I Can’t Believe I Need to Say This: Cameron Boozer is Insanely Good
Initially, this article was going to be about UNC forward Caleb Wilson. As the college season began and top freshmen prospects were getting adjusted to the college game, I had a scorching hot take to share. I was impressed enough with Wilson to place him in the top three.
The consensus preseason top three of Darryn Peterson, Cam Boozer, and AJ Dybantsa seemed untouchable, and I broke that mold. The upside case for Wilson is obvious. He’s one of the better defensive prospects I’ve ever seen, with offensive upside to boot. I may still write an article making that case in more detail.
But, it turns out I’m not the only one who feels this strongly about Wilson:
Nathan, if you’re reading this, thanks for stealing my thunder…
In all seriousness, the Caleb Wilson train has left the station, and I don’t have as much to add as I thought I did. The No Ceilings crew did a great job making the Caleb Wilson case here. As a result, the masses have caught on, and Wilson is knocking on the door of a lot people’s top three.
Now, that leaves an obvious and intriguing question at hand. If Caleb Wilson enters the top three, who out of Boozer, Peterson, and Dybantsa do you take out? I have my answer on that, which I’ll save for another time. But, I’ve been shocked to find that many Twitter folks who are high on Wilson feel that way at the expense of…
Cam Boozer???
I can’t believe some of the takes I’m seeing. So, in the rest of this article, I’m going to try recalibrating the conversation around Cam Boozer.
I’ll start here: Cam Boozer has been the best player in college basketball this year.
Anyone who’s watched Boozer’s start to the season would tell you that there have been some hiccups here and there. He couldn’t buy a shot in his first half of college basketball, and his rim finishing has taken a noticeable hit against Duke’s tougher competition. There’s been a small adjustment for Boozer physically after dominating high school and AAU ball sweat-free — totally fair considering he’s 18 years old.
And yet, he’s been the best player in college basketball.
Let’s start with some numbers. Box Plus-Minus agrees with my assessment of Boozer’s play.
And in Evan Miyakawa’s model, Boozer is practically lapping the field:
Now, Sports Reference:
It’s highly unlikely these stats hold, but if they did, we’d be looking at the greatest NCAA prospect of the 21st century. I mean, look at those numbers! 42 points, 20 rebounds, and 8 assists per 100, strong free throw rate, excellent shooting indicators, 4.0 AST:TO ratio, and sublime steal and block rates. Oh, and by the way, all from a 6’10, 250-pound player who will turn 19 a week before the draft.
You don’t have to watch a second of film on Boozer to contextualize the caliber of prospect he is. With a BPM hovering around 20 through seven games, I think it’s safe to say that Boozer will finish the year with a BPM > 12. Here’s the list of freshmen on Bart Torvik’s database to accomplish this feat:
Assuming Boozer joins this list, that’s incredible company to keep. All-in-one metrics are far from perfect, but I tend to believe them when they point me to a high-level prospect like this.
When you turn on the film, the eye test backs the incredible impact metrics. I already covered Boozer’s exceptional feel for the game over the summer. I’ll link that article here. Boozer is a possession optimization machine. His court-mapping and split-second decision-making allow him to effortlessly pick apart defenses at every turn.
Boozer’s brain is second to none in this class, but Boozer separates himself from other high-feel prospects with his functional strength and scoring ability. Whenever Boozer decides that asserting his will as a scorer is the way to optimize a possession, he can get to his spots at will. Here are two examples from the Texas game.
Boozer skeptics point to athletic limitations as a cause for concern. I honestly don’t get it. Boozer is among the best functional athletes in the entire draft class. He’s currently sitting at 42.4 PTS per 100 on 65% true shooting largely as a result of strength-based scoring.
Put simply, I care about substance over style. Those looking for raw athleticism in this draft class should look at Michigan State’s Coen Carr. Carr’s vertical leap and power combination at 6’6, 220 is difficult to comprehend. Yet, he only boasts a 56.5 eFG% compared to Cam Boozer’s 60.4%. I’ll leave it to you to decide whose physicality is more compelling.
My point here: when evaluating a prospect’s physical ability, evaluate functional athleticism. Did Nikola Jokic need run/jump athleticism to hit high-end outcomes? How about Luka Doncic? Karl-Anthony Towns? Alperen Sengun? All these guys are athletic in their own way, but more importantly, they just get stuff done on the basketball court. Believe it when a prospect tells you they can produce at a high level and check your aesthetic biases at the door. As Brad Pitt (portraying Billy Beane) says in the film Moneyball, “He gets on base a lot. Do I care if it’s a walk or a hit?”
To close, I want to reference a tweet from my Swish Theory colleague Avinash:
Avi has lead the charge in emphasizing prospects for whom high-level cognition and physicality converge. You could argue that the meta in the NBA right now is acquiring players at all five positions who hit competency thresholds in both categories. Avi’s query has a spectacular hit rate for finding such players.
Cam Boozer comfortably hits these thresholds right now. So, by the way, does Caleb Wilson. Both are incredible prospects littered with green flags. Put Wilson in your top three, by all means. He’s there for me! But, doing so at Boozer’s expense would be a dire mistake.
No one shown in Avi’s query also had Boozer’s scoring and rebounding ability as a prospect. This is a combination of physicality, smarts, production, and youth rarely seen at the college level, if ever. I’ll say it again, he’s the best player in college basketball at 18 years old. We’re talking about a slam-dunk, can’t miss, mega-star prospect that should be top two on everyone’s board.
He’s number one on mine.
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