^Zvonimir #14, listed at 7’2 across from his brother, Tomislav #13, listed at 7’0..

Ivisic’s skills are self-evident in the limited film, with maybe the most prominent one being his handful of quick triggered, no hesitation hoists from deep. The shot is quick, compact and without much use of lower body input. It’s an easy ball, and can be used as an effective option in pick-and-pop situations. One basic issue with the shooting is the volume, although he seemingly could not wait to get his shots up when he saw the floor for the first time. Even when compiling 3-point numbers from what I could find the last couple years, the grand total was still less than a hundred attempts, and same goes for free throw numbers. The eye-test for me says Ivisic is a shooter, but there will just need to be a bigger shooting sample to look at before fully checking that box in pen. But it is not the only skill Ivisic flashes.

Ivisic really captured some sort of magic in his debut, even summoning a wild behind-the-back pass while on-the-move. There are these occasional small glimpses into Ivisic’s vision as a passer, which manifest in highlight connections like that previously mentioned behind-the-back one, or with short-roll dishes to the rim or even more routine ones like in advance passes up the court. But there are also too many instances of poor, nonchalant passing execution and dumbfounding turnovers. Again, like with the shooting, there just isn’t enough film to confirm or deny his true proficiency as a passer, but the duality of questionable decision-making and functional passing upside is noted here. If Ivisic can hone and replicate those flashes as a short-roll and interior passer, it could begin to solidify his case as a pretty complete play-finisher out of the roll.

The skillset doesn’t stop there though, as Ivisic makes good use of footwork in several facets of his offensive game. As a screener, Ivisic is spry to screen continuously throughout a possession, flowing into actions with good pace and quickly diving out of screens. The screens themselves have a layer of physicality, with Ivisic showing that he can take a chunk out of the POA defender, although needs to clean up some of the illegal moving screens. In more conventional rolls to the rim, Ivisic is capable of finishing lobs, with signs of high-level coordination on adjustments for catches, although his vertical is not overwhelming. Ivisic also has nice feel and recognition for when both POA defenders are up on the ball-handler, slipping behind and finding the open space to settle into for the dump-off against the double team. Ivisic recognizes pretty immediately when he is open, and has his hands up as a target right away. And in those short-roll scenarios, Ivisic is generally under control and looking to advance upon the rim with intent to score, where his footwork shows up again as a useful tool. Ivisic does a nice job of utilizing pivots to find better finishing windows and even position himself for more powerful two-handed flushes at the rim. 

While his footwork and handle on short-area moves towards the rim are pretty effective, it is of note though that outside of some brief open-court handling from Ivisic in FIBA u20 that Ivisic’s ball-handling is not too functional. He had instances of issues keeping his dribble secure in tight spaces. That will need to be cleaned up at the very least for DHO actions, but it does not lend itself to Ivisic as any sort of threat to attack from the perimeter outside of on-the-catch with momentum. 

And while he is skilled getting into finishes, Ivisic plays in a more finesse-leaning tilt. As a big, there should be an element of punishing physicality to your game. A post game was non-existent for Ivisic at Kentucky, which is not a huge deal as he translates to the pros since he executes his role as a roller, but it may also indicate a lack of ability to overpower college defenders, as he did have instances of struggling to post up smaller defenders in FIBA u20. It may be that Ivisic naturally leans towards being a more finesse offensive player with occasional forceful dunks when he’s maneuvered into position. 

If Ivisic refines and applies all his strengths in a bigger role next year at Arkansas, then he may become one of the most versatile screener threats in the class on the pop, roll and short-roll.

For context, at Kentucky Ivisic often played alongside two of the most skilled guards in the 2024 Draft class. Arkansas will have an experienced grad-transfer guard in Johnell Davis, along with fellow Wildcat transfer DJ Wagner, and more freshmen guard talent, but they will not be the passers Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard were. Still, Ivisic’s dual threats out of screening actions should help his guards help him. And if Ivisic’s spacing ability is true, it gives Calipari some lineup flexibility with their other frontcourt players.

It is not unreasonable to be buying into Ivisic as an offensive player. But the big question for bigs is on the defensive end. Which defensive frontcourt roles can you fill? 

Ivisic has decent mobility for a 7 footer, but his initial stance on the perimeter is often not nearly low enough or engaged enough, routinely getting blown by right at the line of scrimmage. While Ivisic has some recoverability to make a play at the rim and make up for giving up the angle, NBA guards will have plenty of room in the intermediate area to use that angle to manipulate and handicap that recoverability, especially if the blow-by is occurring immediately way out on the perimeter. Ivisic is not the beefiest plodding center, and he can move fairly well, so the expectation should be placed higher for him guarding on the perimeter. Not asking Ivisic to lock anyone up, but just looking for him to be more competitive in this area and contain the ball better. Though Ivisic has shown great length, quick hands and quick reaction time to block jumpers on the perimeter. 

The lack of perimeter defense at this point for Ivisic hurts the case that he could possibly play some 4. Not only would the on-ball stuff be concerning, the supplementary weakside defense seems largely absent. Ivisic played the 4 for Croatia’s u20 team in 2023, while his brother played the 5, and he was very quiet as a weakside presence, with little-to-no activity coming from that position. The instincts for it just weren’t there. I won’t say this is damning for any case that Ivisic could play the 4 defensively, but in addition to the perimeter woes, it’s close. 

While Ivisic does have height and length that can be disruptive defensively at the rim and the timing of some blocks with his outstretched arms is nice, many instances came without rotating from very far. As a POA drop big, Ivisic’s positioning can be moderate to fair, sometimes losing a half step on a downhill driver just like his perimeter defense, ending up in that vulnerable position behind the ball-handler, but again has the recoverability that he unfortunately seems to rely a little too much on. More film of Ivisic as a defender is needed here to see how he has progressed in his positioning.

Lastly, the rebounding lacked physicality and finding box-outs was not routine, and at times it looked like Ivisic struggled a bit to cleanly end possessions with a rebound. Even in some post defense, Ivisic had a tough time battling for ground and post real estate. As a prospect who has nearly eliminated themselves from the proposition of playing the 4 defensively, Ivisic has a lot to prove as someone who can fulfill a center’s defensive duties in the NBA.

The argument for Ivisic revolves around his offensive versatility as a rolling and spacing threat, which is where he can separate himself from other prospects on that end, but each individual ability is far from concrete at this point. Ivisic will need to truly evolve each skill from a flash to a legitimate weapon. More importantly, at the end of the day a player who is confined to the center position defensively really needs to be a strong defensive anchor. With more minutes, Ivisic should have a chance to showcase growth on the defensive end. I will be looking for a more consistent awareness of the rim, and more physicality overall. 

The post Prospect Focus: Zvonimir Ivisic appeared first on Swish Theory.

Broome is one of the top returning draft prospects coming into the 2024-25 college season. But there is a reason Broome is back at Auburn for a fifth year of college basketball, despite a strong statistical profile and a productive showing at the NBA G League Elite camp. What does Broome have to do to solidify himself as a 1st round prospect? What improvements should we be looking for? Let’s dive into his prospect case.

Meausuring at 6’9” without shoes and around 250 lbs at the 2023 G League Elite Camp, Broome has moderate NBA center size. With a seven-foot wingspan and a standing reach of 9 feet, Broome would be at a size disadvantage against your average-sized NBA center, although not drastically. Broome has physical strength that shows itself at times, but I would like to see him impose that strength more frequently next year. Most likely matched up with bench centers in the NBA, Broome should be able to hold up, but a more convincing display of strength would be encouraging. Broome cannot improve upon his size, but he can improve on his strength and physicality, which will become imperative when battling with behemoths in the league on any given night. 

As mentioned earlier, Broome’s statistical profile is overwhelmingly positive, with one glaring weakness: a worrisome career FT%. Almost everything else about his stat profile makes it feel like nitpicking to ask for much more in this upcoming season. The higher you climb, the harder it is to find oxygen, and Broome will find it challenging to build on such an efficient season. 

Broome’s shooting efficiency was superb this past season, with career-best EFG% and TS% in a year where he introduced a higher 3-point shooting volume, over doubling the 3-point attempts from the previous year. While encouraging, it is difficult to have too much faith in the shot due to a 61.5% career FT% on 532 career FT attempts. No matter what Broome shoots from the free throw line this year, even if it is a leap of an improvement, there should not be too much trust placed in that number, siding instead with the weighty historical evidence of rather poor free throw shooting. Still, stretching out to the 3-point line is a step in the right direction, and making that stretch element a more concrete part of his game would mean a lot in establishing real estate as a potential DHO hub above the break, where he is a capable playmaker. 

Over the course of Broome’s career, his assist percentage has increased and his turnover percentage has decreased, both to highly efficient degrees, refining a skillset in which Broome is able to operate as a useful offensive hub at times for Auburn. There isn’t much more room for statistical improvement in this area, so even maintaining that efficiency would strengthen his case. But on film, Broome’s passing out of DHO situations can and should get even sharper. I would not mind seeing a small jump in turnovers, granted it comes with tape of more nuanced, skillful passing; better and sharper timing on passes, better execution at times, more inventive passing angles. Broome has already proven he can do basic playmaking out of DHO actions, and it would be informative to know how far he can take his passing skill. Auburn will be a highly competitive environment, so it may be unlikely Broome is given enough leash to try out some more intricate passing. But on the other hand, Auburn may have games where they are whooping an opponent, and may give Broome opportunities to expand his game in this way. Not expecting any leaps here though, but a “stretch goal” to look for. 

As a play-finisher, Broome is efficient and shows soft touch on hook shots and push shots in the intermediate area. The lefty is very strong hand dominant, heavily preferring to get to that lefty hook out of self-created post touches. Broome’s post game has some counters and some pivots to it, and the left-handed tendency. His paint touch on those floater-type shots is nice, but the release itself is a bit slow and low, focusing on softly adding that touch rather than getting the shot out quickly. Some NBA centers may be tall, long and quick enough to snuff that out if Broome is too transparent about taking it at his leisurely pace. But if paired with a guard who can methodically encroach upon the paint, draw multiple defenders’ attention and lay it off to Broome in that deep paint area with space, he could put that touch to good use. A capable dunker and lob catcher with his decent vertical, Broome gets the job done around the rim, but nothing rim-rocking. As mentioned earlier, Broome could stand to impose a little more physicality in his finishing. 

The play-finishing also stems from constant and fluid screening, getting out of screens and DHO actions quickly and into rolls to the rim as a huge cog in the Auburn offensive machine. A veteran at this point, Broome clearly knows how to execute offense and be a useful screener, although the more bone-crushing screens the better. 

The offensive synopsis for Broome is that he seems to comfortably pass the basic thresholds in screening, finishing and playmaking (relative to position) but avenues for improvement in those areas seem steep, along with having reasonable hesitation about a shot that is admittedly headed in the right direction. 

On the other end, Broome is a solid college defender, executing POA schemes and generally being in the right spot. While his mobility is fluid for his size, it remains moderate mobility. Some closeouts and PnP coverage out to the perimeter can be a bit slow, but that is a difficult position for any center to be in. 

The size concern may crop up again with POA defense too, where Broome does put himself in good position, and yet the defense is not deterring much. On more aggressive coverages out on the perimeter, Broome can contain a more apprehensive ball-handler, but it does not take a whole lot of work from a quick guard to get around him or just make the next pass. Broome’s stance can be a bit high at times, and the lateral slides can get a bit hoppy, which more experienced guards can take advantage of or just speed by. In drop, Broome again situates himself well in those 1-on-2 scenarios, but guards don’t seem to have too much stress finishing over him, and bigs don’t seem too bothered finishing around him. Broome does increase the level of difficulty of some of these shots, but hoping to see more disruption, which manifests itself in recovering from blocks. I just wish the main source of disruption wasn’t stemming from getting beat initially. 

Lastly, I would again like to see Broome be more physical in the paint and especially against other bigs. I want to see Broome fighting for every inch of paint real estate, pushing post players out another foot or two. I want to see Broome hold up better against strong post players, who gain ground on him too easily. Broome needs to play more like someone who is legitimately 250 lbs. 

Yes, Broome does have successful instances too, but point being is that I wish his defensive presence was more impactful. I found many of his steals to be less about him creating the turnover and more about the offensive players’ mistakes. He would also make some risky pokes at the ball out on the perimeter, showcasing quick hands but not sure how available those steals will be at the next level. Broome has pretty good timing and hand placement on some blocks, and he requires both because neither his size nor vertical is overwhelming. He is also quite disciplined about keeping his arms straight up when contesting from vulnerable positions, but it’s typically coupled with not jumping either, which renders the safe contest largely unimpactful.

None of this is not meant to disparage Broome, who is a good if not great college basketball player, a highly productive and efficient player for a top-20 team. But considering his size and strength relative to NBA competition and his current skillset, Broome projects solely as bench big. There is a huge degree of difference between a starter and a bench big, and while a smaller difference between second and third string centers, there is still a meaningful distinction. The level of bench big Broome becomes will be determined by the shot (as is the swing skill of most players), because without it, Broome could find it tough to find separation from other bigs on the roster. All the margins add up, which is why I have been harping on Broome in this piece to stretch himself this season in search of development. Broome will be nearly 23 on draft night. I am not sure how much improvement is feasible, and he may not necessarily need any to be drafted, but in terms of his place on a depth chart, it could change the course of his early NBA career. 

The post Prospect Focus: Johni Broome appeared first on Swish Theory.

An aspect of NBA Draft Scouting I feel often goes under the radar is the ‘macro’ side of the game. This is something I believe to be the case when pre-NBA Tape is being analysed, but also when people try and project a players’ role in the NBA. Building a basketball team is about building a team that fits together, the goal isn’t just to collect good players and hope for the best. Similarly, I believe when analysing a prospects’ game, the rest of the team needs to be analysed and understood. This allows you to come to a conclusion as to whether the weaknesses will be alleviated with different pieces around them at the next level.

On the pre-NBA point, Mega Basket for the most part are a team built to develop prospects and showcase them in order to be able to keep running. They are a Youth Academy in a league where most teams are acquiring NBA veterans. Mega Basket by contrast had only one player over 30 years old on their roster last season. From an actual on-court perspective, Mega Basket were a team that had shaky perimeter spacing. Andrija Jelavic who will get draft buzz next year was their starting power forward. He’s a willing shooter, but shot only 28 percent from beyond the arc on the season.

From a personnel perspective, Mega Basket underwent some form of turmoil during the season when Nikola Topic left the team at Christmas. With Topic, Djurisic largely was utilised as a wing-driver and off-ball scorer. His game involves Stampede Driving (Catch and Go) and running Pick-And-Rolls after coming off a pin-down.

What was rather surprising to me, was that Djurisic’s role didn’t drastically change after the departure of Topic. Sure, he touched the ball slightly more and there was more urgency to get him touches. But he was still doing the same stuff as before. He just had more responsibility. Nikola Topic’s minutes were divided up between Stefan Miljenovic and Omer Can Ilyasoglu, leaving Djurisic free to play in his comfort zone as opposed to being crowbarred into something he’s not because he’s the best player.

Generally speaking, I project Djurisic to be a wing scorer who compromises nail help with his driving gravity and makes creative passes from the second-side. I believe the Macro to be advantageous to Djurisic as he has a good deal of experience playing in his likely NBA role, and at such a young age at a good-level of basketball. However, I also believe that the poor spacing made it difficult on him as I project him to be a drive-first wing. Interior windows were smaller than they may end up being in the NBA.

His 4.4 3PA per 36 would rank around 150th in the NBA. Some names around there include Josh Giddey, Jaden McDaniels and Jonathan Isaac. I believe him to have larger driving gravity than those names to make up for it. It must also be noted there are some very good NBA wings who shoot fewer 3s than that, so it’s not the be-all-end-all. Mega Basket were in a position where they probably could have done with him shooting more, but Djurisic drives were also arguably their scariest proposition outside of set plays.

Driving

The biggest strength of Nikola Djurisic is his driving game. His handle is good and he’s able to get where he wants to a lot of the time. He’s utilised as a slasher in the Mega Basket system, and he generally looks to drive rather than shoot when he comes off a ball-screen, though I don’t see these splits as egregious or anything.

I normally divide drives into two types. Those that take advantages, and those that create advantages. Djurisic’ is excellent at punishing tilted floors with his driving game which projects well for him being a play finisher.

Double Stagger Screen- Drive Right- Cross Over Left and get the half-dunk. Djurisic’s ability to cover a lot of ground really pops both in transition and against titled floors. Creating advantages via scheme or capitalising on the gravity of another star is obviously the easiest way to get this to pop.

His ground coverage is impressive, but what I find even more impressive is that he’s seemingly in control a lot of the time when he drives to the basket. Take the play below as an example.

Mega Basket go to Pistol Action. The opposition are going no middle and funnelling Djurisic towards the help. He breezes past his man and shows a good second-level move on his off-hand to get a layup as opposed to a floater. Something I noted throughout my scouting was how much better Djurisic got as the season went on. This was partially because Mega got better as a team and things were sped up as they got familiar with the playbook. But he just seemingly got much more comfortable as a driver.

He’s nifty in transition, and seems to have a plan. This was admittedly a sketchy take early on in the season, but he got much more comfortable as the season progressed, as if he had a better understanding of where his team-mates were going to be and where help might come from. This fuels his very impressive 0.46 Free-Throw rate.

He ends up missing the shot, but I love the process here. This was from early in the season. He attacks quickly and covers a great deal of ground. He’s good at stepping around help in the paint, it just slightly lets him down on this occasion. The reason I mention this being early in the season is because it felt as if his head was often in the right place, but he just lacked control. This was not really the case as the season went on.

This was from the February game against Zadar. It may look like a simple transition play, but the speed to adapt to the baseline being taken away into a eurostep and layup high off the glass is extremely impressive stuff. Transition isn’t the same as half-court basketball but these skills are still very valuable.

I’ve mentioned Stampeding the Catch a few times already. This is a niche strategy that has started to rise in the NBA. It involves a player attacking straight off the catch while the ball is coming to them. There are really two usages. One is to get a primary downhill momentum 30-feet or more from the basket (such as in Flip Action). The other is more of a half-court punishment to rightfully loading up help on star players. From the perspective of the player attacking, it requires a good handle and the ability to read defenses quickly.

Aggressive Nail Help is becoming more and more common, with 1 v 1 defense across the board genuinely becoming more of a dying art at the NBA level. In terms of off-ball counters, NBA defenses are comfortable leaving above average shooters open if it keeps their defenders out of rotation. Stampeding is a way of getting right back into the teeth of a defense. Djurisic is excellent at doing this due to his handle, his passing and an emerging floater and pull-up game.

Mega Basket are in their motion offense, the ball handler draws the nail help and swings it to Djurisic who takes it straight off the catch and draws a foul. Note how the closeout was denying Djurisic the middle of the floor. This is a common NBA strategy. For the most part, Djurisic is very comfortable driving baseline which i think adds value to him as a supporting wing player. He may see slightly softer closeouts because of his driving prowess and needing to earn the respect for his jump shot. But I’m a believer in his pull-up game (more on that later).

His interior passing is also a good mesh with stampeding, as he’s able to read the floor before he takes the ball off the catch and work out where help is going to come from. Here he makes a nifty dump-off pass after attacking from the left corner.

He seemed to be pretty self-aware of the fact that his team needed his drives into the paint to create good shots at the rim on a consistent basis, especially if they were not running set plays. On the play below, Djurisic has an opportunity to shoot, but punishes the closeout and makes a nifty shovel pass. Uros Plavsic robs him of an assist on this play.

Something i want to be clear about, is Djurisic’s driving game is not limited to off-ball drives or niche tactics. It’s just an area I think worth noting when projecting his fit with other players. Djurisic improved drastically throughout the season and by the end of the season he was flashing some immense reps as a driver.

Here they deny him the baseline which is probably because he’s more comfortable as a passer when driving to the right hand-side. So he drives and explodes off the low angle when he meets resistance in the paint. It’s impressive how quickly Djurisic is able to react to paint defense, and his size opens up extra finishing angles for him. He became more adept at finishing off the glass as the season progressed.

I’ve mentioned Djurisic getting valuable reps in his potential NBA usage, the play below is another example of this.

Iverson Action. Djurisic reads his defender going under, so he rejects the action and takes it straight off the catch, using a double clutch and a eurostep to turn a floater into a layup. This was a playoff game and despite slightly reduced minutes he played very well in these games, showcasing the season-wide improvement he had.

Generally speaking, the Double Clutch seems to be becoming a favourite of his. This is testament to his handle in general. This play from the Playoffs might be his best finish of the year. Drive -> Hard Step to force the big to his right -> crossover -> double clutch to secure the ball -> finish off the glass. Absolute poetry in motion, showcasing the development all coming together.

Delay sets are a staple of modern NBA offense, here’s Djurisic showcasing his driving chops in ‘Miami’ action, which is a handoff into a ball screen.

He takes the handoff, then just makes one subtle step and eye movement inside, which changes his defenders trajectory. He then takes a wide east-west step. After this he puts his man in jail, fakes a jump pass to freeze the big man then explodes off his planted foot in the same motion and finishes off the glass. He’s one of those players who just does a lot of subtle things when he drives that turn decent shots into good shots.

These ‘Zoom’ sets such as Miami and Chicago are staples of NBA offenses, and Djurisic’s handle and passing definitely open them up to be more fruitful. They’re often a go-to action in the NBA as a way of keeping lower usage players involved, but many of the players being given the reps out of these aren’t as dynamic of drivers as Djurisic. On the play below he quickly splits the PNR in Miami Action and draws a foul.

The poise Djurisic played with as the season went on was very encouraging. Early in the year it just felt like he was always trying to drive as opposed to reading the defense. With Mega Basket’s spacing concerns, this just exacerbated his turnover issues. But by the playoffs he was consistently showing a high-level driving game.

He comes off the screen, and within a second he has the big in hell. Pushing left, then spinning him around, then exploding from a low position for a layup. Mega Basket used a lot of clearout and roll and replace concepts to make drives easier for Djurisic, but with him being this coordinated it honestly isn’t something that’s necessarily always needed.

On this occasion, Djurisic is able to get low and explode off the ground. I would however say this is the aspect of his handle most in need of improvement. He’s able to get low, but there are times when he can really overestimate how good a driving angle he has available to him.

Mega Basket reset after an offensive rebound. Djurisic has a ball screen available to him, but chooses to try and drive. He gets low, but not to much effect. It’s good defense, but rejecting the ball screen wasn’t the move here, the perimeter defender was in a better position to defend his left side as opposed to the ball-screen side.

Shooting, Runners and why Driving is still a factor

Slightly transitioning into the next section on his shooting, I believe part of these driving issues come because of his shot prep.

On this play, stampeding probably isn’t the best option. His defender is parallel to the sideline and he’s got enough space to shoot. He has to at least sell the fact he might take a jump shot. Instead he barrels into a drive, tries to get low and turns the ball over. These issues definitely decreased in frequency as the season progressed, but he does have a slight tendency to get himself into trouble by trying to get low to the ground. It’s good he’s able to get low, but overestimating driving angles is a downside of his approach.

I’ve said previously, but Djurisic took 4.4 3s per 36, which would rank around 150th in the NBA. Part of this is because Mega Basket needed him to do this as even outside of Djurisic they weren’t much of a volume or efficiency 3-point shooting team because of non-shooting centers and streaky stretch 4s. But there is no doubt he is a guy who looks to drive first.

How worried you are by these forced drives depends on how much you believe in Djurisic’s pull-up game. Even as a Djurisic believer, I have to admit that with Djurisic’ shooting, you are buying a lot into process because the results are obviously not fully there. You’re buying into his space creation and perhaps a slight change in approach when it comes to driving vs shooting.

Across the board, his shooting percentages became more respectable this year, jumping from 22 percent to 30 percent from three. His pull-up game got more prevalent as the year progressed. Per my hand-tracking via Synergy, In the first 18 games of the season, he took 2.1 dribble jumpers per game making 28 percent of them. Over the last 18 games, he was taking 3.7 per game, making 37 percent of them.

Synergy has odd definitions on these, but it matched the eye test. He seemed more comfortable taking these shots as the year progressed.

Mega Basket swing the ball to the top of the key, the ’45’ cut creates a one on one for Djurisic. He didn’t create an advantage on the drive, so moves into his step-back. It’s a bit slow at first but the east-west creation at the end to the sustain the advantage is good.

Part of the reason his pull up game may have improved as the season progressed is his driving gravity opened up opportunities for him.

Mega Basket run ‘Delay Chicago Leak’ for a popping big. Jelavic dives to the rim which leaves Djurisic open. His man is clearly worried about a paint attack so Djurisic drops him deeper and then steps into a pull-up jumper. He got good separation on this shot and it’s why the process might be worth buying into.

The playoffs were difficult for Mega Basket. They played well, but the nature of this team is that they are always going to have roster turnover. So to me, it’s encouraging that Djurisic started to flash more in these games.

Crvena Zvezda are in a no middle defense. Djurisic drives to the baseline, sees a roaming defender and steps nicely into a step-back jumper. Mega Basket’s spacing on this play isn’t exactly great. It’s effectively 3-out-2-in with a 31 percent three-point shooter in the weakside corner. The spacing in the NBA should be better for him, but this doesn’t always necessarily lead to better results. With Djurisic, I’m more buying the flashes of space creation with such tough spacing as a platform for more growth.

With the shooting, you’re heavily buying two things, one is the space creation process as I mentioned above.

The other, is banking on his decision making becoming more streamlined at the next level. It’s clear he prefers to drive to the basket. But the question mark is whether this is definitively who he is, or if this is who he needed to be for Mega Basket to be the best version of themselves. Though they’re a developmentally-based team, basketball players still want to win games. He would sometimes stampede out of decent looks for Mega Basket, and that’s something teams may be slightly put off by, especially for a lower usage guy.

One notable thing from the Combine game, was how Djurisic got a heavy dosage of his probable early-NBA usage.

Here, his team run ‘Wide Reject Exit’. The shot prep is good and allows him to turn a disrupted pass into a clean look from beyond the arc. The process here looks pretty smooth.

The final thing to note in his shooting profile, is that a runner and floater game started to emerge as the season progressed.

The sample size isn’t huge, but the ones Djurisic did make were pure. His general comfort dribbling around the mid-range areas is hopefully an indicator that this floater game is here to stay.

Passing

Djurisic’ passing game and your read on it probably guages whether you have him as a borderline lottery pick, or as a second-rounder. Djurisic’ passing tape is the ultimate goldmine for a ‘risk v reward’ discussion. His passing generally meshes alongside his driving game, and he makes some absolutely beautiful passes. He manipulates defenders with his eyes, makes one-handed passes, bounce passes, floated lob passes. Whatever type of pass you like, he’s probably pulled one off.

Mega Basket run ‘Knicks Ricky’ which is a step up ball screen for Djurisic, who has initially come off a different screen in a different direction. Djurisic goes to use the screen, draws the trap and makes a quick wraparound pass to the roller who draws the foul. He’s able to think quickly and do things quickly.

It felt on film as if Djurisic was more creative as a passer when driving right as opposed to left. The sample sizes aren’t large enough to make definitive sweeping statements, but he appears much more comfortable making advanced reads when he was moving to the right hand side. On the left, we were sometimes accustomed to results such as below.

Mega Basket run ‘Strong Spain’. Djurisic comes off the ball-screen and ends up picking up his dribble. He then tries a very difficult pass with his off-hand. He overestimated the window completely. Going quicker into a pull-up jumper here may have helped, but he also should make the pass to the strong-side corner. But at the same time, the player spaced in the corner isn’t a good shooter.

This play illustrates my point, from both sides. At first, Djurisic uses a ball screen to his left, but Partizan send a trap at him. He gets stuck and resets. Next time, he rejects the screen and makes a nice pass with his off-hand which should really end in a wide open corner three.

This assist is one of his best on the year. Mega Basket run ‘Double Zoom’ action to get him downhill. He gets pushed away from the basket but makes a great pass with his left hand while he is falling over. He is capable of passing with his left hand, it just shows up a lot more when he is driving on his strong hand- this isn’t exactly abnormal.

He’s shown great potential at working with a roller. Mega’s center play was sometimes inconsistent and he probably deserved more assists, but some of his passes were very creative and well-timed. I loved this floated lob pass.

Mega Basket run a Roll and Replace type action with a player leaking out of the paint while the PNR goes. Djurisic makes a nice floated pass for an alley-oop. The pass was one that should have been made, but I liked the adjustment when the nail help disrupted him, he floated it with his wrist while low to the ground.

I think a team should tap into his connective passing if they draft him.

He likely won’t see the paint this packed in the NBA, but he’s very capable of extending windows with his handle and making nifty passes. This one was a great behind the back pass, and he had a similar one in the second combine game he played in. In an NBA where a lot of stuff can become heliocentric, I think his ability to deliver multiple outcomes off the second side is extremely valuable.

I’ve made it clear he’s a creative passer. The disagreements some may have, is whether his game is inherently too risky. He turned it over 3.2 times per game which was among the highest in the BAL.

This play is a good example of Djurisic’s risk taking. He comes off a wide-ball screen on an empty-side. The roller is open, but Djurisic tries a bounce pass. In my view, the center should catch this ball. But the other view is that this type of pass probably wasn’t necessary to produce a good result.

Djurisic’ passing depends on the team and the fit. As a believer in the passing, I think the creativity is welcomed and stops the ‘Academy Brain’ type plays that can make half-court offense predictable and easier for the defense to stop. However, some teams and scouts simply are less forgiving to players that needlessly turn the ball over.

It does appear his approach to the game is to take risks and do high risk-high reward type plays. But there is a possible chance this scales down when he has better spacing and is asked to do less. Upon speaking to people who are less high on Djurisic than me, I think this is normally the point where we start to lose each other.

Defense

This section isn’t going to be as long as the others. This isn’t because I’m overlooking defense or because he is outrageously good or outrageously bad. There just doesn’t feel like a great deal to say.

This also isn’t my selling point. I project him to be a passable defender at my highest level of evaluation. His feel is enough for me to think he won’t be a liability off-ball which means he isn’t going to overly compromise your scheme.

One reason for my hesitance to talk in great depth about the defense is because of the role he was utilised in.

Mega Basket were an aggressive defense that overloaded the strong-side of the court and liked to mix in traps at the top of the key. Djurisic wasn’t consistently utilised on the ball, so he spent the majority of the time playing as the weakside low-man. This is quite a tough ask for a 20-year old wing with just 6’7 wingspan. NBA Teams will often use half-court offense to isolate and pick their preferred choice at low-man, but it’s also highly unlikely an NBA team would leave Djurisic in that role early in his NBA Career.

Within this role, his job was to split the difference between protecting the rim and playing to the corner. The results were inconsistent. Sometimes such as on the play below, he was able to execute every part of his job as a low-man.

Here, Djurisic contains the baseline drive and rotates all the way out to the corner, blocking the shot. But there were plenty of other occasions where his help inside was minimal or he left the corner wide open.

I’d say the part of the defense I’d bank on most is the feel.

This clip is from the second combine game. His team overload the strong side which is largely what Djurisic played with in Serbia. He shows good reading of the game to sink at the right time and take away the layup. It’s simple stuff but when he knows his role, I think he can make good plays. It just needs to be way more consistent.

I also like the play below, where he blows up Bilbao Action.

But again later in the play, the resistance isn’t exactly domineering. He’s in the right place, but Vojvodina still get the exact shot they want. Knowing where to be and disrupting the shot are separate things.

On the perimeter, he lacks discipline at times. He can surrender decent driving angles to his matchups. This was extra problematic at times because he was often isolated on a side, which meant there wasn’t always help to bail him out. But we also didn’t see a great deal of him on ball because of the nature of Mega Basket’s defensive scheme. Whether they were hiding him or preserving him is in the eye of the beholder. The likely answer is it’s a bit of both.

My Ideal Fits and Development Plan

A lot has to go right for a prospect to work out in the NBA. It isn’t always as simple someone being ‘destined’ to make it at the next level. It’s something I feel needs more discourse. In my eyes, building a winning team isn’t about just stashing as many theoretical primaries as you can, it’s about fitting things together and answering hypothetical questions about the pieces you do have.

Nikola Djurisic is a prospect I’d feel comfortable taking in the mid-teens in the right situation. But I’m unsure giving a player a ‘grade’ really matters in the grand scheme of things, because his fit on one team might not be as good as a fit on another.

The asterisk to the ‘fit’ debate is that of course, rosters can change. But generally speaking, front offices will always try and build around what they do have, even if popular opinion deems the core to not be worth it. Their job often depends on it.

Here are some things I’d like to see in the team that Djurisic gets drafted by

• Have at least average team three-point volume
• Have a player who draws nail help
• Have size in the frontcourt

The three-point volume is important because even if Djurisic becomes a more consistent shooter, he’s a guy whose best skill is the ability to drive and be creative as a passer. Ensuring he doesn’t just need to become a spot-up play finisher is important. If a team is in need of three-point volume, I have concerns that his game would become heavily geared towards shooting and the stuff I consider to be his swing skills will not be given room to flourish and grow.

I’ve mentioned part of my process is answering ‘hypothetical’ questions. The part of the game I spend a lot of time on is the ability to beat specific defensive coverages. For example, I want to know how my roster or primary ball handler would react to a trap or a hedge. Can the wings shoot, if not, can they drive to the rim and get the defense back into rotation. Does my big man have a good understanding of where to make himself available for a pass? Can my big play on the short roll? These are the types of questions I seek to answer when analysing rosters, because sometimes you cannot X’s and O’s your way out of a situation.

I bring this up, because of my desire to see Djurisic alongside a team that draws nail help. It’s very specific and niche, but the type of thing I care about. Djurisic is an excellent driver and finisher who can punish the defense and get them back into rotation. If a team just wants someone to spot-up, there are better options. But if a team has a primary who plays more in isolation, I feel the off-the-catch game is a nice supporting feature.

Though I’d say I’m not a doomer on Djurisic’ defense, I have to admit the lack of size is a potential issue. So I feel a team with a smaller front-court might not get the most out of him.

This section might feel a little niche to some, but I just think it’s important to outline what you are scared of with a prospect, and more often than not I end up scared of the developmental situation a player ends up in as opposed to flaws in their own talent.

The three teams I feel he fits with are Memphis, Portland and New York.

Memphis

Memphis have reportedly worked out Nikola Djurisic. I feel he’d be a great fit. Memphis overhauled their offensive scheme this year, moving from a more rigid and traditional system to one that inverted the floor more often and utilised creative sets to generate three-pointers. They likely did this because they felt their rigidity worked against them in playoff settings.

A lot of their sets are for Desmond Bane and other shooters to emerge at the top of the key for three-pointers, but they are also adding Ja Morant to the mix whose gravity as a driver is incredible. Djurisic would slot in well in this ecosystem, utilising his driving ability to finish plays later in the clock and punish early loading up on Ja Morant. Sure, schemes can change. But Morant and Bane are locked in, and regardless of how they run offense, space is going to be there for off-ball players to exploit off the catch

Portland

Portland’s young core is intriguing. Scoot Henderson’s rookie year was up and down but I still buy the driving talent and gravity this will create. In Shaedon Sharpe and Anfernee Simons they have two off-ball threats, and Duop Reath might be the most underrated player in the entire NBA as of now. Djurisic is a guy who needs some work, and I feel Portland is perhaps the best fit for him to iron out some of his kinks. Chauncey Billups is a creative tactician who can draw up some sets for him to work on the empty-side alongside the young core they have in place.

Of the three teams I’ve named, this is the only one where Djurisic would be entering a rebuild. The reason I love this fit is because he has a great opportunity for play time, and if Scoot Henderson pans out I feel he’s a player who can fit alongside him.

New York

I think of the three teams I’ve named, the Knicks might be my favourite. Firstly, they have arguably the premier primary player at drawing nail help in the NBA in Jalen Brunson. Tom Thibodeau is underrated as an offensive coach, but more often than not he does like players who can create something from nothing, or at least from the more traditional sense. Djurisic’s driving game could pop in the future alongside Jalen Brunson.

I also think Tom Thibodeau gives his players defensive structure. He can alter his at-the-level coverages but for the most part, his wings do the same thing each game. They hustle, tag the roll and fly out to corner shooters on the weakside. Djurisic has a decent feel for the game defensively, and I think giving him a very specific role will be beneficial to his overall development. Thibodeau can be willing to play defensive neutrals or even negatives if they give him something unique offensively, and Djurisic definitely fits the bill here.

If Djurisic does choose to stay overseas, I like this fit the most of the three. The Knicks are largely locked in with a lot of their core, and bringing him into the fold in say 2026 after two more seasons of developing as a lead guy could be hugely beneficial to the Knicks and Djurisic.

Conclusion and Developmental Thoughts

Overall, I’ve probably made it clear I’m a believer in Nikola Djurisic. I buy the driving game as being a difference maker at the next level, and the pull-up game is one I’d buy into. The biggest concern offensively is probably the spot-up shooting. Though I’ve said ideally I want him to drive to the rim at the next level, at some point he will have to shoot. Part of the work needs to come in his shot approach, at times he decides to drive from good shooting windows. This is partially what makes him valuable as a driver, but balancing it will be key. I also believe his athleticism is hugely undersold.

The passing is good, it’s whether the playmaking potential will be anchored down by the turnovers. He may turn the ball over at a lower rate in a lower usage role, but the creativity does seem to be part of who he is as a basketball player. Your read on this probably signifies how much you believe in him, because the driving game looks to be good. It will also be interesting early on to see the types of closeouts he receives. Guys low in the rotation normally aren’t featured on the scouting report, but I expect people to work out early on that he prefers to drive. Teams may want him to work more on his shot approach and be selective with drives.

Though a ‘grade’ can be different for each team, I’d say generally speaking I believe Djurisic should be a first-round pick. I think his experience in an off-ball role gives him an advantage over many others who will be adapting from being primaries into lower usage players. Defensively, I think you are banking on him not being a negative. The main work needs to come on the perimeter, where he does have a tendency to surrender good driving angles to his opponents. I’d also recommend streamlining his role, giving him a specific duty like Mega Basket did, albeit a different one as I question the viability of him as a low-man helper against NBA level athletes.

The post Scouting Report: Assessing Fit and Maximising Nikola Djurisic in the NBA appeared first on Swish Theory.

Carter was an intriguing prospect in the Big East last year, mainly due to his athletic juice and tenacious guard defense. His offensive game was rough around the edges, as he only shot 29.9% from deep and 42% on non-dunk two-pointers, but a guard with his length, motor, and screen navigation seemed like a solid rotational bet. Fast forward to 2024, where Carter posted an 11.4 BPM, put up 19.8 points per game on 59.8 TS%, and established himself as one of the best offensive players in the conference. How did Carter make such a great leap? And how can this newfound offensive production translate to the next level? 

Carter is an elite functional athlete. How many 6’3” guards can climb the ladder for reverse alley-oops, sour in for putbacks, and elevate with ease off cuts? No high major player under 6’4” had more dunks this year (26) and his 0.89 dunks/40 minutes is somewhere between high flyers like Ja Morant/Zach Lavine (0.93) and Dennis Smith Jr. (0.79) in their pre-draft seasons. 

Carter has fantastic burst, capable of blowing by his man off the bounce for easy lay-ups. He averaged around 5.5 rim attempts per game this season. But where Carter has shown immense growth is with his patience. He doesn’t strictly win with blow-by-speed. Providence frequently utilized him as a pick-roll-handler and ran him off curls and handoffs. He does a good job coming out of actions and getting to his spots with pace manipulation. Once he gets inside, Carter uses his length to his full advantage, extending over outreaching contests for finishes. He loves to stop and work with his pivot foot, getting to his turnaround or stepping to the rim. Per Battorvik, he shot 65.2% on 181 rim attempts. 

With his improved pacing, Carter’s passing has leaped. While still a score-first player, he looked much more comfortable waiting for plays to develop and finding lay-down windows. He upped his assist rate from 14.3% last year to 23.3% this year. There are times when he misses reads or doesn’t see a helper and forces the issue. Carter’s awareness of recognizing digs and gap help needs to improve at the next level. Regardless, his downhill style lends itself to creating open windows, which he usually capitalizes upon.

Shooting is the other major area of growth for Carter. Last season, he shot 33.3% on 69 catch-and-shoot three-point attempts. This season he took 127 catch-and-shoot threes and nailed 40.2% of them. His raw three-point percentage increased from 29.9% to 37.7%. The question is whether or not Carter’s leap is a fluke. 

After watching and hand-sorting all of his catch-and-shoot threes this season, I found that 54 of his attempts came off of movement, while 73 of his attempts were stationary. Many of these movement looks came with a high degree of difficulty – sprinting off screens and firing from way behind the line. On stationary attempts, Carter shot 42.4% (31/73) versus 37.0% (20/54) in motion. Note that this is imperfect hand-tracked data from yours truly, but my main point is that Carter took a lot of difficult shots and was still pretty efficient. His 3-point efficiency could rise even higher with a tamer catch-and-shoot diet. That’s not to say he shouldn’t be empowered to shoot off movement at the next level. Carter has the self-organization skills to make difficult shots. It’s just that some of the stuff he was hoisting up this year was absolutely bananas. 

Carter also shot 34.0% on dribble 94 off-the-dribble threes this year, using his deceleration ability to create space for himself. I expect him to pull it versus unders pretty early in his career. 

His release looks a bit funky with a low set point, but the volume and versatility have me tentatively buying the shot. Carter is much more comfortable letting it fly, upping his 3PA/100 every year he’s been in college (5.8 in Freshman year, 6.5 in Sophomore year, 11.2!!! in Junior Year). This is someone who is undoubtedly confident shooting a basketball. 

Will Carter run a pro offense? Most likely not. But that doesn’t mean his offensive growth and usage spike are meaningless. The NBA isn’t made up strictly of creators and non-creators. High-level complimentary guards must be able to create to some degree and capitalize against a tilted defense. There’s a strong chance that Carter is a potent enough shooter to demand closeouts, which makes his offensive pitch all the more appealing. 

But it’s the defensive end of the floor where Carter will make his money. There were moments this season when he floated around, likely a side effect of his hefty offensive burden. But the vast majority of the time, Carter is locked in and suffocating. He’s a pest on-the-ball with strong, quick hands. With a 2.8% block rate, he’s a shot-swatting machine for a Guard. He routinely blocks jumpers on closeouts and is a deterring presence at the rim. There could be real tertiary rim-protection equity here with his vertical pop off two feet, length, and activity. Carter is exceptional at navigating ball screens, agile enough to stay glued to his man through picks, and boasting the recovery tools to impact shots from behind. 

Even at 6’3”, I think that Carter can guard some wings in a pinch. He has a strong base, preventing him from getting moved by larger-bodied offensive players, and his near 6’9” wingspan makes him functionally larger than his listed height. He held up well on switches this year, maintaining his ground against physicality and using his length to contest. 

The obvious drawback here is that Carter is old, having already turned 22 years old. But as has been well-documented, plenty of older prospects have been severely underdrafted. A quick checklist for evaluating multi-year college prospects…

Year-to-Year Improvement

If a player spends multiple years on campus, it’s vital to look for legitimate areas of improvement. Growth isn’t linear, but if a prospect is the same player they were as a Freshman after two years of school, the sell for further development beyond college becomes trickier. Desmond Bane is a player that comes to mind in this category, a sharpshooter who made strides as a ball-handler and passer throughout his time at TCU. As a senior, Bane nearly doubled his assist rate from the previous season (26.0% vs. 13.6%). 

Vince Williams Jr. is another example – a guy who went 12/55 from three his first two seasons at VCU and ended his career jacking up 10.1 three-point attempts/100 and drilling at a 38.7% clip. 

Production

Many of the best NBA role players were legitimate stars in the college ranks. Josh Hart and Derrick White were both 18+ PPG scorers in their pre-draft seasons. Production matters – an older college player should be able to put up numbers and dominate against college-level competition. Max Strus and Payton Pritchard each averaged over 20 PPG at DePaul and Oregon as Seniors. 

One player who I recently undervalued was Jaime Jaquez. I struggled to see how he would produce at the NBA level without maintaining his usage at UCLA. However, I ignored the most important thing about Jaquez’s game: he is good at basketball. Players that are uber-impactful in college are always a good bet. Jaquez has settled nicely into a lower-usage role in Miami, where he made an immediate impact for a playoff team. 

Immediate Go-To Skill(s)

Especially for older prospects, for which teams have less patience, a player needs to have something that keeps them on the floor immediately. Even players on the more raw side of the spectrum must give teams a reason to play them. This is something that should pop off the screen. Sam Hauser could shoot, giving him the in-game reps to develop into a formidable defensive player. Caruso and Herb Jones played their hearts out on defense, empowering teams to invest time into developing their shots. 

NBA Athleticism and Tools

The downfall of many. There is a baseline of athleticism that every NBA player needs to hit. Those who are small, slow, and weak become liabilities on both ends of the floor. Even guys who aren’t typically known for their “athleticism” hit meaningful benchmarks in college. Derrick White had 142 rim attempts and Christian Braun had 27 dunks. 

Carter fits each of these criteria with ease. He grew as a shooter and ball-handler and produced in a big conference. He’s a day-one havoc creator on defense whose athleticism pops off the screen. I think there’s a path for Carter to become a true star-impact rotation piece at the next level – someone who could easily wind up one of the top few players in this class.

The post Devin Carter is Still Underrated appeared first on Swish Theory.

Quickly turning into one of the more polarizing prospects of the 2024 draft cycle, Ron Holland boasts prototypical size for a NBA wing standing 6’8 (in shoes) with a 6’11 wingspan. Holland has perhaps experienced the most rapid development arc of all the lottery-level prospects, first coming onto the national scene playing for an elite high school program in Duncanville (Texas) where he starred alongside 2023 lottery pick, Anthony Black. For the majority of his high school career Holland made his bones as an energy big-man, who relentlessly crashed the glass and was an opportunistic scorer. Now playing for the
G-League’s Ignite program, Holland has expanded his game to the perimeter, sliding into a more of a combo-forward role.

The role change, combined with the massive leap in competition, have yielded predictably mixed results for Holland. Shooting a paltry 21.3% from three on a little over 3 attempts per game, along with a .72 Assist-to-Turnover ratio, Holland has had his fair share of record scratch moments where his lack of refinement as a ballhandler and shooter have been highlighted. However, Holland has balanced these growing pains with perhaps the most impressive flashes in the class, where he has parlayed his exceptional burst into persistent rim pressure which has allowed him to play-make for others. All this goes without mentioning how effective Holland has been defensively, displaying rare off-ball instincts for an 18 year old wing and a penchant for defensive playmaking (Holland is averaging 2.2 steals and 0.9 blocks per game). The developmental trajectory Holland is already on combined with the archetypal value of a two-way wing is what lands Holland at #1 on my board.

Ahmed Jama

2. Nikola Topic, KK Mega / KK Crvena

Nikola Topic has played 16 games this season for KK Mega Soccerbet. During that time he was able to put his NBA skillset on fully display. Topic is excellent on the ball, primarily as a pick and roll ball handler, leading to 1.01 points per possessions per Synergy. His ability to attack the basket with his first step while having the ball on a string makes him exceptional. Once he gets to the rim, Topic finishes at a 65% clip. The playmaking from Topic is also a standout skill, specifically the timing of his passing on back cuts, skip passes after reading the low man, and feathery touch on lobs to rollers. Regardless of who he plays for, expect Topic to be smart with the ball and make sound passing reads.

If you got this far you’re probably asking, “why haven’t I read anything about Topic’s shooting?” That is a trickier question. The free throw numbers are there, shooting 86.5% which bodes well for his future as a shooter at the NBA level. But the release is too low to get off against NBA-level athleticism. The question may not be can he shoot it but at what volume. Last but not least is the defense. Topic has shown that he can sometimes be beat off the dribble and has been prone to foul when guarding off-ball. He can ball-watch and not rotate correctly at times.

At the end of the day, Topic deserves his spot as a top pick in this particular draft. In this league you need ballhandlers who can create advantages and capitalize: Nikola Topic can do both of those things.

Larry Golden

3. Alexandre Sarr, Perth

Every year of the modern draft, highly skilled seven-footers with shooting touch and the ability to play-make have upheld the top of the draft. With the 2024 NBA Draft, Alex Sarr is the newest addition to that group. Sarr’s coordination and mobility at 7’1” are truly remarkable and those movement skills translate to both sides of the ball, especially this season playing off the bench for the NBL’s Perth Wildcats. Sarr’s size, reach, and fluidity with larger strides give him the tools to have elite ground coverage and deter shots effectively at the rim. He also can backtrack at his size which makes him a defensive Swiss army knife, being able to protect the rim as the low man in different pick-and-roll coverages, a help-side rim protector, and even help at the nail. 

What Sarr does struggle with, however, is being able to take choppier steps which may affect him at times as he rolls or handles in traffic on offense or even create events in short areas on the defensive side of the ball. Dealing with sub-par vertical explosion, Sarr can mitigate some of those issues out of the dunker spot with his size and a quicker second jump.

Sarr has the potential to be an off-the-catch nightmare offensively, as with his combination of movement skills, touch, and size he can create mismatches consistently both in live-ball situations or into post-ups. While his handle does need work for his offensive game to actualize, Sarr’s potential as a shooter is intriguing with his touch around the rim and his high three-point volume relative to other seven-footers his age.

Roshan Potluri

4. Matas Buzelis, G League Ignite

The Lithuanian forward from Chicago, Matas Buzelis came into the G League season as the 7th best prospect on the RSCI list. The 6’10” forward is armed with shooting prowess and the ability to put the ball on the floor and handle it with flashes of real creativity. He may only be shooting 22.2% on 3.4 attempts this G League season but Matas has pristine shooting mechanics, fluid energy transfer, great touch, and a 43% 3-point shooting profile dating back to his senior year at Sunrise Christian. While Matas has a slender frame at the moment, he’s able to carve space off the catch by getting extremely low with his shin angles and lower leg flexibility. This enables his body to act as a lever against his defenders, leveraging this into opportunities to score with touch inside the arc or at the rim. 

Matas showcases his feel in these dribble-drive situations, often identifying where help comes from and acting on those passing opportunities. His feel also exudes itself on the defensive end where he’s great with his active and timely help whether that’s at the nail, in gaps, or even as a weakside tagger using his length to help deter an offense. He struggles a bit with closeouts as he can be upright at times on strong closeouts, battling back to recover in these possessions, but in general his lower leg flexibility allows him to mirror smaller, craftier offensive players. 

NBA teams are always looking for players with this description just due to the versatility they can provide on both sides of the ball. If Matas continues on the development path he is on, he has the makings of a truly unique dribble-pass-shoot wing that can bolster and supplement an NBA defense.

Roshan Potluri

5. Isaiah Collier, USC

Isaiah Collier was the top recruit in the country entering this college season and his sell as a prospect begins and ends with his ability to pressure the rim. Collier is a shorter guard with only one dunk on the season, but thrives beneath the rim with strength, craft and ambidextrous finishing. Collier averages over 5 layups a game while converting on 63.2% of those looks. That threat of rim pressure is the catalyst for his playmaking. Collier is excellent at spraying passes from within the teeth of the defense and creating looks for others, though his teammates’ success converting those looks has been dubious at best. 

Collier will need to shore up his turnovers, a result of over-aggressive driving, exuberant confidence and an occasionally loose handle. His jumper has been better than expected entering the year, but is far from a reliable weapon at this point in time and the defense certainly has a ways to go. Even with those limitations, Collier’s undeniable rim pressure and his incredible positional strength offer a tantalizing developmental proposition. The game is about buckets, and Collier’s ability to create them for himself and others is near the very top of this class. 

Tyler Wilson

6. Rob Dillingham, Kentucky

Rob Dillingham is a premier offensive talent and has been a reliable on-ball creator for Kentucky all season. The OTE alum has brought his up-tempo style to the Wildcats, and has leveraged his shiftiness and speed in downhill attacks in combination with his shooting to become a well-rounded threat on a consistent basis. Dillingham has true three-level scoring ability, with pull up range that goes well beyond the NBA three-point line, and he is also very effective coming off of screens. In the mid-range and inside, his soft touch and insanely deep floater package make him nearly unstoppable at getting a solid field goal attempt whenever he wants to. Not to be overlooked in Dillingham’s offensive skill set is his passing, which is surprisingly high level. For a player who’s floor game was questioned coming into college, Dillingham’s reads have been advanced, with adept passing out of nearly every offensive situation, from skip passes to corner on the move to the screen and roll and all in between. Equally capable of slotting in at both the point guard and off-guard positions, Rob Dillingham’s offensive game is as NBA-ready as they come.

Defensively are where the concerns start to rear their ugly head. Dillingham provides more than adequate effort and generates steals at a decent rate, but at a relatively slight 6’2 and 170 pounds, his physical attributes don’t lend themselves to being a plus defender, where his athleticism is negated, and at the NBA level opposing teams will certainly exploit Dillingham’s lack of size and girth. Even with his severe defensive issues, Rob Dillingham’s offensive game is so exemplary that he is a near bet to go in the lottery. Where exactly in the lottery that will be will come down to how NBA teams evaluate Dillingham’s offensive ceiling and his long-term role with their franchise, but with the talent he possesses, Dillingham is sure to make for a solid fit.

Corban Ford

7. Zaccharie Risacher, JL Bourg

In an NBA where three point shooting and ground coverage are king, Risacher has the profile of one of the best complementary wings in the class. A highly touted prospect, Risacher struggled mightily playing in the U19 FIBA tournament that saw him slide precipitously down draft boards. Fast forward a few months and Risacher is one of the best shooters in a competitive Jeep Elite league in France. 

Spot ups, off movement, over a heavy contest, Risacher has been excellent in nearly every facet of shooting the basketball. He has great positional height and length for his position and his release point makes most shots nearly unblockable. Risacher has been an incredibly solid team defender for JL Bourg this year, and while his point-of-attack defense and screen navigation certainly need some TLC, he has proven to be a positive presence on both ends this season as an 18-year-old. He is not the creator some hoped he would be entering the season, but his success as a two-way off-ball wing is an incredibly encouraging sign for his translation to a league that is constantly searching for more players like him.

Tyler Wilson

8. Kyle Filipowski, Duke

Kyle Filipowski is an intriguing skilled big man from Duke who has been rising up draft boards this cycle. Standing nearly 7 feet, Filipowski’s offensive skill set is one of tantalizing promise that is rapidly approaching consistent reality. His tremendous footwork and ability to put the ball on the floor make him a challenge to defend in the pick and roll action, a challenge that is compounded by the rapidly developing catch and shooter jumper that he has shown in pick and pops. Additionally, Filipowski is adept at making quick passing reads out of the short roll, while in straight post up situations, his soft touch and polish around the rim make him an extremely tough cover. While he may not ultimately figure as a main offensive hub, his game should slot in well as a secondary engine of efficient offense.

Defensively, Filipowski is at his best as a weak-side defender, where he brings his height to bear in an impactful way. He is very competent in a drop scheme defensively, where he moves just well enough to stay in front of the action, although he does struggle in a switch system where he simply isn’t quick enough to contain penetration from guards or faster forwards. He also struggles defending bigger and stronger post players, who are able to score at a high clip with him as the defender. Despite this, Kyle Filopowski projects as a very strong player in this year’s draft who can most certainly go high lottery, with his outside shooting and defensive versatility factoring in as possible swing skills.

Corban Ford

9. Donovan Clingan

The intrigue around Clingan as a lottery prospect starts with his ability to protect the rim. At 7’2” with a 7’7” wingspan and strong instincts as a shot blocker, Clingan has stretches where he completely shuts down the rim for opposing offenses. Where he differs from other recent rim protector prospects is his strength/frame, as he’s built more like Brook Lopez than a Chet Holmgren/Evan Mobley type. His ability to guard in space has been a little questionable this year, but it’s worth noting he’s dealt with multiple foot injuries and looked better in that department when he was healthy as a freshman.

On the offensive end Clingan isn’t the most diverse player and could stand to improve on his touch, but it’s still easy to imagine a role for him on that end in the NBA. His frame makes him an effective screen setter and he has the size and coordination to be dangerous as a roll man around the rim. He also has a basic but usable low post game and is a strong offensive rebounder, which will make it hard for teams to switch smaller defenders onto him. Between his potential as a defensive anchor and a relatively high floor offensive game, it’s easy to see why Clingan is a potential lottery pick.

AJ Carter

10. Tyler Smith, G League Ignite

Tyler Smith is 6’10 with a 7 foot WS, freshman aged, and can shoot the cover off the ball while also not being a defensive black hole. It really isn’t hard to see why he’s gaining traction as a lottery pick from a pure archetypal value standpoint. Tyler has had an unorthodox trajectory, as he’s spent the last two seasons playing in the Overtime Elite league. Part of what makes me so confident about Tyler is that he’s been relatively dominant in every stop of his career. In both years at OTE, Tyler averaged 20 pts per 40, as he quickly became known for being the league’s premier sharpshooter en route to being awarded Second Team All-OTE honors. He adapted quickly to the G League’s deeper 3P line, as he is currently shooting 39% from 3 on nearly 6 3s per 36 and 68% from the free throw line while averaging 12.8/5/1.4 per game. In short, he is an incredibly productive player in a pro league with an NBA ready skillset. 

What makes Tyler so unique, however, is his interior dominance: Smith averages over a dunk per game and is a true vertical threat as a roll man or cutter. How many elite NBA shooters are also able to screen and roll? Tyler also projects as a fairly instinctual secondary rim protector, able to rotate over and disrupt with his length and verticality. At the end of the day, Tyler just blends productivity and an enviable skill set in an NBA ready body. There are some concerns; his rim touch is poor and he often struggles to handle defenders inside the arc, hence why his volume/consistency on pull up 2s is quite low. Perhaps there is a cap on his feasible creation burden in the league, or maybe his precocious productivity in offball roles proxies some latent creation upside. Nonetheless, Tyler Smith is statistically the most impressive G League Ignite prospect with an NBA ready skillset, and he can guard and play inside on BOTH sides. His game is an intuitive equilibrium amidst the ever swinging pendulum between skilled bullyball (see: the last 5 MVP winners) and small ball.

Avinash Chauhan

11. Ja’Kobe Walter, Baylor

In a league where the highest premium is placed on having shooting available, so as to serve as a catalyst for high level offenses, Ja’kobe Walter very well could be the most potent shooter in the 2024 draft class. Walter is currently shooting a blistering 43.5% from three on a robust 11 attempts per 100 possessions. While virtually all of Walter’s attempts have been assisted up until this point (96.7%), this belies how versatile a shooter Walter has been over the course of his career prior to his arrival at Baylor, where he has been pigeon-holed into a smaller, off-ball role. Walter prior to college consistently
displayed the ability to shoot from distance on a variety of platforms, comfortable getting into his shot dribbling with either hand.

What separates Walter’s shooting from his contemporaries is how decisive he is off the catch when he inevitably receives hard close-outs. This is evidenced by Walter’s robust 38.7% free-throw rate, a rare benchmark for an off-ball spacer to reach. Walter’s sinewy frame and limited foot-speed for the position limit his effectiveness on the defensive end, and while he is somewhat able to compensate by forcing turnovers with his quick hands (2.7% steal rate), it is difficult to see Walter ever becoming an impactful player at this end of the court. Ultimately though, Walter’s combination of quick off-ball processing and versatile shooting make him an enticing complimentary bet.

Ahmed Jama

12. Kel’el Ware, Indiana

Kel’el Ware is an intriguing prospect, a 7’0” big who is a fluid mover at his size. He’s a complete rolling big that dunks a ton of his lob opportunities. Ware’s game is tantalizing not just for the rolling and screening, but also his NBA-level post up game. He can finish over the top with his go-to jump hook or get to his fadeaway. Indiana trusts him on the perimeter to make passing reads and he’s shown some ability to read the floor and know when to dive cut. The skillset is there for Kel’el Ware and the concerns have turned down a bit. Let’s hope the motor continues to run hot.

Victor Wembanyama is now in the NBA, and if you’re doing things right, finding guys for your frontcourt who can compete is paramount. Ware is someone that if it all clicks could be fun to watch and impactful at the next level.

Larry Golden

13. Reed Sheppard, Kentucky

Despite tough competition for minutes in a loaded Kentucky guard room, Reed Sheppard has been one of the biggest draft risers in the NCAA thus far. He’s one of the best standstill shooters in the country (56% 3pt, 90% FT), makes good decisions with the ball in his hands, and is a high level defender thanks to a rare combo of elite hand-eye coordination and defensive instincts. He’s also producing at a historic level for a young prospect, trailing only Zion Williamson and Anthony Davis (both #1 overall picks) in BPM for a freshman over the last 15 years. 

While you can’t really argue against Reed being a good basketball player, most of the questions around him stem from positional fit and perceived lack of upside. At 6’3” with limited athleticism he has the measurables of an NBA PG, yet Sheppard doesn’t do much to break defenses down off the dribble and is below the standard creation threshold typically needed to play Point Guard at the next level. Whoever drafts him may have to be a little creative with their lineup/roster construction to get the most out of Reed, but there’s little doubt about his ability to impact winning when he’s on the floor.

AJ Carter

14. Ryan Dunn, Virginia

Ryan Dunn is, simply, a master of mayhem. The 6’8 sophomore wing is the anchor of Virginia’s stifling defense, and he truly excels at initiating disorder on every plane of basketball geometry. The stats speak for themselves: Dunn is the first player since the legendary Thybulle to average 2 steals and 2 blocks per game, and he’s doing it with a cerebral combination of resounding athleticism and incredible defensive feel. Dunn is on pace to put up the first 10% block/4% steal season ever (?) and he leads the nation in adjusted defensive rating. By all accounts, Dunn is the most impactful defender in the nation, but it’s important to highlight just HOW he’s doing this. At 6’8 with a 7’1 wingspan, Dunn is a remarkably versatile event creator. It’s stupidly difficult to project anyone to guard all five positions, but Dunn slides on the perimeter with slower guards and has the range to rotate over as a secondary rim protector. He is genuinely the best bet to guard all 5 positions in the league in recent memory.

Dunn’s movement skills are second to none – with his collection of tomahawk dunks in the halfcourt and rapid baseline cuts on offense serving as even more evidence of his agility and lateral quickness. What makes Dunn so special, however, is his incredibly quick processing. Dunn leverages his range and length with an extraordinary level of consistency as he quickly diagnoses vulnerabilities in Virginia’s defensive infrastructure. His ability to pivot and make free safety-esque rotations to disrupt offensive flow is perhaps not the most orthodox interpretation of feel, but make no mistake: Ryan Dunn is a high feel player. This “feel” carries over on offense, where Dunn is a mistake free player. He’s posted a 1.2 assist to turnover rate, miniscule turnover rate, and despite a seemingly low assist rate, I was surprised by his willingness to make some intriguing, rapidfire reads, whether it be kickouts from inside or from the post to baseline cutters. The rest of the offense is questionable, sure: Dunn’s offensive repertoire is almost entirely off cuts and in transition, with a sprinkling of spot ups that some may be happy to glaze over. Shooting under 60% at the line and under 30% from 3 as a sophomore is certainly questionable, especially considering Dunn is quite a bit older for a sophomore (January 2003 birthday). But at the end of the day, Dunn has only played a year and a half at the college level, he has impressive tools and elite decision making to boot, and if feel is truly indicative of outlier development, then who says he can’t undergo unexpected offensive progress? Even if he’s a negligible offense player, it doesn’t hurt that he’s the best defensive prospect that I can remember.

Avinash Chauhan

The post 2024 NBA Draft: Lottery Board 1.0 appeared first on Swish Theory.

In this piece, Swish Theory contributors look at exactly that. We reflect on our “favorite” misses, those who have taught us the most along our various hoops journeys.

Matt Powers

Jayson Tatum.

While I was much less tuned into the draft, mostly highlight scouting until 2020, I still took pride in making a quick board or a friendly wager with friends regarding prospect outcomes. Jayson Tatum has a lot that I look for in a prospect, a smart defender with skill, green flag production and a great athlete. But, reader, I did not buy the shot. The aesthetics of the Duke motion got under my skin in a way I could not explain, a two-motion release that involved often violent gathers and flaring out on release. I let this issue cloud my overall opinion of the now consensus star for the Boston Celtics, and, while I did not make an official board this season, had major concerns about him as a top 3 draft pick. If the shot doesn’t fall, I expected the rest of the game to crumble…or else was just so distracted by the aesthetics – not even that bad, but enough to trigger a massive red flag in my analysis.

That all was fixed within the first week of Summer League. A 34% shooter from deep in college, Tatum smoothed out his motion and generally has excelled as an athlete where, even if it didn’t improve, he likely would still be an All-Star anyways. But a career 38% on heavy volume (including 43% as a rookie) I never could have imagined. That all made the rest of his game, already strong, even easier, the undisputed leader for a consistent title contender at a young age. Better shooting meant lower thresholds for innovation in the rest of his game, exploring the studio space as a handler and passer to make consistent leaps in skill. That taught me a harsh lesson about the uncertainties of shooting, the dangers of aesthetics, the value of compounding flashes of skill and, well, sometimes it just happens.

A maxim I’ve developed is that with draft research, someone will always be higher or lower than you on every aspect of a player’s game. It’s not worth staking out ground as the guy who doesn’t believe in a player’s shot, or, on the other end, convinced they are guaranteed to be 40%+ from deep. Every scale is fluid and incremental, and a change in trajectory for one skill or trait has downstream impacts on every other one. In overanalyzing a single item, it’s likely you’re too narrow in your imagination. 

Josh Url

Willie Cauley-Stein.

Before the 2015 draft I was excited by the defensive potential of Willie Cauley-Stein (WCS). He seemed destined to be a switchable rim protector and lob threat at 7’0” 240 lbs with crazy athletic tools. Of all the centers in NBA Draft Combine history at the time WCS posted:

• The fastest lane agility drill time (better than the average score for pgs).
• The 2nd fastest ¾ sprint time.
• The highest max vertical reach (tied for 1st).

On top of the ELITE athleticism WCS looked defensively dominant for the 38-1 Kentucky Wildcats. An NBA executive even told me that WCS was THE best defensive prospect he had seen over his long career. Unfortunately, Willie’s NBA career did not play out as expected. 

Missing on WCS taught me two lessons: 

1. Even top 1% athleticism is not guaranteed to translate to NBA defensive dominance. Now, I prioritize decisive defensive decision-making over athletic tools. 
2. Most players do not get a bigger role in the NBA so it’s important to know if the player will embrace their NBA role. WCS said “The story on me going into this draft is that I’m an elite defender with a raw offensive game. In my head I’m thinking, how would you even know what I’m capable of offensively?” Self-belief is good but so is self-awareness.

Charlie Cummings

Jerome Robinson.

Okay, take a moment to laugh. I deserve it.

I learned two hard lessons with Jerome Robinson. First, don’t place stock in a couple of big games above the overarching body of work (in this case, his 24 points in Boston College’s upset of #1 ranked Duke and 46 points against Notre Dame). Before “that dawg in him” was on the radar, let alone criminally overused, that’s what I thought Jerome had.

I also failed to see how the athleticism would (or wouldn’t) translate. He simply did not have the physical tools to keep up defensively or create consistent rim pressure, and the perimeter scoring alone was not strong enough to keep him on the field. So a player I ranked 7^th when draft Twitter consensus had him 39^th unsurprisingly flopped. The career 4.5 PPG on a 43.9% eFG hit me like a shotgun to the chest.

Now I know to balance the good games scouted with the bad ones, and to value athletic tools as the ultimate “make or miss” aspect of a prospect profile. Thank you, Jerome, for the brutal lesson.

Dennis Janßen

LaMelo Ball.

Sounds weird, because I had LaMelo #1 on my board as of the draft, but it took me a long time and some outside influence to come around on him. Everybody remembers the Ball-led Chino Hills teams and especially the skinny, blonde-dyed haired LaMelo pulling up from halfcourt, scoring 90+ points in a high school game (including accusations of opposite coaches to ruin basketball in its entity). I had my fair share of reservations about LaMelo, including being heavily biased from the media coverage I got living overseas, which was mostly on the negative side.

Inefficient, broken shot, selfish, showboating without any hope he could guard anyone on an NBA floor was my broad takeaway from watching him in high school and the NBL and I missed the forest for the trees. What happened?

I started draft scouting with the 2020 cycle, was extremely clueless contextualizing player development and growth of youth players. What really opened my eyes in regard to LaMelo Ball was a piece about him from PD Web:

L A M E L O

The look behind the curtain revealed that LaMelo actually is an outer-worldly, instinctual basketballer that maybe just needs some further polish in his game. Like PD said, “All Ball all the time has not really allowed for jumper surgery, the similarities from when I first saw Melo in middle school to Chino to overseas to now are striking.” His youth career was unique in a sense of really pushing his feel and decision-making development, whilst not establishing the typical “old school” baseline of things like a constant defensive motor or visually appealing jumper. Melo is a unique prospect that required a different look at his tape I wasn’t able to have at the time. It didn’t take long for him to really beat off most of my concerns about his shot and overall efficiency, whilst being one of the most promising young ball handlers of the league.

Oscar

Sharife Cooper.

In my time as a draft scout, I’ve encountered few prospects as tempting to proclaim support for as Sharife Cooper. Coming out of Auburn, Rife presented the perfect storm of factors that made his hill one worth dying on: a wildly exciting player with several exceptionally rare traits and statistical indicators, plus with a crowd of bad faith detractors pointing to a 12 game college 3pt shooting sample as evidence of his bust potential. 

Sharife’s combination of handling ingenuity, virtuosic passing acumen and advanced finishing toolbox fueled my belief that he could be the exception to the rule for small guards making the leap to the league. His stint at Auburn was statistically unprecedented in a variety of ways: his free throw rate (.560, more than 10 FTs/40 mins), assist rate (52%!), and touch indicators (83% from the line, consistent pinpoint accuracy as a high volume lob thrower) were all gargantuan green flags for an offensive engine prospect. Many evaluators were scared off by Cooper’s poor 3pt shooting at Auburn (13/57 for a ghastly 23% mark), but I never saw this as a big issue considering his solid pre-college shooting track record and career-long proficiency from the line. Indeed, Cooper has shot a rock solid 137/379 (36%) from deep on about 7 attempts/100 possessions in his 76 G-League games to date, a mark that many of his doubters swore he would never reach only 2 years ago.

The more legitimate critique of Cooper’s game to me was always whether he could overcome the razor-thin margin for error that small guards get as inside-the-arc scorers and defenders. Two years into his NBA career, it seems like the answer to this question is a no (though I’m holding out hope that he’ll flourish in bench minutes if given the chance!).  

Ultimately, my mistake was zeroing in on what most people pointed to as Sharife’s weakest skill: his touch is good, it was always good, and any evaluator using a holistic shooting projection would have told you so at the time of the draft. But I was too quick to earmark Cooper as a lottery lock simply because I didn’t buy the primary argument of the scouts who were fading him. This is a fairly intuitive thought process: everyone seems to agree that Player X’s swing skill is shooting, I have no doubt that this player will shoot, therefore I must be higher on him than the public and should move him up my board. This is one of the pitfalls of allowing the shadow of consensus to creep into personal evaluation: perhaps if I wasn’t so familiar with Cooper’s prospect narrative as an alleged non-shooter, I would’ve examined the other potential pitfalls in his skillset with a closer eye. 

Nick

Tyrese Haliburton.

As someone who was young and just getting into scouting at the time, Haliburton slipped past my mind as a real guy in his 2020 NBA Draft Class and I believe this miss ultimately made me a better evaluator in the long run. I had major reservations with Haliburton compared to people who had him top 10 or even top 5 in that draft class. This was also the most chaotic draft cycle with the pandemic limiting games and delaying the draft until November, and also there being nearly no consensus within draft twitter. With there being no consensus as far as rankings for this draft cycle, you really had to know your stuff and if you saw a guy you really believed in, there was pretty much free reign to move him up where ever you saw fit. 

When the people that knew their stuff saw Haliburton, they saw the elite advanced stats, high feel and IQ, plus a great 3PT shooter and passer. When I saw Haliburton it was the weird jumpshot, average handle and below average ability to get to the rim that concerned me. My thinking at the time was in his best outcome, Haliburton would be a player similar to Lonzo Ball. Elite role player, good 3PT shooter and passer, great IQ but those flaws would hinder him from becoming anything above that and boy was I wrong: I knew I underrated him from just watching him his rookie year.

Some key attributes I missed on that led him to being better than I anticipated was his shot versatility and him being a 41% 3PT shooter off the bat in his rookie year. I thought he would at least need some type of adjustment with his slow load up type and having somewhat of a set shot but nope. And he was also able to get those threes off in a variety of ways that clearly showed he could handle more of an offensive load than I projected. Another key trait of Haliburton’s that I slept on was his ability to be a true point guard. While I thought he was a PG before, I projected him to be more of an off-ball PG where he would be best with a jumbo creator. Tyrese instantly showed he can handle the ball effectively and had a great deal of passing versatility that let him be more of a real creator than I anticipated. 

By missing on Haliburton: I learned to trust funky jumpshots if the touch was clearly there and if they got their shots off in a variety of ways; I learned to ease up on the comps because they can limit your view of the prospect and lead you thinking one way when you should’ve been thinking the other way; and also just to trust the feel and IQ every time. This last part helped me in the next draft class to believe in Josh Giddey and Franz Wagner, when you combine superb mental reading/understanding of the game with great skill, you get special players, simply put. 

Emiliano

Robert Woodard II.

Even though I hung out in Draft Twitter circles since 2018, the 2020 Draft was probably the first one I followed very closely.

In that class, there was a guy I had relatively high on my board (early 20s) compared to the main stream and I was pretty convinced he would have become a decent NBA player. That player was Robert Woodard II.

Standing at 6’7, with a 7’1.5 wingspan, a bulky frame and a shiny 42.9% from three he was a catchy prospect for a relatively inexperienced viewer that was trying to build and affirm his own thinking. In hindsight, that really was a youthful mistake. Woodard had interesting skills and traits but he was more of a solid 2nd round bet than a sure first rounder.

I didn’t see (or I pretended I didn’t see?) some red flags and the overall process was chaotic. I learned some meaningful lesson from that misevaluation:

Archetype isn’t everything

At the time I let the “3&D wing” label single-handedly convince me that he was “NBA ready” and deserved greater attentions.

Archetypes are easy to identify but actual skills and their level are what matters.

Don’t rely on small samples

The 42.9% from three was a really appealing component of Woodard’s profile. However, he attempted only 70 threes in his sophomore season at Mississippi State. This sample wasn’t reliable, nor was it even indicative.

Indeed, he never really find his shot at the next level: he made just the 30.4% of his threes in G League through 3 seasons (116/381, considering Regular Season and Showcase)

Scoring talent matters

In hindsight, it’s hard to find good NBA 3&Ds that were strictly low usage 3&Ds at the college level. Generally it seems easier for players with a decent offensive talent to scale down to reduced roles where they can excel. Woodard had some indicators of a certain lack of scoring talent, but his low usage (18.2%), poor free throw shooting (61.7% college career) and obvious lack of shooting volume were red flags I missed.

@BeyondTheRK 

Mo Bamba.

What ultimately separated the two unicorns of the 2018 NBA Draft were the little things that are hard to catch without watching the film. One player showed ball skills, control, instincts, traits that could realistically develop a talented prospect into a primary versatile scorer and defensive anchor rather than merely a secondary rim-rolling pick-and-pop play-finisher.

The first player flashed nearly every fundamental skill in the book: ambidextrous baby hook soft touch finishing at the rim; ISO dribble moves on the perimeter; pristine post-up footwork; deep shooting range with a unique shot release that made pull-up threes an option for a fringe seven-footer; the awareness to rotate, switch, and protect the rim on a whim. Maybe most importantly, he looked like he gave a sh*t hustling out there on both ends.

The second player impressed with improbable shooting touch for his size, rebounding well and swatting endless shots in help defense, before decompressing when it came to effort plays like setting screens, hard rim-rolls, or simply sprinting down the floor.

For these two prospects, the measurables and defensive stats left evaluators seeing similarly positive signs on paper pointing to similar signs of success:

Heights of 6’11” and 7’
Wingspans of 7’5” and 7’9”

Neither big man prospect was a strong post-up defender against bigger opposition on the block., yet Jaren Jackson Jr. and Mo Bamba finished 1st and 2nd in BLK%, DBPM, and overall BPM, while helping their collegiate teams rank Top-15 in defensive rating.

Jaren: 14.2 BLK% | 5.9 Stocks | .414 3PAr | 39.6 3pt% — 64.7 TS% — 79.7 FT%
Bamba: 13.0 BLK% | 5.2 Stocks | .189 3PAr | 27.5 3pt% — 59.3 TS% — 68.1 FT%

Mo Bamba ranked 7th in PIPM (+7.24) among all college players measured in 2017-18 and 2018-19, rating just behind Mikal Bridges (5th, +7.57) and Jaren Jackson Jr. (6th, +7.54), via Jacob Goldstein’s Player Impact Plus Minus metric.

Jaren’s main statistical profile advantages were shown in efficiency.

On top of averaging more STL+BLK (5.9) than every top big prospect in his 2018 NBA Draft class (Bamba, Carter, Ayton, Bagley), JJJ scored as efficiently across the board (65% TS%), shooting as well or better on three-point volume (.414 3PAr) and efficiency from beyond the arc (39.6% 3P%) and at the pinstripe. (79.7% FT%)

A historically impressive shot-blocker was also the best 3PT and FT shooter in his class, revealing clean postup footwork, soft finishing touch, developable ball-skills, and effective awareness to know where to be to do the little things asked of a big. While feel for the game can’t be measured, it felt like JJJ’’s feel was off the charts.

My Final 2018 Orlando Magic centric Big Board (drafting with that team in mind)

1. Luka Doncic
2. Jaren Jackson Jr.
3. DeAndre Ayton
4. Mo Bamba
5. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
6. Mikal Bridges
7. Trae Young
8. Wendell Carter Jr.
9. Michael Porter Jr.

Ranking Jaren 2nd overall in a tier with Luka atop my big board feels like my best draft hit ever, yet one of my worst draft misses comes soon after with Bamba at 4th and Ayton at 3rd over a star-studded lottery.

While Ayton’s offensive game creates midrange mismatches and his defensive rotational effort improves when motivated, letting consensus bias win out in my thought process over the more tantalizing high-potential two-way wing and perimeter playmakers is another misevalutation here by me: A month or so before the draft, I rankted Mikal Bridges 4th, Michael Porter Jr. 5th, Mo Bamba 6th, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 8th.

By the time draft night rolled around, I talked myself into Bamba’s best case 3&D anchor upside over tall dynamic two-way wings Bridges’s and Porter’s instinctual versatile big wing defense, tough shot making, and outside shooting, also leaving all-star scoring creator guards Shai and Trae behind Mo as well. My Final Magic Big Board bumped Bamba up to 4th (bad) and Shai up to 5th (good), moving down Bridges to 6th (bad) and Porter to 9th (bad, partly due to back concerns).

In defense of Bamba, this Orlando Magic team was never invested in him as a starter, removing majority of opportunity for playing with starting-caliber playmakers; Mo did not log one minute on the floor with the young core of Fultz, Gordon, and Isaac. Touches were sparse as long as the offense ran through the high-usage post-up hub in Nikola Vucevic; on the other hand, any playing time Mo received tended to go to other bigs who brought more energy running the floor like Khem Birch and Mo Wagner.

I have had more glaring draft misses, as I too am waiting on the Sharife Cooper league takeover tour. I was unimpressed by the safe choice of Cole Anthony over prospects I viewed with higher ceilings, tweeted loudly about Maxey, Bane, and Poku next to Fultz and Isaac on draft night.

Drafting the wrong prospect at the top of any draft could set a team back for years; doing so in a class as historically talented as 2018 could be extremely detrimental. While 2018 remains my favorite draft class to have scouted to this day, this slight, late-process change of opinion moving a prospect up the board too late in the game based on “what-if” potential could have major consequences to a team-building process. Orlando seemingly could have moved out of their 6th pick draft slot in 2018, but rumors say they were just as excited as I was about the possibility of selecting Bamba in hopes of him reaching his ceiling as “Gobert with a three point shot”.

Mo Bamba leaves Orlando ranked 1st All-Time in BLK% (6.8%); 6th All-Time in Blocks (364); 13th All-Time in Rebounds (1,556); 37th All-Time in Points (2,037). A seven-foot play-finishing plus-rebounding help-side shot-blocking three point floor-stretcher should have a long career if offered a defined role in this league, in theory. Can Mo Bamba find a playmaker to fully unlock his game, the Chris Paul to his Deandre Jordan? The James Harden to his Ryan Anderson/Serge Ibaka?

Bamba’s Career-High 32 PTS arrived in Philadelphia against his current team, the 76ers, after dropping 5 3PM & 3 BLK in the second quarter. Could Mo still fill a shot-swatting pick-and-pop role similar to Myles Turner in the right situation?

Evidence exists for Mo to succeed in a baseline 3&D role; it’s the little things in and out of his control like effort, consistency, fit, team investment and opportunity that must align. Not living up to some hypothetical potential ceiling doesn’t mean a prospect can’t succeed as the player they end up being as long as they compete, develop, and learn winning habits to carve out a lengthy career. While Bamba’s path to “Gobert with a three point shot” grows narrower by the day, there’s hope he can stick around this league for awhile longer with the right role.

Until then, kids, please stand for the national anthem.

The post ROUNDTABLE: My Favorite NBA Draft Miss appeared first on Swish Theory.

You don’t have to look very far back to find examples of ill-fated pre-draft college seasons resulting in incomplete evaluations come draft day. How many teams regret passing on Jalen Duren and AJ Griffin just one year later? My guess would be quite a few. College basketball is great, but it’s limited. A season really only offers one context, from role to health or surrounding talent. Every cycle we talk about how context matters in projecting forward future NBA roles, so it would make sense that seeing prospects in additional pre-draft contexts gives a clearer picture. 

The only issue with that is, where do you even start? Pretty much every prospect plays high school basketball, but only some of those games come on TV, and some of those games are in the Overtime Elite league, which is like high school, but also not, but also has some actual high school teams playing in the league. 

Then we get to grassroots basketball, more commonly (and I think incorrectly?) referred to as AAU. There are three major shoe circuits, with each having their own events throughout the summer and a few inter-circuit events sprinkled in along the way. On top of the enormous amount of teams scattered across multiple leagues, team rosters and jersey numbers can be more difficult to find than you expect.

All in all, those hurdles make the prospect of scouting pre-college basketball feel a little unapproachable. As I began my yearly summer catch up this year, I figured it was time to finally, truly, dive straight into the wilderness. The result has been a newfound love for youth basketball, though that did come with a few hurdles along the way.

The goal of this piece is to help people who are looking to understand youth hoops find it all a little less overwhelming, while hopefully helping you skip a little legwork. We’ll go through a few of the things I think are foundationally important to understanding the general landscape, and a few helpful resources for when the process becomes confounding.

High School Basketball

At its most basic level, high school basketball is pretty straightforward to understand. The vast majority of schools look a lot like the schools the general public grew up in, large student bodies and a competitive sporting environment. The difference between public and private school in basketball terms is about the same as it is in the real world: they are very similar, with private schools having a few more (financially driven) opportunities.  

The biggest private schools play their own national circuit, NIBC, as a way of garnering greater national exposure. The highest end private schools are littered with NBA talent, but teams like Duncanville, Camden and Wheeler are public schools with three of the best prospects in the class. Top flight private schools or academies have a competitive advantage in their depth and national presence, but the high end talent is relatively spread out over both public and private schools.

Full games are generally easier to find for high school vs grassroots, though the bigger academies like Link or IMG have an embarrassment of riches in that department. For public schools, almost every district has a team that records every game to put on YouTube. If you are lucky, that team has prospects, and now you’ve lost an entire evening to the doldrums of AAAA North Texas high school basketball.

GEICO High School Basketball Nationals

The GEICO Nationals tournament is the best of the best, consisting mostly of private basketball academies like Sunrise Christian and Montverde. Public schools are able to receive an invite, but laws differ from state to state regarding public schools playing national competition or against private academies. 

As a general rule, this is the high school basketball holy grail. At no other event will you find such a dense collection of NBA talent, and the games are aired on National TV (and later uploaded to YouTube via helpful third parties). It’s a great event, one that showcases future lottery picks every season.

State Champions Invitational

The State Champions Invitational is a newer event that was created to showcase state-champion public school programs on a larger scale. Inclusion is still dependent on the aforementioned state laws on national competition, but the event is always stacked with high-end talent. These games are aired on ESPN and their family of networks, but are more difficult to find in the Youtube ether. Hopefully, as the event gains more attention and a larger public audience, that changes.

Overtime Elite

The reputation of Overtime Elite precedes itself with a billing as the next great basketball developmental program. While there are continued questions as to OTE’s future viability as a pre-draft destination (especially when compared to more established, pro-oriented programs like the G League Ignite and the NBL Next Stars), their viability as a pre-college developmental environment should not be questioned. 

Their site is clean, they have basic and legible stats, and their games are often available on Youtube or Amazon Prime, with a direct from the game box score. That kind of accessibility is unfounded in this space, and something that gives OTE a leg up in the high school basketball world.

Grassroots Basketball

Oh, the unknown. Grassroots basketball is a bit of a black hole at times, but with each passing year a new resource pops up to make things a little bit brighter. The scene is dominated by three major circuits, where teams play against each other in circuit events throughout the summer. 

There are leagues for nearly all ages with 17U meant to consist of players entering their senior year of high school, though some players choose to play up a year (and in the case of AJ Dybantsa, dominate while doing so). Sometimes the only tape you are able to find on Youtube is two years old from when they played 16U, but film is film, I will not discriminate. 

There are quite a few independent teams that are not a part of either shoe circuit, but will commonly play events like Who Wants The Smoke where they match up against shoe circuit clubs. Which circuit is which matters really only in what teams will play at which event, trying to find worthwhile value in comparing competition or talent level feels unproductive. Each league has their fair share of talent, though one may get more attention than the rest. 

Really, what matters most is what teams play on which circuit. Each circuit has their own nuances in structure but when you boil it down, film is still film. Thankfully selectbasketballusa.com made a helpful list of the teams in each league shown below.

Nike EYBL

The Nike Elite Youth Basketball League has long been seen as the cream of the crop, and for good reason. Their track record of producing NBA talent is unparalleled in the space, and while it has become more competitive that track record of dominance is noteworthy. This year, eight of the top ten RSCI recruits played on the EYBL circuit, with top pick contenders Ron Holland, Matas Buzelis, Isaiah Collier, DJ Wagner, Justin Edwards, Omaha Biliew and many others. The roster is deep.

Adidas 3SSB

The Adidas 3 Stripe Select Basketball circuit is well established with a lineage of NBA talent. While not as publicly discussed as EYBL, 3SSB has a deep roster of high major talent led by T10 recruit Ja’Kobe Walter, with Dink Pate, Baye Fall, Reed Sheppard, TJ Power and (personal favorite) KJ Lewis. Overall, a solid league with decent tape accessibility, though their official site does leave much to be desired. 

Under Armour UAA

The Boys Under Armour Association is the final leg of the well known circuits, with 3ssb being its closest comparison. Led by potential lottery pick Stephon Castle, UAA boasts yet another deep roster of potentially impactful freshmen like Caleb Foster, Elmarko Jackson, Blue Cain and more. Unfortunately, compared to the other leagues team/roster info can be incredibly difficult to find. On the plus side, the Middlesex Magic youtube page is a treasure trove of tape, like finding an oasis in the desert. 

New Balance Pro16

The New Balance Pro16 league is the newest of the four circuits, and while they may not have as much established, highly ranked prospects, the competition remains strong. Gehrig Normand and Dylan James are the two RSCI T100 prospects on the circuit with a growing collection of future prospects. Internet resources remain limited but are comparable with the bigger leagues.

Resources

Now we have established the general framework of the leagues we are working with, it’s time to dig a little deeper. Youth basketball is a mess of individual leagues and conferences, finding places with consolidated information is a must. Knowing who to watch, what teams they are on, the numbers they wear and the teammates they have is a more complicated task than it seems.

RSCI Rankings

This is a fairly obvious place to start. This may not be breaking news, nearly every top draft pick is a highly-rated recruit coming out of high school. The rankings are by no means a be-all-end-all, Keegan Murray wasn’t ranked and ended up the fourth overall pick (!), but it is a great starting point. If you look at late risers like Jeremy Sochan and Patrick Williams or sophomore studs like Jaden Ivey and Bennedict Mathurin you will find them ranked in the Top 100 entering college. It’s a long list, but it is chalk full of NBA players throughout it. If you are beginning to create your watch list, the RSCI Top 100 is the place to start. 

MADE Hoops Power Rankings

This is a stupendous resource. The site has a paywall for future class rankings, but their 2023 rankings are public. The actual rankings themselves are nice, but the real draw is that the board lists not only the high school team for each prospect, but the grassroots team as well. That kills an enormous amount of leg work searching google for players and teams, and gives you a great starting point on what high school and grassroots teams should be at the top of your watch list. Great stuff. 

The Season Ticket

Now that you have the players you are looking to see and the teams they play on, The Season Ticket site, and more specifically The Circuit (a subheading on the site) is just about a one-stop -shop for rosters, team schedules and rankings for all age groups, both high school and grassroots (you can even sometimes find a box score!). You can dive into any league you want, though EYBL and 3SSB rosters are the most filled out. 

Finding actual team rosters with numbers and game dates is awesome. It can be incredibly hard to pin down what games players played in, the times they took place, and the teams they played against. Once you pick your team, there should be more than enough here to familiarize yourself with the surroundings. 

Cerebro Sports

Cerebro is a basketball site with Mark Cuban as a public investor and the infamous draft twitter stylings of the illustrious Prospect Development Web. There is an enormously steep paywall for individuals attempting to use the platform, but the free resources available are more than worth an initial email signup.

You are able to see the five most recent events for each player, which is incredibly helpful for international and OTE prospects (where an entire season is listed as one event). For US based high schoolers, the stats are a little more hit and miss, with some prospects showing stats for over 20 games and others less than 10. 

You are able to see the Top 10 performers for each event, but you can’t just search for an event, you have to select it through a player’s profile. This can be a little tricky at times, but is worth a few extra clicks in order to see the bigger picture of top performers for any given event. A very cool tool, but one that requires some corporate overhead to make the cost worthwhile. 

How Context Changes Stats

This is a more general bullet point to end off the section, but an important one to consider when looking at statistical output in high school and grassroots basketball. The first thing, and most consistent across levels, is that teenagers are not good three point shooters, and they often have a more difficult shot diet than they will in the league. 

Shooting in the low 30s on good volume in high school is a good thing, very few players (with the necessary athletic gifts) are able to score efficiently on jumpers as a 17-year-old. This is why AJ Griffin never should have fallen out of the top seven on draft night, but I digress. 

The difference between high school and grassroots is not a cut and dry one. Grassroots teams tend to play at a higher pace with a more free-flowing style of game with high school representing a more structured context. Statistically speaking, that added pace can affect numbers to a degree, but team context plays a much larger factor. 

Sean Stewart was the best player on the Florida Rebels, but at Montverde he was the sixth man the majority of his senior season. Omaha Biliew was the only high-profile recruit at Waukee his senior year, but played for Mokan Elite with fellow T100 prospects Cameron Carr, Trey Green and 2024 five-star John Bol. Playstyle differences matter, and each context tells you something unique in that regard, but you have to know the difference in on-court role and context to see it.

Searching for Tape

This is the single most stressful part of pre-college draft scouting. Finding quality tape, ideally for free, is a more difficult task than it may seem. Struggling to find full games for prospects was the largest barrier to entry for me: there is nothing I hate more than being in the mood to watch tape, only to waste precious time trying to find it. My philosophy when scouting is to maximize the time spent watching tape, and it is hard to do that when you’re searching for a needle in a haystack.

I decided to take a different approach this summer, getting ahead of my actual tape watching and accumulating film for as much of the RSCI Top 100 as possible. The process was a long and arduous one, but I have been able to find full games for every single prospect in the Top 100, with most prospects having a full game of high school and grassroots.

I have hyperlinked the games I could find in the below excel sheet, just click on the team name on the far right and dive straight in. A quick note: I tried not to link the same game twice for prospects on the same team and sprinkled in condensed videos when I ran out of full game tape. If you are itching for more of a certain prospect (or the link for the player is a shorter video), look for other prospects that played on the same team, you should find what you’re looking for.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aiQO8DqFD9zT47gdtQrj7oo8cbqsrZlJrkC3a5NeWeo/edit?usp=sharing

YouTube

YouTube, the one and only. There is no other place with free youth basketball tape, but you do need to know how to search. Finding actual game tape is not as easy as typing “Ron Holland Full Game” into your search bar (though with better video titles and captions, it could be!), you will need to be smart about your searches. I’ll go through a few helpful rules I try to follow when searching for games.

Know Your Date Ranges

Grassroots games take place over the summer before a prospect’s senior year, meaning all videos should be roughly a year old. Very rarely are games uploaded months after the fact, so it is pretty safe to assume the NJ Scholars video uploaded in April is not the tape you’re looking for.

High school basketball takes place during the year, so those games should all be less than a year old, and going back a year will take you into the previous season. That can be fine, for both grassroots or high school, if the prospect you are trying to watch was actually on the team the year prior. 

Know What Prospects Look Like

Jersey numbers are a figment of your imagination. They will be listed on the circuit or on other sites, but they are rarely consistent (particularly in grassroots). My personal best practice: google image search “[player name] [team name]”. 

I will look for jersey numbers they’ve worn, if they wear a t-shirt, if they have a recognizable hairstyle, general build, anything to help. If you’re in doubt, search a highlight video and compare movement styles. Sometimes good tape takes a little digging.

Start Specific

Youtube searches are a finicky business, and using too many keywords can be overly exclusionary. With that said, sometimes searching “Dennis Evans Hillcrest Basketball” takes you directly to the video you are looking for. Start specific, and eliminate keywords as you go, until you get down to “[team name] basketball”.

Know When to Keep Scrolling

This one is a little on the finicky side, but sometimes scrolling a little longer is all it takes. There are so many different age groups and years of competition to sift through, and it was very common for quality, full game videos to be buried 50 videos deep in a search. If you are still seeing videos with the team name you searched, keep going. 

Try Google

This one is kind of weird, and honestly I am not sure it “works” from a search engine perspective, but going into the Google videos search bar and looking for games helped me find a few that I just couldn’t seem to get on YouTube. There are at least no “recommended” videos you have to skip past when scrolling. 

BallerTV

The single best publicly available accumulation of high school basketball games, BallerTV is certainly worth a look in your search for tape. The pricing isn’t spectacular, but they do allow you to purchase individual events. You’ll get access to teams that are harder to find (like Dennis Evans on Team Inland) and inter-circuit matchups you won’t find elsewhere. The interface isn’t as smooth as your typical streaming service, but the juice is worth the squeeze if you purchase one of the more star-studded events. 

Twitch

Twitch is the single best place to find EYBL tape, you can find the entirety of Peach Jam on there now, but it is only for the 2023 year (next year’s class). Streams air live on the platform and are available to watch for an extended period of time after, but not an indefinite one. 

Sifting through the different streams and the games within them can be tedious, but that is a small price to pay for a literal metric ton of prospect tape. You just have to do it in a more timely manner than a midsummer cram session.

Parting Thoughts

High school and grassroots basketball is awesome and overwhelming simultaneously. There are more names than you could ever keep track of, yet people seem to do it all the time? Following the ins and outs of future high school classes is an enormous task, and that enormity can make the space feel unapproachable. 

You don’t have to live and breathe grassroots hoops to gain value from watching it, or even joy. Basketball is still basketball, and finding quality tape of players throughout their development journey and in differing contexts is invaluable. Hopefully with a little framing the greater picture of youth basketball is a little clearer. Sometimes to make a circuit work you just have to connect a few dots.

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Amateur Basketball appeared first on Swish Theory.

I’ll also touch on my misses from last year, and how I hope to correct for shortcomings next cycle. Let’s waste no more time and dig in.

2023 Values

This section covers the players I ranked highest relative to the actual draft results, utilizing Kevin Pelton’s draft selection value table. Is there a common theme, am I missing or onto something?

Drafting with One Eye Closed

GG Jackson (my #12, drafted #45), Trayce Jackson-Davis (my #26, drafted #57), Leonard Miller (my #9, drafted #33), Jalen Slawson (my #28, drafted #54)

My biggest difference this cycle from last was trying to have a more holistic approach to a player’s own role curve. That is to say, comfort with a role (particularly in the NCAA) is not automatic, unlikely chosen by a player and often different than presented in recruiting efforts. College teams need players to win, development systems need player to develop, players just want to be selected as high as they can while balancing the goals of stakeholders around them. It can be messy, and often is.

The group I’m discussing here did not all have sub-optimal roles, but perhaps ones that masked their appeal as prospects, or distorted viewpoints of how they might contribute.

My single greatest difference to actual draft results was one Gregory Jackson the Second. At #12 on my board, Jackson was not selected until the second round by the Memphis Grizzlies. While rumors abound of immaturity from GG during team workouts, I’m less bothered given the substantial talent, obvious at his young age.

The most significant obstacle to draft analysis, in my view (beyond not knowing ball) is to make a one-to-one connection between items you notice and items of significance. Watching GG, it is not difficult to spot places where he could do better. Passing is the most obvious, often tunnel-visioned in his scoring approach, amplified at South Carolina by few other legitimate options but still clearly present in Summer League play as well. But if one were to ding Jackson for each and every missed pass, one might come away with a more negative view than is accurate in consideration of his star power, and that’s really what we’re here for.

It is more damaging to not take major swings than it is to have the occasional bust. If a player busts, his on-court impact simply goes to zero – there is a natural downside limit in that you’re not forced to give a player playing time, nor does it necessarily hurt your odds of acquiring more talent. But if he hits, and I mean truly hits, as in worth a max contract, that changes your franchise’s profile over a decade or more. This asymmetry runs up against basic human intuition: risk aversion means we are naturally suited to play it safe. But for that exact reason can be the source of extreme value in the NBA draft.

GG was third in usage of all freshmen as the youngest player in all of college basketball. He never looked overwhelmed athletically, consistently hitting the boards (17% defensive rebound rate) while using up a mega amount of iso (100), PNR (107) and spot up (143) possessions. Simply put, senior year HS aged players are not built like GG, not often. While a scout may see a sea of red marking up his execution on complex plays, he is able to put himself in those scenarios over and over with the flexible tank that is his hulking 6’9’’, 215 pound frame.

GG has a combination of traits I view highly in combination: when he has his nose in a play, he is determined to finish it (dawg factor); a frame to play power forward or small-ball center; the flexibility to get low into drives; an elite second jump; good shooting mechanics. Those are the traits of a scoring engine – as I put it in my scouting report of Jackson early in the season, “GG wants to be your team’s leading scorer,” and he has the mold for it. There are simply not many people in the world who have that combination of traits at an NBA level, and it takes two seconds watching GG move in Summer League to see how easily he belongs, physically.

Moving on to the rest of the group, the theme remains of swinging into uncertainty, where you have tangible evidence of NBA player-ness. By that last term I mean a collection of base skills that would be surprising to find in a non-NBA player. Let’s go through them quickly.

• Trayce Jackson-Davis: production, production and production; second jump; balance; sparks of creativity and touch at size
• Leonard Miller: dawg factor; production at age and competition; elite flexibility; sparks of creativity and touch at size
• Jalen Slawson: production and athletic versatility; team success; sparks of creativity and touch at size

The common trait for these remaining three is having some passing and some shooting touch but also defensive creativity, capable of picking up unexpected assists, steals or blocks in ways that took their opponents by surprise. Being two steps ahead of processing at lower levels, or even just hanging in at a higher level (in Miller’s case) is a good sign of being able to pick up NBA schemes, and the size of all three makes it easier to get the reps to showcase that. The flashes of touch and passing are simply compounding benefits as different areas of value on the court and expanding number of schemes in which they fit.

All four of the players here have role questions. “Can GG play off-ball?” (Summer League answer: yes); “Does Lenny fit cleanly into the 3, 4 or 5?” (Summer League answer: yes); “Can Trayce Jackson-Davis protect the rim as a 5?” (tbd); “Can Jalen Slawson shoot well enough to be a 3?” (tbd). But I also think these questions oversimplify what is a chaotic process in scouting. As Avinash said in his stellar Leonard Miller piece, “since when can we effectively project roles to begin with?”

That is not to say we shouldn’t try to project role, but we certainly shouldn’t let confusion in the exercise stop us from ranking a prospect highly.

I call this section “Drafting with One Eye Closed” as drafting is foremost an act of imagination, but that includes some willful optimism at times. The balance of cost relative to benefit of trying to make an unusual player work is lopsided, assuming the talent is indeed there. We draft players to try to alter the path of franchises, and the only way to do that is to try where others do not. Role occlusion, whether established upperclassmen or molds-of-clay youngsters, can be an opportunity masked by the same risk that drives people away.

To put the concept in more human terms, the game of basketball evolves in unexpected ways, and you need unexpected players to fit that evolving vision. The talent and effort side is the player’s job; fitting them onto the basketball court is the role of those around them.

Make Something Happen

Nick Smith Jr. (my #13, drafted #27), Amari Bailey (my #19, drafted #41), Sidy Cissoko (my #25, drafted #44)

Decision-making can be the most maddening NBA skill to dissect, making it all the more important in our evaluation of guards specifically. Guards typically survive on being nimbler, better handlers, shooters than their taller brethren, but this also means they have to make a greater number of decisions with or near the ball. If their decision-making is sound, they will make the product better, scheme running smoothly each time; if poor, the whole system can collapse. Repeat the process not once or a few times but dozens of times per game, thousands over a season. Despite having only middling 17% usage (7^th on his own team), Kyle Lowry still touched the ball over a thousand times in the 2023 playoffs, as an example. Whether or not a guard is a true lead initiator, they are going to be making countless decisions for your team.

Nick Smith Jr., Amari Bailey and Sidy Cissoko all make decisions in vastly different ways, which mixes differently for each of them with their differentiated skillsets. Sidy Cissoko is tall and strong for a guard but a poor shooter, Nick Smith Jr. is shorter and very skinny but a great shooter, Amari Bailey falls in between for all three traits.

Their playing cadences are vastly different, with NSJ being an elixir, playing like white blood cells seeking out weaknesses; Sidy is a maniac, unpredictable-squared; Amari Bailey is consistent in effort first and last. All are deviants from the expected in their own ways: given Nick Smith’s elite touch and handle creativity, one would expect him to be a pure hooper. Sidy one could easily cast aside as an unreliable project. Amari’s consistency of effort could prevent an analyst from noticing the flairs of upside.

My source of comfort in ranking them highly varies for each of them, as well. But it is consistent in one thing: the route-making of offensive schemes has always been a jagged line rather than a straight one. The ideal basketball play is a run to the basket and dunk, or run to the three point line and swish. But with the constancy of movement and ten athletes making decisions simultaneously, the way forward is rarely straight through.

This section is a dedication to the basketball weirdos, or irregularities in subtle ways. Amari Bailey may seem like the outlier in his inclusion, as Sidy and NSJ’s funkiness jump off the page. But Amari covers a ridiculous amount of ground as an athlete, both laterally and vertically, the type of athlete which would thrive as a cornerback or an outfielder or tennis player or…really anything. But Bailey plays subtly, workmanlike to the point of nearly hiding this fact. One is used to athletes of Bailey’s versatility taking up usage wherever they can, testing the limits of the dynamic fun that it must be to have those tools at one’s disposal. But Bailey, for whatever reason, does not seem to care about all of that, or else finds such enjoyment from applying them, not bluntly nor florid, but simply so. That aspect is maybe the easiest to look over: someone simply doing their job for its own sake. Especially in a freshman one-and-done, highly touted from a celebrity program. Don’t miss it with Amari.

Role Reducers: Priority UDFAs

Craig Porter Jr. (my #33), Adama Sanogo (#38), Terquavion Smith (#36), Justyn Mutts (#42), Ricky Council IV (#43), Taevion Kinsey (#45), D’Moi Hodge (#46)

Here we have a group of undrafted players I had ranked in my top 50. I’m not sure if there’s a common thread here beyond role players who I believe have a shot of being starters, even if miniscule.

All have their quick pitches as NBA role players: Porter Jr. makes sense as a defensive play-maker and creative passer next to a high usage guard. Sanogo if a team wants to run a five-out scheme on either end with a hybrid big. Terq is the obvious, nuclear pull-up shooting threat. Mutts is one of the best passing big wings in the country. Council had perhaps the best slashing tools in college hoops. Kinsey may be the most unusual, a stellar athlete ball custodian type with funky shot. D’Moi Hodge the cleanest role fit, and the most surprising undrafted for that reason as a steals & threes maven.

I mention the concept of “false ceiling” prospects, a term I coined to mean prospect commonly seen as low ceiling but with tougher-to-see avenues to outperform those expectations. I believe this entire group qualifies, let’s run through the list again. Porter Jr. does not make sense as a shotblocker, at 6’2’’ putting up a 5% block rate (one of every 20 opponent two pointers) while only fouling 2.3 times per 40(!!!). Sanogo has rare touch, shooting 77% at the rim on gigantic volume and above average everywhere else. Terq has become underrated as a passer, improving his A:TO from 1.2 to 1.9 and assist rate from 14% to 23%, all while shooting 14 threes per 100 possessions. Mutts is a rare breed, a strength-based wing with soft passing touch, perfect for motion-based, precise systems. Council’s athleticism shines in transition where he can improvise to the hoop for an acrobatic finish, at 1.2ppp on 114 transition attempts. Kinsey played in a lower conference, but that may mask his NBA athleticism, dunking over 200 times across his five college seasons. Hodge is underrated in his aggressiveness, with over 100 rim attempts finished at a 72% rate this past season.

The entire group are sophomores or older and non-premium selections as UDFAs, as it is safe to say you won’t build your team around this group. But if I were to bet on anyone undrafted ending up a useable starter at some point in their careers, it would be from this crew. The avenue to that happening has been laid out roughly in their previous spots, but amplified by further conforming to a reduced role and playing with greater talent around them.

Lessons of the Past

The 2022 draft cycle I spent obsessed with archetypes, attempting to break down the roles on the court into four: 1. Rim Protectors, 2. Connectors, 3. Shotmakers and 4. Engines. As I felt already by the time that draft day arrived, this approach had clear shortcomings. Prospects are not fully formed into their archetypes yet, and flashes of potential can be more important than fully fleshed out skills.

My three biggest misses all came from this too narrow of a sorting process. For Walker Kessler, I zoomed in too far on his inconsistent rim protection footwork technique, missing how he was blocking a gargantuan quantity of shots despite it due to advanced hand-eye coordination, size and effort. He also was able to quiet my mobility concerns by slimming down some, bringing us to another point of analysis: at the ages of prospects, they are still getting used to their athletic bodies.

Jalen Williams is another illustration of this, showcasing a major athletic leap from Santa Clara to the pros. The tape transformed almost overnight, as before when his closeouts lagged and he may have settled as a table-setter, now he looks a full power primary. The signal here was the Combine scrimmages, where J-Dub adapted to a more off-ball slashing role the second he hit the floor, using his plus wingspan to dunk in traffic with ease. The archetypes system over-fit for his Santa Clara role, not adaptive enough to appreciate his flashes of elite versatility.

Finally, a player I was too high on: Johnny Davis. At the risk of reacting too early, Johnny appears at the nexus of both of these points as well. From an archetype approach, JD is interesting. He was super physical in college, capable of some dribbling, passing, shooting, if not dominant anywhere. But he looked like he could carry a large load, and had enough clips of looking like a dynamic athlete, all the while fighting hard on the defensive end. The script has completely flipped between him and J-Dub, as Davis has been losing on the margins at the first line and without tools to salvage missteps. Where before he looked like a potential to hit in multiple archetypes, now he looks more like a mediocre prospect for each. The difference in athletic and skill profile from NCAA to NBA makes previous roles potentially untenable while also opening up new avenues for what were only flashes before.

Lessons for the Future

My goal this past cycle was to take a more holistic approach to a player’s basketball narrative. Where are they in their own cycle? A draft cycle involves only 6-8 months of new tape to indicate what a player might be for an entire career, and we need to imbue that with the appropriate lack of certainty. Imagination is the name of the game for draft work, something I’ve reminded myself constantly this past year, and helped me to be more comfortable with the one-eye-closed upside swings. Similarly, I have been keener to extrapolate those flashes out, as a player’s developmental trajectory can be as dynamic as their playing style.

The one item that remains elusive to me is projecting athletic profiles to the future. Already in Summer League I see a potential miss in Keyonte George, adapting quickly to weight loss with a more explosive playing style than we saw at Baylor or IMG. Athletic projection, again, a source of my miss on all of Kessler, J-Dub and (in the other direction) Johnny Davis, requires a technical level of biomechanical knowledge I have not attained. We have in our sights a theme for the 2024 cycle: how does the body develop amid intense athletic demands, and how can you tell who can incorporate these changes better than others? Stay tuned.

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#17 Pick – Jalen Hood-Schifino, 6-6 G, Indiana

Playing in the Big 10 and going through highs and lows in his lone freshman season at Indiana, Jalen Hood-Schifino was not the most popular pick the Lakers could’ve made at #17. With top-5 projected pick Cam Whitmore falling down the draft board reportedly due to worrying medicals, there was a sense that the Lakers would be the team to give in and take the high-end talent that was Whitmore. Instead, the Lakers trusted their board and went with a guy who has plenty of talent in his own right to go along with his high IQ and scalability alongside the two stars in LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

Jalen Hood-Schifino is a smooth, but big guard. Standing at 6-foot-6 and weighing in at 216 lbs, the Lakers should welcome him with open arms as he adds more size to their backcourt. He has a slick, tight handle that allows him to traverse the court with ease, and has the strength to shield off defenders while deploying his handle. As far as standout traits go, his steady ability to operate and score out of the pick-and-roll is very impressive to watch at such an early stage of his basketball career. 

Indiana, under former NBA coach Mike Woodson, ran a ton of pick-and-rolls between Hood-Schifino and Trayce Jackson-Davis (a well-rounded big that went 57th in the draft to the Golden State Warriors). Hood-Schifino’s sweet spot on the court is the midrange from 10 feet all the way out to right before the arc. He is very comfortable there and will go to that pull-up midrange a ton as he ranks in the 73rd percentile on off-the-dribble jumpers out of all D1 players. He was able to knock down a good amount of open looks due to Jackson-Davis’ impeccable screening but JHS was also able to play make in these situations as well. To add further context, the personnel on Indiana’s roster made the spacing complicated and playmaking chances were narrowed, but Hood-Schifino made the best of what he had to work with. He showed some impressive playmaking with either hand and mostly to Jackson-Davis who he had amazing chemistry with. Last season after the trades, coach Darvin Ham loved to run the three-guard lineup consisting of D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, and Dennis Schröder, and due to his skill and size Hood-Schifino should be able to plug and play in this lineup as needed. At Indiana, he was not asked to be much of a connector as he was the primary initiator in most cases but with his slick passing, awareness off-ball, and decisive attacks, he has the tools needed to be a good enough connector to play alongside other ballhandlers.

Improvement Areas on Offense: Two massive warts in Hood-Schifino’s game right now are his finishing and 3PT shooting. Per Synergy, he shot 52.5% at the rim and 30% on his catch-and-shoot threes. With his size and wingspan, I think his finishing will be an easy area to correct, but as of right now he just doesn’t have the finishing craft required for guys without elite athleticism. The craft—deceleration, using the shoulder bump effectively, high finishes off-glass, not taking off from far away—should be skills he learns and utilizes as he gets older and gets more experience in the league. He only had four dunks on the year and all of which were of the “Rimgrazer 2K dunk package” variant and you’d just expect more lift coming from a 6-6 guard. The shooting is a bit tricky though, as he shot 30% on his catch and shoot threes but interestingly shot a much better 37% on his off-the-dribble threes. And this is a complete contrast to his high school numbers at Montverde Academy, where he shot 35% on his catch-and-shoot threes but 15% on his off-the-dribble threes, so his 3PT shooting is a bit all over the place. However, there is some optimism that with how good of a midrange shooter he is, he can expand that jumper to beyond the arc on a consistent basis. This would be very beneficial for the Lakers’ yearly spacing concerns and would make the offense more dynamic as a whole.

Defense: Hood-Schifino’s size and length with his 6-10 wingspan make shooting over his contests a struggle for opponents. His tenacity combined with strength and mobility at the point of attack is something that few players had in this draft class and was a trait that made him stand out. Overall, his screen navigation is solid, however, when he does get caught up on a screen he doesn’t recover and get back into the play as much as I would like him to. He has a lot of moments in pick-and-roll situations where there wasn’t enough communication which ultimately led to open shots for the other team, but now with Anthony Davis defending pick-and-rolls with him, that shouldn’t be an issue. Hood-Schifino can also be overaggressive at the point of attack where he can get beat just by guarding the player farther out than needed. Occasionally he did get beat by quicker guards which leads me to think he could be more suited as a wing defender instead of being primarily at the point of attack. Either way, he’s versatile enough where I would trust him to guard 1-3 and be solid all around. Off the ball, he’s an engaged team defender and was a really good nail and stunt/recover defender in Indiana’s scheme that was tactically very sound and drilled really well. He was also good at making sound rotations although his closeouts could be better, these are the little things that will get him on the court early so they’re just as important as the bigger things. 

Expectations: It would not surprise me at all if Hood-Schifino had a slow/rough start to the season but, he has a good enough foundation in all facets of the game for me to trust him long-term with good development. I expect he will be used in a lot of pick and roll, but he will also have to grow as an off-ball player to prove he can be the versatile connector that so many contending teams desire. He’s very well rounded, thinks the game well on both ends, and from multiple reports from the Lakers and at Indiana, is a high character person on and off the court with tons of work ethic. I think we will see him going up and down from South Bay to the main squad as he adjusts and gets acclimated to the next level. Over the course of the season, I could definitely see him getting more and more comfortable, eventually leading to consistent rotation minutes on the main squad.

#40 Pick – Maxwell Lewis, 6-7 W, Pepperdine

The big get the Lakers were able to pull off in the (almost) consensus opinion of the draft community, was acquiring Maxwell Lewis at the 40th pick as this might not have even been the case if they didn’t deal with the Pacers to move up a couple spots. Lewis was projected in the 20s throughout most of the year but was one of several players in this year’s draft to have a surprising slip down the board. Nonetheless, the Lakers were able to add somebody who oozes talent in a variety of ways.

Lewis is a 6-7 skilled wing that simply knows how to put the ball in the basket. Per Synergy, he graded out as “Good” or “Very Good” in the following play types: spot-ups, transition, P&R ball handler, post-ups, off-screen, and cuts. His versatility as a scorer will be very welcomed on a Laker team that had a couple of guys who were only comfortable in certain situations and only could score in certain play types; that isn’t the case for Maxwell.

It starts with his jumper where Lewis has pristine mechanics and can get it off comfortably in a lot of ways. Catch-and-shoot, coming off of screens, pump fake one dribble jumper, midrange pull-ups, 3PT pull-ups, stepback threes, sidestep threes, and even turnaround and face-up jumpers in the post, Lewis is capable of pretty much whatever is required of him in the moment of each particular scoring situation. Although Lewis’ overall 3PT percentage was an average 35%, he shot a blazing 44% on catch-and-shoot threes which is something he will be doing a lot when he gets to the big leagues. It’s also his jumper that allows him to exploit defenders who guard him too high up expecting a three, where he’s able to drive around them with ease. Or when defenders are overplaying him off-ball and he can cut to the rim and show off his athleticism and finishing package. He’s shown the ability to attack off the catch as well, bursting through the gaps of a rotating defense although I’d like for him to hone in on this even more. Lewis shot a very good 63% at the rim this season which can be a bit surprising looking at his slim and slender frame. He uses long strides to get to the rim and utilizes his long wingspan effectively when at the rim to finish around contests.

Improvement Areas on Offense: At Pepperdine, Lewis was relied upon a lot, leading the Waves (easily the best team name in college ball) in FGA and in usage rate. And since Lewis was so efficient in several different areas well, they went to him a lot and for good reason, but this came with a drawback. Lewis posted a negative assist-to-turnover rate of 2.8 assists to 3.3 turnovers per game and at times, looked a bit over-tasked as the primary shot-creator for the team. Combined with his loose handle and wild pass accuracy, he can produce some chaotic possessions that added up at the end to 5, 6, or even 7-turnover nights. Lewis also doesn’t have the best vision when creating and can get stuck in “scoring mode” very often. Now that isn’t to say he can’t pass, as he loves mixing in a dump-off pass, throwing it to a diving big when the defense blitzes him, and can through the occasional cross-court pass. Still, reading the court more consistently will be something he’ll need to improve upon at the next level.

A couple of other improvements I would like to see offensively is he had a lot of traveling calls at the start of an attack, mainly in spot-up situations but this is a minor issue and should be ironed out over time. Another improvement he can make and probably his biggest is that he should be cutting to the rim way more often so he can use his plus athleticism to his advantage. On offense, he can kind of just float off the ball and stand in one spot if there isn’t some set motion or actions going on and he really doesn’t cut unless he is being overplayed. This led to games where he would end up taking only 7 or 8 shots as the team’s best player which made you leave scratching your head wondering where he disappeared to on offense. Mixing in some smart cuts would be found money for him going forward and I’d love to see it.

Defense: Now, on to the main question mark of Maxwell Lewis and what will ultimately determine his floor as an NBA player, his defense. I’ve seen him get a two-way label slapped on him from various Twitter accounts and as a prospect, Lewis was definitely not a two-way player. The simplest way to put this is, when I watch Lewis it feels like he’s just out there. Not going that extra mile to be a positive, but is doing just enough to not be a negative. His reaction time isn’t that great and he doesn’t follow his man as tight as you would want off-ball, allowing slips in the crack for his man to exploit by smart cuts. These mental mistakes combined with the fact his technique on that end isn’t that great and he gets blown-by way more often than he should, he will have a lot to work on defensively once he gets in the league. There were many plays where I thought he could’ve slid to help and actively tried to create somewhat of a defensive presence but he just doesn’t. This is where his upside comes in with his 7-foot wingspan; he most definitely has the tools to become a positive defender. But this is also the reason why he slid; at Pepperdine, was it that he didn’t try to put in the extra effort on defense due to him being the star? Or does he just not have the defensive intangibles needed to be a positive defender? And the latter question is the worrisome outcome if true because the offense will have to weigh out the defense and that pathway isn’t something you can bet on unless the player’s offense is clearly a significant positive for his team every time he’s on the court.

Expectations: If the Lakers gave Maxwell Lewis the “Talen Horton-Tucker Plan” of pretty much exclusively playing in the G League while the main team is trying to contend, that would not shock me one bit. Especially with Lewis’ thin frame, it could take him a while to get used to NBA-level basketball and that is fine. The Lakers are not in a situation where they need him to be a contributor from day one like what might’ve been the case a couple of rosters ago. All that matters for this upcoming season is reps and development because the outcome could be pretty special if it all pans out.

The post Lakers Draft Recap: Skill to Build Upon appeared first on Swish Theory.

Not only will this piece analyze their games up to this point, but also give home remedies to fix what has gone astray. Developmental time when you enter “the league” is highly variable, dependent on draft slot, training staffs and existing personnel. But these players are often already a season behind given poor fitting one-and-done campaigns. Let’s see if we can’t help to set the new crews off on the right foot.

Dereck Lively (RSCI #2, Pick #12 to Dallas Mavericks)

Lively has perhaps the largest discrepancy between strengths and weaknesses in this class, and it wasn’t always clear Duke knew which was which. His up and down season included an early season benching, no longer starting as of the second week of January, but was able to bounce back by season end. His offensive toolset paled in comparison to the more versatile Kyle Filipowski, but defensive dominance is perhaps better suited for the pro game.

My favorite trait of Lively’s is his complete discipline on the defensive end of the court. Watching his pre-college tape alerts one to how this is: playing next to also-elite rim protector Jalen Duren in AAU, Lively learned to move all about the court and have an impact, not just stand near the hoop. Controlled aggressiveness has always been the name of the game for the seven-footer: a description likely worth a lottery pick at face value. His 5.2 fouls per 40 minutes I attribute more to just how many actions he covered, and not unprecedented in elite rim protector prospects (see: Joel Embiid’s 5.8 per 40).

The offensive end is limited in the strictest sense of the word. He is limited in that he has zero post moves and poor touch with the ball, but is able to find areas of value regardless. Returning again to his two-big lineup days, Lively is excellent passing to the interior, a coveted trait for a player of his size. He is able to seek passing windows for drop offs, even occasionally dribbling once or twice to create the space. He truly reminds one of Boston’s Robert Williams III in his ability to let go of the ball quickly despite zero shooting gravity. Expect him to be effective at dribble hand offs as well as empty side pick and rolls, anywhere he will be less rushed with a gap to create even a little.

Rookie Year Remedy: Rim First, Always

There is plenty to like about Lively as an NBA player, #8 on my board. But to insure he sets off on the right path, it’s important to tie him to his livelihood: the rim. Lively is an excellent roamer, but his size and technique better suits a hedge and recover big. If there is one area Lively lacks on defense, it is rim-first approach: he prefers to hunt out the action regardless of where it is. Instilling rim-first defensive principles is essential to him reaching that lofty All-Defense potential, an item Duke failed to preach, harmed by his inconsistent role.

While there was all kinds of hubbub about Lively’s three point shooting potential leading up to the draft, that is a highly unrealistic outcome in my mind for a 60% free throw shooter who made *1* midrange shot all season. In his rookie year with Dallas, Lively should be either 1. In the dunker’s spot, or 2. Hitting a body and rolling to the hoop, at any given point. Oftentimes at Duke he looked in no man’s land, setting a screen into a pre-failed action: that will not be the case with Luka, and makes it all the more important to know exactly where to space.

Brice Sensabaugh (RSCI #49, Pick #28 to Utah Jazz)

It is difficult to understand how Sensabaugh was ranked so low coming out of high school, or why he came off the bench for Ohio State. He has every sign of a unique scoring talent, eating up midrange space as a prospect to then let the feathery touch do the rest of the work. The defense needs work, but that is often the case for premier scoring talents like Brice.

First of all, the numbers – Sensabaugh shot 172 midrange attempts and made just short of half of them. Only Grant Williams and Marcus Morris exceeded his midrange volume and efficiency, and Brice had only 18% of his makes assisted compared to 50% for Grant, 43% for Morris. There is a good case to be made for Brice as the best midrange scorer in recent NCAA history.

So then, why did he fall to the 20s?

The defense, at times, is indeed indefensibly bad. Worst of all is the assignment confusion, a threat to his NBA playing time when player movement is ramped up to a far greater degree. Counteracting this is his defensive rebounding, where his rates of securing boards looks indeed like athletic wings, similar to that of Paul George or Miles Bridges in college. Brice is a big body, and knows how to leverage it in a timely manner when locked in. This gives us hope.

The passing is the other nitpick, and much more nitpicky. Passing is more context dependent than defense at a college setting, and Sensabaugh’s unique scoring traits make him a square peg in round hole for most traditional systems. I saw plenty of talent in him moving the ball, particularly adept at understanding how to make even a shallow drive into a kick. He will never be an offensive conductor, but you want Sensabaugh to finish plays anyways, rather than start them.

Rookie Year Remedy: Work From the Corners

The biggest benefit to Sensabaugh in an NBA system will be how he can no longer be the primary focus of opposing defenses. Sensabaugh struggles to get first steps on opponents, but is excellent at maximizing whatever margin is available. If he can lean into a spot up first, midrange craft second approach as a rookie, he can leverage his teammates’ scoring to help his own, and passing.

On defense as well, keeping Sensabaugh away from the action and close to the tin for rebounding purposes is the way. He will certainly be targeted in switches, where it will be essential for him to stay disciplined – his low steal rate and fairly high foul rate point to a poor decision-maker as it comes to trying to play-make on defense. He can be often found swiping where he shouldn’t, determined to compensate for lack of foot speed.

Utah has a bit of a challenge in finding how to maximize Sensabaugh’s unique talents, but Brice playing inside of his game can help shorten that journey.

Noah Clowney (RSCI #74, Pick #21 to Brooklyn Nets)

Clowney had less of a flawed season and more of a narrowly-defined one. He accepted a role player position at Alabama as a top-100 recruit in Nate Oats’ structured system, a three-and-D power forward between prized Brandon Miller and veteran Charles Bediako. Clowney filled the role admirably, putting up the fifth best Box Plus-Minus grade of any high major freshman.

Watching Noah’s pre-NCAA tape you see mostly the same, but there is intrigue along the fringes. The type that certainly tipped the Brooklyn Nets into seeing more. Most notably, I think Clowney can pass. Not guard-level passing, but adequate for a big, reminding me a bit of Minnesota’s Josh Minott the draft before. He cannot dribble beyond once or, maybe, twice, but when he does he makes the right play more often than you’d expect (for someone who can’t really dribble). The technique needs work, but you can see the outlines of a viable DHO conductor. Clowney got very little practice with the ball on a stacked Bama team, so it’s difficult to say what the ceiling is.

The archetype is swell: Clowney can block some shots, hit some threes, and use his size, strength and touch to finish inside and rebound. Unfortunately, his shotblocking is closer to good than great, three point shot closer to bad than good. But what I was most impressed with is how decisive Noah is when he gets the ball near the basket. His one-step craft to finish is indeed good, and, as Clowney is still not even 19, may end up very good.

Rookie Year Remedy: Play the 5

Now, I just pointed out Clowney lacks high-end polish and consistency across the court…you want him to take on more responsibility? Yes.

Clowney has the physique to hang in the interior, if not the discipline yet. But as a middle-of-the-pack squad lacking a big man floor spacer, the Nets can do worse than giving Clowney some bench run. As the five man, Clowney can refine his interior discipline, often caught contesting on his feet but leaning too far over, allowing his opponent to draw easy fouls. Rep those traits out of him while you have the chance.

Additionally, Clowney with a clean paint will allow him to experiment in ways he was prohibited at Alabama. Despite not being close to a focal point of the offense, Clowney had 27 dunks (6 more than Brandon Miller) and shot a very strong 64% on non-dunk rim attempts. He only took 25 midrange shots but hit half of them, encouraging that his touch is more effective inside the arc. As some more encouraging stats, when Clowney played without Bediako on the floor his free throw rate rose from 0.27 to 0.64; his rim rate from 35% to 56%; his rim finishing from 67% to 74%. He shot fewer threes but gained efficiency everywhere.

Clowney is unlikely to ever be a starting center or power forward, but by letting him run as a backup 5, he may improve both skills. He is strong enough at his core to eventually handle the more physical assignments, let him prove his offense against that.

Cam Whitmore (RSCI #12, Pick #20)

 Whitmore is a high-flying tank, a tornado of activity with a punch, punch to the rim. It’s easy to mix metaphors for a player whose movements make little sense. He’s a stout 232 but has one of the quickest first steps in the class. He is a power mover who can also chop his legs. I would not like to guard Cam Whitmore.

So, why am I lower on him? Well, first of all, he’s quite predictable. Whitmore loves his left, almost always utilizing a combination of a lefty in and out, crossover into either pull-up or straight line acceleration to the rim. The issue is the complexity and flexibility: despite the magic of his movements, it is still tough at the size of a torso to chain together quick moves.

On top of that, Whitmore does not seem like a very creative player. Much of his pre-NCAA production came from transition play, which, yes, that absolutely should be a priority of his NBA game. But he also misses open passes, some obvious rotations, and generally prefers to go from point A to point B without a flexion point in between.

I’m optimistic on him being a plus defensive player simply due to the significance of his physical tools; that quick of a step at that size is going to get blocks and especially steals. Steals are as valuable of a task one can complete outside of putting the ball in the basket. But when it comes down to papering over all the little items opponents can exploit in high-stakes matchups, it is not clear Whitmore is up for the task.

Rookie Year Remedy: Keep It Simple

I run the risk of being low on Whitmore in the same way I was too low on Bennedict Mathurin: NBA teams will be able to cover up for his weaknesses by getting him in his optimal spots. In particular, a young team like the Houston Rockets should be more than happy to run with Whitmore on the wings. Fortunately, he will not need to create many advantages on his own when playing off of Amen Thompson, passing extraordinaire, allowing him to catch the ball when already downhill. The combined pace and vertical talent of those two will be extremely difficult to contain in the open court.

The defensive end might be trickier, on a team that had the second worst points allowed per possession last season. The Rockets still lack an identity on that end, but might do best to lean into their hectic event creators of Tari Eason and Amen as steal mavens: a constantly roaming crew would also make the transition into transition easier.

The minutes breakdown in Houston will be fascinating to watch this year. But they have at their disposal, now, such a dynamic of talent that in order to take advantages of their weakness you may have to first disable their advantages. Leaning into Houston’s collective strengths with quite the store of talent will yield some unexpected results; many of those involve Whitmore as a major player.

Dariq Whitehead (RSCI #1, Pick #22 to Brooklyn Nets)

There was not a single prospect who deserved to have his season tape thrown out than Dariq. With a foot injury that required surgery before the season which never properly healed and a lower leg strain mid-season, Whitehead never looked close to his usual self. It is painful to even watch him try to move around the court wearing a Duke jersey; I cannot imagine what it felt like. Here’s hoping he undergoes the recovery he deserves.

To imagine what he might look like on the other side, we resort more to his high school and AAU tape. Whitehead was arguably the best player in all of high school basketball, rated first in the entire class by RSCI as well as winning the Naismith High School Player of the Year Trophy, back to back national championships and the MVP award for the McDonald’s All-Star Game. While Whitehead’s teams often featured other NBA-level talent, he stuck out consistently for his poise under pressure and contributions across the court.

Dariq is not without flaws as a prospect, but may be without any significant enough to call a true weakness. His athleticism is tilted more towards pace and balance than burst and power, but he is still able to win on first step and dunk above rim protectors here and there. I would advise against putting him on the quicker guards, but he should have no issue finding a suitable assignment on the wing. Whitehead simply contributes across various axes: his constant activity and nose for advantages means locating rebounds, rising and firing in a crowd, excelling at connecting passing but capable of throwing advantage-creating ones as well.

Whitehead has long been a favorite of mine to watch, and I feel a disservice to him in not being selected until the 20s. The NBA draft, first and foremost, is about imagination, even if it’s not obvious on the surface. Whitehead may not recover his full athleticism, but he was always more of a problem-solver than nuclear athlete anyways.

Rookie Year Remedy: Pindowns Galore

For once, it would be nice if things were made easy for Whitehead. From essential connector piece as a HS underclassman to shouldering the usage load as a HS upperclassman to just trying to stay on the court at Duke, he has fought for all he’s taken. I am proposing making it easier on Dariq.

My two favorite Whitehead weapons are the quickness with which he can get his shot off and his ability to stay upright on drives. Wrap those up with some decisive and creative playmaking and you have yourself an excellent play finishing prospect, especially if he stands at 6’6’’. I trust Whitehead perhaps as much as any in the class to make a dribble-pass-shoot decision off the catch while moving through a crowd, so here’s hoping that’s the desired destination for the Nets in getting Dariq up to speed.

Jordan Walsh (RSCI #17, Pick #38 to Boston Celtics)

If you got by Jordan Walsh, no you didn’t. Jordan Walsh has about as ideal as possible recovery tools on the defensive end. Inevitably, even the shutdown defenders lose a step to a true-blue offensive star. The basketball court is tilted towards the offense as the holder of the first move, and how little space it takes for many to get a shot off. But after the gap is created, Walsh will be as good as any at crawling back into perfect position; in fact, many of his steals and blocks came from what would be considered a disadvantageous position.

Walsh is the best shutdown defender prospect in this class, and the best I can remember in recent classes. Unfortunately for Walsh and other such as Usman Garuba, being a lockdown defender does not always guarantee playing time, especially if, as both of them are, you are an offensive liability.

Jordan almost certainly will be a negative on offense, but I am here to argue there is a chance he will not, and perhaps much greater than you think. The shot is where we start, inaccurate but not broken, as there is a lot to like: a simple one-two motion, decently set feet, but inaccuracy due to spatial issues (he throws inaccurate passes here and there) and a bit exaggerated of a form. Both can be fixed by corner three reps, as his 71% from the line, 28% from three and 36% on deep twos point to 33%+ on open threes potential.

The more significant reason for optimism lies in his tape from Link Academy. While inactive most of his time on offense for Arkansas, at Link he was the key to both their transition offense and connecting their half-court offense. He looked far more confident on the move, as with the Razorbacks could get overwhelmed in catch and drive situations. But I see a real passing threat as Walsh is highly creative for a wing and has the athletic tools to take advantage, or else get to the rim. Time to think at Arkansas meant overthinking, but again we see a lane for some offensive value.

Rookie Year Remedy: Just Belong

Walsh gets my most esoteric suggestion, as he simply needs to relax and trust the system on offense. That will be much easier, hopefully, in an ironed out NBA system with a longer view on Walsh’s role. Boston acquiring an early second round draft pick to take the defensive stud – a type they are long familiar with – is encouraging that he will be brought along at the right pace. Obvious from the tape, Walsh loves technique and being in the right place: the Celtics’ infrastructure should encourage that.

To get more concrete about the basketball court, Boston could use some additional front-court athleticism, particularly attacking the rim. Walsh is a stellar vertical athlete, clocking a 33 inch standing vert on top of a 7’1.75’’ wingspan. He is always vigilant on the court, and letting him leak out early in transition could do wonders for his offensive confidence. It may be ugly here and there, but when you have a talent of high athleticism with some creative potential, ugly may be worth putting up with. When remembering we are talking about a potential All-Defense level defender, the rewards of even slight offensive improvements could be spectacular.

Nick Smith Jr (RSCI #3, Pick #27 to Charlotte Hornets)

Nick Smith Jr., perhaps more than anyone on this list, put everything on tape at Arkansas that you would want, if you look for it. Most notably, in his 25 point, 6 assist, 4 steal, 3 rebound, 1 block masterpiece versus Kentucky, or similar 20+ point outputs with stats elsewhere versus Alabama, Georgia, UNC Greensboro and Oklahoma. In these games we see the sell for NSJ, quite obvious: he can score on the ball as easily as off the ball, and will work as hard as he can to be positive everywhere else. The passing is the “swing skill” – if he is indeed the PNR maestro he appeared before Arkansas, which I think he might be, Nick has real All-Star upside.

The shot and, more specifically, the touch is where the pitch starts with Smith, lofty for a guard but instead in a player with a 6’9’’ wingspan. That wingspan and touch mean any shot within 12 feet is available as a floater; his vigilance as a scorer and strong technique make him a threat beyond; his ease of fluidity into pull-up make his range endless despite the wiry frame.

As a pure scoring prospect, there are a few items you could ask for that Nick lacks: his first step is okay (made up somewhat by shiftiness), he has little strength (made up somewhat by aggressiveness) and he can be a bit programmatic getting into his actions. But even that is mediated by Nick’s unique head for finding the right action.

Time and again in watching Nick Smith’s tape, his team used him as a sort of offensive cure-all. Need to set up the primary action? He is a suitable custodian for the ball and adept in PNR. Need to come up with a counter quick? Nick is decisive with good enough handle and passing instincts to set up secondary. Shot clock running out? No shot is a bad shot for a shooter of Nick’s level.

Yes, his shooting efficiency was poor at his time with Arkansas. But knee injuries throw off the entire kinetic chain, making splits tough to judge without proper oomf into gather. At EYBL, Smith shot 56% on 8 twos per game and 38% on 5 threes per game. That is, flat out, both elite volume and efficiency, enough to wipe away any doubts. The tape as well shows ideal technique and the ball time and again falling softly off the rim through the net, if touching the rim at all, from every angle and release point imaginable. Buy it.

Rookie Year Remedy: Let Him Take the Hits

I mean this in a quarterback’s sense, as in, it’s tough to get into a rhythm without taking part in the physical aspects of the game. Nick is an aggressive player by nature, a rarity in his aesthetically-minded offensive archetype and beanpole frame. At every level of competition he can be seen helping aggressively when needed (sometimes when not), flailing around the court and picking up a surprising amount of loose balls and even blocks by virtue of activity. Smith struggled to provide this as often at Arkansas as in years prior, limited particularly in his ability to turn corners, previously much quicker.

NSJ needs not just to grow into his frame, but also continue to find ways to maximize his physicality as a way to win when speed does not. Again unusually for type, Smith has proven capable of finishing through traffic, even yards away from the rim with his touch. If he’s able to get to those spots and hold them down more consistently, that touch can do the rest of the work.

Jalen Hood-Schifino (RSCI #20, Pick #17 to Los Angeles Lakers)

The Schifino section might be the shortest as, well, I have the fewest hard takeaways about his game. JHS was extremely unproductive as a freshman with Indiana, in a context I don’t think was particularly unfair to him. While Hood-Schifino looks the part on the court, good stance and technique generally, he is the single least productive one-and-done first round pick in the barttorvik.com database.

JHS stood out at the NBA Combine with his seven-foot wingspan, which, in conjunction with a strong frame makes him a physical presence. However, the physicality stats lag: he only had 4 dunks all season, only rebound 1.6% of opportunities and had very low steal and block rates. He only took 76 free throws and the exact same number of rim attempts. Hood-Schifino survives, rather, on tough shotmaking.

While falling short of Sensabaugh’s midrange dominance, 90 for 216 (42%) is nothing to scoff at, especially considering JHS struggles mightily to create separation. He gets into his shot pocket almost automatically regardless of position, a rare trait. But scoring prospects need easy buckets, and those were few and far between for Jalen. While his finishing touch and creativity is good, he struggled to hit openings, stuck taking difficult rim attempts. This, along with mixed three point results, dropped his true shooting percentage below 50% – a tough pill for a shotmaking prospect.

If, rather, you view JHS as a table-setter, I have qualms as there too. For someone who looks in ready-set position at any given point, Schifino makes a shocking number of careless errors. Whether not executing a pass fully or not concentrating when catching the ball, a 19% turnover rate for someone with fairly basic offensive responsibilities is another red flag.

Finally, the defense. I want my table-setters to get into their opponent’s body, or at least be constantly roaming to use their length. JHS doesn’t really do either of those, evidenced both by his low stock rates and the tape where he’s seen getting disconnected from his man fairly often. The margins are small for this type with plenty of guard competition; JHS’s wingspan stands out, but is he using it?

Rookie Year Remedy: Shoot, Shoot Some More

The promised land for JHS, as well as the Lakers, relies in Hood-Schifino’s tough shotmaking. It is astounding at times how unbothered he is despite have zero breathing room to get a shot off. With a quick, high release, I trust him to get his tough FGA when he wants it, even if easier creation looks never come.

With LeBron on the team, JHS won’t have to table set if he doesn’t need to, and instead can run off of screen after screen to create that separation. His 6.1 threes per 100 possessions will hopefully be the fewest in his career, as 3s > 2s and JHS has no issue launching from distance.

I struggle to see JHS changing his tune as it comes to productive stats as the precedent would be too severe compared to his stats profile at Indiana, but it is still just one season. His pedigree, playing with the top HS and AAU teams in the country, should help him fit in on a win-now team, as he certainly looks like a pro when he steps on the court. But the carelessness is a quick way to be taken out and lose important development reps.

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