Bennedict Mathurin is fairly similar with more shooting and less slashing. Ivey’s slashing should likely be valued higher, but he is likely not too far behind.

If you can trade Ivey for any of these guys and a late 1st to scoop up Trevor Keels, it is an easy yes. Or if you can trade Ivey and a not enormous fee to move up for Paolo Banchero or Jabari Smith, is is an easy do.

I still am not sure exactly where I rank Ivey on my board, it will likely be in #4-7 range. It’s definitely not a mistake to pick him at #4, and it could pay off if he develops well. I just wouldn’t want to be running the team that is investing such a high pick in him, and would absolutely trade out of the pick at #4 overall.

Where Does Paolo Banchero Fit in the Modern NBA and 2022 Draft?

24 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA, Scouting Reports

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

chet holmgren, jabari smith, paolo banchero

Paolo Banchero is currently rated #3 on ESPN’s latest mock draft. He creates a high volume of offense for himself and his teammates, and is built like a tanky PF at 6’10 250. There is quite a bit to digest with him, so let’s start with some statistical comparisons before moving on to more qualitative analysis.

Because of the tanky PF build, Paolo has drawn comparisons to Blake Griffin, Chris Webber, Julius Randle, and Jabari Parker.

Let’s start out by comparing him to the career NCAA stats per 100 possessions of the two guys that went #1 overall:

ProspectAgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
Paolo19.130.714.25.84.51.91.753.3%68.572.4%
Blake Griffin19.437.423.54.25.72.12.062.2%0.315.258.9%
Chris Webber19.329.517.04.14.92.44.264.1%3.27.253.0%

These guys all got buckets and were great passing bigs. But Webber and Blake played more like true bigs. Both were better rebounders than Paolo, Webber was a better shotblocker, Griffin drew far more FTA from bullying in the paint, and both were more dominant scorers in the paint with much higher 2P%.

But Paolo has far more perimeter skill– even though these guys are elite passing bigs, both had a substantially lower assist rate and a higher turnover rate. Paolo is also the better shooter, as both of these guys badly struggled on free throws, and both finished with a lower NBA career FT% than Paolo’s FT% at Duke while never becoming reliable from 3.

So there are some minor parallels in play, but these are not quite right as comparisons.

Now let’s discuss the guys who are more recent and less optimistic:

ProspectAgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
Paolo19.130.714.25.84.51.91.753.3%68.572.4%
Julius Randle19.129.520.52.8511.551.7%0.914.270.6%
Jabari Parker18.838.217.42.34.62.12.550.4%612.274.8%

Once again, Parker + Randle offered more of a bully ball approach, grabbing more rebounds and getting to the line more often. Unlike Webber + Griffin, they at least made similar FT% to Paolo. But they get absolutely destroyed in assist and assist:TOV rates, and Randle’s steals are anemic compared to Paolo.

Jabari Parker failed because he had all time bad defensive IQ, and there was a clear signal that his basketball IQ was limited given his assist:TOV rate. This also showed up with his offensive approach in summer league, where he played a horribly inefficient style. I ranked him 8th on my final 2014 board, and am not surprised that he disappointed as badly as he did.

Randle showed a number of similar flaws to Parker. His instincts were slow on both ends at Kentucky, and I was not particularly high on him entering the draft. To his credit, he developed his perimeter skills, became a good passer, and stretched his shooting out to NBA 3 point range, and is now a decent NBA player. Perhaps I underrated him by putting him 22nd on my big board. Or given that he maxed his abilities out and still is largely unwanted by NBA teams, perhaps that was an accurate rating.

Randle and Parker have some parallels to Paolo, but they seem fairly pessimistic because at the same age they showed major weaknesses where he is strong.

Because he plays like a big wing, let’s compare Paolo to other big wings who went in the front end of the lottery who are good shot creators and passers with an acceptable FT%. Let’s start with a Duke flavor, since Coach K has been recruiting big wings with versatile perimeter skill for decades:

AgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
Paolo Banchero19.130.714.25.84.51.91.70.53368.50.724
Jayson Tatum18.828.912.63.74.52.320.5046.98.20.849
Luol Deng18.728.713.13.54.32.52.10.5155.87.10.71
Grant Hill19.226.610.75.74.33.11.90.5730.37.90.695

Note that Grant Hill’s #’s are over his first 3 NCAA seasons, since that sample is both large and most closely approximates Paolo’s age.

This is a fairly optimistic trio, so let’s clarify why other past Dukies weren’t chosen: Danny Ferry only averaged 5.9 pts/game at age 19, Elton Brand was a true big, Carlos Boozer was a slow big and slid to round 2, Mike Dunleavy Jr. only scored 9.1 pts/game at Paolo’s age, Shane Battier more defense oriented, Marvin Bagley had a bad assist:TOV ratio, RJ Barrett too short, Brandon Ingram too skinny, and Wendell Carter Jr. had some parallels, but is ultimately a slow big.

That leaves these three Blue Devils as most similar, and by the #’s it does not look like Paolo clearly stands behind any of them. Tatum has a clearly significant advantage in shooting with his FT%, and he had a slightly better steal rate and is likely more mobile. So it may be too much to ask Paolo to be a star like Tatum. But given his superior passing, if his shooting improves over time and he turns out to be not far behind Tatum defensively, he can make a similar impact as a top 10 superstar.

Grant Hill is a fascinating comparison because he is a rare big wing that has similar assist and turnover rates as Paolo. Hill’s vastly superior steal rate implies that Paolo will not be able to match his perimeter defense as Hill was clearly the better athlete, but Hill never became a 3 point shooter. If Paolo develops an NBA 3 and becomes a modern day Grant Hill who trades some athleticism + defense for shooting, he would be fairly exciting to build around.

Luol Deng is not exactly the type of guy you target at #1 overall, as he does not stand out from Paolo in any way outside of a few ticks in steal rate, and Paolo unsurprisingly has the better passing. This is why Deng went #7 overall and Paolo is a near lock for the top 3. But if you stack Luol Deng’s career numbers up against 30 #1 picks from 1985 to 2014, he ranks 12th in career win shares (likely to be passed by Kyrie Irving and finish 13th) and 13th in VORP (already passed by Kyrie). He was a two time all-star and gave a truckload of quality minutes to the Bulls.

Even though Deng is a relatively disappointing outcome compared to a Grant Hill or Jayson Tatum, he is nevertheless an approximately average outcome for #1 overall. This is not so disappointing after all.

Now let’s get out of the Duke family and discuss who else could be similar to Paolo:

AgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
Paolo Banchero19.130.714.25.84.51.91.70.53368.50.724
Carmelo Anthony18.634.415.53.43.42.41.30.4967.310.60.706
Lamar Odom19.229.515.86.45.71.52.60.55.39.50.7
Tobias Harris18.531.314.82.63.71.41.70.4974.610.20.753
Josh Jackson19.929.813.45.45.03.11.90.5494.79.00.566

Carmelo was 6 months younger than Paolo as a freshman, but there is not much to suggest that Paolo is significantly behind him. Melo was better at getting off a higher volume of shots without turning it over, and Paolo is (unsurprisingly) the better passer.

Interestingly, they rate similarly as shooters at a similar age. Melo was more confident in his 3 with a higher 3PA rate (which is an even bigger gap considering that 3PA rate is up 17.7% from Melo’s college season) and he went on to shoot 77.7% FT as an NBA rookie. Melo does get the edge as a shooter, but Paolo is not too far behind at the same age and it is plausible that he peaks as a similar caliber NBA shooter.

Defense is the area where Paolo has a clear opportunity to outshine Melo. Melo’s college steal and rebound rates indicate that he is physically capable of defense, but due to some combination of apathy and bad awareness he was a liability on defense in the NBA. Even if Paolo is a bit slower, being better defensively than Carmelo is a low bar to clear. If he becomes something like Carmelo with better D, that’s a great return on #1 overall.

Lamar Odom is the closest comp who is the same height as Paolo at 6’10 and not an explosive athlete. Odom has an even higher assist rate, but slightly worse assist:TOV. He has a longer wingspan than Paolo as well at 7’4 vs 7’0, but in spite of this Paolo had a slightly higher steal rate. Perhaps he can use his vision and instincts to be a versatile NBA defensive player like Odom.

What is further interesting about Odom is that he had a productive NBA career without developing his shooting with 31.2% 3P 69.3% FT for his career.

Tobias Harris is another low end outcome for Paolo, where he could end up falling a bit flat but still not be a productive NBA player.

Josh Jackson is not all that similar to Paolo, as his slight frame and busted shot for an old freshman 9 months older than Paolo made him somewhat weird. But he was athletic and overall productive, and is the best example of a top 5 wing with good college passing busting in the NBA.

How Big is Too Big?

Now we just compared Paolo’s game and numbers to a wide range of past guys, but somewhat glazed over how much bigger he is than any of them. Let’s do a quick comparison to see how he measures up:

ProspectHeightWeightWing
Paolo6’102507′
Julius Randle6’92507′
Carmelo6’7.52337′
Grant Hill6’8225?
Tobias Harris6’82236’11
Luol Deng6’82207’0.5
Lamar Odom6’102207’4
Jayson Tatum6’82056’11

This makes the Randle comparisons somewhat understandable, as that is the player that Paolo most closely resembles physically.

It seems that the disconnect between the numbers and perception is his thickness. And it makes some sense– most bulky guys are not particularly quick or good defensively in the NBA, so perhaps we should place a pessimistic skew on Paolo.

And perhaps we should. It would not be shocking if he did end up as a Randle type who offers a bit of everything on offense, but does not have the shooting or efficiency to overcome his defensive flaws and on net be an impact player.

But at the same time, should we give his beef too much attention? Carmelo Anthony offered a ton of offensive value, and Paolo is not all that much thicker than him. The extra 2+ inches of height should be helpful for seeing, passing, and shooting over the defense, so there is no reason to assume that Paolo cannot make a similar offensive impact.

Luka Doncic is a 6’7 230 Arnold Palmer guzzler, yet is on the verge of finishing top 6 in MVP voting for the third time in spite of having just turned 23 due to his monstrous offensive output.

Draymond Green measured 6’7.5 235 pounds at the combine and Metta World Peace was listed 6’6 244 in college at St. John’s. Both guys won NBA defensive player of the year. Paolo is not on their level defensively, but he does not need to be DPOY to justify #1– he merely needs to be adequate on this end.

Not many people fretted over fellow Blue Devil Zion Williamson’s girth when he went #1 overall, but at 6’7 285 he makes Paolo look anorexic. Of course Zion’s thickness (in tandem with questionable work ethic) seems to be his undoing, but he was productive when he was on the floor for the Pelicans.

Banchero may not be the most agile or explosive guy in the draft, but he is a decent enough athlete and may be getting wrongfully pigeonholed for his bigness given all of the perimeter production he has provided for Duke.

It’s incredibly rare for somebody of his size to offer this much perimeter output, so perhaps the first assumption should be that Paolo is a rare super sized wing prospect rather than a dime a dozen archaic PF.

Being big and strong is typically an advantage, so it seems wrong to treat it as a negative when a tanky 6’10 guy plays like a star wing.

How Does Paolo Compare Athletically?

Even though some of these comparisons are smaller, most of them are not notably more athletic. Almost all of the aforementioned comparisons fall under the “more fluid than explosive” type of athlete much like Paolo.

The most explosive guy was Grant Hill, and even with Hill it is not clear that his athleticism is his most scarce quality, as his passing for his size seems more outlier. And he needed to be more explosive than the rest of this group since he never developed a reliable 3 point shot.

But let’s humor the idea that Paolo’s size is a reason to place a slight pessimistic bias on his athleticism, and suppose that in terms of explosiveness, this is how the group rates among NBA wings in percentile terms:

Hill 85th percentile
Carmelo 60th percentile
Tatum 50th percentile
Paolo 40th percentile

But Paolo is 2″ taller and stronger. Is this really such a notable physical disadvantage such that these comparisons are nullified?

It is hard to see that as a reasonable argument. Paolo has 38 dunks so far this season. Most of these prospects played before dunk stats became available, but that is almost as many as Tatum (18) and Tobias Harris (21) had combined as NCAA freshmen.

An Unexpected Big Comp

If people are going to compare Paolo Banchero to bigs who he has little in common with such as Blake Griffin and Chris Webber, we may as well compare him to a big who he has a few things in common with in Nikola Jokic:

AgePTSTRBASTTOVSTLBLK2P%3PAFTAFT%
Paolo Banchero19.130.714.25.84.51.91.70.53368.50.724
Nikola Jokic18.924.613.75.23.41.91.80.6386.23.60.656

Adriatic League and ACC are not an apples to apples comparison, but they are close enough such that I am not sure which one is more difficult. Jokic was more efficient than Paolo, but Paolo is more athletic and played a bigger offensive role than Jokic.

This is not an apples to apples stylistic comparison either, as Jokic is 1″ taller, 3″ longer, and plays like a true center. But enough statistical parallels are there for this to be a friendly reminder to not sleep on elite passing teenage bigs with non-broken shots.

But the parallels are clear. The intersection of height and passing is a great indicator of sneaky upside, and Paolo got even more assists than the GOAT passing big while only being 1″ shorter and more athletic.

And even though Paolo is unlikely to match Jokic’s NBA shooting, sometimes guys make major shooting leaps from their 18/19 year old selves. Having a non-broken shot at that age gives you a chance of that happening, and when they come attached to elite playmaking ability it can yield massive draft wins.

While Paolo will not play the same defensive role as Jokic, who could have seen Jokic posting a season where he deserves DPOY consideration like he has this season? There is a significant correlation between height and defense as well as passing and defense, so guys who have both often overachieve. Paolo is not that much smaller than Jokic, and he is more athletic, so he has outs to be a great defensive player in his own rite.

While they are different stylistically, there are a number of parallels in statistical output of Jokic and Paolo. If nothing else Jokic serves as a friendly reminder to sleep on young, tall, elite passers with non-broken shots at your own peril.

What Does This Amount to in the NBA?

Like most prospects, Paolo’s NBA career will have swing based on how well his shooting and defense develop. Both are on the fence of potentially becoming good vs. being a long term liability.

He could be a sieve like Julius Randle or Carmelo Anthony, or he could be a perennially + defensive player like Lamar Odom or Luol Deng.

He could be a limited jump shooter like Odom or Randle, or he could be a good one like Nikola Jokic, Tobias Harris, or Carmelo Anthony.

What is clear is that he offers a rare level of creation ability for a player of his size between his scoring and passing. The intersection of height and passing is an upside indicator that goes often overlooked by most observers, and offers sneaky upside on both sides of the ball.

If his shooting and defense see favorable outcomes, he could be a hall of fame level superstar like Jayson Tatum, Grant Hill, or Carmelo Anthony.

If they hit middling outcomes, he will still likely be a quality player in the vein of Luol Deng, Lamar Odom, or Tobias Harris.

And if they hit low end outcomes, he could be a productive but not particularly coveted NBA player like Julius Randle. Perhaps in the absolute worst case outcome he could outright bust like Jabari Parker, but it seems very unlikely unless he has major off court issues.

If anything he seems more likely to become an MVP candidate at some point than bust like Jabari. Carmelo Anthony and Grant Hill both finished third in MVP voting once, and Jayson Tatum will likely finish top 5 in MVP voting at some point. Two of these guys even went to the same school as him, and all three of them went #3 overall which is incidentally where Paolo is projected to go this season.

So if 3 exciting comps exist vs 1 terrifying Jabari comp, why is everybody so much more worried about the latter?

What about all of the other busts in draft history?

It may seem like cherrypicking to focus on the good outcomes and dismiss the few bad ones. But let’s look at the biggest busts for tweener forwards taken in the top 3.

From 1985 to 2014 there were 7 such players who finished with < 20 career win shares and have pre-draft stats (Darius Miles is the exception who declared from high school). Let’s look at their assist:TOV ratio in their final pre-draft season:

ProspectASTTOVA:TO
Adam Morrison2.83.80.74
Anthony Bennett2.14.00.53
Jabari Parker2.34.60.51
Derrick Williams2.35.20.43
Michael Beasley2.15.20.40
Len Bias1.84.80.37
Andrea Bargnani1.34.10.31

Len Bias may be an unfair example since he died of a cocaine overdose and never played in the NBA. But this group includes some all time bad basketball IQ’s, and dying of a drug overdose suggests poor off court intelligence. Perhaps he would have busted in the NBA had he lived to have a normal career.

Further, if we look at the guys who had the lowest WS/48 among guys with 20+ win shares (basically the least efficient guys who produced enough to get regular minutes), they are past #1 overall picks Glenn Robinson (0.47 A:TO) and Andrew Wiggins (0.68)– both fairly significant mistakes to take with the top pick.

Having a bad assist to turnover ratio implies some combination of limited ball skills and limited basketball IQ that is almost a pre-requisite for a big, talented wing to flop. If we include #4 overall picks, we get Josh Jackson as an example of more assists than turnovers who busted, so it’s not a completely infallible mold. But he was also a worse prospect than Paolo due to his busted shot, thin frame, and old age for his class, which is why he did not go in the top 3.

Draft history is still a small sample, and anybody can bust if their development goes poorly enough. But there is not a bust comp that resonates as truly scary for Paolo at this time. Josh Jackson and Jabari Parker are the closest we can get, and he is clearly better than both based on pre-draft.

Where Does This Place Paolo in 2022?

Paolo is obviously a good prospect that belongs in the top 3, but Chet Holmgren and Jabari Smith are also very talented. So how do we rank him within the scope of this year’s top 3?

The current narrative in ESPN’s latest mock is that Paolo has slipped to #3 because his defensive intensity and awareness is weaker than that of Jabari Smith and Chet Holmgren, who fit stronger two way molds.

But is it reasonable to rate Chet or Jabari as better offensive prospects than Paolo?

Jabari is obviously the better shooter, but he is limited outside of shooting. Notably, he is making 43.5% inside the arc, which is downright pathetic for a 6’10 prospect projected in the top 3. His main issue is that he struggles to create rim attempts, with just 65 of his 239 2PA (27.2%) coming at the rim. Banchero is known to take a high volume of mid-range attempts as well, but he balances this out by regularly getting to the rim where 194 of his 353 2PA (55%) have come. And even though Paolo has taken a far higher volume of rim attempts, he still converts more than Smith at 63.9% vs 61.5%.

People like to assume that Paolo is the worse athlete because he is thicker than Jabari, but in terms of performance, Jabari has shown the much bigger flags relative to lack of athletic pop. Paolo also dunks significantly more often with 38 vs 14 on the season.

Smith Comps?

Both guys have Jayson Tatum as a statistical comparison, but Paolo is the guy where it is easier to buy it as the superior athlete and creator. Smith is leaning heavily on his outside shooting to overcome his lack of first step and creation off the dribble, and the most realistic comps are 6’10 Klay Thompson, Rashard Lewis, Khris Middleton, Danny Granger, Brandon Ingram, and Harrison Barnes. But where is the top 10 fringe MVP candidate upside?

Michael Porter Jr. is a common comparison, as he shares Smith’s dimensions and elite shooting. If you trade MPJ’s interior scoring for Jabari’s better health and defense, they could be of similar value. But MPJ is still developing, who knows whether he justifies his max contract extension for Denver or not. Kevin Durant has 5″ more wingspan (7’5 vs 7’0) and is more athletic, and does not seem realistic or Smith. Dirk Nowitzki is 2″ taller and frankly may be more athletic than Smith as well.

Smith is 6 months younger than Banchero and could blaze his own trail to stardom, but offensive stardom is normally built around an elite creation package where the shooting catches up over time, not the converse. Paolo fits a more traditional NBA star mold, which is why it is so much easier to comp him to past greats.

Given that Paolo likely has an easier path to offensive greatness, it would require high confidence in Smith’s defensive superiority to value him higher. He moves his feet better on the perimeter and it makes sense to give him the edge, but he is not necessarily a stopper nor is Paolo a sieve. Defense is random and difficult to predict, and there does not seem to be a glaring discrepancy between the two defensively like there is in terms of offensive upside.

Smith has a great chance of being a fringe all-star who is useful in any NBA lineup, similar to Klay, Lewis, Middleton, and Granger. His bad outcomes may even be more useful than Paolo’s bad ones– it is difficult to see him being worse than Harrison Barnes, who fits a more useful role than Julius Randle.

But most of the value comes in that star upside, which is quite a bit easier to see in Paolo.

What About Chet?

As elite and productive Chet is statistically, it is impossible to come up with a realistic NBA comp for him because nobody has ever had his physical deficiencies besides Aleksej Pokusevski. Poku has made big strides this year and is rapidly trending toward replacement level player, but his longterm upside is still looking bleak.

Evan Mobley is similar statistically, but he is stronger, more athletic, and did not shrivel up and die offensively when he faced high level athleticism. How did Mobley slide to #3 last year when an emaciated version of himself is projected at #1 this year?

It is ridiculous to fret over Paolo being slightly too thick when plenty of thick players have thrived in all different NBA roles, when relatively Chet is far more skinny than anybody who has had significant pro success, with underwhelming athleticism to boot.

Chet is still a great player and should be valued highly as a prospect since there has never been anybody this good with his flaws to compare to. But it is difficult to see how he should be picked over the guys who are similarly talented and fit more proven NBA molds.

This is an excellent top 3, and one of the most difficult decisions to be made at #1 possibly in draft history. But if we are going to filter it down by who can be compared to the highest tier of past NBA players, we are left with a clear pecking order of:

  1. Paolo
  2. Jabari
  3. Chet

And this is how I would rank the top of the 2022 NBA draft.

2022 Midseason Draft Thoughts

05 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA, Scouting Reports

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

chet holmgren, jabari smith, paolo banchero, zach edey

Here are some preliminary ideas and food for thought, as we still have more info to come and personally I have not watched much film and most of my thoughts are still developing.

At a glance, this draft seems suboptimal to have hot takes, because the big 3 of Chet Holmgren, Paolo Banchero, and Jabari Smith seems to be the correct top 3, and then the draft is dreadfully thin after that. Let’s start by dissecting the top 3.

Chet Holmgren is currently slated at #1 overall, but a quick statistical comparison with a prospect available in round 2 throws cold water on the idea that he is the correct choice:

Prospect A: 21.1 pts 13 rebs 2.8 ast 3 tov 0.7 stl 4.8 blk 75% 2P 3.4 3PA 74% FT

Prospect B: 33.2 pts 16.7 rebs 2.9 ast 3.7 tov 0.8 stl 2.6 blk 70% 2P 0 3PA 67% FT

Both guys 7’+, same age, prospect B tougher SOS by 6 pts/100

Who do you pick?

— Dean (@deanondraft) February 4, 2022

In this case, Chet is Prospect A and Zach Edey is Prospect B, currently slated to go #46 overall at ESPN. Edey is actually 2 weeks younger than Holmgren in spite of being a class higher, and it’s somewhat remarkable that he is rated so much lower.

It is perfectly reasonable to rate Chet higher, as he is the better shooter and shotblocker, and in theory should be quicker as Edey’s huge 7’4 285 pound frame does not typically lend itself to chasing guards around the perimeter.

Chet’s Red Flags

But Chet has concerns of his own, with an outlier poor frame being listed at 7′ 195 pounds. The most physically similar player is Aleksej Pokusevski listed at 7’0 190 pounds, who has not remotely played like an NBA 1st round draft pick through his first 1.5 seasons.

Evan Mobley’s success may inspire Chet’s confidence, but Mobley was listed 20 pounds heavier at 215. Kevin Durant could not bench press any reps at the combine, but he was listed at 204 pounds in college in spite of being 3″ shorter and 1 year 5 months younger than Chet as a freshman. Kevin Garnett (6’11 217) and Chris Bosh (6’10 210) are also examples of skinny bigs who were clearly beefier than Chet.

While there have been plenty of skinny bigs who have succeeded in the NBA, none have been as skinny as Chet and all of them have been significantly more athletic to boot. His physical tools are a major concern that cannot be overlooked.

Further, is he really quick enough to chase guards on the perimeter? Steal rate is far from a perfect measurement of perimeter defense, but it is correlated and he has posted a paltry 1.1% thus far. This is for a Gonzaga team that does not suppress steals against a mid-major schedule. This is how he compares to other recent Gonzaga bigs:

PlayerStl%
Brandon Clarke2.3
Killian Tillie2.3
Kelly Olynyk1.8
Rui Hachimura1.7
Johnathan Williams1.5
Zach Collins1.5
Domantas Sabonis1.2
Przemek Karnowski1.1
Drew Timme1.1
Chet Holmgren1.1

He is stuck at the bottom, which does not doom him for NBA success and still could easily improve with a flurry of steals. But this is further worrisome for a player who already has significant physical flags. If he can be beaten on the perimeter and bullied down low, how much value can he really provide defensively in spite of his rim protection ability?

His saving grace is his 7’6 wingspan that he uses to block shots at an excellent rate. Although it is worth wondering why he can’t use that monster length to reach into the passing lanes and generate more steals.

Can He Score vs NBA Defenses?

Against top 25 kenpom teams per 70 poss:

Prospect A: 14.5 pts 1.5 ast 2.4 TOVs 29.7 FTr 69.6% 2P 4.2 3PA (5 games)

Prospect B: 28.6 pts 1.7 ast 2.7 TOVs 57.1 Ftr 69.3% 2P 0 3PA (6 games)

Prospect A is listed at 7' 195 pounds and Prospect B 7'4 285

How now?

— Dean (@deanondraft) February 4, 2022

Further exacerbating worries is that Gonzaga has largely been beating up mid-major competition. They did schedule 5 non-conference games vs elite high major competition, and Chet’s offensive production fell off a cliff in those games.

Granted, this is a small sample size it and it is far from a death knell. But for a guy with frightening physical flaws, it is somewhat scary to overinvest in his domination of mid-major competition when his offense shriveled up against high major defenses.

For a quick comparison– kenpom splits stats vs. games against top 50 teams. In Chet’s case, this would be the 5 high major games plus a road game at #72 Santa Clara. In this splits, his offense drops from 21.6 usg 128 ORtg 11.5% ast to 18.5 usg, 108 ORtg, 6.2% ast.

If you want to compare it to Mobley, he saw essentially no drop from his 33 game sample of 23.6% usg 119.4 ORtg 14.2% ast to 23.6% usg 119 ORtg 13.1% ast in a 17 game sample against Tier A teams.

Between the splits and physical tools, it is dangerous to group Chet and Mobley too loosely. They are a similar mold at a similar age and both dominated college basketball, with Chet actually posting a higher freshman BPM at 15.6 (thus far) vs 13.7. But he also has more significant warts, which gives him both lower upside and a more significant downside than Mobley.

Holmgren’s overall production is too good to get too low on him because of his flaws. He is long, intelligent, skilled, and efficient, and has clear potential to be a highly useful NBA player. But it is a strange double standard that his weirdness is not adding any negative skew to his draft hype, whereas it is tanking Edey’s stock to the dirt.

Back to Zach

It does make sense that if you have two elite bigs with similar production, the better shooting big that fits a more modern profile in Holmgren should trade over the jumbo big in Edey that seems to be going extinct.

There should be some concern that Edey is merely another Boban Marjanovic, who can post excellent box score stats but is too slow to hang defensively and is ultimately a sparsely used bench player.

He is slow footed and does struggle when matched up with opposing guards, but on the plus side is exceptionally coordinated for his size. Odds are he will be a liability to defend in space in the NBA, but if he is surprisingly passable he can be a big time steal.

He has the same steal rate as Chet this year at 1.1%, but it drops to 0.9% if you include his 18 year old freshman sample. Edey is likely the greater liability on perimeter D, but it is not a lock that he is worse as there are reasons to be concerned about Chet defending in space as well.

Holmgren’s clearest edge is in shooting, as he makes 74% FT vs 67% and attempts 4.9 threes per 40, making 46.8% thus far (which is likely small sample variance). He is a clear favorite to be better here, but again not a lock, as Edey’s FT shooting shows enough competence such that he may develop a 3 point shot in time, and Chet seems like a decent but not great shooter based on 3PA rate and FT%.

Chet’s advantages in shooting, rim protection, and mobility all are fairly important for a modern big, and make it more likely that he can fit into a modern NBA lineup. Edey’s advantages are in areas that are less valued in the modern NBA, such as post offense, post defense, and rebounding (especially offensively). So it makes sense to value Chet higher, as elite production can only be valuable if it fits into an NBA lineup. Even if he loses a bit of value in translation and becomes a Myles Turner, that still beats a Boban who is better at filling up the box score.

But the tricky point is that Chet’s advantages are all small to medium, whereas Edey has some major edges. His offensive rebound rate is more than double that of Chet (19.1% vs 8.2%), and he is the best low post scorer in the history of college basketball. Let’s compare to some past players (per 100 possessions):

ProspectAge2P2PA2P%
Zach Edey19.618.927.070.2%
Shaq18.816.927.262.8%
Blake Griffin19.815.323.365.9%
Zion Williamson18.515.020.174.7%
Jahlil Okafor1914.822.366.4%
Deandre Ayton19.413.120.763.5%
Joel Embiid19.89.615.063.9%
Chet Holmgren19.77.810.475.0%

Shaq was the only one who matched Edey’s volume but had a significantly lower %. He did so at a younger age, but then slightly regressed his next season before heading to the NBA. Zion was the only player more efficient on a reasonably high volume, but he had lower volume and wasn’t really a post scorer.

Then Chet is included to show his excellent efficiency, but his volume is highly underwhelming, especially for a guy whose success has come almost entirely against mid majors.

Obviously Edey is nowhere near as athletic as Shaq or Griffin or Ayton, but he still gets the job done incredibly well. At a certain point it is worth exploring what would happen if you build an NBA offense around him. Even if he struggles to keep up with NBA players in terms of speed, they may struggle even more to slow down his interior scoring.

Edey provides a unique value proposition, and it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where he belongs in the draft. He may be a more awkward fit into NBA lineups than Chet, but he also has more unicorn upside that is worth exploring once the draft board starts to look weak, as it does fairly early this season.

Where Do These Guys Fit Into 2022?

It’s difficult to say because both are so weird, but let’s start with the clearer points that feel less hot take-y.

Paolo Banchero and Jabari Smith are not generational talents, but they are both solid top 2 candidates who would be considered as options at #1 in any draft without a generational talent ahead of them. Paolo is more of a traditional superstar and could be a taller Jayson Tatum or Carmelo Anthony with better defense. He is a surprisingly good passer for such a big and athletic scorer, which makes it unlikely he flops as hard as his fellow Dukie Jabari Parker. He likely has some more boring outcomes like Tobias Harris in his range, but overall he is a fairly comfortable choice at either #1 or #2.

Jabari Smith Jr. is an easier fit into a variety of lineups, as he is an excellent shooter for a 6’10 wing who has more assists than TOVs and a 2.7% steal rate which suggests he can defend the perimeter. He has a few weird hitches in his profile such as an underwhelming 46.6% 2P and 2.8% OREB rate, and he does not have Paolo’s athleticism or traditional star mold. But he can be a player coveted by all NBA teams as a supersized super role playing wing.

Both are perfectly reasonable choices at #1 overall. Right now there is no clear answer. Gun to my head, I would lean toward Paolo as he does not have any funky flaws to fret over, but that may change with more information and a deeper dive into the film.

It is difficult to see how it would be correct to draft Chet over either of these guys, since he has so much weirdness weighing him down whereas the other two guys do not by either traditional scouting or analytics.

Right now, it would seem the safe place to rank Chet would be #3, since his weirdness is concerning, but is difficult to say it is enough to bump him out of the big 3 without much strength in the draft behind him.

If we want to have a hot take that may prove to be fruitful or disastrous in the future, Shaedon Sharpe and Jaden Ivey could both be considered above Chet.

Sharpe is particularly interesting, because he was #1 RSCI in this year’s high school class before reclassifying to Kentucky, and is now somehow 7th on ESPN’s current board in spite of the draft turning anemic after the top 3. #1 RSCI’s bust reasonably often, but they also become stars at a decent rate as well. He has a 7’0 wingspan, and is an athletic finisher with a smooth looking stroke, and could easily be the best player in the class.

He is a bit old for his high school class, being only 2 weeks younger than Jabari Smith, so he also could bust completely. But outside of the top 3, there will be loads of busts and boring outcomes so why not roll the dice on him at #4? Hopefully he starts to play for Kentucky to give a clearer image of what he brings to the table.

The only other reasonable choice at #4 is Jaden Ivey who is fairly similar to Sharpe as a long and athletic SG with a nice outside stroke. His wingspan is not quite as long at 6’10, but he is only 3.5 months older and has more proven production at the NCAA level, so it is reasonable to consider him above Sharpe.

These two are somewhat enigmatic because they could be similar to Donovan Mitchell or they could bust completely. Which is why it feels hot takey to rate them above Chet– their upside is a bit sexier but it can look really dumb if he has a highly useful NBA career and they do not.

After those guys, the draft starts to become truly tragic. Prospects that I would look at in the mid-late lottery include Jalen Duren, Kendall Brown, Trevor Keels, Mark Williams, Dyson Daniels, Keegan Murray, Bennedict Mathurin, TyTy Washington, Kennedy Chandler, Tari Eason, and Walker Kessler.

Jalen Duren has been fairly boring as a freshman, but he is toolsy and only turned 18 in November. His top 2 kenpom comps are Derrick Favors and Andre Drummond, which is something. He likely belongs in the top 10 by default with such thin options on the board.

Kendall Brown fits a nice archetype as a role playing wing at 6’8 with good athleticism, but his offense is a bit too limited to get too excited.

Trevor Keels is fairly boring as an undersized SG with limited athleticism. But he is super young and offers a bit of everything. Pesky perimeter defense, decent enough PG skills, good basketball IQ to limit mistakes, and a passable jump shot that has plenty of time to improve as he does not 19 until after the draft in August. His boringness may cause him to be underrated, but his well roundedness and youth make him an option worth considering in the top 10.

Dyson Daniels is in a similar boat, as he is not particularly athletic or dynamic at scoring, but does a bit of everything as a 6’6″ SG. While he does not share their athleticism, he has been a more productive player for G League Ignite than both Jalen Green and Jonathan Kuminga, and in a weak draft is a reasonable choice in the top 10.

Mark Williams is a nice big man prospect, as he has a monstrous 7’7 wingspan and is fluid, efficient, and a good well rounded basketball player. He is currently projected at #23 overall, and reminisces of past draft steals in the 20’s such as Robert Williams and Clint Capela. So it likely would be a mistake to let him slide to the 20’s in such a poor draft, as he seems to be a clear lottery value.

Bennedict Mathurin is a somewhat boring spot up SG, but he’s decent enough to deserve lotto consideration in this dumpster fire of a draft.

Keegan Murray is a highly productive weirdo. His stats are excellent across the board, but he does not eye test on par with his stats as he is somewhat slow and unathletic, and his defense is not as good as his steal, block, and rebound rates imply. Iowa has had a number of prospects post excellent college statistics without being useful NBA players, such as Luka Garza, Aaron White, and Jarrod Uthoff, because they recruit non-toolsy guys meant to perform as 4 year college players and not be future pros. Murray is clearly the best of the bunch, and he is so productive he deserves lottery consideration. But he also should be valued lower than his #’s to some extent, and it is difficult to place him. He could be a Robert Covington-esque role player that is very useful. I’ll probably stash him somewhere in the lottery and call it a day, but I am currently unsure exactly where to rate him.

TyTy Washington is a sophomore aged freshman who is an incredibly boring mold of undersized SG. But John Calipari has a habit of making future NBA stars seem boring in college, and he is fairly similar to Tyrese Maxey who was underdrafted by the NBA and underrated by myself, so perhaps his top 10 hype will prove to be justified after all.

Tari Eason is a fairly interesting sleeper currently slotted for round 2 at #34 in ESPN’s draft. For a 6’8 wing, he offers a compelling intersection of ability to create his own shot at the rim and make plays on defense, with excellent 3.8% stl 6.0% blk rates. His 71% career FT implies competent shooting, but his 28.4% 3 on somewhat low volume makes his ability to make NBA 3’s look somewhat dicey for a prospect who will be 21 on draft night. He also averages 1.1 assists vs 2.0 turnovers and has a disappointing 6’9 wingspan for a 6’8 prospect, so there are plenty of flags to temper enthusiasm. He has weirdo upside but it is easy to see why NBA teams may be skeptical of drafting him too soon.

Kennedy Chandler is an athletic PG who can get to the rim, create for others, and play pesky perimeter defense with an excellent 4.4% steal rate. But his shooting and efficiency leave quite a bit to be desired for a 6’0 PG, and he rebounds like his size with an anemic free throw rate.

Walker Kessler is a fascinating weirdo. He has an insane block rate, the highest of any NCAA player averaging 12+ minutes per game dating back to 09-10 when it was first tracked. He has also has an excellent steal rate for a big, a hyperefficient 73.7% 2P, a vaguely competent outside shot, and a monster 14.8 BPM which is not too far behind Holmgren or Edey while being just ~9.5 months older. He does not score with great volume and has an anemic free throw rate for his size, but anybody with such monstrous statistical peaks is going to deserve a closer analysis once the draft approaches.

So where does Zach Edey fit in? It’s tough to say. These guys are all more traditional NBA archetypes, but they are all fairly boring. At what point do you pull the trigger on a guy who may make low post scoring relevant in the NBA once again, instead of aiming for a useful role player who likely has limited upside? There’s not a clear answer. It is not completely insane to rank all of these guys ahead of him, but it is insane to rank them and 29 additional guys above Edey as ESPN currently does.

Who is overhyped this year?

Now that we have addressed the players who have shown some level of appeal, let’s now discuss the gratuitous list of guys who have not.

Johnny Davis, ESPN rank: 8th

Davis is in the midst of an excellent season for Wisconsin as he has been their go to scorer for a team with limited offensive talent. He is fairly well rounded too, he rebounds well for a guard, he avoids turnovers, and he is capable of making plays defensively.

But at 6’5 with mediocre length and athleticism, he has an underwhelming physical profile for an underwhelming NBA mold. His top 3 kenpom comps are Alec Burks, James Bouknight, and Jarrett Culver, all lotto picks with collectively underwhelming results. It’s likely safe to call Culver a bust, Bouknight is still early but appears to be on the fast track to busting, and Burks had an acceptable career as a journeyman but isn’t exactly what you hope for in the lottery.

So how much can we realistically expect from Davis? He does enough to have a decent enough career like Burks, but he could also bust. And how much upside is there to be better than Burks when he seems to have a bit less length and athleticism? His main value seems to come from making pullup mid-range jumpers, which is useful on a college team with no other scoring options but for a player with his physical tools in the NBA seems like a limited calling card.

He is still productive enough such that he isn’t that overrated and I would likely rate him in the 15-20 range. But there are more attractive value propositions inside the top 10.

AJ Griffin, ESPN: 11th

Griffin is young and toolsy with a 7’0 wingspan and doesn’t turn 19 until August one day before his fellow Blue Devil Keels. But his problem is that he just isn’t that good at basketball right now.

At a glance his 50% 3P is attractive. But his shooting form does not look all that inspiring, and with a 70% FT it likely is a product of small sample variance.

Offensive he does avoid turnovers well, but he also creates a low volume of offense and is strictly a role player at this stage. And his anemic 1.4% steal rate calls into question whether he can parlay his physical tools into NBA production.

Based on youth, tools, and RSCI he still likely belongs in the top 20, but lottery is a bit much considering how little he brings to the table at this stage. He somewhat reminisces of Tony Snell, who also had a disappointing steal rate for a 7′ wingspan and was mainly a spot up shooter in college.

Snell has kicked around the NBA for 8 years and Griffin’s youth gives him upside to be better, but his common outcomes seem a bit too boring to justify the lottery hype.

Ochai Agbaji, ESPN: 12th

This is the highest rated prospect who simply has no business going in round 1. He is 6’5 with a 6’10 wingspan, and offers little in terms of basketball playing ability other than outside shooting where he is making 46.4% from 3 for the season.

But the issue is that this seems to be almost entirely variacne based, as he has a mediocre 69.6% FT to support it and just 68.9% FT for his NCAA career.

He can create his own shot at the rim in doses, but not so much for a SG who turns 22 in April and is not much of a passer or defensive playmaker. Perhaps he finds a niche as a role playing bench SG, but it is difficult to see how somebody with such few strengths and so many weaknesses belongs in round 1, let alone the lottery.

Marjon Beauchamp, ESPN: 14th

Beauchamp fits a nice 3 + D mold as a 6’7 wing, but he isn’t that good for a guy who is already 21 years old.

He showed promise as a shooter last season for his community college team, making 39.8% 3P on 8.6 3PA/game and 76.8% FT, but in the G League this year he is only attempting 2.8 3PA per game in spite of playing huge minutes at 36.6. In general his offense is limited for his age, with a meager 16.8% usage rate for G League Ignite.

His calling card would need to come on defense, where he has good dimensions at 6’7 with 7′ wingspan. His stocks and rebounding are solid and he is considered to be good on this end, which is why there is at least a case that he isn’t crazily overrated. But you would want to see more offensively for a 21 year old wing before taking him in the lottery.

Jaden Hardy, ESPN: 17th

Hardy entered the season with top 5 hype and has been remarkably bad for G League ignite, as he is essentially a 6’4 one dimensional scorer with terrible shooting percentages, making 40.2% 2P and 26.9% 3P.

He doesn’t offer much in the way of passing, rebounding, or defense, and is pretty much the worst possible NBA mold of undersized and inefficient chucker. The only redeeming quality thus far is that he is 30/34 FT, so perhaps he can be developing into a much more efficient player and become something like an Anfernee Simons.

But man this is such a dreadful archetype to gamble on, especially when there is such little goodness that he has shown for G League ignite. He could eventually justify a first round value, but I wouldn’t want to run a team that rolls the dice on him.

International Love (or lack thereof)

As bad as this NCAA class is, the international class is worse.

There seems to be some bias in drafts that there should be some international player who deserves some hype, so when classes are particularly thin there are some truly dreadful prospects being promoted in round 1.

This year that is exemplified, with 3 players currently slotted in the 20’s undeservedly.

Nikola Jovic, ESPN: 23

If you squint hard enough you can see some case for Jovic being NBA caliber. He is young and does not turn 18 until June, and has a nice intersection of shooting and passing for a 6’10 prospect making 37.7% 3P 75% FT while averaging 3.1 assists per game in 28 minutes for Mega Bemax in the Adriatic League.

But after that everything starts to look like a player who simply cannot hang physically in the NBA. He has dreadful reboundings and stocks, averaging just 4.4 rebounds, 0.5 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game. He is a slow footed and underathletic PF who likely will not be able to guard anybody in the NBA.

Further, his offense is sorely limited beyond his passing and shooting, as he has a meager 44.9% 2P on middling volume, an anemic free throw rate, and is somewhat turnover prone. Consequently, his offense is inefficient and he has a paltry 12.6 PER.

If he was a domestic prospect with better physical tools, he still likely wouldn’t be a first round prospect with all of his flaws but at least it would be reasonable to be more forgiving and give him a chance. As it is, the odds are stacked against him ever becoming NBA caliber, and he should not go in round 1. Perhaps if you want to take a random stash in round 2 he would be fine, which is more than can be said for the other 2 prospects currently slated for round 1

26. Ousmane Dieng
27. Hugo Besson

It’s an exciting time for the New Zealand Breakers, as they somehow have two prospects slated for round 1. If either of them are chosen in round 1, they will have a case for worst round 1 prospect in NBA history.

Dieng’s strength is that he is only 18 and does not turn 19 until May. His weakness is playing the game of basketball, as he has a grotesque -0.1 PER in 181 minutes for the breakers. He is averaging 3.7 points, 2.1 rebs, 0.9 assists, 1.1 turnovers, 0.1 steals, 0.2 blocks with a 27.7% TS.

It is impressive how bad he has been, and it is unclear why he is on NBA radar. He is completely and utterly undraftable.

Hugo Besson has been more productive, but he should be since he is a 6’3 guard with underwhelming athleticism who turns 21 in April. His strength is scoring, as he averages 15.5 pts in 28 minutes with 35.8% 3P and 81.8% FT.

But otherwise his profile looks extremely grim. He is averaging 1.1 assists, 2.1 turnovers, and 0.1 steals, which all are glaring red flags for an unathletic point guard of his age. He is a good shooter, but not an elite one, and it is unclear how he may be able to have an NBA career. He is also completely and utterly undraftable.

Let’s Talk About All of the Little SG’s

19 Monday Jul 2021

Posted by deanondraft in NCAA, Scouting Reports

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

ayo dosunmu, cameron thomas, chris duarte, david johnson, jaden springer, jalen green, james bouknight, josh christopher, keon johnson, Quentin Grimes

This draft seems to have an inordinate amount of undersized shooting guards in round 1, so let’s sort through them:

Jalen Green (#2 ESPN)

2021 NBA Mock Draft 8.0: Jalen Green No. 2, Evan Mobley No. 3 if picks  based on highest upside - CBSSports.com

Green is the headliner of the class, currently projected to go #2 overall with outlier elite athleticism and highlight reel scoring ability.

His big flaw is that he is tiny for a shooting guard. He is listed at 6’6″ for G League Ignite, but so is Jonathan Kuminga. Based on any image of them standing next to each other, Kuminga is at least 2″ taller.

The most recent measurements available from Green came 2 years ago from Nike Skills Academy.

For a quick and dirty estimate, we can compare these measurements of a number of these players to their combine measurements to see how much these prospects grew on average:

If we use the laws of averages from this sample, Green would be 6’4.25″ in shoes with 6’7.5″ wingspan and weigh 180 pounds. That is a small player.

He is 3 months younger than the average player age in the sample, but he is also smaller and it seems less common for little guys to big growth spurts at this age. Further, the only two non-lotto picks from this sample to opt out of measurements were Sharife Cooper and Cam Thomas who measured 5’11.5″ and 6’1.5″ respectively, which indicates that they likely did not have significant growth spurts to show off to NBA teams.

His G League Ignite teammate Daishen Nix measured 6’4.25″, and in photos where they are next to each other it is difficult to tell who is the taller player.

If Green measured a fraction of an inch above 6’5″ in shoes, that would give him the biggest growth spurt in the class, which doesn’t seem likely. And he certainly doesn’t look like he filled out much in terms of strength.

Let’s err on the side of generosity and give him an extra half inch relative to his law of averages dimensions and his listed weight at 180. Here are the NBA players who he is most physically similar to:

HeightLengthWeight
Jalen Green6’4.756’8180
Devin Booker6’5.756’8.25206
Zach LaVine6’5.756’8.25181
Bradley Beal6’4.75″6’8202

He even skews slightly smaller on this scale, as LaVine is 1″ taller and Beal + Booker are significantly beefier. Beal also played much bigger in college, with 4.7% and 18.2% offense and defense rebound rates and 2.6% block rate compared to Green’s 1.9%/11.6% OR/DR and 0.8% BLK.

This trio also indicates approximately the peak of goodness for smaller SG’s. All time greats like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Vince Carter were all listed at 6’6″ with 6’11” wingspans and clearly stronger frames than Green. It doesn’t seem like ~1″ height, ~3″ length, and ~15 pounds of muscle should make the different between all-time great and low end all-star like Zach LaVine, but based on NBA history it seems to have a substantial impact on attainable upside.

James Harden measured 6’5.25″ with 6’10’75” wingspan and 222 pounds, and was a megastud college player who is essentially a point guard in a SG body.

Dwyane Wade measured 6’3.75″ without shoes with 6’10.75″ wingspan and 212 pounds. He was a better college rebounder than 6’11.5″ Kai Jones and is the best shotblocking SG in NBA history, and functioned as much bigger than his size.

Ray Allen was 6’5, and there is no information on his wingspan but he rebounded similarly to Bradley Beal in college and became one of the greatest shooters in NBA history.

Essentially almost every great non-PG at 6’4 or 6’5 both was functionally bigger due to frame + length and played bigger in terms of rebounding and/or shotblocking, and Green fills none of these boxes. This makes his size a major red flag, even with his 99th percentile athleticism.

It makes sense, as these small guys can be bullied and hunted on defense, and by not being a floor general they often need another ball handler on the floor who tends to skew small. And it is difficult to consistently score over bigger players, so there is a cap on scoring efficiency for these little guys.

Athleticism is an extremely important physical tool, but it can only do so much for a player whose size and mold essentially caps his upside at low end all-star such as LaVine or Booker. The optimistic argument would be that Green is better than Zach LaVine at the same age, so maybe he can be better than LaVine longterm and be the best player in NBA history in this mold.

Yet that can all come to fruition and he can still not be a hall of fame caliber player, which is why it is difficult to see the case for him as a top 3 pick.

How Good are LaVine and Booker?

This is especially true when players like LaVine and Booker are extremely difficult to build around. Take the Phoenix Suns for instance–they have built around Booker perfectly, with Chris Paul finishing 5th in MVP voting, former #1 overall DeAndre Ayton blossoming into a quality NBA big this playoffs, and a cast of quality role players with no weak link. Yet they needed heavy injuries to opposing stars to even make the finals, and now that they are here they are down 3-2 with their game 2 win being massively luck driven shooting 20/40 from 3 vs 9/31 from the Bucks in a 10 point win. Game 2 could have easily been a double digit loss with neutral shooting luck.

And while Milwaukee is likely the 2nd best team in the NBA and a worthy champion, Phoenix was able to avoid playing the best team in Brooklyn after injuries to James Harden and Kyrie Irving caused them to fall short to the Bucks in 7.

Phoenix is around the 5th or 6th best team in the NBA and good enough to sniff a title with enough luck on their side. And if they win this year, it will have been due to extreme luck and they will be one of the weakest champions in NBA history.

On the bright side, you could say that Booker is good enough to be the 2nd best guy on a fringe NBA contender that isn’t exactly loaded with star power, and if they had correctly taken Luka Doncic over DeAndre Ayton, they would have enough star power to win it all.

But if they had Doncic and Paul, what is the value of having Booker? If they have the option of a Doncic or CP3 pick and roll, Booker’s ability to score in isolation and make difficult shots is not particularly useful as it is the least efficient option and comes with by far the weakest passing. And it is not worth paying him a max deal to stand in the corner and play like a glorified Anthony Morrow in a 3 minus D role.

This is the problem with this mold. Being small enough to get hunted on defense without being a natural floor general on offense is a massive double hit to a player’s value. Booker is talented enough to be perhaps the 3rd best player on a good NBA champion, but to maximize his value he needs to be taking the most shots, which makes him incredibly difficult to build around. He essentially needs to be surrounded with the perfect blend of role players, and it is difficult to offer him a much better cast than Phoenix has without having star(s) that render his creation ability redundant.

Having a Booker type makes it easier to win 50+ games and be a threat to win a playoff series or two. But if you are picking top 3 and looking to change your franchise’s fortunes and maximize future championship odds, how can you justify taking somebody who maxes out somewhere in the vicinity of Devin Booker’s level? This badly caps your upside with a flawed player who is difficult to build around, while having bust risk just like anybody else.

Are We Sure he is not an Outlier?

Who do you take?

Prospect A: 6'5" 18.9 yrs, 23.3 USG 102 ORtg, 1.9% OR 11.6% DR, 13.5% AST 2.4% STL 0.8% BLK, .365 3P .829 FT

Prospect B: 6'6 18.4 yrs, 24.6 USG 101 ORtg, 4.9% OR 8.7% DR, 13.8% AST 2.3% STL 1.6% BLK, .375 3P .817 FT

— Dean (@deanondraft) July 18, 2021

One final sanity check for Green is to compare his G League #’s to Kobe Bryant’s NBA rookie season. They are essentially the same player, except Kobe is 6.5 months younger and playing in the NBA instead of the G-League. And that is forgetting Kobe being in the minimum tier of dimensions and strength to be a hall of fame SG while Green misses the cut across the board.

Even if they seem close enough physically, Kobe has a sneakily significant size advantage. And that 6.5 month age gap is not trivial either at such a young age.

If Green is an undersized G League knockoff of Kobe, it is difficult to see how that amounts to a top 3 pick.

Granted, he could seem like a fine choice in retrospect if he becomes as good as Booker and LaVine and becomes a low end all-star. And perhaps he develops into a slightly better passer and defensive player than either and is the GOAT score first little guy. There aren’t that many stud athletes who are competent at the G League level at a young age such that we can completely write him off.

But given the limited value of the mold and its difficulty to build around, Green is not a favorable valuable proposition relative to prospects like Evan Mobley, Cade Cunningham, Scottie Barnes, Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, or Alperen Sengun.

Green is still likely the best small SG in the draft, but it is not by as significant of a margin as his consensus rating will have you believe.

The Tennessee Boys: Jaden Springer (#29 ESPN) and Keon Johnson (#9 ESPN)

Tennessee's Keon Johnson, Jaden Springer project as first-round talents

These two share a number of striking similarities. Johnson measured 6’4.75″ with 6’7.25″ wingspan, Springer 6’4.25″ with 6’7.75″ wingspan. Springer is beefier weighing in at 202 vs 185 pounds, while Keon has nuclear powered calves as he smashed the combine record for standing vertical leap by 2″ at 41.5″ with Nick Young and Kenny Gregory being 2nd at 39.5″. This is inflated due to him tanking his standing reach measurement by 3-4″, but the guy can nevertheless jump.

Statistically they also are near twins in many ways:

AgeUSGOR%DR%AST%TOV%STL%BLK%FTr
Keon18.826.84.810.920.722.42.520.409
Jaden18.326.14.610.92420.62.720.44

Springer is 6.5 months younger and had slightly more assists and fewer turnovers, but otherwise they are twins. And if that’s not enough, check their distribution of shots per 100 possessions:

2PA2P%3PA3P%FTAFT%
Keon16.80.4924.10.2718.50.703
Jaden16.30.4754.10.43590.81

Both guys also love to pull up for mid-range shots. It is almost eerie how they are nearly the same exact player, except Springer has more offensive polish, strength, and youth while Keon can jump to the moon.

They should be likely be valued in the same tier, and it is outright crazy that ESPN mocks Springer at #29 currently. He will likely get picked higher in reality.

Springer

Intuitively, the younger guy with more polish seems like he should trade over, but Springer’s creation is very ugly as he relies on heavy dribbling as he bullies his way for incessant mid-range jumpers. Johnson’s creation is ugly too, but if he develops his skills over time, he has the athleticism to blow by his opponents for more easy buckets.

Springer’s ideal path as an NBA player will likely be as a 3 + D role player like Gary Harris who plays as a secondary handler rather than a lead guard. They are similar physically with the only difference being Springer 1″ longer, so let’s make Springer sandwich with Gary Harris’s two college seasons:

AgeUSGOR%DR%AST%TOV%STL%BLK%FTr
Harris18.320.63.76.29.815.22.80.70.298
Springer18.326.14.610.92420.62.720.44
Harris19.325.4410.216.812.73.41.60.312

Springer was the better FT shooter making 81% as a freshman vs Harris 78.8% over two years. But Gary Harris attempted more 3’s at 9.7 per 100 as a freshman and 12.3 as a sophomore, making 37.6%, compared to a measure 4.1 3PA/100 for Springer.

Harris started as a good NBA 3 + D role player until he was plagued by injuries and stopped making 3’s. Ideally, Springer wants to cut out his dribbling for mid-range jumpers and replace them with spot up 3’s, which he should be able to do given his excellent FT% and youth.

Then the question is whether Springer can be better than Harris due to playing slightly bigger at a young age in terms of rebounds and blocks, and if his creation ability amounts to any substantial advantage. It is difficult to have much confidence in his creation, but he is so young it has to be valued as worth something.

In retrospect, Harris was a decent return on a 19th overall pick, and Springer is a slightly suped up version of Harris and it would make sense to value him as a late lottery choice

Johnson

Keon is more complicated to evaluate. Simple logic would be that a small guard with bad offense should not work out most of the time. The bad comp for him is Archie Goodwin:

Goodwin was 0.5″ taller and 2.25″ longer, and a good athlete in his own rite albeit not on Keon’s level of elite athleticism.

AgeUSGOR%DR%AST%TOV%STL%BLK%FTr
Keon18.826.84.810.920.722.42.520.409
Archie18.427.55.610.416.8212.110.594

Granted, Archie slid to the late 1st at 29th overall and perhaps there was good reason for that. He shot 26.6% from 3 and 63.7% FT in college so perhaps GM’s thought his shot was irreparably broken, maybe his athleticism did not inspire enough upside excitement, or maybe they did not believe he was committed enough to work and improve his game to invest a better pick.

If we look at lottery picks, Kris Dunn or Emmanuel Mudiay may seem like reasonable downside comps. Except Mudiay didn’t have a college sample to compare to, and Kris Dunn was an even more limited offensive player than Johnson at the same age posting a similar efficiency (96 ORtg vs 95.5) on a far lower usage rate (16.3 vs 26.8). Dunn was a more natural PG, but because he couldn’t score he wasn’t a much more prolific passer than Johnson with a relatively minor advantage in AST% at 22.8 vs 20.6. Dunn improved substantially from his freshman to junior and senior seasons, but perhaps an elite athlete like Keon Johnson would have as well.

Now if we shift to positive comps, we can start with arguably the most nuclear athlete in the NBA: Russell Westbrook. Westbrook measured 1.25″ shorter but 0.5″ longer. Let’s take his career per 100 possession stats at UCLA because his minute weighted age is similar to Johnson’s:

Age2PA2P%FTAREBASTTOVSTLBLK
Keon18.816.80.4928.585.762.51
RWB1915.20.4916.96.97.34.52.90.3

Russ is clearly a more natural point guard, with a better assist rate, lower turnover rate, and more steals. This is with sharing the load with Darren Collison, and he likely could have done even more playmaking if he had complete control of the offense during his sophomore year.

But Keon played slightly bigger, with more rebounds and blocks, and scored a slightly higher volume, had a slightly higher 3PA rate (4.1 per 100 vs 3.8) and FT% (70.3 vs 68.5). These are relatively small advantages compared to Westbrook’s more natural floor general skills, and it is difficult to imagine a version of Westbrook that is less point guardy but slightly better in other areas would look like. But it would be something, to say the least.

Another comparison may be surprising. Brandon Roy was not drafted until he made significant leaps as a junior and senior, and he measured 1.5″ taller and 0.75″ longer than Johnson. But he had a surprisingly rocky start to his NCAA career that parallels to Johnson. His 224 minute freshman sample was really bad, so let’s compare his sophomore season to that of Keon:

Age2PA2P%FTAREBASTTOVSTLBLK
Keon18.816.80.4928.585.762.51
Roy19.415.80.5057.89.55.94.92.20.7

Roy’s shooting signal looked similar as well, as he made just 9/37 3’s and 72.1% FT in his first two seasons at UW.

His extra SG size cannot be ignored, nor can his massive leap over the two following seasons as well as a better than expected NBA translation. But Johnson is the clearly better athlete between the two, and it’s probably worth something to note that how similar they were at a young age.

The other elite athlete to pop up as a statistical comp is Zach LaVine. LaVine is 1″ taller and longer, and played a different role in college as more of a spot up shooter with Kyle Anderson, Norman Powell, and Jordan Adams leading the UCLA offense. LaVine was arguably the worst player in the NBA as a rookie, but through hard work and elite athleticism he made an all-star team.

Ultimately, it’s complicated for Keon Johnson. On one hand, it seems that his offense is far too inefficient to fit in the NBA as a little guy. But then when you dig through past examples, the high tier athletes who fill up the stat sheet decently enough in all categories like Keon tend to make greater progressions than expected. But there isn’t one truly satisfactory comp to look back on, and it is difficult to envision his NBA role. His size limits his defensive versatility, and while he has some PG skills it is difficult to see him blossoming into a true floor general.

It is difficult to get excited by the idea of drafting him, but it is similarly difficult to criticize the idea of drafting him once the top tier guys are off the board.

Springer is more simple because he has more polish and fits more of a role player mold, and it is easier to see him fitting into an NBA lineup. But he likely doesn’t have the same upside tail as Johnson.

These guys are both fairly weird. It is difficult to say which one should be valued higher with any confidence, as both belong in a similar tier. It seems fair to value them in the back end of the lottery as the 2nd and 3rd best small SG’s in the draft.

James Bouknight #8 ESPN
Quentin Grimes #28 ESPN

Houston's Quentin Grimes Named Finalist for Jerry West Award - American  Athletic Conference

Grimes is 0.5″ taller at 6’5.25″ vs 6’4.75, Bouknight is 0.25″ longer at 6’8.25 vs 6’8, and Grimes has an extra 15 pounds of beef at 205 vs 190 pounds.

Bouknight is rated much higher for his superior off the dribble creation ability, whereas Grimes is more of a pure spot up shooter.

Grimes has had a particularly interesting career arc. He started his NCAA career in Kansas as the #8 RSCI recruit, and after a dreadful freshman year transferred to Houston where he had a solid sophomore season. After shooting a pedestrian 33.3% 3P and 64% FT to start his career, his shooting completely blasted off as a junior making 40.3% of his 3PA on a massive 15.3 3PA per 100 possessions, and backed it up with a 78.8% FT. He also saw significant leaps in rebounds, steals, and blocks.

It is generally prudent to be wary of taking major NCAA leaps at face value due to small sample noise, but then Grimes proceeded to be the best player on the floor in the two combine scrimmages by a comfortable margin.

In two games, he was able to make 9/16 from 3 in 50 minutes of play, as he showed off a lightning fast release to go with good off ball movement and a good step back 3. He also showed off impressive athleticism, a bit more drive and dish game than he did at Houston, and he abused Austin Reaves off the dribble on a couple of occasions. His defense looked solid, he moves his feet well, his frame makes him difficult to push around, and he seems to have decent awareness. Everything about him looked good, and he should find a role in the NBA as a 3 + D role player.

Granted, this was only two games of unorganized basketball, but it appears that Grimes is finally living up to his top 10 recruiting hype. Between his combine performances and RSCI, it seems relatively safe to take his breakout junior season at face value.

Bearing this in mind, Grimes and Bouknight have some interesting similarities in terms of box score production this past season:

AgeOR%DR%AST%STL%BLK%FT%
Grimes20.75.414.112.72.61.10.788
Bouknight20.35.415.112.82.20.90.802

Defensively they both do fairly well for their position, but Grimes eye tests as slightly better and his stronger frame makes him difficult to push around. If one prospect gets a slight edge for defense, it is Grimes.

This brings us to the more complicated offensive comparison per 100 possessions, where we will include Grimes’ sophomore season to get a feel for his junior transformation:

Age2PA2P%3PAFTAASTTOV
Grimes ’2019.711.30.5389.27.45.55
Grimes ’2120.710.90.4115.373.63.4
Bouknight20.318.30.5289.510.33.45.3

As a sophomore, Grimes was more of a playmaker who created more for his teammates and drew more free throws, but still had a fairly high turnover rate for a guy who did not create Bouknight’s scoring. As a junior, he fully embraced his role as a spot up guy and focused on getting as many 3PA as possible.

Bouknight may be best served to make a similar adjustment to his offensive approach. While he is capable of creating his own shot at the rim and finishing, he is not particularly efficient at it as he has a rudimentary handle and is prone to playing slightly out of control.

He nevertheless creates an impressive volume of 2PA that he converts at a good %, but this is largely due to cuts, putbacks, and transition play. If he is collectively creating an extra 7 2PA and 3 FTA compared to Grimes at a higher %, but at the cost of ~2 TOV and ~6 3PA without any additional assists is that really a favorable tradeoff? Do you really want your tunnel visioned and slight framed 6’5″ guard consistently trying to score inside arc against NBA defenses instead of playing within the flow of the offense and getting off a massive volume of 3PA?

It’s a difficult question to answer. Bouknight still is a more natural scorer with a better career FT% than Grimes (80% vs. 70%). And he does play well off ball. If he is willing to transition to more of an off ball player in the NBA, and finds a way to get off a big volume of 3PA, he should surpass Grimes offensively.

Bouknight could also make his shot creation work, but that is an extremely dicey proposition for a guy who had such a poor assist:TOV ratio at age 20 and is merely a good athlete as opposed to nuclear like Jalen Green or Keon Johnson. At this stage, his on ball play is more likely to be a bug than a feature.

Bouknight is a confusing guy, as he does a number of things well and it is easy to see him being useful to an NBA team. But it is hard to see a big upside tail for him, and things can go wrong if he tries to force the issue too much against bigger and more athletic NBA defenders.

Summary

Grimes gets a tiny edge on defense, and has figured out how to play an offensive style tailor made for an NBA role player which makes him a safer bet on offense. Bouknight has more longterm upside on offense, but is currently a chaotic ball of energy that needs to be refined and could prove to be frustrating on that end.

Ultimately, Bouknight is a weird guy who is difficult to pin down. It is difficult to know how his offense will translate to the NBA, and how good he can really be in his best case. But it is tough to see his star upside, and it is unclear whether he is actually a better prospect than Grimes.

The safest thing to say here is– why pick Bouknight in the mid-lottery when you can have Grimes in the late 1st?

I would currently rank these two not too far behind Springer and Johnson as the #4 and #5 SGs in the draft that belong somewhere in the mid-1st.

Josh Christopher (#34 ESPN)

ASU basketball: Josh Christopher declares for 2021 NBA draft

Christopher is the discount version of Jalen Green, as he was the #10 RSCI freshman this past season.

He is not quite the athlete, passer, or shooter that Green is, but he is an impressive athlete in his own rite. You can see the offensive disparity with Green being better across the board in spite of playing the tougher schedule in the G League:

Age2PA2P%3PA3P%FT%ASTTOV
Green18.99.90.5507.30.3580.7863.83.4
Christopher19.110.50.4965.30.3050.82.63.2

Christopher atones by being functionally larger with ~1.5″ more length and ~35 pounds more muscle, and functionally playing bigger:

OR%DR%STL%BLK%
Green1.911.62.40.8
Christopher2.416.22.71.9

Again, not a perfect comparison in terms of league difficulty, but NCAA and G League are close enough such that it seems fair to give Christopher the edge here.

Green’s superior offense and athleticism should weigh significantly heavier than Christopher’s size advantage. But this doesn’t seem like such a blowout to justify the difference between a top 3 overall choice and a 2nd round pick.

Christopher should be valued somewhere in the back end of round 1.

Ayo Dosunmu #32 ESPN

3 best teams suited to pick Ayo Dosunmu in the 2021 NBA Draft

Ayo is a good handler and passer for a SG, and could pass for a big PG as much as a small SG at 6’5″ with 6’10.25″ wingspan.

His limitation is that he is not the quickest or most explosive guard, and could end up getting beat often on defense while struggling to get to his spots offensively.

But he has a nice intersection of size, skill, and athleticism, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him develop into a Spencer Dinwiddie caliber role player. He is worth a shot in the late 1st.

Bones Hyland #30 ESPN

Bones Hyland breaks VCU freshman 3-point record | Plus | richmond.com

Bones is a unique guy. He is an excellent shooter, and is capable of getting off shots at high volume and efficiency. In his two years at VCU, he averaged 13.8 3PA per 100 possessions making 39.9% while backing it up with 82.7% FT, and he also was effective scoring in his one game at the draft combine.

He measured only 6’3.5″ in shoes and weighs 169 pounds, which makes his size a significant concern. But he has a 6’9.25″ wingspan, and excels at making plays with his length to give himself a chance of hanging defensively.

His other concern is that he is not the most natural with the ball for a little guy. When he was asked to increase his usage rate from 21.1 to 28.6%, his assist to turnover ratio took a dive from 1.58 to 0.68. And he did not look particularly better off the dribble in the NBA combine scrimmage.

His flaws are scary, but he has some unique strengths to make him an interesting flier in the late 1st or early 2nd.

David Johnson (#40 ESPN)

Louisville G David Johnson declares for NBA Draft - Card Chronicle

Johnson is only 6’4.75″, but he has a nice 6’10.5″ wingspan to go with a solid frame and good athleticism.

He showed loads of promise as a freshman bench player, including a monster game at Duke. He looked like he may be in the discussion for a lottery pick entering his sophomore season, but he just couldn’t figure out how to do offense as his usage dropped and he saw major declines in his 2P% (54.5% to 42.6%), assist rate (35.9% to 18.8%), and FT rate (.278 to .183).

If there was a glimmer of hope, he did show a capable outside shot making 38.6% from 3 and 70% from FT after looking relatively busted as a freshman.

In the combine scrimmage he showed off impressive passing in his first game but was hesitant to attack off the dribble, and then he didn’t play the second game.

There’s a good chance he can’t handle well enough to make it in the NBA. But if his sophomore season was some fluke affected by COVID, and he figures out his handling, and his shooting comes around, he has a tantalizing combination of physical tools and vision for round 2.

He is a bit of a longshot, but there is some nice home run upside for a 2nd rounder. He is arguably even worth considering in the late 1st.

Cam Thomas #25 ESPN

LSU's Cameron Thomas, Trendon Watford, Javonte Smart earn All-SEC acclaim –  Crescent City Sports

Thomas is a unique guy, as he is exceptionally good at scoring without contributing anything else to the team. He might have the record for the highest ratio of points per game to the sum of rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals of any player who has ever been drafted. Based on a quick and dirty search that is probably not comprehensive, here is a list for comparison from the past 20 years:

ProspectYearPtsRebAstStlBlkRABSRatio
Cameron ThomasFR233.41.40.90.25.93.90
John JenkinsJR19.92.91.20.80.35.23.83
John JenkinsSO19.531.20.80.35.33.68
Jodie MeeksJR23.73.41.81.30.16.63.59
Seth CurrySR17.52.51.50.90.25.13.43
Salim StoudamireSR18.42.32.20.80.15.43.41
Malik MonkFR19.82.52.30.90.56.23.19
Joe YoungJR18.92.81.91.3063.15

There’s a clear brand here– little guys who can shoot and do not much else. Meeks and Curry have had careers as NBA role players so he can be something. But overall this list is fairly weak, and Thomas may not buck the trend as he is probably 6’2 or 6’3″ and one of the worst defensive players in the draft.

His closest comparison is Malik Monk, and he is a slightly worse pull than Monk who was ranked a bit higher RSCI at #9 vs #22 and at least had the excuse that maybe John Calipari was suppressing his numbers, as he showed more hope as a passer and shot blocker.

Thomas does have good wingspan (measured 6’6″ in 2019) and frame and if he does start caring about defense and becomes passable, he can fit in some NBA lineups that have a bigger shot creator as a more athletic Seth Curry. There is something to be said for him to have scored so much as a freshman, and he did so with a microscopic turnover ratio while making 88.2% FT. So he may be a justifiable choice around the turn of round 1.

But it’s just so hard to win with this brand, as historically it either ends in complete bust or flawed bench player, so he probably belongs moreso in early round 2 than late round 1.

Chris Duarte #22 ESPN

Why the Memphis Grizzlies should avoid Chris Duarte with No. 17 pick

Duarte is the senior citizen of the draft, having turned 24 in June.

He fits a nice 3 + D archetype, and he can possibly give whoever drafts him a rotation player for cheap for 4 years as his rookie deal will essentially cover his prime.

But he is so limited with the ball and so low upside, it is difficult to see how he is adequate value for round 1. His best comp is likely Damion Lee who went undrafted and was acquired on the cheap by Golden State, and still was cheap to retain after finding a rotation role.

Searching for a cheap 8th man is such a suboptimal use of a late 1st round pick when there are guys who can be better right away and solid for years to come still on the board.

Duarte did do really well for Oregon and can be a bit better than Lee, and is likely fine in round 2. But capping your upside this badly in round 1 is just wrong. You can find similar caliber pulls to fill out the bench on the scrap heap and aim higher with your first round pick.

Josh Primo #26 ESPN

Primo is very young, not turning 19 until December. But he is also very bad at basketball, and his first round hype is not justified.

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