In the Sasser family, basketball isn’t just a means to an end. Basketball is a way of life.
Marcus Sasser, the reigning Jerry West Award winner and a consensus All-American, is another in a long line of family ties to the game. His father, Marcus Sr., was a former collegiate player. His uncles Jeryl and Jason had stints in the NBA, the latter coaching Marcus Jr. during high school in Red Oak, Texas. His great-grandfather, John Barber, made an NBA cameo in 1957 with the St. Louis Hawks, playing under coaching legend Red Holzman.
You could say Marcus was born for this, but that would take away from the countless hours of work he has put into solidifying his greatness within the game. After being selected 25th overall by the Detroit Pistons in the 2023 Draft, Marcus finds himself on the cusp of making his family name stand out more than ever.
Offensive Overview
Through 16 games off the bench, Sasser is averaging 16.4 points and 5.2 assists per 75 possessions while getting up 6.6 threes per 75 to boot. With Detroit searching desperately for backcourt offensive production from players not named Cade Cunningham, Sasser has been a revelation.
It certainly shows on the tape that Sasser is more than just a perimeter specialist and refuses to be pigeonholed into one role. His shot chart on Cleaning The Glass backs it up:
His shot distribution reminds me of a thermal map in “Aliens” where Corporal Hicks realizes he is about to be swamped by a set of xenomorphs.
While there are a lot of strengths in his game beyond the shot diversity, there are some definite shortcomings we will explore as well.
Comprehensive 3-Point Shooting
Now here’s a guy who can let it fly.
Currently, Sasser is sitting on a 40% mark on catch-and-shoots, which has been a hallmark of his game through the Houston days. He shows exceptional confidence in his shot, especially from deep range.
There are occasional instances where his mechanics break down off movement or with extra momentum behind the shot, but he is surprisingly consistent off the bounce in how he sets his feet. Notice the placement of his right foot in this shot:
But, overall, Sasser shows a lot of technical proficiency in his shot to accentuate a lightning-quick release.
Sasser has also shown a strong sense of passing and relocating to outwork the defense and get more catch-and-shoot attempts:
What stands out are the shots he can take and make off the dribble, where he’s at 45%. The film shows a solid, but starkly limited, bag of movement shots.
Like most right-handed shooters, Sasser is most comfortable taking movement shots to his left:
The main issue I have with Sasser’s movement 3-point shooting is the lack of confidence in his shot going to the right. This is typically more difficult to master, so it’s not a major slight. But it’s something to keep an eye on as Sasser tries to expand the tree of his potential shots off the perimeter.
I love seeing how Monty Williams integrates Marcus’ shooting and size into sets. It opens up a lot of interesting looks for the offense that other shooters cannot generate:
Wiseman pins in for Sasser (hardly setting a screen in the process) to open up what looks like a Spain pick-and-roll look, designed to confuse Jonathan Kuminga on the switch. But instead, Sasser ghosts the screen going to Killian Hayes‘ right, opening up a clean catch-and-shoot look on the wing. Marcus’ desire to hustle and execute these looks makes him a fascinating offensive piece to accentuate the other creators on the team.
Sasser’s ability to take the tough perimeter shots (over 85% of threes coming above the break) opens up a lot for his teammates. Detroit has arguably the worst perimeter spacing in the league, but Marcus is a part of the solution, not the problem.
It also serves to open up a second level of prolific scoring.
Budding Intermediate Game
Far and away, this was the most impressive thing about Sasser’s offensive game to me.
First and foremost, let’s look at how the perimeter shooting opens up midrange counters off closeout attacks.
This is a nice bit of awareness by Sasser to see LaVine sinking to help at the nail, then quickly attacking his closeout to get back to the middle and hit the pull-up two.
Sasser likes getting into his floater when attacking closeouts, capable of finishing from different angles and speeds.
The deep range he can pull off on the floater is particularly impressive:
I’m not sure how many players can consistently pull off 18-foot floaters, but it’s surely a short list.
The midrange shot and floater is what Sasser wants to get to when running pick-and-rolls or handoffs. He can use that screen to get the shots he wants over drop coverage. It’s a nice benefit when the shot you want to get to is the shot the defense wants to concede.
Sasser currently takes 22% of his total shots in the long midrange, a 94th percentile mark amongst point guards. To boot, he’s canning 55% of those looks so far. The numbers back up the film: Marcus Sasser is quietly an elite long-two creator.
Yet the problems begin to show once we get to the third level of scoring.
Rim Struggles
Going from the long twos to the short (between 4 and 14 feet), problems immediately begin to emerge. The frequency immediately drops off a cliff; that 94th percentile long two mark drops to the 25th percentile on shorter twos. Unsurprisingly, the ability to convert those shots drops as well. He’s converting 44% in that range, an 11% drop from the long twos.
A lot of this has to do with Sasser’s ability (or lack thereof) to get high up on his jumps and draw contact. Paint defenders are generally not threatened by his rim pressure and Sasser is often scared to get on there. It sticks out on the tape.
Out of fear for Andre Drummond rotating over in the above clip, he doesn’t take a direct path to the rim and opens up more angles for the much larger DeMar DeRozan to get the block in trail. Marcus needs to be definitive about taking the proper angles instead of playing scared around the rim.
In terms of the actual rim attempts, Sasser’s frequency is genuinely concerning. Team context is important here; the paint stays clogged against Detroit. Yet many of his teammates have it figured despite this. Jaden Ivey, an absolute blur of an athlete, has managed a 98th percentile rim frequency. Cade Cunningham, not the most fleet of foot, has posted middling frequencies. Killian Hayes, who has much less burst than Sasser, is only slightly below Sasser’s 11% rim frequency mark, a 9th percentile mark amongst point guards.
It’s worth pointing out here that Sasser has yet to have an assisted look at the rim this season. If he wants to get layups or dunks, he’s going to have to do the work himself. Cutting or slashing into a horrifically clogged paint is not going to produce the results he needs.
I don’t want to dwell on the negatives here. That’s not my style or what I want to accomplish here. Instead, we can look at the good possessions that have come out of his limited volume to see what can be expanded on.
The primary asset that Sasser possesses around the rim is coordination and patience. When he has leverage and time to think, Marcus uses fakes to throw defenders off and generate simpler looks for himself, especially out of pick-and-roll.
The threat of his pull-up going left, as we covered earlier, forces Josh Okogie to hesitate an extra beat. Sasser explodes into that gap and uses the pump fake to press his advantage, getting 3 defenders in the air at once to turn a highly contested shot into layup lines.
I found myself impressed by how Sasser finds funky angles to get off his rim attempts, often confusing rim protectors. He’s also quite good at manipulating his defenders off screens. Both of those tools are on display below:
Shaedon Sharpe is trying to wall off the middle and preempt the screen all at once to force Sasser left, and eventually, Marvin Bagley III re-screens to oblige the defense. Sasser immediately goes middle again by snaking the PNR to pressure DeAndre Ayton’s drop. The crafty scoop finish gets up before Ayton can react, and he’s got the touch with his right to get it in off the glass.
Not only does Sasser show some decent pick-and-roll craft to get to the rim, but he profiles as a solid mismatch attacker to boot. Some off-ball points like Marcus don’t even have the kind of speed or dribble skills to get beyond a mismatched big, but he has shown the chops for it.
Again, Marcus is showing off his ability to finish high off the glass without having to slow his momentum. That’s going to be crucial for his rim-finishing potential as he learns to maximize his limited athletic tools and frame.
Even with the positive flashes, paint touches and overall rim finishing remain a concern, which ties directly into our last offensive category.
Playmaking Concerns
Sasser is listed as a point guard but doesn’t quite play like one. His assist percentage currently sits at 19.1%, a 9th percentile mark from point guards. Much of this comes from the lack of ability to collapse a defense and put opponents in rotation. This opens up the highest value possible assists.
There are still good instances of Sasser leveraging his solid floor reading when he does manage to collapse the defense:
Drew Eubanks tries to play high on the level of the screen and gets destroyed, with Jordan Goodwin well behind the play. Josh Okogie and Yuta Watanabe stay home in the corners as Kevin Durant sinks from the wing, so there’s only one play to make. Sasser tosses a beautiful wrap pass over his head to Ausar Thompson at the top of the key for an open three. That’s some quality floor reading from a rookie guard.
Marcus is quite good at finding where the help is coming from, as he does on this double drag set:
This is all about manipulating DeMar DeRozan and Andre Drummond in tandem. Kevin Knox ghosts the first screen of the double drag and heads to the empty wing, but DeRozan stays in the action knowing he has to cover Drummond’s back side with James Wiseman screening and rolling. Drummond must stay between Sasser’s drive and Wiseman’s roll to deny the easier shot, forcing DeRozan’s hand. A kick to the far wing by Sasser finds the open shooter.
We have the flashes of complex playmaking by Marcus. For now, he’s usually relegated to making the simpler reads until his paint touches can increase. It’s a good thing he excels at these.
Both of these plays are repeatable ways for Sasser to find teammates in the dunker spots. Driving a closeout against an unsettled defense will always create opportunities, and a regular drive against subpar perimeter defenders will force the defense to rotate and open windows for nice layoff passes. The placement and timing in both of these clips are sublime, showing my general thought on Sasser’s playmaking: it’s not making the reads or executing on the windows that is the issue, it’s the leverage necessary to open those windows in the first place.
There are going to be instances where Sasser doesn’t even need a paint touch to make the right reads. In this instance, Sasser makes a simple read against nail help to work an open shot for a teammate:
Jaime Jaquez Jr., the real JJJ, attacks at the nail to deny the late shot clock drive. Alec Burks sees this coming on the wing and relocates to make an easier pass for Sasser. Again, more simple and repeatable actions for Marcus that can use his playmaking capabilities.
Still, we are left wanting, which brings us to the most important section.
Growth Areas
As Sasser’s reputation on scouting reports as a shooter begins to grow, he will have the chance to improve his rim pressure and must seize it.
It’s going to be difficult to keep up two-level scoring. On a team starved for rim pressure, defenses can play more aggressive coverages on Sasser’s on-ball actions and force him to beat them downhill. Even if that third level never reaches the heights of the other two, it needs to be in the back of the defenders’ minds once he takes a dribble.
And, as previously discussed, this will open up a new tree of playmaking options that he has shown he can capitalize on. He does not want for athleticism or floor reading ability. It is simply a question of using paint touches as a force multiplier for the already elite parts of his offensive game.
As an aside, I’d also like to see him going right more often on his movement threes. He’s capable of some Klay Thompson-esque curl screen/double-drag sets turning into movement shots. And with Detroit utterly floundering as a team Sasser has all the reason and opportunity he needs to experiment with new looks.
Defensive Overview
Unlike the first two players I have covered in this series (Peyton Watson, Aaron Nesmith) and a third covered by our own Lucas Kaplan (Jalen Johnson), Marcus Sasser is not a burgeoning defensive event creator. He’s good at stealing the ball (62nd percentile for point guards) but often tries too hard for them, which we will dig into soon. At 6’2″, blocks aren’t really on the table, especially without top-tier vertical athleticism. He’s posting a 0.2% block rate which sits him in the 12th percentile for point guards.
Old football commentators would probably describe Sasser as a “lunch pail guy” on the defensive end. He shows up, he does his job, he goes home. One of the more electric guard defenders in an extremely aggressive Houston Cougars system, this is no surprise. But there are some weak spots here I want to explore.
Perimeter Stopping Flashes
I’ll get this out of the way early – perimeter-stopping possessions like the ones you will see are rarely so clean. Only 3.2% of Sasser’s defensive possessions have come in true isolation. Granted, some of that is because players rarely want to attack him mano a mano. That doesn’t mean we are unable to learn anything from these chances.
Deny middle, deny middle, deny middle. Those are the first three rules of isolation containment. However, if the player you are guarding is the best of the best like Steph Curry, do your best to force him to pick up the drive and navigate him into the help. Sasser checks all of those boxes.
There are definite areas where Sasser is lacking. Specifically in a game against Philadelphia, those problems were plain for all to see while attempting to contain human roadrunner Tyrese Maxey.
Meep meep:
Later in the game, he overplays himself trying to deny the drive and ends up conceding a step-back three going to Maxey’s left.
Containing the elites of the league is a big ask for a rookie guard. However, he’ll have to clean up his footwork and hip movement to better contain the players that Detroit needs him to handle.
A bright spot of his 1v1 defense comes in the post. With the aforementioned height concerns teams are going to try hard to mismatch him on the blocks. That was especially evident against the Warriors, who have a lot of strong and long wings that like to get in the post and go to their right. Sasser was having none of that.
Getting low and strong to create leverage, anticipating the bumps and meeting them with the right amount of force, using verticality to contest shots. That’s a great bag of tools for a below-average guard in terms of height to have when teams try to exploit him.
Now, we get into the meat of his defense.
Screen Neglection
Screen navigation was one of the elite sells on Sasser coming out of college. In fact, our own Neema Djavadzadeh had that listed as a primary defensive strength in his pre-draft scouting report for Swish Theory.
Yet that strength has yet to translate in the league so far. Some of this is personnel, both teammates and coaches. Detroit employs a bevy of coverage-limited bigs that cannot play to the level of the screen and place a heavy burden on the guards for elite screen navigation. Adding kerosene to the fire, Detroit’s primary defensive assistant, Dan Burke, has taken a personal leave of absence from the team. It goes without saying that whatever Burke is dealing with takes priority over basketball, but that doesn’t lessen the impact that their general disorganization on that end has on a player like Sasser.
I found myself shocked by how often Sasser goes underneath the screen on pick-and-roll. This is part strategy because going over to deny the shot pushes the ballhandler into the paint against drop bigs, which in theory would be a boon for the defense. That’s really not the case with their big man room, unfortunately, so Sasser is forced under quite often to protect his bigs.
That need to go under has left Detroit’s defense exposed on the perimeter with great frequency.
This isn’t a skill concern for me with Sasser – if the scheme dictates to go under and the team gets burned by that, he’s simply following orders and is not responsible for the results.
What concerns me is the general technique he shows on screens relative to his college display of talent in this area.
He’s not anticipating the screens well and fails to take decisive angles that get him into favorable trail positions. This could be a case of having new teammates and struggling with communication. It takes two to tango when it comes to guard screen navigation on pick-and-roll actions. The certainty that comes from playing with his former Houston teammates vs. his current Detroit ones cannot be discounted here.
The perimeter defense bleeds over into our next category, which is another case of pre-draft strength turning into an early weakness.
Throwing Hands
Whether in help or on the ball, Sasser is one of the most hands-on perimeter defenders you will find.
It tends to get him in a lot of trouble. He gambles early and often, and the payoff isn’t always there.
The positive is that it seems as if the majority of these gambles do pay off. It’s an overall credit to Sasser’s awareness and decision-making that this tendency doesn’t get him burned.
This is a huge asset for Sasser when playing trail defense, which he does often as a result of their scheme and his early screen navigation issues.
Those quick hands are a boon for his nail help when playing off shooters to contain drives and pick-and-rolls.
You’ve probably noticed that Sasser’s steals generate a lot of immediate transition chances. He is wrangling the high-value chances and turning them into points for his teammates at the other end. The value of that cannot be overstated.
However, there are other issues off the ball worth mentioning before we wrap up here.
Late Closeouts
This is a minor concern, but one worth noting.
I’ve seen a few instances of Marcus missing X-outs on the perimeter – in general, with defenses switching and rotating aggressively off the ball, you cannot be late to recognize these scenarios.
Missing a switch is one thing. Failing to close out because of a lack of effort is another, which is the case here against Garrison Mathews:
In general, I thought Sasser was pretty solid in terms of closing out, but we are on the chase for perfection here.
With that in mind, let’s look at the defensive room for improvement.
Growth Areas
First and foremost is the screen navigation. This really needs to be better – scheme aside, anticipation and ability to get skinny and move around the screen must improve.
Second, he has to learn to be less reliant on his hands to do the work defensively. He has strength and long arms (+5 wingspan) that can do a lot of the difficult parts. Let your feet and body do the work, and reserve the swipes for when the opportunities present themselves.
Lastly, I’d like to see more from Marcus off the ball defensively. The nail help he offers has been strong, but the closeouts need to go up a tick in effort. He’s also capable of better rotations on the whole to affect shots.
So, where do we go from here?
Future Outlook
With the personnel Detroit boasts on the perimeter, Sasser is an important gap filler on both ends of the floor – provided he can capitalize on his upside.
Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey are paint-pressuring/inside-the-arc scoring options and playmakers who need credible spacers and relocators to take extra help off their plates. The advantages they create also require guys who can make plays on the second side by attacking closeouts, driving and hitting cutters, or simply pulling up from midrange against an unsettled defense. Marcus Sasser can be that guy.
On the defensive end, Detroit badly needs a primary guard-stopping option to make Cade/Ivey viable on the floor. Ausar Thompson is no slouch in this respect but is better utilized defending bigger wings. If someone can take primary guard assignments off his plate, it also puts him in a better spot to get in the paint and showcase his ridiculous defensive event creation. Once again on paper, Sasser is an ideal complementary fit.
All of this falls apart to some degree if the screen navigation remains subpar on the defensive end. Ditto for the paint touches on the offensive end. If he turns into a quality 3 and some D point guard, that’s not a bad outcome for Detroit, especially with the immediacy of the return on investment they have seen.
That being said, I believe Sasser is capable of much more. This could be the non-star guard option Detroit needs to go from a “fun group of talent” to producing actual results. And while they figure out the vision for this franchise, Sasser gets to explore what heights he can truly reach.
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