Tag Archives: Rondae Hollis-Jefferson

2015 Pre-season Rookie Update: #’s 13-40

25 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by in NBA, Scouting Reports

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

13. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (Final Big: 9th, Drafted: 23rd)

RHJ has the best overall tools of any wing in the draft, as he boasts elite athleticism with a 7’2″ wingspan and elite frame. As expected, he badly struggled offensively in SL and pre-season as he’s nowhere near an NBA 3 point threat and doesn’t have the handle to do much off the dribble. After shooting 5/21 from 3 in summer league, he didn’t attempt a single 3 in 85 pre-season minutes, which is a bad sign.

His strengths stood out as much as his weaknesses though: he racked up loads of steals, blocks, and rebounds while posting slightly more assists (27) than turnovers (25) in the combined summer league and pre-season sample. He’s such an elite and versatile defensive player he has awesome upside if he somehow develops a 3 point shot. As it is, he looks like he will be an MKG type with less inside the arc scoring. He has a long way to go to fit in offensively, and Brooklyn is not the sharpest team to put him in a position to succeed on that end.

His tools and defense are so outlier good I remain fond of him. Any level of passable offense can make him a highly useful NBA player.

14. Devin Booker (Final Big: 22nd, Drafted: 13th)

Booker is a weird player to evaluate. He’s one of the youngest players in the draft and could become one of the most accurate shooters in NBA history. But he has not gotten off a huge volume of 3PA in college, SL, or pre-season. He has short arms and his trigger isn’t the fastest, so his volume of 3PA may always be light.

The most interesting comparison for Booker is Arron Afflalo, as they share similar surprisingly low output in 3PA rate, rebounds, steals, and blocks. Booker is a superior draft prospect to Afflalo, and a rich man’s Afflalo is obviously a useful player. It’s just not teeming with upside, and Booker needs to find his calling card to exceed that.

Booker has a surprisingly decent handle, moves reasonably well, and is super young (doesn’t turn 19 until Oct 30) so he has potential to develop a much more diverse and efficient offensive repertoire than Afflalo. Phoenix’s hope is that if he works diligently, he has a sliver of equity to become a Ray Allen or Reggie Miller type down the road. It seems like a long shot since he is currently so far away, but it cannot be completely ruled out since time is on Booker’s side.

15. Frank Kaminsky (Final Big: 10th, Drafted: 9th)

Frank the Tank had a disappointing pre-season, converting just 34% of his 2PA (13/38). This follows a decent but unspectacular 46% (21/46) in summer league. His most common comparison of Kelly Olynyk dominated both samples shooting 67% in SL (34/51) and 57% PS (28/49) as a rookie. These small samples do not mean that Kaminsky cannot be as good or better than Olynyk, but it dims his upside as he should be held to a higher standard than his younger, rawer, and more athletic peers.

16. Sam Dekker (Final Big: 19th, Drafted: 18th)

Dekker struggled to make outside shots in his 148 pre-season minutes, but otherwise performed decently. He should be a nice fit in Houston, as he can play both SF/PF and pairs well with both Howard and Capela as a stretch 4. Also, being surrounded by shooters should help his slashing game as he has the athleticism to get to the rim and the size to finish.

Dekker’s parallels to Chandler Parsons are hard to ignore, as they have similar size and college shooting %’s (Dekker: 59%/35%/70% two/three/FT vs Parsons 58%/34%/61%). The key advantage for Parsons is his PG skills, as he had more advanced handles and a much higher NCAA assist rate. But Dekker is a bit more athletic, and if he develops into a reliable NBA 3 point shooter like Parsons he could become a decent offensive weapon in his own rite.

17. Trey Lyles (Final Big: 15th, Drafted: 12th)

Lyles showed some positive signs pre-season (14/29 2PA and 6 AST vs. 4 TOV), but he struggled in his larger summer league sample and was dragged down by his inability to make 3’s in both samples. After shooting 4/29 from 3 in college, he made just 6/27 in pre-season and summer league and needs significant improvement to justify his lottery selection.

In the instance that Lyles does become an adequate 3 point shooter, he’s an interesting piece. He has a nice first step and handle, and a stretch 4 who can also slash from the perimeter is an intriguing piece. But since he’s not that explosive, he often pulls up for floaters when his drives get cut short. He has good offensive upside, but he still needs a fair amount of polish on that end for a player who will likely be a defensive liability.

18. Cameron Payne (Final Big: 23rd, Drafted: 14th)
19. Tyus Jones (Final Big: 17th, Drafted: 24th)

In the high skill low tools PG category, I could never reconcile how Payne’s stock rose so much higher than Jones. Jones was the #4 RSCI recruit, he won MOP of the final 4, and almost every stat model rated him higher than Payne. Yet Payne went 14th to a team that normally drafts well, and Jones was passed on by a number of good GM’s as he slid all the way to 24th. Payne has slightly better physical tools with 2 inches great length and superior quickness, but he still doesn’t have the body or burst of a prototypical NBA PG.

I believe Payne vaulted ahead of Jones simply because he stylistically looks more impressive. He has a better handle and has more shake to overcome his lack of burst. He can also make a number of difficult shots of the dribble from pull-ups between pull ups, stepbacks, and floaters. Payne also plays with a swagger that is intoxicating to watch when he is running well. In contrast, Jones is more of a steady hand guiding an offense that surrounded him with elite talent. Stylistically he was much more boring, as he thrived off of avoiding mistakes and making open shots.

On one hand, Payne has a bit more meat in his game to build around as a primary ball handler, so his advanced standing may be justified. On the other hand, Jones is 1 year 9 months younger and has time to catch up, and it is possible that Payne earned more attention simply because he has a fun factor to his game that will not translate into NBA success. I am not sure which side of the argument is truer, and neither player received enough playing time in pre-season to shed much light on the subject. This comparison will be interesting to re-visit in a few years.

20. Justin Anderson (Final Big: 18th, Drafted: 21st)

After a terrific summer league, Anderson had a horrid pre-season on the Mavericks’ depleted roster. With a lack of shot creation on the team, Anderson struggled to make 3’s (4/25) and had a poor assist to turnover ratio of 7 to 16. He gets a bit of a pass because the entire team struggled, and he does fit the 3 + D archetype rather well. He isn’t the defensive beast that Rondae Hollis-Jefferson is, but he nevertheless has good D potential and is a much easier fit into NBA offenses with his superior shooting.

21. Kevon Looney (Final Big: 13th, Drafted: 30th)

His injury means no instant gratification but rookies are terrible anyway. He should be worth the wait for the value he provides at 30th overall. His main concern is that his lack of explosiveness and ball handling prevent him from living up to his statistical adoration.

22. RJ Hunter (Final Big: 25th, Drafted: 28th)

Hunter struggled to score in pre-season, but other than that he crushed the eye test. He has a great passing ability, and played good defense for a rookie showing solid fundamentals and using his length to create a whopping 11 steals in 132 pre-season minutes. He racked up impressive steal and block totals playing in Georgia Stat’s zone defense, and it’s encouraging that he has transitioned nicely to man to man at a higher level. Hunter should have a career in the NBA as a prototypical 3 + D wing, and could end up finding rotation minutes as a rookie for the Celtics.

23. Jordan Mickey (Final Big: 38th, Drafted: 33rd)

Mickey has been one of the biggest surprises of the pre-season, leading all rookies in PER. Granted, his 68 minutes largely came against garbage units of the Knicks, 76ers, Nets, and foreign teams, but he looked good and earned praise from Brad Stevens.

Mickey is one of the funkier prospects in the draft– he has excellent quickness, athleticism, and length, and is a good shot blocker. He is extremely versatile and has loads of defensive upside in a scheme that switches heavily.

His problem is that at 6’8″ he lacks height to play center, and he lacks the passing ability and shooting range to play PF. He didn’t show much promise in these areas with 6 assists and 1 3PA in 293 combined minutes between summer league and pre-season. But he did show potential as a pick and roll finisher with surprisingly smooth footwork and finishing, and he also has a respectable mid-range shot. Consequently he  scored with better volume and efficiency than expected in both summer league and pre-season.

Given trends toward smaller lineups and heavy switching, perhaps he can be a great defensive center in spite of his height. His other tools help compensate, and there aren’t many centers who can really punish shorter matchups. His lack of passing and range inhibit his offensive upside and ability to fit in a wide range of lineups, but his strengths are unique and strong enough to overcome his warts. Pair him with a PF like Kelly Olynyk and give him a coach like Brad Stevens and his impact could be surprisingly good. I didn’t think much of him before the draft, but he is quickly winning me over as a second round steal.

24. Jerian Grant (Final Big: 21st, Drafted: 19th)
25. Delon Wright (Final Big: 16th, Drafted: 20th)

As the oldest players drafted in round 1, these players have more pressure to contribute immediately to maintain their value as prospects. Grant was mediocre and Wright was bad, playing a meager 72 minutes while posting more turnovers (8) than assists (7) or 2 pointers made (7).

I liked both pre-draft, but with so many younger players outperforming them they get ticked down a few slots.

26. Terry Rozier (Final Big: 50th, Drafted: 16th)

Rozier is an undersized SG who atones with good length and athleticism to be a pesky defender at both guard positions. He doesn’t have much in the way of PG skills, but he has been more than competent making 3’s at 46% (18/39) between SL and PS. In other words, he’s roughly an Avery Bradley doppelgänger which makes him a puzzling selection at 16th overall.

Danny Ainge gambled on him working hard enough to leverage his great first step into shades of a real slashing game, giving him theoretically high upside. His first step enables him to get past his man, but he doesn’t have the handle or shake to consistently get past the help defense and he often pulls up for mid-range shots when his drive gets cut short. Incidentally his efficiency suffers, as he shot just 33% inside the arc in SL (19/58) and 43% in a smaller pre-season sample (9/21).

This sets him behind Avery Bradley, as he may match Bradley’s mid-range volume at a much lower efficiency. A less efficient Bradley is not a useful player, so Rozier needs to drastically reduce his pull-up attempts and increase his layups to become a more useful player. In theory this is possible, but he looks very unnatural navigating through the teeth of a defense for a 21 year old. It’s hard to envision a good work ethic being enough to turn this weakness into a strength.

I can see Rozier having a decent career in the league, but I just don’t see the upside to merit a 16th overall selection.

27. Norman Powell (Final Big: 33rd, Drafted: 46th)

I rated Norman Powell as one of my top 2nd round sleepers before the draft, and he justified that rating with a great summer league and pre-season. He is a freak athlete with long arms who can get to the rim and play defense. If he ever develops an NBA 3 point shot he’ll be a big time steal.

28. Nikola Milutinov (Final Big: 28th, Drafted: 27th)

I still haven’t seen him play, but the Spurs drafted him– how bad could he be?

29. Larry Nance (Final Big: 32nd, Drafted: 27th)

I’m one of the few people who had him as acceptable value in the late first round, and this is why.

30. Josh Richardson (Final Big: 30th, Drafted: 40th)

I pegged Richardson as a 2nd round sleeper based on his defense, and he was a steal and blocks machine in SL/PS. He’s not much of a scorer, but he moves the ball and if he learns to make NBA 3’s he will have a career as a rotation player.

31. Chris McCullough (Final Big: 27th, Drafted: 29th)

This guy hasn’t played in forever bc of a torn ACL but he was a 5 star recruit who got loads of stocks as a freshman so let’s not forget him.

32. Rashad Vaughn (Final Big: 26th, Drafted: 17th)

The Good: He is super young and can get buckets.

The Bad: He doesn’t do anything else. In 139 pre-season minutes tallied just 9 rebs, 6 assists, 0 steals, and 0 blocks.

His tools are pedestrian with a 6’7″ wingspan and not great athleticism, so it’s hard to get too excited about his one dimensional scoring.

33. Jarell Martin (Final Big: 34th, Drafted: 25th)

Martin missed the entire pre-season with a broken foot. He didn’t seem like a great value at 25th overall to begin with, so it’s hard to feel excited for him. He is athletic and his LSU teammate Jordan Mickey looked better in an NBA system, so maybe Martin translates better than expected too.

34. Montrezl Harrell (Final Big: 36th, Drafted: 32nd)

Harrell was an effective garbage man in SL and pre-season, I’m just not sure how much it matters. He only attempted 1 three in spite of wearing a Houston uniform, and he doesn’t have the defensive aptitude to play center. I don’t see how he he fits next to Howard or Capela, so this was a semi-odd pick to me. I suppose Morey just decided to draft his top player and sort out the details later.

35. Richaun Holmes (Final Big: 37th, Drafted: 37th)
36. Pat Connaughton (Final Big: 44th, Drafted: 41st)
37. Cedi Osman (Final Big: 48th, Drafted: 31st)
38. Arturas Gudaitis (Final Big: N/A, Drafted: 47th)
39. Christian Wood (Final Big: 25th, Drafted: undrafted)
40. Branden Dawson (Final Big: 27th, Drafted: 56th)

Here are some guys to round out the top 40 since 34 is a weird amount of prospects to rank. Christian Wood might make the 76ers’ roster to the delight of draft nerds, as bad interviews caused him to go undrafted in spite of a profile that made him a clear 1st rounder.

Advertisement

Who Is The Andre Drummond Of This Draft Class?

04 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by in NCAA

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Andre Drummond is quickly becoming a classic example of a player whose RSCI rating seems to be more indicative of his pro value than his freshman performance.  Whenever a highly touted freshman underwhelms and his draft stock drops, it’s fair to posit whether that player might experience a career arc similar to that of Drummond.  Drummond is an outlier in that his circumstances that caused him to become so undervalued will likely not be replicated, but it is worth trying to learn from his situation to look for signs in 5 star recruits before souring on them too quickly.  So first I’ll walk through the qualities of Drummond that caused him to slide and how that changed in the NBA.

1) Unfavorable Circumstances
Drummond joined his UConn team late, and then coach Jim Calhoun was suspended for the first 3 games of the Big East season and later had to take a leave of absence for health reasons.  It is difficult to estimate the level of impact these circumstances had on Drummond’s performance, but it is easy to see how they may have been harmful.  Perhaps he would have gotten off to a hotter start if he had more time to prepare with his team in the offseason, perhaps he would have had a stronger finish if Calhoun was healthy and present to offer feedback on Drummond’s non-conference performance.

2) Trimming The Fat
One of Drummond’s greatest warts was his 50.9% TS, which is appallingly low for a man with his size and athleticism.  Yet as an NBA rookie he was able to skyrocket his TS to 57.8% without seeing a drastic drop off in his usage rate (21.7 > 17.2).  How is such a thing possible in a single season after the huge increase of level of competition?  Drummond simply stopped trying to score away from the hoop.  As a college freshman he shot 130/185 at the rim and 27/107 away from the rim.  As an NBA rookie he shot 204/318 at the rim and 4/24 away from the hoop.  This simple tweak had a huge impact as it increased Drummond’s eFG from 53.8% to 61.0%.

3) College Defense
UConn entered the season ranked #4 in the polls and 6th by kenpom.com, then losing in the first round of the tournament as an 9 seed.  They finished as just the #41 kenpom team with the #65 defense.  So it is easy to blame some of the disappointment on Drummond and assume that he did not make the expected defensive impact.  But at a closer look, he seemed to do quite well.  He had more than twice as many blocks as any of his teammates, and UConn finished the season with the lowest opponent FG% at the rim in the country.  They finished with the 3rd lowest 2p%, and the 5th lowest FT:FGA rate, all of which are excellent and largely attributable to Drummond who finished with more blocks than fouls.  UConn did have plenty of other size and athleticism, but their weaknesses came from poor perimeter defense, as they finished with the 319th defensive TOV% and opponents hit 34.4% of 3’s on above average volume.  Of course sacrificing in these areas makes it much easier to dominate paint defense, but the fact remains that the team succeeded in the areas where Drummond was expected to make an impact barring one:

4) Defensive Rebounding
Defensive rebounding is much more difficult to predict than offensive rebounding since it is largely context dependent, but Drummond’s turnaround is astonishing.  UConn had the 276th best defensive rebound% in the country and Drummond corralled just 15.5% of d-rebs, and then went on to rip down 27.2% of defensive rebounds as a pro.  Given his 14.2% o-reb rate in college, we shouldn’t be surprised that he upticked defensively as a pro but I am not sure that there was any signal that he would start pulling them down at nearly double the rate.  Perhaps this can be attributed to good scouting by the Pistons, perhaps it can be attributed to bad luck or bad assistant coaching at UConn.  But it is nevertheless an outlier event that gave Drummond a nice value spike as a pro.

5) Passion Questions
After Drummond’s somewhat underwhelming freshman year, scouts started to question his passion for basketball.  His explanation was that he simply was not the type to go out and beat his chest, but he nevertheless loved the game of basketball.  Whether it was a poor inference from observers or NBA money ignited his passion, it seems to not be a problem as a pro.

Now let’s look at some of the top freshman and see whether any similar circumstances may apply.

Andrew Harrison: Do any of these conditions apply to Harrison?  No, they do not – he is merely horrendous at the game of basketball.  We can safely move along.

Jabari Parker: He was likely in the best scenario of all freshman as he was able to play the 4/5 for Duke.  This was healthy for him in almost every regard since he was constantly surrounded by ball handlers and shooters and finished with more blocks and rebounds that he would have surrounded with more size.  That said he exceeded expectations so it is difficult to gripe.

Julius Randle: His coach normally sets up players for the pros quite well, his defense was horrendous, his defensive rebounding was top notch, and his passion seems to be present.  The one area where he may gain is from (literally) trimming his fat and slimming down physically.  Also he has trimmed a bit of turnover fat down the stretch which is encouraging.

Zach LaVine: None of these conditions apply to him, although his circumstances were unfavorable in a different way since he was buried behind superior players and seemed to have a poor relationship with his coach.  Perhaps he has more to flaunt than he was permitted to show at UCLA, so he may exceed expectations in a different way than Drummond.

Andrew Wiggins: People want to blame Wiggins’ lack of dominance on Bill Self, which is silly.  What is most important for Wiggins is that Kansas played an up tempo style and capitalized on his sole offensive strength: transition scoring.  The only unfavorable aspect for Wiggins is that he was surrounded by mediocre guards and spacing, which was certainly sub-optimal.  But I do not believe that this had a high leverage impact on his performance given his lack of offensive skills in the half-court.  And it is worth noting that Self has made past players such as Ben McLemore, Thomas Robinson, and Cole Aldrich look like college studs and consequently over-inflated their draft stock.

Kansas had their worst defensive season under Bill Self’s tenure, and that seems to be everybody’s fault but Wiggins.  Embiid was inexperienced and played a lower minute total than prior rim protectors Jeff Withey and Cole Aldrich.  The defense suffered with Embiid out and Wiggins appeared to be the only good defensive guard/wing on the roster.  I believe his NBA defensive projection is often overstated but he did perform well on this end in college.  And since all of his competent teammates were bigs, he was rarely used as a small 4 and may be slightly underrated by his d-reb% among other stats.

Wiggins does have questions with respect to his passion.  According to DraftExpress, from age 17 to 18 he grew an inch without gaining a single pound.  This would not be a big deal if he had instead focused on developing his skills, but they too are less developed than scouts had hoped they would be by now.  In tandem these are red flags that call his work ethic into question.  But the flip side is that perhaps he will put passion questions to rest by significantly improving his work ethic given the allure of NBA money.  This is the area in which he has the most potential to mirror Drummond.

Overall I do not believe that Wiggins has a boatload of Drummond equity, but he isn’t completely bereft of it either.

Aaron Gordon/Rondae Hollis-Jefferson: I am grouping these two together because all conditions apply identically to them.  These two players likely have the most fat to trim offensively because they threw up so many bricks from midrange.  Gordon shot 129/177 at the rim and 44/160 on non-rim 2’s.  RHJ shot 83/113 at the rim and 36/124 on non-rim 2’s.  I am fond of Sean Miller and think he is one of the best college coaches in the country, but he has an curious willingness to permit his players to fire away from midrange.  Their top 6 rotation players all took at least 40% of their FGA from midrange, well above the NCAA average of 29.3%.  I have questioned Gordon’s BBIQ for his shot selection, but at a closer look it may simply be a byproduct of coaching.  Granted, this doesn’t entirely parallel to Drummond as it is much easier to operate strictly around the rim as a center than it is as a forward, but both players can see nice efficiency upticks by passing up long 2’s more frequently.

Gordon and Hollis-Jefferson also deserve a ton of credit for Arizona’s leap defensively.  After swapping Mark Lyons, Solomon Hill, and Kevin Parrom for them and TJ McConnell, Arizona spiked from the #47 kenpom defense to #2.  And while the departed players were better offensively than defensively, Arizona only dropped from the #10 offense to #20.  It helps that players such as Nick Johnson and Kaleb Tarczewski had an additional year of seasoning, but Gordon and Hollis-Jefferson played large roles in Arizona having one of the more dominant defenses in recent memory.  They simply did not allow easy shots, boasting the best defensive eFG% in the country.

I would rate Gordon as superior to Wiggins in terms of NBA defensive potential, as he anchored a truly dominant defense.  Give Sean Miller credit for maximizing his talent, but this was by far his best defensive team ever.  Gordon appears to play defense with more intensity than Wiggins does, and while he may not be as fast or quick, he is much stronger.  It is simply much easier to feel great about the player(s) who led a coach’s all-time best defense over one who led a coach’s all-time worst defense.

Overall I’d say Gordon (and on a slightly smaller scale, Hollis-Jefferson) clearly has the most Drummond equity of any freshman in the class.  It isn’t a perfect parallel as shooting is more important for wings and defense is more important for centers.  Even if he mirrors Drummond’s arc, the impact will be lower leverage.  Again, this goes to show that Drummond is a unique case, so optimism for 5-star freshmen making huge rookie rebounds should always be tempered.  But considering both his strong finish to the season and his potential for further upticks, I am quickly reversing my stance on Gordon and once again believe he merits a top 10 pick.