Tag Archives: Zach LaVine

Summer League Scouting: The Rest

20 Sunday Jul 2014

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I already wrote my detailed scouting reports on Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Doug McDermott, and TJ Warren as those were the players I felt I got to know the most intimately in Las Vegas. But I watched enough of other players to have observations I’d like to share.

Zach LaVine

Of all the players I was bearish on, Zach LaVine appears to be the strongest bet to prove me wrong. He was a mystery box that I assumed contained nothing substantial, but now that we got to see him run an offense and play man to man defense, he demonstrated much more ability than I anticipated.

In the first game, it stood out that Gal Mekel tried to drive past LaVine on 3 occasions and couldn’t get by once. I wasn’t sure whether to be sad for Mekel or happy for LaVine, but then Mekel blew by Glenn Robinson and got to the rim 3 times in a row. Even though Robinson is a SF, he’s not athletically challenged. Then Mekel tried to go at LaVine one last time, put a nice crossover on him and tried to shift directions a couple of times, but LaVine diligently shuffled his feet and forced him into a tough fadeaway jumper that badly missed.

I expected LaVine to be clueless on defense due to bad high school and college steal rates. He finished with 4 steals in 5 games, and 2 of them showed quick hands to strip the ball that you never see from McDermott or Randle types. I don’t think his defensive instincts are that bad, he just didn’t get many steals because he doesn’t have long arms and he is rail thin (I am starting to believe strength plays a significant role in steals). He still can’t fight through a screen to save his life and doesn’t always seem certain of where he’s supposed to be on defense, but he definitely showed enough potential to make me believe he can possibly become a positive on this end.

Offensively, we finally got to see LaVine run an offense and it wasn’t too bad. He doesn’t seem like a natural PG, and in the first game he appeared uncomfortable whenever Dee Bost applied pressure. He also isn’t the best passer, as he doesn’t see the floor all that well and he didn’t appear to be particularly accurate with his passes. But once he settled in his handle didn’t look too shabby, as it was good enough to get him wherever he wanted to go with his elite explosiveness and quicks. The issue was that it’s difficult for him to get off passes in the post because of his short arms, and he struggles to finish due to his lack of strength, so he was fairly reliant on his jumper and free throws. But he did a couple of shots to go at the rim when he found daylight, including some highlight dunks. His feel for the game didn’t look great, but at the same time it was much better than expected for a guy who hasn’t run an offense above the high school level. It will be interesting to see how much he can improve with hard work and repetitions. His final counting stats weren’t too shabby for such a raw prospect: 15.7 pts 2.8 asts 3.3 tovs in 6 games– his turnover rate is especially mild given all of the slashing, passing, and scoring LaVine was asked to do given his age and experience.

LaVine is pretty much Nik Stauskas if you traded a healthy portion of skill and feel for elite quickness and explosiveness. Stauskas was a lower RSCI recruit than LaVine who rose due to working diligently on his skills and body. I now understand why LaVine wasn’t top 50 RSCI: there’s a bias toward players who dominate high school due to physically developing sooner such as Jabari Parker, Shabazz Muhammad, and Julius Randle. LaVine’s rail thin frame is still a concern, as he is uniquely underweight and may never add enough muscle to accomplish much inside. But I get the impression that he is taking his NBA career seriously and is going to work hard and listen to his coach (if only his coach wasn’t Flip Saunders). I don’t know how high he’ll peak or if he’ll even necessarily become good, but he inspired a ton of hope in Las Vegas and he shot up my rankings. I feel he justified his lottery selection.

Dante Exum

Exum looked awesome the first game, as he was getting to his spots offensively, dishing beautiful passes to his teammates, and protecting the ball with just one turnover. I don’t know if he was feeding off of the crazy pro-Utah energy (the crowd was going crazy over every tiny pro-Jazz event) or if he faced a horrible defense, because he completely disappointed in the following games.

He still showed good quickness, good vision and passing ability, and playmaking instincts defensively to suggest that he has plenty of upside. He is young and toolsy enough such that he didn’t need to have a great summer league. Frankly he looked uncomfortable adjusting to the higher level of competition after not playing above Australian HS level for the past year. It would have been nice to see him show some progress toward the end, but maybe he just needs to get repetitions and work on dribbling with his left hand. Also it appears his conditioning may be a bigger issue than expected, which explains why he conserved so much energy on defense in high school.

His defense looked as bad as anticipated and he couldn’t buy a bucket in the paint over length. He had some sexy finishes in FIBA, but it’s possible that he can’t consistently finish at the rim off the dribble in the NBA.

Altogether there is nothing about his summer league that suggests irreparable flaw or makes his upside unattainable. But he could have shown more and we do need to brace for the possibility that this mystery box does not contain a boat. I don’t drop him heavily though, he’s still top 5 to me.

Julius Randle

I like the way the Lakers were using Randle. He often slashed from the perimeter, where I felt he was at his best in college. And unlike Jabari and Wiggins, he doesn’t attack exclusively for himself, as he makes a conscious effort to create to teammates. I don’t think he sees the floor all that well, but he is mindful of where his teammates are hanging out and he tries to dish to them when he can. He had one excellent pass where he threaded the needle inside and created FT’s.

And even though he’s bad on defense, it’s not because he doesn’t care. He shows competitiveness on this end, he just is naturally bad at it due to short arms, lack of burst, and slow reactions. I think this is just a killer triumvirate of weaknesses, but he works hard and he can at least become good man to man with his quick feet and great strength.

Randle is definitely less talented than Wiggins and Parker but it feels like he’s on a better developmental path than either of them. I’ve always had the impression that he really does want to be good at as many things as possible to win, and he will sacrifice touches and shots for the good of the team. He still doesn’t naturally play efficiently, and he struggled to finish some of his postups which involved a bit too much dribbling. But he still is so good at finishing circus shots that his shooting percentages didn’t look horrible at the end of the day.

I think he has an uphill climb to become great and I will always perceive him as an underdog in spite of his recruiting ranking and draft slot. I could see him overachieving my expectations for him through hard work and adaptability. It will be interesting to monitor Randle vs. Parker– I feel that Parker has naturally sharper instincts, but Randle is more in tune with the overall health of the team, but they are otherwise largely similar players.

Tyler Ennis

Ennis was a disappointment for me. I didn’t watch a ton but from what I can tell he’s too slow to get to the rim and could only get close enough to get off floaters. He made some sharp passes and showed quick hands that suggest he might have had a good steal rate even without the zone. Also he might be much better in the NBA since he was awful against bad teams his first few college games before everything clicked. But I might just have been too much of a sucker for cerebral PG’s and need to upgrade the value of athleticism + quicks for the position. I can still see him as a Mark Jackson type.

Rodney Hood

I didn’t like Hood as a prospect at all, but he had a solid showing in Vegas. His offensive package isn’t shabby: he makes 3’s, he sees the floor, he passes well, he can exploit mismatches to get to the rim with his decent athleticism and handle, and he doesn’t force the issue and make mistakes. That’s a solid supporting role player, and 11 assists vs 5 turnovers is nice. If he could even be neutral defensively I’d say that’s a solid pick in the late 1st. Unfortunately given his poor strength, short arms, and bad instincts defensively I still think he’ll offset the good but not great offensive skill set. But who knows, maybe he’ll overachieve enough on both ends to become an alright role player.

Kyle Anderson

I am big time disappointed in Kyle. He couldn’t get to the rim and finish, he couldn’t get to the line, he didn’t rebound, and he didn’t get many assists because he couldn’t get to his spots offensively. Further when he played Utah, Rodney Hood absolutely abused him and was able to blow by him at will. Against New Orleans there were 2 occasions on which Kyle was near the rim but didn’t rotate to help, although on one occasion he reached in to commit a weak foul and got pulled. I have heard that he did well defensively against some of the other top players, but whenever I happened to notice he was not getting to the rim and not doing anything of value on defense.

The slomo nickname is all fun and games until Kyle actually needs to match up against NBA athletes. He’s the smartest player in the draft, but smarts won’t be enough when he’s weak and slow and going up against elite athletes. He was drafted to the best possible situation to succeed, but I’m starting to fear he’s just a bit too slow and lazy.

Bruno Caboclo

Caboclo’s rawness was on fully display with his 2 assists and 18 turnovers. He didn’t seem to be that sure of where he was supposed to be defensively when I watched either. His rawness is a thing, his feel for the game is a work in progress. But it’s still easy to see why he was such a tantalizing prospect: just look at those arms and his shooting touch. He had one possession where he splashed a stepback 3 and it looked especially nice. Near the end of a half he was standing covered in the corner and caught the ball, fired, and hit at the buzzer. It’s such a broken weapon if he can get off corner 3’s whenever he wants– there was no off ball movement necessary to create that shot. He might not be good at all, but his upside is obvious so I can’t hate on the selection.

Parsing Through The NCAA Prospects: Part 4

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Commentary on a handful of Round 2 prospects who I skipped in the NCAA parse

Rim creation stats

Zach LaVine
The funny thing about LaVine is that it seems HS scouts rated him accurately as the #52 recruit in his class, and then when he went to college it was decided that he should now be a lotto talent because he can jump through the roof. His steal rate, assist rate, and half-court rim creation stats are all poor and I don’t see a single statistical signal that he has nearly the upside that draft narratives suggest. Further he seems to be a skeptic that 3 > 2, as his favorite move is to catch the ball behind the arc, take a few dribbles, and then launch a long two with his foot on the arc.

He seems to think he has PG skills that he wasn’t permitted to display at UCLA because Kyle Anderson was the primary PG and the coach’s son Bryce Alford was the backup. If he has a world of skill that somehow went completely undetected during his time at UCLA and he also develops well, then maybe he will one day justify the hype. But for now I’m rolling with the more likely conclusion that he’s a leaper who can shoot but lacks the skill and smarts to succeed in the NBA. I think he’s an early 2nd round flier.

Adreian Payne
He seems to be the prototypical stretch 4 from a scouting perspective- he has good height and length for a PF, he makes 3’s, he rebounds, he has the athleticism to finish in the paint, and he seems to have a shot of being competent defensively. This has earned him an invite to the green room and chatter as a fringe lottery pick. But every statistical model I have seen grades him as a mid-late 2nd rounder.

Issue #1 with Payne is that he doesn’t have the steal or block rates to exist as a rim protecting center. Issue #2 is that he has a dreadful assist to turnover rate in spite of being exceptionally old. This doesn’t quite strike me as a death knell, but his horrible passing may completely nullify his ability to fit in offensively as a stretch 4. I still have a bit of skepticism toward his ranking in statistical models, but I see why they would dislike him enough to have a bit more skepticism toward his 1st round ranking. I have him as an early 2nd.

Jerami Grant
I don’t think he should be a 1st rounder. His tools give him upside to be pretty good defensively on the wing once removed from the Syracuse zone, but he simply doesn’t have the skill level to play offensively on the wing in any capacity. He doesn’t even have good skill level for PF, where he is likely too small to play regularly.  I’m not sure how he finds a niche in NBA lineups.

Russ Smith
Russdiculous has made an incredible transformation from his sophomore season when he was an inveterate chucker. Since then he has vastly improved his shooting ability, PG skills, and shot selection to become one of the best players in the NCAA. He is likely too old and small to have much upside, but he makes up for his size with quicks, speed, and quick hands to force a high number of steals in Louisville’s press. He somewhat reminds me of a poor man’s Kyle Lowry. While he almost certainly won’t become nearly as good as Lowry, I believe he’s a solid 2nd round flier.

Nick Johnson
He’s a dreaded SG in a PG body, which is never good for draft stock. Further he doesn’t have an exceptionally high skill level for a 21 year old SG, as both Layne Vashro and Kevin Pelton grade him as a late 2nd rounder based on stats. But I think he has a niche in the NBA anyway as a 3 + D PG. He is an explosive athlete with solid quickness, and he was one of the best defensive guards in the NCAA this past season as he played a key role in Arizona’s super elite defense. There’s such an influx of big PG’s who can cross match with SG’s, I think he’s a good player to target in round 2 if you can pair him with a Michael Carter-Williams or Dante Exum sized PG.

Chris Udofia
A largely unknown prospect who ranks 17th according to VJL’s EWP model. Udofia is an interesting case– like most of the Denver team, he rocked as a junior and then regressed as a senior. Vashro uses a 60/40 weighting, so his junior season plays a big role in his EWP score. Denver runs a unique offense with heavy emphasis on passing and 3 point shooting as they rated top 2 in assists:FGM and top 20 in 3PA:FGA in each of the past two seasons. Defensively they gamble for steals (I don’t know their precise scheme but his steal rate certainly comes with a grain of salt). Both their offensive and defensive 2p% fell off a cliff from 2013 to 2014, as they dropped from the 53rd kenpom team to 143rd in spite of retaining much of their rotation. I don’t know the precise cause, but suffice it to say that Denver is not a run of the mill mid-major team. Further, Udofia played as an undersized 6’6″ center, so there were a number of factors aligning in his favor to post statistics that overstate his talent level.

That said, I’m not completely writing him off. He has a 7’2″ wingspan and appears to be quite explosive based on his block rate and dunk reel. He posted an excellent assist rate playing in Denver’s ball movement offense, which inspires hope for his ability to convert to NBA SF. His shot is a flaw as he only made 29% 3’s and 65% FT’s for his college career, but if he can make a late leap in his shooting ability he may be a round 2 steal.

Dwight Powell
Powell is old and lacks length, athleticism, and consistent 3 point shooting.  All of these things make him not really worth a 1st round selection, as it stacks the odds of him becoming a good NBA player against him.  But he’s a good passer for a big man and is fairly athletic and mobile.  His shot isn’t completely broken, so if he can develop into a capable NBA floor spacer then you have an interesting stretch 4.  I like him as a 2nd round flier.

Scottie Wilbekin
It’s a bit surprising that he isn’t generating any buzz as a 2nd round draft pick.  He was perceived as the leader of the #1 overall seed in the tournament and played quite well en route to the Final Four.  Granted he struggled badly in an upset loss to UConn, tallying just 4 points 1 assist and 3 turnovers.  But based on his college reputation you’d expect him to rank higher than 74th on Chad Ford’s big board, and he’s not even in DX’s top 100, as he’s only their 50th best senior.  I imagine the issue is his lack of length (6’3.25″) and bulk (168 lbs), but those critiques also apply to Shabazz Napier and Wilbekin is 1.75 inches taller and more athletic.  He’s young for his class and does a little bit of everything.  Layne Vashro rates him as the #35 NCAA prospect and Kevin Pelton rates him as the #27 overall prospect.  Given that he was a good defensive player at the NCAA level, I would say that’s enough to make him worth a 2nd round flier.

Khem Birch
It seems stat models have Birch pegged as a second round sleeper, but I don’t share their enthusiasm. He is underskilled for a center, as his offensive repertoire is limited to offensive rebounds and dunks. He can’t pass and he can’t create his own shot at the rim. His 69.3% FT as a junior gives some hope for his shot which is instantly crushed by him shooting 20/75 (26.7%) from mid-range.

To make matters worse, he is undersized for a PF at 6’9.25″ with a 7’1″ wingspan while weighing a paltry 209 pounds. Not only does his size cast doubt on his ability to translate his gaudy block rate to the NBA, but how in the world is he ever going to have enough skill to fit in offensively at PF? He is far too small to play center full time.

Birch strikes me as a cut and dry case of somebody who is built to dominate NCAA and then not translate to the NBA due to his lack of size. You can give his stats enough regard to take him somewhere in round 2, but he’s a run of the mill flier as opposed to a compelling sleeper in my book.

Rodney Hood
I took a cautious approach to writing about Hood earlier in the season. After a full season of observation, there is no need for caution. The guy has mediocre tools and is a complete trainwreck defensively. He had poor steal and block rates, and he was regularly faked out and blown by. He was likely the worst defensive player on Coach K’s worst defensive team that I can remember. Offensively he’s a good shooter and has solid feel for the game as he passes well for a SF. That’s not nearly enough for a 21 y/o with lackluster tools who is lock bad on defense, at best he’s worth a late 2nd round flier.

Cleanthony Early
I honestly can’t fathom how he turns out to be useful as a pro. In spite of being 23 he’s a horrible passer and couldn’t even create shots at the rim playing in the Missouri Valley Conference. He doesn’t have a good steal rate, he doesn’t eye test well defensively, and he’s obviously too small to play PF full time.  He can shoot and he can jump but at age 23 you need more going for you than that to succeed in the NBA. I don’t see how he’s draftable. He is extremely fortunate that he had the game of his life when everybody was watching vs. Kentucky to generate all of his draft hype.

Sim Bhullar
Nobody wants to talk about the New Mexico State giant, but I do.  He’s probably a stiff, but I think people are too quick to assume that he can’t be useful.  The man is 7’5, he doesn’t need to have a world of talent to become a useful rotation player.  He weighs 360 pounds and there is clearly quite a bit of room to improve his physical profile.  Why not take a flier in the back end of round 2, try to get him on a dietary program to see if he can trim down, and then see what happens?  He claims he has lost 17 pounds in the past month which isn’t a bad start.

Also I am not totally convinced that he’s a stiff.  I watched about one half of New Mexico State basketball in the NCAA tournament vs. San Diego State, and I was surprised to see Bhullar make a graceful catch and finish on a long outlet pass in transition.  Layne Vashro’s EWP stat model rates him as a late 1st rounder, although it’s possible that the Bhullar ranking is broken by his outlier height as EWP also rated Shawn Bradley as a historically great prospect.  There’s nevertheless enough to like here such that I’m at least intrigued to see if he can become something if he trims down.

Zach LaVine Declares

28 Friday Mar 2014

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Earlier today, Zach LaVine decided that he isn’t particularly fond of playing for Steve Alford at UCLA and declared for the NBA draft.  LaVine’s primary qualms with Alford were that he was not entrusted with enough ball handling duties, and that he did not receive enough feedback from the coach.  So instead of spending another season at Alford’s whim, LaVine decided to test the NBA draft waters.  I strongly agree with LaVine’s decision to leave for a number of reasons.  NBA teams are going to offer players superior development in general, and that’s doubly true for LaVine based on his role at UCLA and reported relationship with Alford.  Further, he has the hype to go in round 1 based sheerly on potential, and it would have been an uphill climb to elevate his draft stock any higher.  I believe his stock would be more likely to plummet if he stayed in school, so it’s best for him to get guaranteed money while he can.

As for his NBA prospects, scouts are high on him for precisely two reasons: he can make 3’s and he can jump through the roof.  Having both traits is a sure way to become overrated by scouts, as both are immensely valued and do not come in tandem exceptionally often.  The hope would be that he develops his passing and ball handling to become a versatile offensive threat, and that he develops his defensive acumen to become an athletic stopper as a 6’5 combo guard.  It is easy to imagine this developmental when these two strengths jump out in your face by watching him.  The more subtle skills such as handling, passing, and rim touch are more difficult to assess, as are quickness and defensive instincts on the other end.  But before we get too excited for his NBA prospects, it is worth exploring where they may lie based on available info.

Chad Ford emphatically kicked off the Zach LaVine hype machine after his hot start in non-conference play, rating him as a top 10 pick and noting that scouts perceive him as “Russell Westbrook with a jump shot.”  Apparently scouts who watched him in high school believe that he has the PG skills to develop into a Westbrook type in the pros.  I already partially debunked this, but I will post some of the noteworthy stats now that UCLA’s season is complete. UCLA rotates 5 guards/wings, here are their respective assist rates, half-court rim scoring splits, and complete half-court scoring splits.  Note that LaVine is the best transition scorer on the team so this angle undersells him a bit, but the half-court provides the more pertinent sample toward NBA projections:

Player AST% Rim FGA/40 Rim FG% FGA/40 eFG%
Kyle Anderson 34.3 2.0 57.6% 10.6 51.2%
Bryce Alford 19.1 1.2 42.3% 9.5 46.3%
Jordan Adams 14.7 3.2 65.5% 7.6 54.2%
Zach LaVine 12.6 1.4 43.8% 7.8 46.0%
Norman Powell 11.8 3.6 61.2% 7.0 54.1%

This isn’t necessarily proof that LaVine cannot be a PG, rather that he does not play like one at UCLA.  Whether this is a greater indictment of LaVine’s skill level or Alford’s usage of him is up for debate.  It’s likely a combination of both, and if nothing else it does make it difficult to feel confident about his current level of PG skills.  Jordan Adams and Norman Powell do not have significant ball handling roles either, but it hasn’t stopped them from posting similar assist rates and drastically better half-court scoring splits than LaVine, especially at the rim.  In my sample of watching LaVine, I have not been impressed with his handle, court vision, or passing. That said, he has also had few opportunities to show them off and he has shown a few glimmers of hope.  When Kyle Anderson and Jordan Adams were suspended for a game vs Oregon, he played 46 minutes in a double OT affair and finished with 18 points 7-17 FG 5 assists 0 turnovers in 46 minutes.  Oregon’s defense is mediocre and the bulk is not staggering for such a high minute total, but the 0 turnovers is encouraging.  And while his box score vs Florida in UCLA’s Sweet 16 loss does not look good, he did penetrate through Florida’s stingy defense and get to the rim on two occasions, finishing 1/2 on his layup attempts.

His PG skills are not his only ability in question.  His rim finishing also appears to be lackluster, as he converted just 55.4% of rim attempts in spite of the majority coming in the open floor in transition where he can do things like this:

In spite of his electric open court dunks and infrequent half-court attacks, he still hasn’t been a prolific finisher.  And it’s not like he’s making up for it by drawing fouls: he attempts just 0.23 FT’s per FGA.  This likely has something to do with his lack of bulk, as he is only listed at 180 pounds.  This can be somewhat mitigated by hitting the weight room and adding muscle.  But his strength will likely always be lacking, and he will only face bigger and stronger opposition in the paint in the NBA.

Even if we solely analyze the scenario where he develops his handles, passing, and body better than expected, that still doesn’t necessarily mean he will be a good player.  His decision making, court vision, and defense all remain unproven.  His vision and decision making are difficult to assess without many attempts at penetration, and defense is difficult to assess with UCLA primarily playing a zone.  If there is a signal forecasting his future, steal rate would likely be the best indicator.  After all he is an elite athlete and plays in UCLA’s gambling zone defense that finished with the 46th best defensive TOV% and 178th eFG%.  Any sort of elite instinct or feel for the game should result in a high amount of turnovers created considering the circumstances, so let’s see how he fared in comparison to his fellow perimeter players:

Player Steal% Block% Height
Jordan Adams 5.0 0.6 6’5
Kyle Anderson 3.1 2.7 6’9
Norman Powell 3.1 1.8 6’4
Zach LaVine 2.1 0.8 6’5
Bryce Alford 2.0 0.6 6’3

This is not particularly encouraging.  Jordan Adams is a player with lackluster tools and great feel for the game, and you can see that it resulted in over twice the steal rate as LaVine.  Kyle Anderson also has poor speed and athleticism, but was able to generate more steals with his length and anticipation.  Norman Powell is a raw athlete who had just a 1.8% career steal rate before having the chance to play in Alford’s zone.  Bryce Alford is a 6’3 untoolsy player whose value lies in his skills, and the fact that he is narrowly behind LaVine in both blocks and steals does not speak well for LaVine’s defensive playmaking ability.  While LaVine’s steal rate is the same as Andrew Wiggins and higher than that of Aaron Gordon (1.8%), that must be taken with a grain of salt since they play in conservative man to man defenses.

One LaVine pet peeve on mine is that he simply does not grasp that 3 > 2.  He takes off the dribble jumpers with either his toes or his heels on the arc regularly.  While this is something that can be coached out of him, it comports with the notion that his feel for the game is questionable.

Overall LaVine reminesces of slightly smaller Gerald Green as a prospect, and that can be seen as both a positive and a negative.  On one hand Green appeared to be a complete bust early in his career, as he contributed approximately nothing his first 4 seasons and then fell out of the league for 2 years.  On the other hand, at age 28 he has resurrected his career and proven to be a reasonably useful player under Jeff Hornacek.  I believe that current Gerald Green is LaVine’s realistic upside, where he is placed in a situation to accentuate his strengths rather than developing an entirely new dimension to his game.  One positive is that he has excellent body control and can stop on a dime to hit catch and shoot jumpers coming off of curls.  Further, he does appear competent at shooting off the dribble, although I may be mistaken without having seen his off the dribble splits.  And it is possible that I am underselling his PG skills, and he will get a chance to show off his ball handling ability in workouts.

Overall his two positives are worth something, especially with the possibility that the unknown aspects of his game prove to be stronger than expected.  However, it is worth noting that his laundry list of negatives places a significant damper on his overall value as a prospect.  Just because his strengths stand out does not mean that his warts are non-existent: they are present and they are plentiful.   He likely will get drafted in round 1, but I believe he is overrated and is at best a fringe 1st round pick.

High School Scouts Say The Darndest Things

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

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When discussing draft prospects, it seems that people are often afraid to confidently assert that the scouts who drive the consensus are flat out wrong.  This surprises me, since they have been wrong to hilarious degrees in the past, and will continue to be wrong going forward.  They were able to recognize that LeBron James was a fairly awesome prospect, so that establishes that at least they have operative eyesight.  But they also thought that Darko Milicic was half a notch below LeBron as a prospect, even though he never possessed any basketball playing ability of note.  VJL recently made an excellent post on the irrelevance of hype, and I’d like to highlight some qualitative examples to show where high school scouts badly missed the mark.

Many scouts are woefully bad at assessing prospect skill level, especially in watching them go against high school competition. A recent example is UCLA’s Zach LaVine, when Chad Ford noted that a few scouts called him “Russell Westbrook with a jump shot.” Of course the only things LaVine has in common with Russell are his leaping ability and his decision to attend UCLA. Granted, he doesn’t get to show off much of his PG skill with Kyle Anderson and his virtuoso passing ability running the offense. But he also isn’t trusted enough as the backup PG, as those duties fall to Bryce Alford. And his assist rate (13.8%) doesn’t stand out from UCLA’s other wings as Jordan Adams (14.0%) and Norman Powell (12.7%) who are definitely not PG’s have similar assist rates. Ford notes that LaVine has a propensity to look for his shot instead of passing, but the fact of the matter is that he hardly has any dribble penetration skills whatsoever. On the season he is 11/28 on rim FG’s in the half-court offense, only 6’3 non-leaper Bryce Alford has fewer attempts at 10/25. Adams (44/67) Anderson (24/44) and Powell (44/73) all show vastly superior penetration ability. It is possible that his low attempts are due to lack of confidence in finishing in traffic given his thin build, but his handles look awfully pedestrian to me. He appears to be a SG through and through.

To bring back the Westbrook comparison, he led his UCLA team in assists as a sophomore in spite of playing a fair amount of SG with Darren Collison running the show. Like LaVine he didn’t get the chance to fully flaunt his PG skills, but at least he flaunted something, as the Thunder drafted him in large part to his strong performance as primary ball handler when Collison was out. LaVine has not begun to display flashes of PG skill, yet Chad Ford writes:

While he isn’t really running the point for UCLA, most scouts who have seen him in high school think he has all the tools to be a NBA point guard down the road

Why do they believe this? I don’t know, maybe they saw him dribble down the open court and finish spectacularly in transition and wrote down “POINT GOD” in their scrapbooks. If he develops his handles and passing at an inordinate rate then maybe he could be a PG, but to weigh that as a significant possibility at this stage is wishful thinking. Comparing him to Westbrook is silly so long as they have such an inordinate gap in PG skills, but many scouts are bad at deducing these sort of gaping differences so they wouldn’t know any better.

Now you may be thinking that while scouts may not be experts on deducing basketball playing ability, you gotta give credit to their ability to eye test tools. This is also wrong. Let’s take Noah Vonleh, in November of 2011 DraftExpress writes:

Standing a legit 6-8, with a 7-3 wingspan, huge hands, a terrific frame and excellent athleticism, Vonleh does not look like your typical 16-year old.

I imagine that the “excellent athleticism” was simply a commonly held belief in HS scoutings circles, as his ESPN recruiting profile notes that his “physical intangibles” include “extraordinarily long arms and bounce.” While he has done well as a freshman for Indiana, it is not due to leaping ability, as Vonleh has struggled to finish at the rim in spite of his size and length due to lackluster athleticism. To DX’s credit, they noticed that the initial assertion was incorrect and in their recent scouting video note that Vonleh is “not a leaper” and list lack of explosiveness as a weakness. But the bottom line is that HS scouts are not specially trained to deduce physical tools, and when they see a super long player like Vonleh dunking or blocking a shot, they conflate his impressive use of length with athleticism.  Consequently, it is not safe to take their tool assessments entirely at face value.

Now let’s see what ESPN’s recruiting service said about Julius Randle’s future:

His reputation as a good person and hard worker will aid him as he hopes to improve and stave off competitian for his slot

This is part of a short writeup on the #2 prospect in America, and they couldn’t even spell “competition” correctly.  I know this strays from basketball analysis, but most of their writeups do appear to have been translated from English to Estonian and back to English using Google translation.  Here’s their bottom line on Andrew Harrison:

Bottom Line:
He raises the level of play on his team because he leads by example with a competitive nature, focus and battle tested toughness. At his size he has blossoming lead guard skills and is terrific at making plays. What separates him from the rest is in his pace of play. His game is like a stop light he can go from green to yellow to red all in a moments notice.

Maybe I’m being harsh, but when a scout’s writing is barely literate, it makes it that much harder to trust their “expertise.” That isn’t valid basketball analysis– it more closely resembles a child’s attempt at writing poetry.

For all intents and purposes, high school scouts are casual fans who try their best to offer their best NBA projections of high school prospects.  Aside from the fact that extrapolating a player from high school to the pros is exceptionally difficult, it’s not a particularly prestigious position and does not attract the sharpest basketball minds. They are smart enough to know that LeBron James is great when they see him play, but they also have a number of baffling false positives.  If any of us actually met a collection of high school scouts and had the opportunity to pick their brains, I doubt we would come away with the sensation that they possess any sort of expert wisdom that we lack.

In order to maximize efficiency in prospect analysis, stuff like pedigree and hype should be almost entirely disregarded.  There may be exceptions for a player like Bradley Beal who was reputed as an elite shooter but ran cold from outside as a college freshman.  But when top prospects such as Andrew Wiggins or Julius Randle show troubling signs for their future, people seem slow to accept the relevance of these signs, as they feel that obvious warning signs are superseded by high school hype.  The bottom line is scouts don’t have any advantage over an intelligent basketball fan in information (at least not once we get a sizable college sample), analytical ability, or even expertise in assessing tools.  Personally I try to glean why they felt the way they did, take the perceived strengths for what they are worth, and then discard all bottom line conclusions as it is only noise that will dilute my own analysis.  Giving any more credence than that only leads to skewed perceptions and wrong conclusions.