For those new to the series you’ll want to read the first iteration of this year’s check-ins, plus the intro articles for the individual players that interest you. We’ve got plenty of development stories to discuss here so I’ll skip the appetizer and dive into the main course here.

Stars in the Making

These are the players on my list I consider to be strong bets for future stardom (a top 3 player on a good team-ish).

Bilal Coulibaly

In my initial write-up on Bilal this past November, I covered his burgeoning defensive prowess and offensive talents. The defensive end has been largely positive, with a few areas to clean up. First and foremost is the screen navigation which still trends more negative than positive. There have been some positive flashes I’ve enjoyed but short of play tracking each screen action, it still feels the same. Looking at the flashes is fun though.

Another area for improvement is the off-ball defense. He’s still losing too many cutters and is a tick late on his rotations, but they have been explosive. One exciting development is that Bilal has been unleashed as a transition defender in the past weeks, using his length and athleticism to eviscerate his opponents in the open floor. I’ll be excited to see more of that as the season progresses. For now, enjoy some of his more explosive rotational highlights from the past month.

Defensive consistency is still what we’re looking for here. What’s still true is that going at Bilal on defense is a bad, bad, BAD idea. He’s jumped so high defensively at such a young age. Now it’s a matter of smoothing the edges.

On the offensive side of things, the on-ball creation is dipping back towards the efficiency we saw last year. On November 15th he was cashing in 51% of his self-created looks; that has fallen to 38%. Granted, it’s still an uptick from the 31% mark in his rookie year, and the usage rate has stayed consistent. Yet the undeniably suffocating presence of an apathetic Kyle Kuzma has left its mark.

Much of this can be explained by his rim-finishing numbers smoothing out as well. He was an astronomical 28/31 at the rim when the first article was written, and 52/83 since (63%). That still evens out to a 70% mark that is well above the rookie numbers and a 77th percentile mark for a wing.

He was also looking solid from three in that first month, shooting 36% on 3.0 attempts per game; that has dipped to 25% on 4.1 attempts per game over these past 27 games. It looks on the tape as though he’s lost his mechanics a bit with shots coming out flat more often than you’d like, but the confidence is still there. The shift in usage also explains this. After taking 54% of his threes from the corners last year, he’s down to just 21%. Since he’s shooting roughly 25% on above-the-break threes across the past two seasons, lumps in efficiency are expected.

If he figures it out this year, great! If he doesn’t, every three he takes brings them closer to Cooper Flagg. As I said before, their development plan is to throw him into the fire, and there were bound to be some burns.

In addition to his transition prowess, Bilal is finding other ways to contribute off the ball as a cutter and offensive rebounder. He’s 13/17 shooting on his cuts, a notable tick up from his 19/30 mark last year. This is especially impressive considering his usage shift to be further above the break, where the backdoor cuts are fewer and further between.

So far, he’s managed to increase his offensive rebounding rate by a whole percentage point despite the increase in on-ball usage and spending more time above the break when off the ball. Let’s all take a second to appreciate the offensive rebounding highlights.

Given the context of how Washington uses Bilal, some holes are to be expected. The Basketball Index rates Coulibaly sixth amongst all players in two-way usage rate, alongside players such as Dyson Daniels, Andrew Wiggins, Dejounte Murray, and Jaylen Brown. And speaking of Dyson…

Dyson Daniels

Well, well, well.

In our last edition, I asked one question about Dyson’s defense: can he keep this insane workload and production up? The answer is a resounding yes.

Dyson is posting the highest steal rate in the entire league at 4.23%, a mark that hasn’t been reached since Ron Artest did so in 2002. His block rate is sixth amongst all qualifying guards. This massive increase in activity somehow comes with a lower foul rate than he posted last year. On top of this, he is posting the highest matchup difficulty grade according to the Basketball Index. Barring injury, this man will be on an All-Defensive team this year and a fixture for many years to come.

The offensive side of the ball is a different yet encouraging story. His play-initiating rate is holding steady at around 20%, and his overall usage rate has stayed up at 17.5%. This represents a sharp increase from his past season with New Orleans and a move toward the middle of the pack among guards. What’s interesting is that his efficiency numbers have remained steady despite this increased responsibility. It seems spending the majority of your minutes alongside Trae Young has its benefits.

The rim finishing has improved over this recent stretch, and though Dyson hesitates to use his left hand when he should, the results have worked out on the whole. Even when it goes in, you can see the moments where he favors his right or relies on his floater.

The righty finishing is very good, and the floater is deadly as usual, but I want to see less aversion to going left from now on. I will be watching very closely to see how this shakes out.

Not only is the overall finishing up, but the threes are slightly up from the corners. His above-the-break percentage remains around 30% as it has been for his whole career, and though he’s taking the lowest share of threes of his nascent career, a 42% mark is nothing to sneeze at. Let’s hope that continues.

Dyson continues to find ways to fill gaps outside of shooting threes and running second-side actions. He cuts well, thrives in transition, and owns the fourth-highest offensive rebounding rate amongst qualified guards. I’ll be keeping an eye on the shooting numbers and ensure the other off-ball facets stay above water, but for now, I dare say Dyson Daniels is a useful offensive player.

Star Flashes, Needs Work

Clear starter-type players with star outcomes and tools.

Tre Mann

We now come to the first of the injuries.

At the time of our first check-in, Mann had missed 9 straight games with disc irritation. We’re now up to 24 consecutive absences without a return in sight. Safe to say it’s hard to develop much as a player when you’re utterly sidelined.

Despite Charlotte’s dismal record, there is plenty of reason for Mann and the Hornets brass to see a return to the court before the season is out. He’s a restricted free agent at year’s end and both sides will seek clarity on his value. Hopefully, by the next check-in, Mann will return to the floor and continue to tell his story.

Toumani Camara

A new name revealed!

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Camara’s emergence as a defensive force in Portland, one who has begun to find himself offensively. Since he’s only played in 7 games since I last wrote about him, there isn’t much sense in a further update, so we will wait on TC until next time.

Strong Rotation Piece

Rotation players with limited star outcomes, starting caliber.

Goga Bitadze

In our first edition, I wrote about Goga benefiting from the rash of frontcourt injuries in Orlando. It solidified him as a starting lineup fixture when healthy. Now Goga finds himself on the injury report, and though it may be temporary, it remains to be seen how things will shake out when Orlando is back at full health.

It’s a shame really as Goga’s usage pattern has been fascinating. He’s seen a more than 25% increase in on-ball usage this year compared to last, and his handoff game has been the crux of the offense at times with their creators out. The blend of screening prowess, passing skill, and finishing brought steady production to an Orlando team dying for offense.

Even with the increased usage, Goga is managing the best eFG% of his career. With the three-point game all but gone, he’s finishing in the paint and from the free-throw line at a high enough rate to have some serious offensive contribution. Put in an 81st percentile offensive rebounding rate and it makes sense that Goga’s offensive EPM mark is at a career high +0.8, a 78th percentile mark in the league.

On the defensive end, I had one criticism for an already elite defensive center: can the rebounding match everything else? The answer has been a resounding yes as his defensive rebounding rate has climbed to a robust 23.7%. Not only is that a career-high mark, it places him solidly in the middle of the pack for starting centers. Wrap this package up, and you have a truly elite role player. His +11.8 on-off mark places him eleventh in the entire league among qualified players, and his total EPM mark is in the top 30 of all players this season.

The only question is how Goga and the Magic adjust to a healthy lineup. Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, and Wendell Carter Jr. are all back and ready to roll. Mo Wagner being lost for the season all but assures Goga of playing time upon his return, but will he start again? Will head coach Jamahl Mosley use him as a steadying bench presence? These questions asked by Swish Theory’s own Ryan Kaminski may provide some insight. For now, we have to wait and see.

Aaron Nesmith

At long last, we have a happy return.

Nesmith returns after missing 36 games, a whole season half gone. He’s working slowly back into the rotation and early returns are promising. However, it’s hard to say that much has been noticeably different since his return. Yet one thing remains constant.

He’s still doing plenty of this, at all times:

We’ll check in again on Aaron once he has more games under his belt this season.

Sam Hauser

Well, not all of the development stories can be positive.

Hauser is still shooting the cover off the ball, at 40% on the 5 threes a game he’s taken since our last check-in. He sprinkles in some closeout attacks and the rare drive to the basket. He’s still a quality shooting specialist on the offensive end, but it’s the other end that is beginning to concern me.

Early in the season, there were some promising flashes on defense. Now it’s a lot of easy blow-bys when matched up on the ball, and more concerningly the lapses off the ball.

The defensive struggles have turned this season into an outright regression for Hauser. The shooting keeps him afloat as a useful role player, but the defensive act needs to be cleaned up for there to be any real development here. I’ll be on the lookout for a better effort on that end while hoping he can find other ways to contribute offensively. For now, he’s just a fine cog in the Boston machine.

******* ********** (Name Omitted)

Here’s our first omitted name, to be written about at a later date. We’ll circle back on him once he has more games under his belt.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker

In our last edition, we caught NAW on a lethal shooting streak. Unfortunately, the rim finishing has dipped from 82% to a rather pedestrian 64% mark, but thankfully his three-point shooting has stayed at elite levels. He’s still at 41% from beyond the arc, a career-high figure, but most important is the volume split. Last year NAW took just under 50% of his triples above the break; that has risen to 63% in the current season. That usage shift comes with career-high numbers from the corners (46%) and above the break (39%).

The majority of Alexander-Walker’s offense comes from his catch-and-shoot looks and closeout attacks, where he boasts a very nice pull-up midrange game. Run him off the line and he responds with some smooth pull-ups. Average rim finishing is okay since that’s largely outside his offensive scope. He only needs a couple of bankable skills at the moment to justify his presence on the court given the elite-level defense.

My main concern at the moment is ball security. Despite the shift from a handling guard in New Orleans to an off ball wing in Utah/Minnesota, this is the first season where NAW has an assist/turnover percentage ratio under 1.0. 15% of his on-ball possessions have ended in a giveaway, an 11th percentile mark in the league. Of all rotation wings in the league, only Brandon Ingram, Amen and Ausar Thompson have worse turnover marks. Many are also of an unforgivable variety.

Misplaced passes, putting himself into bad pickup spots, and loose handles. I like that NAW tries to gin up offense a bit and use his guard skills but too often it feels like he’s playing outside himself. He’s a good connective guy that keeps the offense flowing but stirring the drink is an issue. But the absence of Karl-Anthony Towns and the decline of Mike Conley has created more pressure on all Timberwolves to create offense, so it’s possible coach Chris Finch is willing to live with the ups and downs.

Defensively it’s much of the same. He’s slithering around screens, blowing up ball screen actions, and containing with the best of them on the perimeter. There are still some off-ball lapses, but by and large, he’s an elite perimeter guy. I’m hoping for a bit more stock creation and less off-ball mistakes, but we are on a very strong trajectory here. The main thing to look for is how he finds himself again offensively. Last year’s version of NAW was an 87th percentile EPM player; that has dipped to 62nd percentile. As he looks to get paid in a contract year, he will need to close strong.

****** ********* (Name Omitted)

Another name left out, the next one on our writing list, as he has played himself into an important rotation role for a contender. Keep your eyes peeled.

Rotation Flashes, Needs Work

Players who have shown strong contributions but need to build more consistency.

Peyton Watson

During our last edition, Watson was fresh off a stint in the starting lineup instead of the injured Aaron Gordon. His cutting was improving, the defense looked more consistent, and he put together an admirable stint as a starter. The main question was: in the return to Denver’s highly questionable bench unit, could he remain a positive contributor?

After 25 games returned to the bench, the answer appears to be a resounding yes. Denver is 17-8 since his return to the second unit, and winning his minutes; they’re a +3.0 with him on the floor in this stint as opposed to the -4.3 rating before his starter turn.

The cutting has stayed at a high level, a sign of more engagement and consistency on his part. I worried about a dip as his minutes with Nikola Jokic decreased but he has remained productive without the ball in his hands.

It’ll need to sustain to make him a viable half-court offensive threat. He remains a middling offensive rebounder and below-average shooter, though the 34% mark on the season is a nice tick up from 30% last year. The screening is a nice bonus and remains effective, but he has a ways to go before being an even average halfcourt contributor.

Another point of concern is the lack of development in transition. Once again, Watson finds his share of looks in transition like few others; his 34% shot share in transition is a 98th percentile mark in the league. His 1.02 PPP mark is only a hair above last year’s and a well below-average efficiency mark. Poor decision-making and awareness contribute heavily as Watson often takes ill-advised shots, misses his open teammates, or passes poorly in tight decision-making windows. His transition looks are littered with possessions like these:

Minimal improvement in the half-court and open floor beats no improvement or outright regression. I’m just hoping to see him develop quicker. The clock is ticking when improvement still finds you as a 28th-percentile offensive EPM player.

On the defensive end, there’s been a stronger consistency in this recent bench stretch. He comes in, makes impact rotations, contains big wings, and checks out. In the past few games, his minutes have become more focused and it’s leading to more consistent defensive effort. Though he still misses some chances in rotation by being late or out of rhythm, the impact rotations are something to marvel at recently.

In addition to increased awareness as a rotator and rebounder, I want to see Watson do better when matching up with guards. His footwork can be disorganized and he often leaves himself unprepared to deal with speed. He does a fine job on the bigger and stronger wings and is tough to mismatch as a big but more switchability would be welcome on the perimeter.

Peyton finds himself at an interesting developmental crossroads. He’s a pretty average rotation piece at this point and the recent stretches have shown measurable growth on tape and in the stats. Yet it’s year three, he’s extension eligible this offseason, and Denver is going to have to make hard decisions to maximize Jokic’s prime and satisfy ownership’s budgetary problems.

The limitations are clear. He’s not going to be handling the ball, likely won’t shoot at a high level, and has a ways to go with general processing speed on both ends of the floor. Does Denver want to sign up for more of the Watson experience going forward? This end stretch of the season will go a long way towards influencing that decision. I will be tuned in.

Marcus Sasser

Man, talk about ups and downs.

Sasser went from a DNP fixture to a rotation piece in the early going, then back to a spot role after Ausar Thompson’s recovery, then back into the lineup nightly after Jaden Ivey broke his leg. Staying ready is admirable, and Sass is still giving some solid minutes, but the scorching hot shooting has worn off a bit after his early start.

Across his first 22 games of inconsistent play time, Marcus’ 53/40/100 shooting splits were hard to top. Since re-entering the rotation in Ivey’s absence, that has dipped down to a 39/34/86 mark in 13 games. Thems the breaks when you can’t consistently break the paint. It’s also reflected in his on/off numbers; he was a -4 on the whole in that first stretch and -23 since. Those numbers go under a microscope when you’re fighting for a role.

The good news is that his shot profile has found a better balance. Despite an increase in total 3-point rate, Sasser has seen his rim rate go from 12% to 18%. Turning more midrange shots into rim looks is always a good thing. Efficiency is up across the board as well; 74% at the rim, 50% in the midrange, and 40% from three in non-garbage minutes is nothing to sneeze at. I’ve liked the process on tape and he wins in sustainable ways.

The interesting thing about Sasser’s offense is that this hyperefficient scoring almost has to keep up for him to provide value at this point. He’s not high usage and hasn’t been a great playmaker. At 6’2″, he doesn’t have utility as a screener or glass crasher and has narrow cutting windows. Being a capable above-the-break shooter (85% of his 3PA this year) is a boon, and he can manipulate ball screens well enough when given the opportunity, but it’s a tough fit.

The defense has been a strong positive this year. Detroit is comfortable throwing Sass at all kinds of guard matchups, and he handles them with aplomb. He favors a full-court press and wants to live in your jersey. His attitude remains infectious and impactful on a young team hungry to put last year behind them with a playoff appearance.

Once again, the issue with Sasser’s defense returns to the size. He’s limited to guarding other guards since he does not possess the requisite strength or size to contain bigger wings. Though guarding other guards does take him out of many help positions inside the arc, it’s a non-starter to have him as a low man or tagger, and he’s not convincing with his digs or nail help. Goes without saying that he’s not making an impact on the glass.

He does add up to a 70th percentile D-EPM due to his on-ball proficiency, but the limited scope is difficult to capture in advanced stats. If you’re a one-trick pony on defense, you’d better be REALLY good at it to make a strong impact. He could reach Davion Mitchell/Fred VanVleet/Gary Payton II levels of small guard on-ball defense, but that’s where he needs to be. Anything less brings the rest of his utility into question.

Sasser is one of my most fascinating evaluations in this group. Small 3 and D guards are tough to fit on a roster, let alone a starting lineup, outside of specific circumstances. When you have Cade Cunningham, a forward-sized player who plays like a point on offense, it becomes more viable. Jaden Ivey seems likely to return before the year is out, so we will find out soon where Sasser sits in the hierarchy.

*** ****** (Name Omitted)

A new entrant! I was entranced with this guy’s play and we will get an intro on him before the season is out, so stay tuned.

Dominick Barlow

Dominick, I cannot quit you.

Last time we checked in, Dom had only played 11 minutes with the Hawks; he’s at 59 minutes now. There have even been a couple of rotation stints as the backup big as Father Time gains more ground on Clint Capela. Perhaps a trade could bring him more consistent minutes while Atlanta treads water in yet another mediocre set of Eastern Conference standings.

The G League numbers remain positive. When you’re nearly 7 feet tall and supremely athletic, 19/8 is nearly a prerequisite in a league where big athletes dominate. Checking this box is important, however, and the underlying offensive stats are promising. Per our G guru Emiliano Naiar, Barlow is shooting 76% in the restricted area, 54% in the paint, and 50% in the midrange. Throw in a 77% mark from the line and you have some very legitimate touch indicators. Pairing his size and athleticism with his floater touch and shooting chops could form a dangerous player.

Here’s hoping the Hawks find a way to get him more PT down the stretch. Atlanta getting fleeced in the Dejounte Murray deal by San Antonio made them look terrible, but plucking Barlow away for free could be a measure of revenge.

Wrapping Up

Fourteen developmental stories, fourteen different paths. Different draft pedigrees, levels of opportunity, and skill sets. I hope this series forms a helpful lens into what it’s like to be the unheralded part of the NBA: the role player. Some make star turns, some become important cogs, and some flame out entirely for reasons in and out of their control. Through this tape study, I’ve learned a lot about what drives development in this league. I’m glad you are all learning with me. Until next time.

The post Finding a Role Check-Ins: Halfway Down appeared first on Swish Theory.

So, this past year, I chose to write about a complement of players, ranging from lottery picks to undrafted free agents, all in various stages of development and with different expectations. I decided the best way would be to continue following these players as their stories in the league were told. There were eight different players I watched film on and wrote about in the past season, and while I continue to follow them, I’ll be adding five new players this season to the watchlist.

I want to capture a variety of teams, skillsets, and sets of expectations in addition to positions. The goal is to blend my expectations for the player with their progress, so while the way I choose to categorize their place in the league is subjective, how their team perceives them is also baked into this. Some show flashes and don’t play often despite opportunities being present, and that has to be accounted for. Conversely, a player who seems trusted in the rotation or empowered to take on certain responsibilities should be recognized as an endorsement of their talent.

So, nearly a quarter of the season, let’s check on how these first 10 players have come along.

Stars In The Making

Bilal Coulibaly

In a series where I focused on role players over rising stars, I didn’t expect to cover multiple players in this category. Yes, Bilal Coulibaly is the highest-drafted player on my list of 13, but few expected the 20-year-old to shift the conversation toward star capabilities so quickly.

Two weeks ago I wrote thoroughly on Coulibaly’s star rise in this league, so there’s not much need to elaborate further. However, I will leave you with this, so draw whatever conclusions you may.

We will check back on Bilal in detail later in the season.

Dyson Daniels

Here’s another unexpected addition to the star list.

After I wrote about Dyson last season, exploring his defensive upside and offensive limitations, Daniels became one of the centerpieces in the Dejounte Murray trade. All at once, his expectations and role changed drastically. He’s an every-night starter now with increased usage on both ends of the floor while also being an 8th overall pick reclamation project.

Daniels had his flashes in New Orleans but was buried on the depth chart and surrounded with similarly skilled wings. He fits their need in Atlanta as a long defensive force on the wings and has been thrown into the fire this year. He’s extinguished the fire defensively. My main question with Dyson scaling up on defense was the fouling relative to the event creation, and how he could stay competitive with primary matchups. He answered by turning into a lockdown cornerback pacing the league in steals with an elite block rate for wings. Enjoy some highlights from what may be the preeminent defensive wing in the league this year.

On the offensive side, there is a mix of good and bad. The usage has scaled up in a major way in addition to his increased minutes, though this is a reflection of a dire lack of offensive options in Atlanta compared to last year’s Pelicans. Last year, 21% of his offense came as the primary handler, dipping slightly to 19.4% despite Trae Young missing a game in Boston where Dyson became the de facto #1 handler.

Many of the same problems persist. He looks great as a connective passer and pinch handler, yet continues to struggle finishing at the rim. The floater is excellent as usual and the corner threes are going down while the above-the-break threes remain below 30% with questionable volume. What has been interesting to monitor is the drastic increase in screening usage.

Last year, New Orleans used Dyson as a ball screening option a mere 5 times across 61 games. That is up to 28 possessions in 25 games this year, and results so far are encouraging, as it opens space for his passing reads and floaters.

In New Orleans, offensive responsibilities were tougher to define for a young player trying to find his niche. Screen for that guy, cut off that guy’s drives, space for him, rebound for another. As a starter in Atlanta the first, second, and third questions are “How do you help Trae?”. Increasing screen usage will help Atlanta keep the wheels turning offensively while Dyson tries to figure out where the rest of his offensive game lands.

Two main questions are on the horizon for Daniels. First, can this defensive explosion keep up and keep him on an All-Defense course? My money is on yes, and each passing game of defensive dominance only seems to indicate so.

Second, can he find a way to consistently raise the floor of the offense? The screening is a fun wrinkle, the passing and transition game keeps him out of offensive disaster territory, and he’s good for some silky floaters. But if he continues to be a low-volume low-efficiency shooter, options are limited. Unless strides are made on taking and making threes it places a lot of pressure on the rim finishing and off-the-dribble passing skills. We will see how the coming weeks go.

Star Flashes, Needs Work

Tre Mann

Man, it was hard to keep Tre out of the top tier, but I’ve been fooled by this kind of player before.

I wrote about Tre’s growth last season after he arrived in Charlotte, a primer of sorts before what felt like a breakout campaign in waiting. The first stretch of the season felt extremely validating as Mann averaged 21/4/4 on 47/41/100 splits through the first 5 games in his new role as sixth-man extraordinaire. Then some of the shine came off.

Mann averaged 10/2/3 on 40/35/79 splits over his next eight games while missing some time due to an illness. Then disc irritation in his back fully sidelined him, and Mann has been inactive for 9 straight contests.

Without much to glean over the recent stretch due to the cloud of injury hanging over his usage patterns, we will look closer at Tre’s adjustment once the film has built up more. One scorching stretch followed by a period of struggle hampered by DNPs is ripe for overreaction, therefore we will hit the snooze button on an update after writing about him so recently.

******* ****** [Name Omitted]

Here’s our first mystery man, who will see his debut article in the series soon. The tape screams breakout and I’m excited to get it out soon so more can notice what’s happening under our noses.

******* ********** [Name Omitted]

And the second of the three mystery men, one who has endured a rough start to the season but continues to show the flashes of a future starter, if not an outright star. Stay tuned on that front as the film continues to build.

Strong Rotation Piece

Aaron Nesmith

Alas, we have another player whose injury struggles muddy the picture. The fifth-year forward has missed 19 straight games after suffering an ankle sprain in game 6 of the year against the Pelicans, halting his development story.

His return will be an interesting one. Indiana is struggling offensively with Tyrese Haliburton taking a noticeable step back in production and the residual absence of Buddy Hield‘s exit at the deadline last year, dropping from 2nd in the league to 12th in the early going. Nesmith is exciting as a shooter and closeout stampeder but may struggle to find rhythm again if the context around him has declined.

Hopefully, the ankle injury won’t hamper his defensive impact as a whirlwind rotation defender and defensive event creator, which Indiana needs to create transition opportunities for the offense. Let’s hope for a speedy recovery and some development to explore in the next edition.

Sam Hauser

No player on this list has seen less change in role than Sam Hauser. His usage pattern speaks to the veritable machine that Boston is, even with Kristaps Porzingis‘ early absence.

In nearly identical minutes per game, Hauser is averaging 7.1 shots per game to last year’s 7.1, with 5.9 threes attempted per game in both seasons. He clocks in, gets threes up, clocks out. His 37% mark from deep is a big dip from the first 3 years of his career, where he made 42.2% of his 4.6 attempts per game. I’d expect it to smooth out as Hauser is one of the more versatile and accurate volume three role players in the game. It’s already heading that way, as Sam is hitting 46% of his looks from deep over the past 8 games.

Little has changed in his offense, and little is generous. As I wrote about in my first exploration of Hauser’s game, he is limited as a closeout attacker and driver, which has continued thus far. The closeout attacks have improved a tick but I want to see a bit more before considering this as a real trend.

What interests me about Hauser are the flashes he’s showing on the other end. Boston employs strong defenders top to bottom and likes to switch often because of this so that lesser defenders like Hauser can take risks and cover up on the back side in rotation. Now there are moments when Hauser is out on an island and looks competent, if not very good, on the perimeter.

Hauser being even a defensive neutral on the perimeter in this scheme would be more than enough to justify his minutes with the shooting he brings. If he can be an outright positive, the rich will continue to get richer as his 4-year $45 million extension may prove to be a steal. There’s already a floor there with his size and presence as a competent rebounder. I’m excited to see how he bounces back offensively and if the defense can be proven as real once the rotation readjustments occur when Porzingis heals.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker

Now here’s a guy on a hot streak.

Alexander-Walker has jumped out to career-high scoring efficiency this season, hitting 59% of his two-point looks and 46% of his threes. Most importantly so far, he’s making 82% of his looks at the rim, a major point of focus in my last analysis of NAW’s game. There are still warts with his drives and live dribble finishes yet there are reasons to believe the improvement is real, provided the shooting numbers keep up. He is certainly confident in his shot and has leveraged that into quality pull-up twos when attacking closeouts.

If Nickeil continues to take and make his threes at a high volume it will open up easier looks, lessening the burden on his dribble which has continued to look suspect. His turnover woes could also be smoothed out with easy reads against a rotating defense.

An uptick in offensive production takes him to a new level of value, considering his defense. He’s been stellar as usual on the perimeter with an ability to affect all kinds of players on the drive with his combination of size, strength, and agility.

The film backs up the numbers, indicating yet another season of elite defense for one of the league’s unheralded defensive gems. I’ll be interested to see if the offense continues to grow to match his capabilities on the ugly end of the floor.

Goga Bitadze

Injury luck struck my list of players hard for this first quarter of the season. At least one player here benefited from the huge swath of injuries across the league. In this case, it may have saved his season.

Across the season’s first seven games, Goga Bitadze played a grand total of 17 minutes, including four DNP-CDs. The brand new 3-year $25M contract seemingly meant little towards his short-term outlook for playing time. Orlando also had Paolo Banchero and Wendell Carter Jr. healthy early in the season, but by game 8 against Oklahoma City, both were out for the foreseeable future. Goga went from the end of the bench to a starter and hasn’t looked back.

He’s been a starting lineup fixture for 18 of the last 19 games, including some games with Wendell as his frontcourt mate. It’s been a very productive stretch for Bitadze who has averaged 9.9 points on 66% shooting to go with 8 boards and 2.7 stocks. One huge offensive improvement I had my eye on was restricted area finishing. This year he’s jumped to career highs in the restricted area (74%) and in the 3-10 foot range (64%), up from 72% and 44% last year.

In addition to his usual roll, cut, and slam prowess that I wrote about earlier this year, he is showing some encouraging touch plays around the basket that show me this might be sustainable growth.

Goga’s limited offensive role leaves few areas of improvement. The finishing is a major point since all he’s asked to do is finish plays. He sets a great screen, can make some nice passes to his cutters from the post and out of the roll, and cleans up in the restricted area. Adding a few percentage points to his paint looks is all Orlando can ask for given the scope of his offense. At the end of the day, he’s out there for what he can do defensively.

Little has changed with his defensive game, and I say this with the utmost respect. I wanted to see improved rebounding, and the numbers are up slightly, but I’ll want to see more to determine if he is becoming a true menace on the glass. The fouls are still up and can hamper his game at times. Yet at this point, the results speak for themselves. Orlando boasts a defensive rating of 103 with him on the floor, and the individual metrics back up his penchant for dirty work. He leads all players in D-LEBRON (a wonderful catch-all courtesy of Bball Index) and has a 92nd percentile D-EPM for the second year running. The film shows a guy who is not to be tested in the restricted area. Goga is a true rim protection maestro.

It remains to be seen if Bitadze will continue to start, or even be in the rotation, upon Paolo Banchero’s return. It speaks to Orlando’s depth in the frontcourt that a center playing at an All-Defensive caliber may be out of the rotation entirely despite his +8.2 on/off rating. I’m excited to see how Jamahl Mosley handles this team when fully healthy and with Goga at this level of production.

Rotation Flashes, Needs Work

Peyton Watson

When I wrote about Watson last month, it was fresh off an injury to Aaron Gordon that thrust Watson into the starting lineup. Though I didn’t see tons of improvement in his play, the box score results certainly stood out. With the Nuggets starters, specifically Nikola Jokic, Watson produced a 12/4/2/1.8 stocks statline on 57/42/71 splits. The consistency was also remarkable – Watson posted double-digit points in 8 of his 11 starts. Funny how playing with an MVP can make you look so much better.

There has been a positive uptick in his cutting, and the defense has looked more consistent on a night-to-night basis. What I want to see is how Watson responds to a return to the bench. Aaron Gordon’s return will reduce his time on the floor with Jokic and I want to see him get up for the bench minutes the same way he got up for starting duties. We’ll take a closer look at Watson’s development around the halfway mark of the season.

Marcus Sasser

The offseason and early goings of the season did not bode well for Marcus Sasser.

When your team replaces the GM who drafted you, adds veterans that eat into your position on the depth chart, and gets a new coach all at once it spells trouble. With DNP-CDs in 8 of his first 12 games and garbage time duties on the menu, it felt like a familiar story. A player with a relatively low draft investment finds himself on the outs as the team heads in a new direction.

But something must have caught the eye of new head coach JB Bickerstaff. Sasser has not only played in 12 of the last 13 games, he’s also averaging 15 minutes per contest while seriously producing. The second-year guard boasts a scorching 53/42/100 slash line over those past dozen appearances. As usual, the shooting on and off the ball has impressed.

What I love to see is Sasser turning this success into a more stable rim-pressure game. In my first article about Marcus over a year ago, I pointed to a lack of rim attempts as a concerning problem. Nobody expects the 6’2″ guard who can’t jump out of the gym to be a huge rim threat, but his 8.8% rim frequency mark from last year was ghastly. Across 211 minutes this year, Sasser has taken 22.4% of his shots at the rim and converted 82% (!!!). The film backs up the numbers: he’s turning more midrange looks, a comfort shot for him, into rim attempts. Thriving while getting uncomfortable is a huge developmental stride.

The guy is also just a pure hustler. He’s had more points coming off cuts this season than last, in 1,100 fewer minutes. Flies in transition and works for his open jumpers, and results have paid off for him and the team; Detroit boasts an offensive rating of 121 with Sasser on the court, compared to 108 last season.

His hustle is also infectious on the defensive end. The screen navigation has ticked up the way I wanted to see. Sasser also continues to get active with his hands at the point of attack and to much better results. Last year he averaged 1.6 steals to 3.7 fouls per 100 possessions; now he’s averaging a cool 3.0 steals to 3.0 fouls.

The aforementioned 6’2″ frame limits his potential defensive matchups, but Sasser falls squarely in the “man, I hate to play that guy” category if you’re an opposing guard.

For a 10-15 Detroit team looking to prove something and crack the play-in tournament, Sasser’s +3.5 net rating combined with the uptick in production and overall hustle points to a consistent rotation spot provided he can keep it up. JB Bickerstaff will reward hustle, and Sasser has plenty of that to go around.

Dominick Barlow

Alas, we come to the truly unknown. Barlow’s spell as a bit rotation player in San Antonio across the last two seasons seems so far away. On his two-way deal with Atlanta, Dominick has seen a total of 11 minutes with the big club. Not ideal.

The good news is his dominance of the G-League continues. Across 11 games with the Skyhawks, Barlow is averaging 20/8/2/2 stocks while shooting 59% from the floor and 82% from the line. Compared to his last two G-League seasons, he’s posting his first positive assist/turnover ratio and positive +/- rating at +4.9. All encouraging signs, but it does beg the question: is Barlow a Quad-A type player, too good for the G but not good enough for the NBA?

I hold out hope that another stint in the league could prove his worth. But for now, we wait and see.

****** ********* [Name Omitted]

And finally, the last unknown player, to be written about at a later date. Every good writer finishes with some mystery, right?

We’ll check back in on these players at the halfway mark of the season, another opportunity to tell their stories of development in the world’s top basketball league.

The post Finding a Role Check-Ins: Quarter Pole appeared first on Swish Theory.

If you’ve tuned into an Orlando Magic game recently, noticed Jalen Suggs make a chasedown block, and started to wonder, “wow, it feels like Suggs blocks a shot from behind every time I watch the Magic,” it’s because he has.

Is the game slowing down for Suggs so much that he’s channeling his inner LeBron, using his athleticism, shot-tracking, and defensive instincts to let his man drive past him, giving the opponent an ounce of hope that he beat Suggs off the dribble, just to suddenly surge forward and block the driver’s shot from behind?

Let’s investigate.

Finding a Role Update: The Defense

Last year, Jalen Suggs was the king of the Pick Six, a Backcourt Ballhawk forcing turnovers and scoring breakaways on what felt like every play.

This year, Suggs leads all guards in Blocks Per Game (1.2) and Total Blocks (21), narrowly edging out Derrick White.

Tracking every block from behind, forced turnover, and (missed) shot contest for Jalen through 18 games this season reveals that Suggs has in fact averaged one chasedown block per game, 19 to be exact.

Sometimes, it looks like Suggs has been beaten, almost as if he’s given up on a play, just to creep up behind the driver, quickly accelerate and explode into a smackdown from behind.

Often, Jalen’s even able to keep the ball inbounds, somehow swatting the shot hard enough to deny the force of the opponent’s attack, yet soft enough to recover the loose ball before it becomes a lost possession, making multiple winning plays at once.

Don’t drive by Jalen Suggs or you might just feel the wind up and follow through of his shot-swatter arm bopping off your skull.

Suggs, of course, doesn’t just block shots; he’s a ball of energy one-man wrecking crew who doesn’t run out of gas.

His motor never turns off.

His screen navigation is as clean as any defender in the world.

His versatile switchability is as strong and agile as a guard can be.

On top of his 19 chase-down blocks, Suggs has swatted a shot, stolen the rock, or forced a turnover 33 more times, while the Magic have scored points or drawn fouls directly off turnovers forced by Suggs on 15 possessions.

Have you heard that Jalen Suggs used to be a defensive back in football? Pick-Six Suggs is alive and well.

Orlando ranks as the third-best defense in the league, primarily because they force the second-most turnovers (17.4 TOV%), grab the second-most defensive rebounds (25.4% DREB%), and hold opponents to the seventh-lowest shooting percentage (53.1% eFG%), via Cleaning the Glass.

Suggs’ rotations have been timely, his shot contests have stayed active, his second and third effort always shows up.

Jalen has personally contested 71 shots that opponents missed.

Sometimes he’ll rotate so well he contests multiple shots in the same possession, or gets his active hands on the ball for a deflection without recovering the loose ball and still make it out to the perimeter to close out on an open shooter.

Jalen Suggs Contesting Missed Shots – Part 1

Jalen Suggs Contesting Missed Shots – Part 2

Finding a Role Update: The Offense

While Suggs’ All-Defense level impact has been as dominant as ever, the full-time point guard experiment has been inconclusive at best or average at worst.

Even though Orlando’s elite defense has been spearheaded by Suggs’ willpower and tenacity for four years running, after Paolo went down, the Magic’s offense took off once they put the ball in Franz’ hands as primary initiator.

Letting a career-high volume of 3PA fly, launching just under 7 threes per game, Jalen’s efficiency from downtown has regressed after a hot start, down to 31% 3P%.

Perhaps losing Paolo has changed Jalen’s shot volume from more open secondary closeout-attacks and off-ball spot ups, where Suggs is hitting 38% 3P% on 93 Catch-and-Shoot 3PA, to more on-ball usage contested jumpers and pull-up threes, where Jalen’s converting just 10% 3P% on 30 pull-up triple attempts.

The skillsets to watch before the season were his Floor General primary initiation, his P&R decision-making, and his Pull-Up 3 effectiveness, where there’s still much to be desired for consistency in all three.

According to Synergy, Jalen’s rated average in most playtypes (P&R Ball-Handler, Spot Ups, Transition, Handoffs).

Suggs rates excellent in ISO efficiency, scoring 1.22 PPP on 23 possessions.

What Suggs has proven thus far is his connective floor-spacing, making team-first reads on both ends, knocking down a high volume of catch-and-shoot threes on good efficiency.

Even taking on more usage, his energy levels are never depleted. Time will tell if Suggs can find consistency as more of a primary creator for the team, but no one can question his will to compete at every opportunity.

Stats as of 11.27.24

The post Don’t Drive By Jalen Suggs appeared first on Swish Theory.

Boston’s Derrick White and Denver’s Aaron Gordon may be high-end examples, but does Dallas make the Finals last season without journeyman Derrick Jones Jr.? Does Miami make it the year before without Caleb Martin?

With that in mind, here is Part One of my Finding a Role Introduction for this season, where I’ll be tracking some of the league’s rising (potential) difference-makers. We live in the here and now, of course, focusing on how Player X can earn more minutes and dollars by increasing his value to his current team, but keep in mind the long-term undercurrent: Can these guys show up as high-end contributors on championship-level teams? How are they going to get there?

Additionally, this season’s installments of Finding a Role would not be possible without crowdscout.net, the brainchild of Swish Theory co-founder Eric Weiss (and company), a truly game-changing way to watch and catalogue film from around the NBA.

Click on the linked playlists for the CrowdScout Experience, and more context on each of these players.

Tari Eason

After being selected 17th overall in the 2022 NBA Draft by the Houston Rockets, Tari Eason immediately made a name for himself by playing real hard and annoying the hell out of most of his opponents throughout his rookie season. However, his sophomore season was ended after just 22 appearances due to lower-leg injury troubles. First a stress fracture, then a surgery to address a benign growth in his shin. Not ideal.

But that sample of play — in addition to his start in 2024-25 — is more than enough to define Eason within Houston’s over-crowded room of young players a leap or two away from changing their careers.

Offense: Bow-Tyer (playlist)

Tari Eason is built like an athlete. He’s listed as 6’8″ with a 7’2″ wingspan, and between that and his aggressive defensive style, which we’ll cover, he’s subject to type-casting on offense. Yes, he can crash the glass and finish transition opportunities above-the-rim, but Eason has room to grow into a connective role on that end. Throughout his first two seasons, he showed considerable court-mapping and decision-making prowess despite a relative lack of possessing the ball.

This cut-and-kick creates a corner-three for Houston, and while he perhaps misses a real tough, high-value dump-off to Alperen Şengün, it showcases some skills Eason should tap into more:

Tari will make to the rim if he sees the back of his defender’s head, and he can find the open shooters in transition. This play stands out not because it’s anything ground-breaking, but because he identifies where the advantage will be early. The drive-and-kick itself becomes pretty simple:

There’s really no reason, then, for his career-assist-rate to be hovering below 8%. Eason doesn’t have to be late-career Andre Iguodala in year three, but he’s shown too much court-awareness to have none of his passing stats pop. Yes, he often stands in the corner in Houston’s half-court offense, but ending the closeouts he does attack with extra passes and even higher-value looks for teammates has to be a focus.

However, it bodes well that Eason is finishing strong at the rim to start 2024-25, perhaps invigorated by a successful rehab process. Cleaning the Glass is tracking him at 48-of-66, or 73% on shots at the rim this season, up from his previous career-mark of 56% on 415 attempts.

It’s early. But Eason looks to be a merely competent 3-point threat on low volume, shooting in the mid-30s without many attempts off the dribble or off movement (though it’s worth noting he is just 250 attempts into his career).

Eason has never had a problem getting to the paint, but he hasn’t always pressed the right button to get there. Occasionally he doesn’t leverage his physicality into an advantage, opting for a slow-step or euro type of finish that diminishes his athletic traits. Often times, he’s stunted by a lack of flexibility in his handle, forced to pick the ball up one dribble too soon.

For now, though, he’s solving the issue, and flashing signs of tying the bow on top of Houston’s offense. He can handle in transition, cut to the rim or get there off a closeout or offensive board, and for now, he’s finishing those possessions. Becoming a more consistent passer is the key, and that’ll open up opportunities to get him in the short-roll as a screener or ball-handler in some inverted actions.

Defense: Ball-Hawk (playlist)

Simple. He rebounds everything, and yeah, he may foul a lot, but Eason is currently in the 100th percentile for steal- and block-rate for his position in 2024-25, per Cleaning the Glass. Passing lanes, pick-pockets, swipe-downs, contests as the low-man, you name it, Tari does it.

There is a flip-side, in that he’s occasionally beat on his gambling, and he’s not always in the right positions when it comes to scramble-mode or communicating with his teammates. Last season, playing against the Indiana Pacers, Eason was occasionally tasked with guarding Buddy Hield. He did okay, but it showed that his skillset is more tailored to helping off a non-shooting threat rather than being responsible for the deadliest shooter on the floor. On this play, he survives poor screen-navigation at first, though that’s an admittedly bigger problem than biting on the ball-fake when helps on a drive:

(It’s tough to help off Buddy Hield.)

Houston hasn’t always had the rim-protection to insulate some of his gambling tendencies, though Şengün is looking sturdier in 2024-25 but Eason’s ball-hawking nature is too valuable to be constricted.

This end of the floor is a bit easier to predict for Tari Eason. Unless he’s playing in handcuffs, he’s going to rack up the deflections as a long-armed athlete with plus-anticipation skills. Molding those desirable skills into a team-context where he can more comfortably navigate switches and make funky rotations is an obvious key for him.

Playlist: https://crowdscout.net/p?p=01934941-a5b0-7990-9c53-069a08998d21&i=3329457)

Gradey Dick

Gradey Dick is here to shoot the rock.

Offense: Loose Dynamite (Playlist)

He’s 6’7″ with a high release point, and has shown stretches of being the shot-maker the Toronto Raptors envisioned when they took him out of University of Kansas in the 2023 NBA Draft. As with any shooter, Dick needs to improve on the margins: making the right choice when defenses run him off the 3-point line, not falling too in love with that mid-range pull-up, finishing at the rim, et cetera.

But Gradey has scored 25-plus points five times in his career, and they’ve all come in the early stages of the 2024-25 season. Opportunity has abounded with Scottie Barnes and others missing considerable time for Toronto, but think about the archetype here. Gradey didn’t just stand in the corner and wait to capitalize on advantages that weren’t created, he went out and got 20 shots.

Dick’s shown some malleability off that high release-point, and the anticipation/hand-eye to convert opportunies that he otherwise couldn’t, given a fairly uninspiring athletic profile. On this pair of buckets, he first push-dribbles through a dig, then drops a tough turnaround over Rudy Gobert before floating a moon-ball over him the next time down:

Is this Dick’s ideal shot-profile? No. Does it indicate that he get create real looks for himself outside the limited context of a less threatening stand-in-the-corner white guy? Absolutely.

Gradey’s always going to be a little reliant on organized offense to get his looks off; pin-downs with correct spacing, setting a ball-screen -> coming off a flare, etc. However, on a healthy Raptors team with Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley most often toting the rock, Gradey’s gonna need to find other ways to get his shots off. His growing ability to find his spots bodes well.

Of course, making the right decisions when attacking closeouts is paramount, but look for Gradey to keep firing all sorts of 3-point looks. Hopefully, he can use his anticipation and hand-eye skills to find crevasses to get to the rim a tad more, though that floater will be a real weapon for years to come. Ideally, Gradey Dick is a loose stick of dynamite; handle him with improper care and watch your house burn down.

Defense: Chain Link (Playlist)

Gradey Dick isn’t going to become a lockdown defender on the ball, but he’s going to have to bleed a little less on the perimeter. His foot-speed and short-space explosiveness is just alright, so it’s tough when the NBA’s shiftiest guards reject screens on him and whatnot. Here, he deftly switches a screen and then chases Anthony Edwards, of all people, through another one, but Ant dusts him with a simple-jab:

Of course, Gradey Dick cannot give up baseline on this play, and that worry is a part of what sends him flying, in addition to, you know. That play is the result of an off-ball switch, and while the Toronto Raptors won’t ask Gradey Dick to guard all the opponent’s most threatening players, he’ll be put in some uncomfortable situations.

In the meantime, Gradey Dick has to continue communicating with his teammates and showing in the right spots, something he’s done a nice job of for a player early in his second season.

Vince Williams Jr.

Vince Williams Jr. missed the first month of the Memphis Grizzlies season recovering from a stress fracture in his tibia, then returned for three games before spraining his ankle, which will cause him to miss around another month of action. Tough times for one of the league’s funkiest third-year players.

Offense: Gap Filler (Playlist)

In the beginning of the 2023-24 season, the Memphis Grizzlies deployed Vince as a fairly typical wing who was just getting his feet wet with consistent rotational minutes. Then, as the injuries continued to mount and Vince’s skillset became a bit clearer, he blossomed into something of a point-forward, racking up high-assist totals throughout the spring. It’s easy to see why:

Vince struggles to truly separate/blow by defenders with a live-dribble, but if there is an advantage available to him, he will make any sort of pass to get it done. ‘Ambitious’ is the word that comes to mind.

Vince could use a few more live-dribble counters to get to his spots; right now, he’s almost exclusively able to create out of dribble-handoffs or in transition rather than straight pick-and-roll. However, he did shoot 39% from deep as a willing 3-point shooter in 2023-24, perhaps a bit over his head but more than enough to draw closeouts and give his best skills and opportunity to shine.

In the half-court, he’s either taking those looks (and will pull off the dribble if his defender goes far under the screen) or trying to get all the way to the rim. Because Vince is not the most reactive ball-handler, he has trouble navigating tight spaces. While that limits his ability to consistently lay the ball up, his approach is at least partly why Memphis felt so comfortable giving him more responsibility.

Vince will make sure Memphis achieves its desired shot-profile if the ball is in his hands. He will either pass to or shoot from the high-value areas of the court. Sure, he can cut and shoot off-the-ball sufficiently; he’ll make inspiring extra passes. But Vince flies with some decision-making on his shoulders; the short-term question is how he’s going to do this while playing next to Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr., Desmond Bane, and even the vaguely similar Marcus Smart.

Defense: Playmaker (Playlist)

I described Vince Williams Jr. as a funky third-year player not just as a term of admiration for his offensive play-style, but his defense too. Memphis tasked Vince with face-guarding their opponent’s best player for damn-near full games last season. From Kyrie Irving to Kevin Durant, Vince was guarding his man often with his back turned to the ball, almost like the football player he’s built like.

This encapsulates the VWJ experience on defense; he’s not always the most nimble at the point-of-attack, and he’s not racking up the deflections quite like Tari Eason, but he is a playmaker nonetheless. Vince is fantastic at contesting shots all over the court, but his verticality and ridiculous +7 wingspan really plays at the rim:

Despite his fundamentally sound skills there, Vince can be a bit of a risk-taker on the perimeter, and frequent gambles and pokes at the ball puncture holes in his point-of-attack defense. A tad too often, offensive players are able to create space by bumping him off course, surprising given his frame and physicality when sticking to guys off the ball.

Where should his skillset meet his role? Indeed, he is a playmaker on defense, with active hands, strong anticipation skills, and an ability to offer secondary rim-protection, but perhaps it is telling that Memphis stuck him on so many bona fide perimeter threats last season. Next to Jaren Jackson Jr. and Zach Edey, the Grizzlies may need him to buckle down, get through screens, and move his feet against smaller, shiftier players.

Nearly everything Vince does on a basketball court is interesting, but his role on Memphis’ defense is really something to look out for when he returns from injury.

This has merely been the first part of Finding a Role, 2025. There are a couple boys from Brooklyn I’ve yet to mention, but that will come at a later date.

Meanwhile, I will be re-visiting these three players frequently throughout this season, tracking progress in the aforementioned areas, as they look to establish themselves as upper-middle class NBA players who can make or break a contending front office. Can Gradey Dick’s ancillary offense push a championship-offense over the finish line? Will Tari Eason oversee and control playoff games on both ends of the court? Can Vince Williams Jr. toe the line between experimenting and producing at the highest level?

Those are all long-term questions, but they’ll be answered season-by-season, game-by-game, quarter-by-quarter, and Swish Theory’s Finding a Role series is here to track all of it.

The post Finding a Role: 2024-25 Introduction appeared first on Swish Theory.

Watson showed himself to be a potent defensive weapon, on and off the ball, and the toolsy 21-year-old proved himself worthy of the defending champs as they sought to replace a departing Bruce Brown. Offensive struggles were there to be sure, to put it mildly; Watson’s -3.4 offensive estimated plus-minus was the worst mark in the league. A year later, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is gone, and Aaron Gordon is sidelined for at least a month with a calf injury. More than ever the Nuggets need Watson to step into his own.

The move into the starting lineup will be an inflection point for how Denver views Watson’s long-term potential. The thrifty Nuggets front office will look closely at how he responds before an extension-eligible offseason. Is Watson proving himself as a potential starting-type piece, or just another defensive wing struggling to find an offensive niche?

We will focus heavily on the offensive skills here to see how Watson can justify his spot on the floor and prove himself as a capable cog in the machine.

Defense Check-In

Guess what – it’s still great!

At the end of the day, this is a development-based series, so I place very little value in “guy who kicks ass at X skill still kicks ass”. If things had changed, I would indicate otherwise, but Watson is again showing why he is one of the most exciting defensive wings in the league.

The underlying stats are very good. Watson’s 2.4% block rate, a 98th percentile mark amongst forwards, is somehow a career-low for the third-year UCLA alum. The steal rate has increased to an 83rd percentile mark as Watson continues to grow as an event creator. Film backs up what has been an impressive season in rotation, making impact plays all over the floor.

I’ll have my eye on some underlying numbers concerning his off-ball defense; the foul rate is once again troublesome and he’s failing to make a consistent impact as a rebounder. But that’s for another time – we are here to focus on Watson trying to find himself offensively.

Offense Check-In

Cutting

The change over to the starting lineup has placed even more emphasis on this facet of Watson’s offensive game. If you play off Nikola Jokic and you can’t shoot (3/16 from deep this year), you’d better be moving around. Peyton has done a pretty solid job at finding open space and can take advantage of being ignored by the defense.

Consistently finding the right space is already an issue, however. I expect this to improve during his stint as a starter while playing with better spacing and off Nikola but it’s iffy at times. What’s more concerning are the bad finishes at the rim once he finds the space.

Watson is finishing only 43% of his looks at the rim this year, a brutal mark especially when factoring in his size and athleticism. He needs to work on staying within himself as a finisher by not trying to do too much. A little slow-down now and then to draw some fouls would be a boost as well.

An interesting wrinkle to his offensive game has developed over the past few games, one that could help alleviate some of his rim-finishing concerns.

Screening

In 80 games last year, Watson acted as a screen-and-roll option on 15 total possessions. Now through 8 games, he’s been the screener on 5 possessions. For #onpace math-doers, that would put him well on pace to triple that number from the previous season.

There’s been some experimentation with Watson as a guard screener for Russell Westbrook and Jamal Murray early in the season.

What interests me more is the 5-4 screening actions with Jokic. Nikola’s two-man game with Aaron Gordon is a crucial part of the offense, and coach Michael Malone is trying to incorporate those elements in Gordon’s absence with Watson as a substitute.

By no means will Watson screen actions become a focal point of the offense anytime soon, but anything and everything should be tried to overcome his woeful half-court offense.

At least there is one area of the offense he can make a real difference in.

Transition

Watson still looks quite good as a transition weapon, and his bounce has led to most transition defenders hacking him hard to prevent finishes – provided they can catch him.

What concerns me about Watson’s development as a transition weapon is his failure to make the right passing reads. Forcing teams to foul is great, but too often he flies into a crowd while missing easy passes.

He’s made some decent reads out there to be sure, and looks pretty good when keeping his head up to find his passing lanes.

The open floor may be the best way for Watson to contribute to this offense in the short term while finding ways to be useful in the halfcourt. But like his halfcourt game, the lack of overall feel shows.

Here’s hoping Watson can use this time in the starting lineup to further develop his offensive game and find ways he can help his teammates by cutting, screening, rebounding, and filling every gap he can. He shows so much promise on the defensive end of the floor, and much like the Nuggets, I am hoping he can show enough offensively over the next month to warrant his place as a rotation fixture.

The post Finding a Role Check-In #1: Peyton Watson appeared first on Swish Theory.

When Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975, confusion abounded. A highly successful band’s frontman striking out on his own was a common enough occurrence, but the timing was odd. Ten years later, Gabriel had four No. 1 albums and ended his career as one of British history’s most prolific and successful solo artists.

Okay, I suppose Tre Mann isn’t a 1:1 comparison. He was by no means the frontman of the Oklahoma City Thunder, nor do I project him to have the success of Peter Gabriel. I can’t even call him Phil Collins in good conscience. I guess this makes him Morrissey to the Thunder’s Smiths, but (hopefully) minus the inexplicable racism? This is going off the rails.

Anyways, leaving the Thunder shone a new light on Tre Mann’s ability. The talent was there, but opportunities faded quickly as Oklahoma City acquired more capable role players and kept piling up draft picks. The rookie emergence of Cason Wallace seemed to be the last straw. The Genesis 1975 tour appearance in Cleveland, if you will.

Now Mann finds himself in Charlotte, the polar opposite in regards to team expectations and opportunities to play. After his inclusion in the Gordon Hayward/Davis Bertans deal, Mann arrived in Charlotte to find a 10-41 team that had lost LaMelo Ball for the season. After being a DNP-CD for ~60% of his games in OKC, he was suddenly a starting point guard through the rest of the year. Opportunity presented itself, and Mann seized it.

I want to explore how Mann showed serious offensive juice over the final stretch of the year. Without further ado (read: ham-fisted Britpop references), let’s dig in. Starting with the defense; might as well rip the Band-Aid off.

On-Ball Production

Man. Look.

I had to think long and hard about how I wanted to frame this. It was a godawful team with nothing to play for. The coach was doing multiple press conferences a week that sounded like a cry for help. At times it was tempting to wave my hand and say “Hey, this is terrible, but is it Tre’s fault?”. Like most things, the answer fell somewhere in a gray area.

There are the schematic points to start. Shoutout to X’s and O’s god/unrepentant Seahawks fan Joe Hulbert for sharing his insight on Steve Clifford’s defensive principles, and a video of Clifford himself explaining these tactics. In short, Clifford wants to take away the valuable looks (threes, layups/dunks, free throws) and force players into the midrange. It involves point-of-attack defenders overplaying screen-based actions to force ballhandlers off the 3-point line and into the helpers. Here’s an easy example:

You can see the way Mann is shading Darius Garland on this drive. He’s giving him the angle for his strong hand and discouraging Garland from using a potential Jarrett Allen screen. The goal is to force Garland into an isolation possession with Miles Bridges stepping up to deter the drive and Vasilije Micic sinking to the dunker spot in Bridges’ place. Ideally, this forces two outcomes: a skip to the far corner and Isaac Okoro taking a three, or a midrange attempt.

Unfortunately, Miles Bridges is picking daisies in front of the drive (as he is wont to do) and allows an easy floater for DG. Hardline defensive principles are fine if you have execution. This team had little interest in execution. You can see a lot of possessions where Mann did his job on the intentional overplays and was let down by his helpers.

There are nits to pick with how drastic his angles are at times, often eliminating the opportunity to get himself back in the play. Regardless, his job is to buy into the scheme. When the scheme isn’t working you need to look critically at who is letting the team down. Clifford, yes. The rotational defenders, yes. Mann, not so much.

Referring back to the gray area, there were possessions where the blame almost squarely fell on Mann and not the scheme/surrounding personnel. Getting caught flat-footed, ill-timed unders on screens, failing to recognize switch opportunities, so on and so forth.

Yet there are moments of good. I was surprised to see Mann showing anticipation in blend with his athleticism and size by skinnying over screens at a decent enough pace. If encouraged to do actual screen navigation instead of comically overplaying screens to force a direction, he could do some things.

Mann has flashed some moments of quick hands to force steals. Despite an even wingspan (6’4″) relative to his height, his wide base and quickness make him a solid enough threat to pilfer a hung dribble.

Most importantly in my eyes are the possessions where he shows the right instincts and commitment to deny the easy looks. This is the NBA; most point-of-attack defenders have physical tools and look good when making the right gambles. That doesn’t impress me. Making a series of correct decisions regarding switches, sticking on drives to force tough shots, and contesting perimeter shots after denying drives stand out the most. Mann has flashed all of those things.

These flashes of effort, decision-making and consistency are especially important when you look at the other side of his defense.

Off-Ball “Defending”

There’s no scheme issues to pick on here. When it came to Mann’s on-ball defense, letdowns from his help defenders caused a lot of problems. Mann was often the one causing the problems when not directly guarding the handler.

Overhelping on the glass and allowing open threes. Uninspired and slow closeouts. Wandering off the ball when opponents are driving. Lackadaisical nail help. There’s a lot of rough stuff in here, and I left plenty on the cutting room before.

This isn’t a unique problem. White dudes in mesh trucker hats have problematic political takes, Chicago Bears quarterbacks refuse to throw for 4,000 yards, and young offense-first guards are more engaged on the ball than off it. Life is full of constants.

What frustrates me with Mann more than most is that the flashes of awareness and engagement are there. He can make structured rotations, digging off the perimeter at the right times and especially rotating over to bigs to deny post entry passes.

Even more impressive, Mann makes the unstructured reads. He’s damn good at anticipating the next pass and beating his man to the ball. Surprisingly for a young guard, the good gambles outweighed the bad.

The numbers bear out his growing defensive impact. He posts strong defensive rebounding numbers (90th percentile amongst combo guards per Cleaning the Glass), and though it belies his overcommitment to impact the glass while trading the aforementioned open second-chance threes, it’s still a positive. Mann also posted a 91st percentile steal rate while keeping the fouls to an 80th percentile mark. Catch-alls back up his growth: Mann’s defensive EPM according to dunksandthrees.com has risen from -4.0 to -3.5 to -1.4 this past season, a perfectly acceptable 53rd percentile mark.

Reading between the numbers is important here. Mann can continue to be a positive rebounder if he cleans up his decision making on when to crash and when to stick to his man. Continuing to create steals based on hustle and a healthy mix of gambling on-off the ball will be huge, and works in tandem with his transition prowess (more on that later). A high steal rate and low foul rate indicates cautious yet deadly hands, but he could be a bit more physical and toe the line of blocking fouls a bit more often.

On the whole with Mann’s defense, I am cautiously optimistic. Head coach Charles Lee has championship experience as a top assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics. Read: the man has coached Jrue Holiday a lot. He’s seen firsthand for years what makes great point-of-attack defense and impactful guard rotations. When LaMelo Ball plays, Mann gets to work on his defensive craft against bench guards instead of starters, and will see plenty of minutes alongside defensive stud Josh Green. If he can continue his personal development while the context improves from “everything is on fire” to “this feels manageable”, don’t be surprised to see him climb towards above-average defender territory.

We’ve had our appetizer. Now it’s time for the main course.

On-Ball Creation

Let’s start with the simple and move towards the complex, because there are many layers to Mann’s on-ball talent. Drives are a good place to start.

If you put a guard who is anything less than a top-tier point of attack guy on Tre, he’s going to coast right past them. His blend of balance, speed, and agility is difficult for most to deal with.

Maybe you think hey, let’s try some wings out on him. Strength and length should deter him, right? Right??

Couldn’t be more wrong! Tre has unlimited confidence in his ability to create good looks on the drive, so much so that he’ll go at the head of anyone at any time. Like this guy:

Mann finished with a solid 64% mark at the rim while showcasing some decent off-hand finishing, largely driven by his ability to get clean wins against all comers in isolation. This talent is accentuated by his set of midrange counters, which is prolific to say the least.

Simply put, a plethora of midrange counters opens up a lot of ways for Mann to create an effective shot on the drive. It gives him ways to counter if the rim is being denied by his defender or by the rotations. Selling out to stop his drives allows more space for him in the intermediate areas, which helps the rim pressure, and on and on in an endlessly frustrating cycle for defenders.

Mann isn’t limited to self-creation on his drives either. He showed a lot of promise as a drive-and-spray guy, collapsing the defense and kicking out to his shooters for open looks or closeout attack chances.

For a 23 year old, Mann is surprisingly timely at kicking behind help. Throw a tag on his roller and the ball is going behind the tagger. Show some nail help on his drives and guess what, the ball is suddenly in the shooting pocket of the help point.

When his teammates felt inclined to cut and move off of his drives, Mann was pretty adept at finding them with good lob touch and some crafty layoff passes.

It wasn’t all pretty on the drive. Mann at times is prone to wild finish attempts, especially when favoring his right hand in situations that call for a lefty finish. There were some missed opportunities for a pass that turned into bad finishes as well. Yet on the whole, his ability to create for himself and others without needing a screen is valuable.

You may be wondering at this point if Tre has any juice on the perimeter if the drives/midrange counters are cut off. Boy, does he.

His flexibility and balance stand out the most on his pull-up threes. He can bend so low on his crossovers without losing momentum and balance that it’s impossible to close the gaps he generates on step-backs.

So, we have the makings of a three-level isolation scorer here. That’s fantastic, but this is the modern NBA. What you do in screen-based actions defines your game, not 1v1 cooking. We’ll build up his PNR game in a similar fashion, working inside-out like any good offense does.

Pick-and-Roll Creation

As he does in isolation, Mann loves mashing the accelerate button on his drives, creating plenty of good rim chances.

That’s ho-hum at this point. Oh look, I can go fast. Good for you. The real question in ball screen reps is how do you manipulate defenders with that speed, more specifically changing pace on the drive. Mann showed a lot of encouraging tape in that respect.

Of course, the pull up twos were a steady presence, as they were with his isolation game.

Then we have the pull-up three point game. When facing an athletic driver like Mann, going under on the screen is often the right move. He responds by raining threes with good efficiency and deep range. Even if you go over the screen, he’s adept at finding windows to get his shot off.

In traditional pick-and-roll without a switch or Mann rejecting the screen, the playmaking popped in a lot of ways. The live dribble passing was especially impressive. Keep an eye on how Mann mixes his speeds and strategically slows down at the right times, especially when trying to let his roller find the best window for lobs and layoff passes.

Mann thrived against mixed coverages, especially as a playmaker. If they threw two at the ball, he was particularly adept at opening windows for his rollers or finding the help points and kicking to open shooters.

A key aspect of Mann’s playmaking that impresses is the blend between improvisational reads and “academy brain” type reads. A lot of passing decisions are taught in a binary manner. If they send a double, hit the roller or skip to the far corner. Mann does this often, yet sometimes he will continue the dribble to draw further help and find other reads. Often he extends to make the help withdraw then finds his roller again with nifty wrap passes. Making reads in and out of structure is the key to any high-level playmaker.

Things get a bit iffier when Mann is faced with a switch. Sometimes he would fail to take advantage of that switch by taking pull-up shots or passing out of the mismatch entirely.

But there were plenty of good attacks here. More often than not, Mann saw red on his switches and went right downhill with malice. A few of the dunk attempts looked hilarious yet spoke to his confidence in the burst and jumping explosion.

It veered into borderline concerning territory with how Mann relentlessly went for the cup when getting switches. He hardly passed out of these looks, despite the advantages that a switch creates by putting the defense in uncomfortable rotations. The switched defender is usually a key rim protecting component, making the defense susceptible to second-side drives, yet Mann often failed to take advantage. But we had some glimpses of this advantage creation.

The first read impressed me the most when noting how Mann strung his decision making together. Getting the switch on Kleber, who is acting as the small-ball 5, is the first step. He drives Kleber middle to force nail help by PJ Washington off of Miles Bridges, a strong driver. After Mann makes the pass, he spaces himself back out to the perimeter, forcing Kleber to shade towards him and away from the Bridges drive. This allows his teammate to take his time with the advantage Mann created for him and find a good shot. It seems minute, but chaining together multiple good decisions to benefit your teammate is important for a young lead guard.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: a young guard really likes rejecting screens. Even when there’s little advantage to be created by doing so, Mann loves to reject a screen and go hero ball against his man. Yet Mann often found ways to create good shots without creating an advantage by rejecting.

To be sure, there were plays where Mann rejected, created no advantage from doing so, and compounded the mistake with bad shots. He can’t touch shot/contort his way out of everything.

To my surprise, the majority of Mann’s screen rejects were advantageous. He waited for his defender to commit to the screen then quickly broke downhill, creating paint touches and buckets for himself or his teammates. Some of these improvisational reads were exceptional.

Oddly enough, his playmaking after rejects was the polar opposite of his switch playmaking. Instead of going full bore to the rim every time, he was looking to make plays first after creating legitimate advantages. I hope to see that blend become more equitable between paint scoring and drive & kick playmaking on his switch possessions this coming year.

I’d be remiss if I finished the section on his PNR reads without the “what the hell were you thinking?” possessions. Mann was prone to over-seasoning his looks, especially when it came to behind-the-back passing attempts.

But hey. If you have unlimited confidence in yourself, some weird stuff is going to happen. I’d rather have the guy who tries audacious stuff and fails from time to time than the guy who stays in the pocket and is afraid to get a little wild.

Confidence was the name of the game with Mann’s driving game. There is a reason his rim frequency nearly doubled in his switch over to Charlotte, posting an 88th percentile rim rate amongst combo guards. Role change and confidence go hand in hand. A new team hands you the keys and says do what you do best. Mann doesn’t have to be asked twice.

Obviously, pick and roll/pop looks are the main way Mann creates his on-ball looks. But what about his handoff game?

Dribble Handoffs

Charlotte wasn’t exactly a handoff-heavy squad. Compared to their pick-and-roll frequency, second highest in the league, the Hornets only generated 4.1% of their offense from handoffs. That was good for 10th lowest in the league (all numbers per Synergy).

When they did run handoffs, it was largely pitch/delay action looks. Pitch looks are often conducive to picking a direction. The pitch allows the guard receiving the handoff to generate extra momentum before the screen, momentum best used going downhill in the reverse direction of the pitch. Mann was pretty damn good on the drive whether going right or left off these looks.

It wasn’t often when the handoff led to an outright switch, but Mann created a couple of good looks out of them.

The handoffs are a great way for a downhill-first guy like Mann to create quality looks. What interests me for this season is what the usage looks like there.

Charlotte was already a low-frequency handoff team; Charles Lee comes from a Boston system that ran the third-lowest volume of handoffs this past season. But going back further in Lee’s assistant coaching tenure to Milwaukee, he was part of teams that ran handoffs at higher rates. Those Milwaukee squads had 53rd, 43rd, 27th, 70th, and 50th percentile handoff frequency rankings over Lee’s 5 seasons by the lake. Where that usage falls this upcoming year will be of great interest to me.

Creating on the ball is of the utmost importance for a player with Mann’s skill set. Yet that LaMelo Ball fella is still in town as long as his ankles are working. How does a combo guard like Mann coexist with a heavy usage guard like Ball?

Off-Ball Creation

So much about off-ball creation is shooting, especially for guards. When the ball is in the hands of his teammates, Mann is more often than not stationed above the break evaluating his chances for a catch-and-shoot look. Opportunity calls, and Mann answers with unlimited confidence in his catch-and-shoot jumper.

Not only is he unfazed by the prospect of taking a catch-and-shoot three, he will happily extend his range well beyond the arc.

Another thing that speaks to his confidence is experimenting with no-dip jump shots. It’s not the most important or useful skill, yet any shooter willing to try it has enough belief in their touch to overcome conventional mechanics. Sure, he went 0/2 trying it, but it’s the trying that counts here.

Mann took 80% of his threes above the break and hit at a 35% clip, 44th percentile amongst combo guards. That represented a career-high above the break percentage for Tre. The corner three chances were few and far between, but a career-high 43% won’t hurt. Competent spacing off the ball is a boon to his teammates, namely the drivers and bigs, but should help him to coexist with LaMelo Ball if/when the two share the floor.

The spacing he provides opens up chances for Mann as well in the form of closeout attacks.

Tre isn’t just a shooter and driver when working off the ball. As a player with lots of off-ball experience in Oklahoma City, Mann showed a solid sense of when to cut, not only to score himself but to create for others.

It’s a little skill to watch out for, but Mann anticipates his perimeter swing passes well and delivers with some zip. If you’re going to swing to your teammates, do so before the closeouts can arrive and put it in the pocket.

Mann’s 1.14 assist/usage rate in Charlotte speaks to his skill as an off-ball playmaker. Making timely reads when the ball finds you and the defense is in rotation expands your utility without the ball in his hands. And with the aforementioned LaMelo Ball returning to the lineup, oscillating between shooting, cutting and playmaking off the ball will help keep Mann on the floor.

And hey, for a 6’4″ guard, that athleticism sure as hell makes him a threat on the offensive glass.

Your combo guard being a 48th percentile offensive rebounder isn’t going to be some massive swing for the team, but Mann’s increased projected use off the ball may lead to more production on the glass. His hustle for the boards could make him an exciting possession-extending tool in the backcourt.

Is it possible that there are other ways Mann contributes to an offense?

Transition

Yes, there are!

Mann’s speed, athleticism, playmaking sense and ballhandling skill makes him an ideal transition weapon out of the backcourt. The main way this shows itself is the sense of pushing in semi-transition against an unsettled defense.

If given a true open floor to run, the scoring potential brings a charge into the building, and specifically Eric Collins.

It’s not contained to creating chances for himself. Mann is more than willing to use his scoring threat before finding layoff passes to rim runners or trailing shooters.

My only nitpick with his transition game is a lack of recognizing chances early with quick outlet passes. Mann has great placement on his throws, and not even Tre can run faster than the ball. Rip down those rebounds and get your eyes up. Let the ball do the work sometimes, not the legs.

Looking Forward

The first dozen or so games for Charlotte should be very interesting when it comes to Mann.

Charlotte plans on Tre controlling the bench unit scoring. Mann was seated for the opening tipoff in the five preseason games, with Josh Green, Seth Curry, and Tidjane Salaun all getting starts. Green projects as the starting option (insert opening night thought). This leaves us with questions.

How many minutes will Mann play alongside LaMelo? How does he balance on/off ball usage when playing with him? On the bench lineups, will Mann be a primary point-of-attack player along with his heavy offensive usage? Does Josh Green play with him often to take some of the defensive assignments? Most importantly, will he retain his seemingly limitless confidence when coming off the bench?

Opening night began to answer some of these questions. Despite coming off the bench, Mann played most of his minutes alongside LaMelo, closing out Houston in a wild late comeback. Confidence was no issue as Mann played most of his possessions off the ball, scoring 24 on 8/16 shooting and 4/8 from deep. There were several clutch buckets down the stretch of last night’s game:

I’ll be watching for a few specific areas of improvement and potential scheme changes. How can Mann better attack switches and choose rejection opportunities? Can he keep up the high free throw rates for consistent offense? Will the same playmaking chances be there with the bench lineups?

On a scheme level, I’ll be monitoring his handoff usage and catch-and-shoot rates under new coach Charles Lee. I would assume anyone who has been in the Celtics locker room knows the benefits of getting up as many threes as you can.

Don’t expect any predictions on future stardom in these articles going forward. I’ll show you the water and lead you to it, but won’t make you drink. You, dearest reader, must decide what you think of Mann’s potential for yourself.

We’ll check back in on Mann this year as he seeks to prove his worth in Charlotte, on the floor, and (most importantly for Tre) in the cap sheet.

The post Finding a Role – Tre Mann appeared first on Swish Theory.

But it’s far from exclusively the case. In contrast, players like Steve Nash, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Devin Booker, Jimmy Butler, Jaylen Brown, Pascal Siakam, Kobe Bryant, Draymond Green…I could go on…were all negative basketball players on an NBA court their rookie season (per DARKO).

I watched prospect tape for every name on that list, in addition to some other steep development arc players, to try to ascertain commonalities. But, importantly, the roads are complex, winding and opaque. This is not a comprehensive articulation on what makes players improve.

This is a piece on Cason Wallace. Wallace was indeed a negative basketball player as a rookie NBA player, but not dramatically so. His -0.3 rating on DARKO’s all-in-one indicator is similar to that of other developmental stories Kyle Lowry, Jalen Brunson or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as rookies. But does he have the same kind of potential to improve?

That’s what we hope to answer. This article will go through five steep development curve characteristics I discovered during my historical improvers tape watch to see how he scores. Through that lens we can better benchmark Wallace’s room to improve, and learn about the nature of development as we go.

Trait #1: Willingness to Initiate Physicality

Cason Wallace’s physicality is inconsistent but overall a positive. On the defensive end, there is no question that Wallace is accepting of physicality. The play above is a prime example, as Wallace can eat up drives into his body with perfect positioning. This is valuable as there is little risk of Wallace bailing out of a play, in fact entrenching himself as he blocks a path.

Physicality is a sign of potential development due to basketball being a physical sport; it’s not much more complicated than that. But more specifically, physicality allows you to execute plays to their fullest extent. What good is effort if, at the critical moment, the player decides to play it safe?

That is the question we face with Cason Wallace’s offense. Wallace, despite all his strength and physicality on the defensive end, is highly prone to settling away from the rim for any semi-closed path. When he has a clear runway, Wallace can look downright imposing attacking the rim:

While Wallace’s off-the-dribble non-rim two rate (pull-up twos and floaters divided by total 2PA) is almost exactly league average, you still get the sense he is leaving money on the table given his strength and driving ability. The flashes make you wonder why his free throw rate was only 0.22 at Kentucky or a miniscule 0.08 his rookie season. The latter was within the twenty lowest free throw rates in the league, a concerning sign.

Wallace’s proclivity for floaters is a vicious cycle: due to stopping his drives short, he loses the opportunity to develop rim finishing craft; because he lacks finishing craft, he has to settle for more floaters.

Wallace gets a resounding half of a check mark for the physicality question, and there are three reasons for optimism. One is Cason’s overall sense of technique, which we’ll get to later in this piece. The second is role, as Wallace was used as a wheel greaser in a lot of ways, but rarely schemed to attack the tin aggressively. That could change as of game one this coming season, with a paint pressure gap left in Josh Giddey‘s absence. Third, which combines with the other two, is how Wallace is very good at taking what’s given to him. Perhaps with more confidence in his body (he reportedly put on 15 pounds this offseason) the offensive physicality will catch up with the defense.

Trait #2: Motor

Watching the greatest development curve players in succession alerted me to one blindingly clear fact: to improve a lot, you have to play hard. This both sounds obvious and like an old school, pre-analytics scout. But it’s a characteristic I may have been underappreciating, no less. Having a low motor does not preclude improvement, nor does having a high motor guarantee it. But to develop from a role player to a star it is basically impossible to not play a little like a maniac.

While it is not surprising that a high motor would show up on tape, the consistency was surprising. Even Devin Booker, not widely considered a high motor player, proved to be a defensive pest as a prospect. Wallace is somewhere in between the high motor players like Booker, Durant and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the All-Time motor players like Russell Westbrook and Kyle Lowry, and likely closer to the latter.

Motor is the cousin of physicality: it not just permits play execution, but creates plays out of thin air. Cason has no business having an effect on the play above, one of the few in the league who could get this steal. Below he shows consistency of focus (and indeed, physicality) to track the ball down and secure it.

Motor contributes to development by giving a player more bites at the apple. The higher the motor the more likely you’ll be found in transition or cutting to the basket, or relocating for a three. For a player low in usage, finding these opportunities is essential. As is having the drive to finish the play.

Even though it ends in a made basket, I love the activity from Wallace in the clip below. Motor here means boxing out, nearly stripping the ball and closing out over ~25 feet in an instant.

One more example of physicality meeting motor: the below box out on Adem Bona.

Motor equals opportunity, and Wallace makes sure he takes all he can get. Likely stuck in a low usage role given the Thunder’s higher profile options, Wallace needs to maximize his motor in the share he does get. I have little doubt he will do so.

Trait #3: Small Space Coordination

The above clip, in combination with a few others, are as compelling signs of Wallace’s star upside as you can find. At this point, it is fairly clear Wallace has defensive upside, even just tying together the points on physicality and motor above. But offense is where you can really strike gold, as the impact of the best offensive players exceeds the impact of the best defenders. The ball travels faster than you can move, and can also fly higher than you can reach (with a Wemby-sized caveat). But you need to put yourself in position to have that impact with the ball, and that’s how we arrive at small space coordination.

Basketball is a high-movement sport: according to NBA.com, the typical player ran ~150 feet per 24 seconds on offense, ~130 feet on defense this past playoffs. In fact, Wallace ran 10% faster than the average player on defense while about average speed on offense. All of this movement volume only emphasizes the importance of movement quality. Cason Wallace has plenty of the former, what about the latter?

On offense, small space coordination not only means being nimble enough to create an initial advantage, but, arguably more important, the ability to dance through traffic. We return to a similar concept as the previous sections – the ability to finish a play. Wallace is, decidedly, a question mark on this front.

There are plays like the above where Wallace is able to create a unique footwork cadence in combination with sleek ballhandling. Or even the below from his AAU days:

But those moments are far from consistent. At Kentucky he had 60 drives, comparing favorably to fellow rim-shy Kentucky Wildcat Reed Sheppard at only 49, but far below Rob Dillingham at 93. Watching the tape, Wallace is often able to get that first step with pretty good burst, but never plays around in the midrange. He is either kicking out safely after an initial probe, conceding for a pull-up/floater or, far less common, throwing his body into the rim protector. More small space coordination would mean more complex playmaking, such as biding time handling a pick and roll, dribbling to the soft zones of the defense to draw help, or foul-grifting by dragging your man along with you.

Wallace may have access to moments of small space coordination, but the lack of applied coordination means less practice hitting those spots. Reps are essential to getting one’s footing, literally. Will the Thunder allow him to initiate these dances? Time will tell.

Trait #4: On-Ball Experimentation

These concepts continue to go hand-in-hand, as small space coordination would dramatically expand one’s on-ball opportunities. Wallace’s shy nature in attacking once again holds him back, but not without flashes here as well.

Wallace’s primary way of experimenting is with his pull-up, but even here there is little by way of complexity. Rather, where the flashes are most promising are with his passing.

Beautiful, effective, and more proof that Wallace has access to small space coordination. Wallace uses the screen and then eats up the middle space between his man and the big. He does this with a left hand in-and-out into an accelerated cross to then reset backwards and sling a one-handed pass to the corner. The play is only possible through Wallace’s unusual movement pattern over the two second period.

The value of on-ball experimentation is clear: trying more things allows you to do more things. We’re returning to the importance of creating one’s own opportunity. Experimentation is not Wallace’s favorite way of going about things. His whole thing is reliability, with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.0 with Kentucky and 2.6 with Oklahoma City, which shows up in a heavy preference for making the simple read. Most of the time he’s on the court with the Thunder, Wallace is doing mundane tasks.

But Wallace is still capable of deception here and there. In particular, he is able to manipulate by passing against momentum, drawing in help with his eyes and accelerating into gaps.

This is not the most interesting way to experiment with the ball, but it still may be effective. The important thing is that Wallace has options. If the runners and pull-ups drop at a more efficient clip (as I expect…Wallace’s touch is very good), Wallace will have larger margins in which to operate, and maybe the pull to experiment becomes stronger. But right now, partly by scheme but partly by preference, Wallace conducts himself like he wants to remain a role player. An elevated one at that, as Wallace comes off as a perfectionist, but perhaps not significantly adding to the star equity like our huge development leap stories.

Trait #5: Technique

We saved the best for last. Technique is only this low on the list due to how long it took to click for me that’s what I was seeing. In particular, watching the tape of Steve Nash made me keen to this issue. Could it be? Have I really been underrating the most basic, fundamental aspects of basketball? I think so.

The tape of freshman Steve Nash shows crumbs if not large bites of all the elements listed above, but most of all it shows technique.

If you’re sorting through highlights or exclusively watching Synergy clips, you might miss it. Nash’s triple threat is as sound as any I’ve seen, ripping through menacingly while constantly changing his elbow posture to keep dribble, pass and shoot all as options at once. He sets shoulder-wide screens and can take the contact (physicality). He runs routes with intention. When he makes his move, it is decisive and with little wasted motion.

Here is where Cason shines.

As you can see from the above clips, there are a few areas where Wallace shines from a technique standpoint. First, his spot up technique is very strong. While he prefers to one-two into looks off the catch he is also able to load quickly from a stationary position. Wallace was in the 90th percentile as a spot up shooter as a rookie, shooting a blistering 43% on catch and shoot threes. But he’s capable of attacking closeouts relying on technique, too. His pumps are exaggerated in a good way, and he takes a long initial stride, swinging the ball in front of him.

Wallace’s technique is also strong from a physicality point of view. He sets sharp screens, extremely valuable in the OKC offense as he often began a possession with a screen for SGA near the logo.

The technique jumps off the screen on defense. Wallace is particularly adept at mirroring ballhandlers, enabled by a discipline to rely on footwork to block off any path in an instant.

Watch Cason Wallace and you’re watching someone who pays attention to the little things in the lab. He concerns himself with the details many young players gloss over, which speaks volumes to his ability to improve.

Technique is, perhaps most of any of these traits, an indication of latent value. A technically sound player is able to apply that technique to any basketball action, assuming tied to a minimum level of athleticism. Technique is the bedrock of basketball success, and Wallace will only further refine his methods with time.

Conclusion

Cason Wallace is a boring watch for a potential star, but only if you don’t know where to look. Even where he does not completely check the box for a developmental trait, there are flashes. The key will be where Wallace’s on-ball usage settles, where he needs reps the most to realize the most upside. Perhaps there is a plan there involving bench units.

Wallace will undeniably become a star defender. In defensive DARKO Plus-Minus, he is ahead of the curve compared to Jrue, White, Smart and Caruso.

Grading out excellently in advanced metrics as a rookie is a great reason to believe in this story, but it is also embedded in the details. Wallace employs technique with physicality to dodge through screens (already an area where we’ve seen improvement) or to cover the right zone in a scramble.

The offense is the question mark. Wallace is likely a slightly negative to neutral offensive player in 2024-25, but the degree of involvement will tell us a lot. Wallace’s strength is again technique, which enables him to play on or off ball, as a screener or screen-recipient. Should he use the technique to buffer his small space coordination, problem-solving in a different way, Wallace’s offensive upside could be quite high.

I wrote this about Cason Wallace ahead of the 2023 draft:

“…you can become a star through the lack of mistakes as well. Cason has that path. It’s not common to reach it through simply doing every little thing on the court you’re asked well without a truly dominant area, but maybe that’s exactly where Cason Wallace’s dominance lies.“

One year later, I only believe this more to be the case.

The post Cason Wallace’s Star Potential appeared first on Swish Theory.

The next prospect in this series is Ryan Kalkbrenner. This report on him (posted at the end of this piece) was from 2020, coming out of high school ahead of the 2020-21 college basketball season. The prep reports had a little different format than the draft reports, but largely the same. So this is the snapshot of my evaluation on Kalkbrenner going into college. I’ve also noticed in reviewing my notes and observations from the past that the more filled out a section is, the more likely that those skills are imposable and a true part of the player’s game. I’ll touch on the report, but since Kalkbrenner is one of the top returning center prospects, I’ll also fold this piece into a look forward at his 2024 Draft prospect case. 

Starting at the top of the report working down, the first note is including a draft age. Not that Kalkbrenner was really on any draft board radars as an incoming freshman, but it gives a better gauge of where he was at relative to the more draft-ready prospects and talents. Kalkbrenner would have been 19.4 if he entered the Draft after his first season, which was unlikely considering he came off the bench to begin his college career. 

But before that, while Kalkbrenner come into college with center height, some of his other dimensions and elements of his athleticism were lackluster for the center position. As a towering skinnier kid in high school, Kalkbrenner had plenty of work (mostly weight) to put into his frame. Listed at the time in high school at 210 lbs, Kalkbrenner needed to beef up by about 40 lbs to get to average NBA center weight. The home court of measurements is your own team’s website, and Creighton has Kalkbrenner very generously listed at 270 lbs. I do think Kalkbrenner has done good work to strengthen his frame and put on weight over the years, but 270 lbs must be his top-end weight, if even. 

Part of the reason I doubt he carries 270 lbs is because Kalkbrenner has run the floor quite well. Looking back at the high school report, that floor-running was present, but it seemed laborious. Kalkbrenner’s stride and speed over the years at Creighton has genuinely improved, where now he seems to comfortably run the court. But the willingness was always there. It would have been fair to project from this report that with several years in a college weight and conditioning program, Kalkbrenner would be able to adequately fulfill the baseline athletic requirements of the center duties, running the full court and screening constantly.

Although center size and full-court mobility could be projected out, Kalkbrenner had a reportedly underwhelming vertical. Not that Kalkbrenner would have any trouble dunking at his height, but it begins to put a cap on all the possible dunking opportunities that are available to him in a game, and thus the projection can begin to eliminate starting NBA center outcomes. NBA centers need to clean up around the rim, and what better way than by dunking. And what easier way to dunk than by just jumping over and/or around guys. Kalkbrenner still has the height and length for some dunking opportunities, but would likely miss out on others relative to competition via lack of vertical. Kalkbrenner has 263 dunks in his college career, so he could still find dunks in the NBA.

Last note on the athleticism, Kalkbrenner had some change-of-direction challenges, not uncommon for a tall player to have. Not sure how much emphasis was placed on his hip mobility while at Creighton. I’m sure there was marginal improvement, but it was not starting from a great place. 

Moving onto the shot evaluation, Kalkbrenner’s “trebuchet” mechanics and “concerning” level of touch landed him a shot projection of “needs time,” which was a cowardly cop-out projection from myself. Of course it needed time, everyone’s shot needs time to get better! 

Taking a look at it again in 2024, I think there would need to have been some tweaks to the set point to remove that trebuchet component, trying to tighten up the process. Also noteworthy, his 62.1% career FT% on 309 attempts is an acceptable percentage for a young big man. Of course in need of time and improvement as well. Here’s how Kalkbrenner’s form looked in his most recent season, and his FT numbers from college:

The set point at the top of his release does not get cranked above and/or behind his head anymore. At the free throw line, Kalkbrenner brings that shooting pocket up to his chin, which is fine in the context of an unguarded free throw but not super translatable to shooting in live game play. Kudos to Kalkbrenner for putting in the time and putting himself over the top of that typical 70% FT% threshold.

The context portion of the prep report included two teams: Kalkbrenner’s high school team in Missouri and his AAU team. In both contexts, he was tasked primarily with protecting the rim. The level of competition in high school did not impress, but some of the plays Kalkbrenner made at the rim defensively on Mac Irvin Fire against elite AAU athletes was outstanding, and the kind of eye-popping element you want to see as a scout. 

Small note, but the ankle tweaks back in high school have followed Kalkbrenner a little bit in college.

Moving on to the skills section of the report, Kalkbrenner had an operable handle, but nothing to suggest anything outside of what a typical center would need to do. The more pertinent ball skill to look at is the finishing, where Kalkbrenner’s lack of touch around the rim was vicariously frustrating. For a supposed 7-footer, it was disconcerting to see. It would also matter less if Kalkbrenner was constantly flushing down dunks, but it has been established that he is not that type of athlete. So as dunks dry up due to lacking a premier vertical, Kalkbrenner’s opportunities would become a little further out from the rim. Not incredibly far out, but far enough that some level of touch would be required. Kalkbrenner did get above 70% 2p% as an upperclassmen in high school, so it was not like his touch was horrendous. But that was against high school competition, and projecting out to the NBA means a center must maintain an extremely high level of efficiency in the paint. 

As a decision-maker, Kalkbrenner seemed to play within himself and his role, making solid decisions and not hurting the team, which is very projectable for his position. Playing the right way and consistently making the right play right away, no matter the role, is a pretty good sign that a player is at least on the curve in terms of applied basketball knowledge.

The selling point for Kalkbrenner as a prospect, even coming out of high school, had to be his rim protection skills. The technique he displayed defending around the rim was simple and effective, as he would just position himself optimally between the driver and the rim, and then remain vertical while being as big as possible. And he encountered a slew of drivers on his Mac Irvin Fire AAU team, where he not only held his own but was quite the obstruction at the rim, fending off highly athletic and highly ambitious finishers. It was truly an elite skill heading into college, and a key reason at the time to keep tabs on Kalkbrenner’s development in other areas. 

Rim protection was Kalkbrenner’s calling card, and the next best defensive skill he had was in drop, exhibiting great feel in those 1-on-2 situations, not losing contact with the roller while working to deter the ball-handler. His footwork was not the quickest, and his vertical challenging lobs in those positions was not the best, but the positioning was very adept, and it signaled understanding of defending the PnR that was certainly ahead of the curve for an incoming freshman. 

Other defensive areas that were sound included using angles to stay in front of drivers, post defense and boxing out. The more vulnerable areas were not uncommon for a tall player: closeout speed getting out to the perimeter and control in those situations. 

From this report, Kalkbrenner’s main selling point as a prospect was the rim protection, which continued to be a strength of his in college. The technique has only been refined, and the experience has only grown. Does it meet the threshold for NBA center rim protection duty requirements? I think it would be passable, but it is contingent on being paired with paint efficiency on the other end of the floor, per fundamental conventional center responsibilities. 

Below is Kalkbrenner’s career Barttorvik stat profile. 

The block percentages are nothing to sneeze at, but they are a little below the 10% BLK% often seen in the profiles of high-level rim protecting prospects. While I do think Kalkbrenner’s technique, willingness and audacity is on par with other good rim protecting prospects, it may be a degree or two below the elite rim protector prospects. And that may be another way Kalkbrenner’s lack of premier vertical ability limits the amount of impact he can make at times. Still, I think it is fair to say that Kalkbrenner checks the rim protection box for a center, which is the primary responsibility.

Rounding out the defensive evaluation, Kalkbrenner, like many centers, can be exposed a bit on the perimeter. But if the defense is staying true to form and keeping good defensive infrastructure, Kalkbrenner can be a competent cog in the machine on that end, although again, the lack of vertical may pose some trouble rebounding at times to finish out possessions. I imagine Kalkbrenner should be passable on the boards, but the margins do add up.

On the offensive end, Kalkbrenner has served his role well at Creighton. Primarily a play-finisher, Kalkbrenner plays within his role, screening and rolling, and taking the shots that he’s supposed to take, which is evident in his eFG% year after year. It’s incredible how efficient you can be when you cut out bad shots. Not that Kalkbrenner came in with much fat to trim – he already knew which shots were in his “bag.” It is not a deep bag, but as long as he keeps putting himself in the right positions, he will be able to accrue productivity playing off of NBA PnR partners. His screening, and then pace meandering into the paint is proper and timely, and he should pair well with any NBA guard. The screening can be a bit more physically punishing, but it is functional. 

Shooting near 75% at the rim per Synergy last season, Kalkbrenner seems to meet the threshold as a play-finisher, but the margins of touch and vertical as well as the athleticism of NBA competition will put a squeeze on Kalkbrenner’s level of efficiency in the league.

While the FT% has held steady over 70% every year since his sophomore year, and the stretch ability has been dabbled in at this point, with Creighton allowing Kalkbrenner to rip off 54 3pt attempts last season, the shot projection does not seem super promising. First off, using the lack of great paint touch as an indicator for touch in other areas of the floor, I would not be inclined to believe a threatening above-the-break 3 is likely. Plus, his lack of paint touch unfortunately does correlate with his poor 3pt%, although from a small sample size so far. One stat to point to for the optimists: Kalkbrenner has shot over 50% on far 2’s per Bart the last two seasons, going 29/57 and 44/81 from that range his junior and senior year respectively. Still, any stretch ability is down the line, if at all, and should not be weighed much in the overall projection.

As for play-making, it has been minimal at Creighton. He was not tasked with it, but flowed in Creighton’s offense, setting dozens of on- and off-ball screens every night. Capable of kicking out vs double teams and dribbling into handoffs, Kalkbrenner checks the box of passable passing for the center position, but it would be nice to know how much short-roll passing chops he has, if any.

Ultimately, Kalkbrenner has the skillset to fill the conventional center role, but may barely pass vertical, mobility and play-finishing thresholds. How much do those limitations come back to bite him? The bold rim protection could earn him minutes early on, and he should be able to exist satisfactorily in an offensive ecosystem. Kalkbrenner checks the boxes of what’s required from a center, but to what degree for each box? Is it to a high enough degree? An NBA degree? Where is he adding surplus value? I will want to see Kalkbrenner show up and show out at the rim defensively this next year, shutting things down and proving that skill is at an elite degree. On the offensive side of the ball, I want to see Kalkbrenner showcase more agile footwork around the rim; if the touch around the rim is indeed a bit clunky, use footwork to find easier finishes. 

As for the initial retrospective look at Kalkbrenner, the identification of rim protection as the main skill and calling was correct, as it still is his most promising NBA skill. I was right and wrong about the shot projection, as the free throw shooting has come around, but I was wrong for using such a vague description since I did not even specify outside of “needs time.” No duh.. Time and effort has also taken care of the weight concern, even if Kalkbrenner isn’t really at 270 lbs. 

Kalkbrenner has developed for four years since the writing of that report, and he has no doubt refined his shape, defense and form shooting. His strength at the rim defensively has remained constant, and his offensive flow is competent. That prospect package meets the bare minimum requirements, without a whole lot of skill on top to add value. If Kalkbrenner can showcase hitting shots in those intermediate pockets out of PnR, that would be a new element to his game as a play-finisher, and something I think is reasonable to add. 

Short-roll passing is another reasonable thing to see, as Creighton usually has great spacing and shooters that attract defenders out, which leaves room for that short-roll option. Not many college contexts have that short-roll possibility, but maybe Kalkbrenner could develop some of it at Creighton. 

Kalkbrenner should be on radars by now as a rim protector, with eyes looking forward to seeing him expand his abilities and options finishing plays out of the roll.

The post Prospect Retrospective: Ryan Kalkbrenner appeared first on Swish Theory.

Every year a plethora of players declare for the NBA draft. In fact, 242 players declared for the draft in 2023 but only 58 were formally selected by NBA teams. Some of these players get picked up in the undrafted market but that still leaves a large percentage of the pool. So what makes it so difficult to attain this level? Why are the benchmarks so high, when in most cases, players are transitioning from the next best level of competitive basketball? Two words answer these questions: scarcity and margins.

The two causes are interdependent, with only 450 guaranteed roster spots and an additional 90 spots for two-way contracts, the competition for each single NBA roster spot is cutthroat. In economics, scarcity occurs when demand dramatically outweighs the supply causing the lack of availability of a resource. Here, the demand for roster spots is exceptionally high and yet there’s an abundance of players that enter the draft pool each year, so how do teams navigate what players are worth giving attention to and then acquire the resources to aid them in their development curves?

While it is a league that loves to imitate, each NBA team has its own unique drafting and development philosophy, however, at the same time there are a few principles that are underlying across the foundations of these teams’ ideologies. With the lack of roster spots, this means only the best of the best in the world can truly attain this level of play, causing the margins to be effective on an NBA court to become razor thin. Teams have to make decisions on prospects with these margins in mind. Questions about how a player works in narrow NBA windows have to be consistently recalibrated throughout the scouting process to effectively project a player.

For teams at the top of the draft, it can be an easier time to navigate this with more well-rounded prospects and “sure-fire” talents at the top of the draft such as Wembanyama, Doncic, and Zion in recent history. Teams have become far more effective at drafting even when comparing it to draft classes from 7-8 years ago. From there, when the “sure-fire” prospects are off the board, teams try to look into prospects that are highly talented and skilled but maybe one or two swing skills away from becoming far more threatening in their roles as NBA players. The Thompson Twins, Tyrese Haliburton, and Jayson Tatum are astute examples of this where teams can deploy the resources to severely alter a player’s development curve and hone in on those players’ weakest link, and this is generally why these prospects are taken in the lottery. Whether that comes in shooting, handling, playmaking, or even feel development, improvement is only possible so long as there is a feasible, achievable pathway to said development.

For instance, to project that a player may improve in a given skill ‘A’, there needs to be an implied pathway where the player is consistently put in positions to develop skill ‘A’ while also ensuring that the prospect even possesses the requisite toolset that gives them the gravity to draw those situations. For example, it does not take much intellectual prodding to realize that a player cannot meaningfully improve as a short roll passer if they can not effectively get downhill, roll to the rim, collapse, draw the defense in, and find the advantage created. If the player does not have the requisite tools to even draw the advantage in the first place, how are they expected to improve on the pattern recognition aspects of feel in those situations? This is where margins kick in from a developmental perspective.

Margins are the crux of how I project NBA players. Essentially, margins are the bandwidth to make errors that do not detract from a player’s immediate on-court value and their development curve, stemming from how a player’s blend of tools and skills aligns with the demands of an NBA context. For instance, it’s been much easier for Jaden Ivey to make handle improvements because of how quickly he gets downhill and gets through the first layer of defense. This enables Ivey to operate with way more space, and his elite burst has warranted the Pistons to run more creation reps through him. In contrast, a far less bursty prospect like Jalen Hood-Schifino doesn’t have the same extent of tools, and that has consequently lagged the development of his handle due to how much thinner his margins for error are.

Margins have always been more of an innate understanding to me but I would like to quantify and systematically visualize how I do that in this piece, highlighting some sneaky returners in the 2024 draft class who fit the margins to be an NBA player along the way. 

Before I begin, I would like to put out a disclaimer. The framework I am laying out is not a one-size-fits-all glove that you can apply on a 1:1 basis to every NBA draft prospect. With how archetypes and comparatives are used to describe prospects, I want to emphasize that evaluating prospects should not be treated like the bottle of Irish Spring 5-in-1 you would use as a swamped college kid because you did not have the time nor the effort to take care of yourself as you trucked along to your 8:00 AM “Intro to Sociology” class. This is only to streamline the process of identifying NBA players and how they could potentially grow and should be applied as a template to do so. Too often archetypes and comparatives are used to put prospects in these neatly defined, cookie-cutter frameworks, and due to the innate biases that this creates, it takes away from the minutiae of evaluation. Each prospect is completely unique in their own way like the crystalline structure of every snowflake; no two prospects are the same and neither will their margins to play in the NBA and grow.

FRAMEWORK: The ‘Funnel’ Method

Once these players who are one or two skills away are drafted, finding NBA players gets even tougher, akin to finding a needle in a haystack the size of Texas. This is not because there is any massive dropoff in talent; rather, the differences in talent and skill sets become so marginal at that point that it truly depends on how a team invests in that player and the team context the player inherits. In these instances when the player is not a primary advantage creator or does not warrant the ball in their hands consistently, I find that betting on outlier production or outlier skills allows a player to carve out a niche on the court and consistent playing time as they scale up to their NBA context. Betting on the outlier gives the player the margins to both play on the court, directly affecting their ability to exponentially grow their development curve.

First, let’s take a stroll down High School Lane. Bad memories incoming? Don’t worry, I just need you to remember a couple of lessons from your math and science classes from back then. This framework takes some inspiration from two key concepts: bell curves and the separating funnel experiment. A bell curve is a graph that depicts a normal distribution, essentially presenting the distribution of a set of values across a sample. It can show a sample’s central values, the highs, and the lows over a symmetrical graph based on deviations from the average. 

On the other hand, the separating funnel experiment is used to separate liquids with different densities. Due to the difference in densities, liquids such as oil and water are easier to separate. Here’s a graphic to explain these ideas better.

While scarcity is a primary consideration from a roster spot standpoint, the issue from a player and roster management standpoint is better defined through saturation. Saturation refers to the chemical principle that nothing extra can be absorbed by a substance. In this scenario, the teams are the substance and there is such an abundance of players with talents and skillsets that fit, teams can do nothing more with their limited roster spots. In the separating funnel experiment, saturation does not occur because when substances cannot mix or be absorbed by one another. Instead, they separate into different levels which can then only be separated to intricate detail through apparatus like the separating funnel. For teams to solve this problem in the same intricate detail, I present the Funnel Framework, combining the ideas of distribution from bell curves and the separation ideology of the funnel experiment.

Let’s flip that bell curve onto its side and map it to the sample of all potential NBA players. The deviations from the average (depicted as standard deviations) are the range of values a player can have on the NBA court and that can be further envisioned with the help of the funnel, where each level is like an immiscible liquid of different densities. These differences in ‘densities’ and how each player separates into each of these levels is how their margins affect the NBA court. As the margins increase for players, they trickle down into the lower levels of the funnels. While I plan to do a more analytical approach to qualify and apply this framework through statistical analysis of the NBA sample in a future piece, this is more of a way to visualize how margins functionally work in the NBA. Each colored level represents a specific set of qualities that improves a player’s margins, intrinsically changing the degree to which a player can carve out a role on the court.

For the sake of simplicity, I have used differentiators for margins at a more surface level rather than pointing out specific tools or skill sets that can provide more value whether in an immediate sense or developmental context. For example, the funnel will not break down whether a player has more touch or burst, or which of those skills is more valuable because the requirements can vary highly between NBA roles. Instead, the framework will focus on what is required for a player at each level, defining how the margins let them trickle down the funnel from both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball from a playoff perspective. Remember as we go through the framework, each level of the framework compounds similarly to the added density of each liquid. This means that each prior level still applies to a player even as they get deeper into the levels of the funnel.

Range of On-Court NBA Value

Functional Basketball Athlete:

This is what gets a player’s foot through the front door of the NBA landscape, what even gets them on the radar of NBA teams. What this level talks about is whether a player’s athleticism functionally allows them to play basketball at an NBA level. I relate this idea to the concept of performance outcomes. From a biomechanics perspective, performance outcomes talk about how effectively an athlete can operate an action or function of the sport they are playing. For example, with basketball, this can be how a player’s biomechanics allow them to effectively lift the ball, swing it up to their shot platform, and being able to release the shot. Another example is whether a player has the leaping mechanics to perform a dunk functionally.

What separates a player who is only a functional basketball athlete versus the levels below this one in the funnel, is that these players can functionally operate the biomechanics function but that performance outcome does not lead to a good basketball outcome. This is where the idea of being “skilled” comes through; just because a player can functionally release the basketball using his biomechanics, it does not mean that the player is accurately getting the ball through the hoop consistently. To be a consistent NBA player, the player needs to have the requisite athleticism to function in their role but they also need to be skilled enough to consistently reach a good basketball outcome.

One-Dimensional Player:

This next level talks about players who tend to be functional NBA players on one side of the ball but they actively take away from their team with how ineffective they are on the other side of the ball. These players can carve out a niche with their functional athleticism and skill on one side of the ball but their longevity in the league tends to be short because of how often they often lose their team’s possessions on the other side of the ball. An example of these types of players can be someone like Shake Milton who can be a microwave scorer off the bench but is consistently hunted on defense or Killian Hayes who was a great team defender but will consistently be sagged off of as an offensive player, taking away from his team’s spacing.

Functional NBA Player:

The next level of the funnel talks about players who can functionally operate on both sides of the ball but do not give a team outlier value in any form. These players are often at the back end of rotations of high-level teams because they can be playable without being a detriment on either side of the ball but they can not drive a team’s identity or provide enough value to help change the outcome of a game. An example of a player like this is someone like Drew Eubanks who can operate as an effective rim protector and as a roller offensively but his ability to do these things does not drive the complexion of a defense or offense which makes him quite replaceable from a team context.

Advantage Creator/Advantage Mitigator (With Help):

The average NBA player on a real playoff rotation can create advantages offensively or mitigate advantages on the defensive end with the help of their team. As PD Web defines it, advantage creation is the ability to create extra rotations for a defense and easy buckets for the offense. Advantage mitigation is the other side of the advantage creation coin where a defensive player can take away the opportunity for an offense to create those extra rotations and get easy buckets, often by mitigating the space an offensive player can operate in. The players at this level are often functional on one side of the ball and can create/mitigate advantages on the other end, for example with the help of a screen to get downhill offensively or when a team uses peel-switching to take away advantages and enable a defender to accentuate their ground coverage. The upper threshold of players at this level tends to create offensively and mitigate advantages defensively effectively with team help. High-end examples are players like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Andrew Nembhard, and Isaiah Hartenstein.

Advantage Creator/Advantage Mitigator From A Standstill:

The best players in the NBA can create advantages from a standstill or mitigate advantages solely using their margins. This level talks about the players who have high margins for error because of the combination of their tools/skills allowing them to create truly outlier value for their team. When creating advantages, these offensive players can automatically draw two players due to the gravity they have with the ball in their hands without needing the team to help them. This can be through shooting gravity like Tyrese Haliburton, downhill explosion to collapse defenses like Ja Morant, or even using strength and size in the post like Anthony Davis. On the flip side, advantage mitigators at this level can take away these extra rotations without the team over-helping using their tools/skills, whether that’s through high-level rim protection like Rudy Gobert or outlier point-of-attack defense like Jimmy Butler. These are high-end examples that help paint a clearer picture of these margins but there is again variance within this level due to the degree of value you can provide as a standstill advantage creator/mitigator. I have defined this variance in value through the two blue levels on the funnel diagram, with the darker blue representing higher-end examples like Haliburton, Gobert, and Morant. Examples of players lower on this spectrum and within the lighter blue level would be someone like Marcus Smart or Desmond Bane where the margins do create some of this value but not to the degree of the aforementioned examples.

The Outliers Within The Outliers:

When a player can create advantages or mitigate advantages to a historic level, it is due to a combination of highly unique tools and skills that enable them to attain this level of production. These tools and skills intersect in such a strong manner that these players can determine the outcome of a game through their margins. Often the players at this level can create advantages or mitigate them through different facets like feel, coordination, strength, speed, length, etc. This causes the margins to be truly unique and therefore affect the game at a historic level. Examples of players like this are Lebron James, Stephen Curry, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Larry Bird. In today’s NBA, players like Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama seem to be on this trajectory as long as health remains their friend.

Developmental Margins

“The grass may be green on the other side, but the grass is always greener where you water it.”

– Wolfgang Puck

The funnel framework helps define the range of on-court value across the NBA sample using margins, but a crucial aspect of this framework is how margins also help slide players down the funnel. Margins are key to helping initially carve a role in the NBA but it is also vital in setting up thresholds for skill development. Margins open up the developmental pathways to add micro-skills or even new skills altogether due to the margin of error caused by their tools, to add onto the initial role they’ve carved out. Having outlier margins in certain areas should allow a player to improve on their flaws because the combination of their tools and skills inherently puts them in a position to have those flaws improved.

An example of this is how I talked about how a lob threat with outlier vertical gravity has the pathway to improve as a passer on the short roll due to the defensive attention they would require. This could also be applied to all types of toolsets if they are outliers. For example, a player with elite burst can expand on their handle due to the defensive attention the player will get as he slices through the earlier lines of defense. Think of Jaylen Brown and how he developed his handle from his days at Cal to where it is now on the Boston Celtics; it’s a byproduct of the defensive attention the combination of his burst, size, and shooting touch provides. These margins to develop are available to the outliers and are often not to players who are not because they do not have the same thresholds to make those same errors due to the depth and quality of talent in the NBA, and this is why it is also a crucial part of how I project players in the NBA Draft.

The Sleepers Of The 2024 NBA Draft

Now that we’ve gone over how margins affect development and playtime in the NBA, how do these concepts project to the 2024 NBA draft?

The average draft class produces approximately 20 NBA players, and these are the guys who often play beyond their rookie-scale deal. Correlating this to the funnel framework, the majority of these players would be defined under the level of players who can create or mitigate advantages to outlier value with team help. When projecting an NBA draft class and creating a draft board, I grade the players that will be at this level of outcome or have the opportunity to reach this level of outcome as first-round grades. The rest of this piece will use the funnel framework and the idea of margins to spotlight a few players I believe fit this mold while also being mocked outside of the top 30 picks on Rookie Scale’s Consensus Big Board:

Honorable Mentions: KJ Simpson, Jaylon Tyson, Melvin Ajinca, and Adem Bona.

Isaiah Crawford

Positive margins: strength, feel, length, coordination, and touch. | Potential pitfalls: vertical explosion and medical history.

Isaiah Crawford is a 6′ 5.25″ (without shoes) wing/forward with a 7′ 0.5″ wingspan who has dominated as a defender and primary creator for Louisiana Tech this past college season. While he has been tasked to create a high degree of offense for Louisiana Tech, he shines as an exceptional advantage mitigator on the defensive side of the ball. Crawford is very effective at ending offensive possessions and creating events as a defender which is apparent from his 5.7 block rate and 3.5 steal rate.

So how does he do this? This is where Crawford’s margins kick in as he combines his feel and athletic traits to consistently create events that lead to early offense for his team. Using his excellent strength, he can impede drives from the perimeter or absorb contact from drivers as a low man. Crawford also stifles offensive players using his hand-eye coordination and length to mitigate scoring advantages, whether it is in a context where he has to recover and block shots or take away space to dribble the ball.

Just look at this play where Crawford (#22) operates as a weakside tagger. For most players, the pass to the weakside corner is available because of how deep the roller has gotten into the paint and collapsed the defense. Crawford completely erases that passing window within the blink of an eye, targeting the ball extremely accurately mid-air with his length and restricting any angle that could have made the pass possible.

As an on-ball defender, Crawford can slide his feet well and move laterally. However, he mainly mitigates advantages here by using his balance and strength to absorb contact to get drivers off balance on the initial bump, where he then uses his length to dislodge the ball and create steals. Even when Isaiah Crawford initially gets beat on drives or space-creating moves from the perimeter, he’s able to consistently recover with his ground coverage and length to get back into the play and take away that scoring advantage. If I had to use one word to describe Crawford’s defensive prowess, it would be the word protean. He’s someone who can be extremely malleable on this end whether it is as someone who can rotate backline and protect the rim, help at the nail, or guard on-ball.

On the other side of the ball, Crawford gives you everything you want out of a dribble-pass-shoot wing. As a driver, he leverages his strength to carve space on drives which enables him to weaponize his touch and body control around the rim and in the intermediary.

Crawford’s driving is accentuated by the threat of his shot from the perimeter; it gives him the momentum to get downhill and further leverage his strength in advantage situations. There shouldn’t be too many questions about Crawford’s shooting where he has had a strong sample throughout his college career of being efficient as a shooter from multiple areas of the court:

His feel is prominent defensively but it also exudes itself with his passing, processing decisions quickly, and acting upon passing windows consistently. Making passes on the move on drives is no stranger to Crawford, consistently making dump-off passes to the roller and kickouts to the perimeter when the advantage is created.

At the NBA level, Crawford will not be asked to create every advantage for his team, and his role will scale down to an off-the-catch scorer who will process decisions well and use his scoring in the intermediary as a counter on drives. Being able to provide positive value in these facets of offense while being a defender who can change the complexion of a defense makes Crawford a highly valuable player within any team context.

The main concern with Isaiah Crawford is the extent of his vertical athleticism, especially after dealing with two ACL tears in the same knee. At the NBA level, this could somewhat affect his ability to protect the rim but as you can see from the tape, these injuries have not taken away from his impact as a rim protector. Teams will have to do their due diligence on his medical history but the combination of Crawford’s tools should alleviate these vertical limitations and give him a higher margin for error.

Ajay Mitchell

Positive margins: positional size, feel, touch, and change of direction | Potential pitfalls: vertical explosion, defensive versatility, and complexity of passing reads.

Complementary guards with size, touch, and strong processing are often tough to find in the NBA, and they are often quite valuable when they can play off of bigger advantage creators. Enter Ajay Mitchell, a 6′ 3.25” (without shoes) guard with a 6’6.25” wingspan tasked with the primary advantage creation responsibilities for UCSB this past college season.

Mitchell is not someone who will create advantages from a standstill in the NBA but it is more about what he can do once he is provided a screen to create space for him. He uses a combination of handling craft, size, and touch to score at all three levels of the court which he leverages with his outlier change of direction and lateral movement. Mitchell can often find finishing avenues in short, tight areas with how well he decelerates and can swivel on the transverse body plane (the plane that passes through the middle of the body and divides the body horizontally). His 58.8% on halfcourt drives, a whopping 3.89 unassisted rim attempts per 40, is a product of these movement patterns that allow him to jostle into tight, but open spaces.

Apart from scoring on drives, Ajay Mitchell (#13) has exceptional passing feel where he mixes in quick trigger single-level reads with manipulation. He does well at maintaining advantages while being able to use hesitation and his eyes to throw off defenders and create new passing windows.

Coming into this college season, Mitchell made huge improvements to his athleticism and shooting efficiency from 3. He had improved on his verticality, strength, and even straight-line burst with more optimal shin angles.

Mitchell does not have the burst to create advantages, but take a look at how much his straight-line burst has improved in the span of two years. His shin angles are far better and due to how much closer they are to being an acute angle from the floor, his ability to generate more explosion laterally from the floor (lateral banking) is improved.

Outside of his athleticism, Ajay Mitchell’s shooting has improved over the years at UCSB. He always had good touch but now that is parlaying into his 3-point efficiency with increased volume each year, his increased strength being a reason for the potential improvement from distance:

On the defensive end, Mitchell often struggled not being able to contain ballhandlers. However, I believe this is at least partly due to being overtasked on the offensive end while being asked to guard up a position in most possessions.

The defense should improve at the NBA level when he’s not being asked to create most of his team’s offense and instead used as a secondary or tertiary creator in lineups, thus enabling him to leverage his lateral movement skills on defense while benefiting from easier scoring opportunities. This could be a potential pitfall with Mitchell if this never improves, which would put more emphasis on the offensive traits that are lacking like being a sub-par leaper in traffic and a lack of volume with multi-layered reads while on the move.

However, as long as the defense is not a detriment, the margins with his touch, positional size, and change of direction should allow him to reach an outcome where he is an advantage creator who uses team help and can functionally operate on the defensive end.

Jonathan Mogbo

Positive margins: vertical explosion, feel, ground coverage, and standing reach. | Potential pitfalls: positional size and shooting gravity.

Jonathan Mogbo is probably the ‘weirdest’ prospect in the 2024 NBA draft. Weird is good though: it’s just another way of saying he is an outlier in multiple areas. Standing at 6′ 6.25” without shoes and a 7′ 2″ wingspan, Mogbo has been the crux of the San Francisco Dons’ offense. He’s an explosive athlete both vertically and in a straight line, which is why the Dons used him as their rim-runner, often springing over the top of the defense for lobs with his elite catch radius. He has some special qualities as a vertical threat: a near-zero load time off of one or both feet, great hang time that allows him to catch lobs that are poorly placed, highly syncopated footwork, and a 9′ 0.50” standing reach that allows him to extend into finishes with ease.

What’s especially intriguing about Mogbo is that he started college as a 6′ 4″ guard but had a huge growth spurt that catapulted him to a smidge under 6′ 8″. All of the skills he acquired as he played as a guard for the longest time like handling creativity and passing feel stayed. For that reason, Mogbo (#10) is an outlier ball handler for a big and when that is coupled with his tremendous vertical gravity, the results tend to look like this:

Where Mogbo really shines is his processing and passing reads. Lob threats that tend to put the amount of pressure that Mogbo does on the rim do not usually have the passing volume or the complexity of reads that can shift defenses. In fact, the group of players who have had over 50 dunks and an assist percentage above 20 is miniscule.

Given the popularity of the Delay action in the modern NBA, Mogbo should be able to weaponize his passing by operating handoffs and finding cutters. This would also enable him to counter with his handle when there are open lanes to the rim out of fake handoffs. When his defender sags off of him, this should give Mogbo the runway to get downhill and collapse the defense, where he can find open passing opportunities to the perimeter on the short roll. Another valuable indicator of Mogbo’s passing is that he throws a good volume of high-risk~high-reward passes while keeping his error rate low at an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.0.

Mogbo also projects to have a high impact on transition offense. As a good defensive rebounder (29.6 defensive rebounding rate), he is fantastic in grab-and-go situations where he can use his handle and open-court athleticism to shift defenses early and open up easier opportunities once the half-court offense is set. Playing him out of the dunker spot can also give Mogbo better opportunities to position himself for offensive rebounds off of misses.

The questions about Mogbo that persist are his lack of shooting and what defensive role he can translate to in the NBA. Mogbo covers ground well and moves in space well enough to mirror the movements of wings and forwards, which can be functionally seen in his 3% steal rate. The common idea is that Mogbo will be an undersized big as an anchor but I believe he projects more as a team defender who erases shots at the rim from the weakside and is switchable enough to guard similar-sized players out on the perimeter.

Playing as a guard for most of his life, Mogbo used to take jump shots but that volume drastically reduced as he grew larger and his role morphed into more of a traditional big. He took no threes this past year, but he notably shot 24 jump shots in 2018 at the Under Armour circuit and 79 attempts throughout his career in JuCo. Although I would not bet on his shooting to improve in a vacuum, there could be an avenue for Mogbo to become a low-volume catch-and-shoot 3-point shooter if a team believes they can improve Mogbo as a shooter and alter his chain of skills. Typically, I would not bet on a 22-year-old to improve their shooting acumen to change this drastically but Mogbo is anything but your typical player. He’s clearly an unorthodox prospect and he’s had an unorthodox development curve as a college basketball player. Perhaps, Mogbo’s physical changes have delayed his functional touch development, with some evidence in his improving free throw shooting: 42.5% on 80 attempts from the charity strike the year before but now at 69.6% on 102 attempts.

Regardless of whether Mogbo shoots or not, his margins with verticality, passing, handling creativity, ground coverage, and reach should help overcome some of his issues of scalability on either side of the ball. Mogbo can scale next to the bigs due to his handle, enabling him to operate as a tertiary handling valve and create advantages with his creativity and explosion.

All in all, these three players have the margins to carve out extremely effective and valuable roles within most team constructs. They can give teams outlier value in different ways while not being a detriment on the other end, expanding their margin for error on the court. While they bring high-level skillsets from day 1, these same margins can allow them to expand their game in NBA spacing, granted that the team that drafts them invests resources in the development of these skills. It could be Mogbo’s shooting improving due to the number of open reps he will get being sagged off of, Ajay Mitchell’s defense improving through better technique and leveraging his tools more as his scaled-down offense keeps him on the floor, or even Isaiah Crawford making multi-layered passing reads on drives because his pattern recognition improves with the number of off the catch drives he’ll need to operate. Using the ideas I have talked about through the funnel framework, I believe these three players will bring back first-round value for teams, and drafting them anywhere beyond the first round will give those teams a true steal in on-court value relative to the players’ contracts.

The post The Importance of Margins and Some 2024 Sleepers appeared first on Swish Theory.

No, it’s not “fire Kerr”, “trade Klay”, “European bigs” or “affordable housing”. It’s two timelines.

We know it didn’t work. The youth gave a minimal boost at best to the 2022 championship team, and the sheer volume of developmental roster spots arguably cratered the 2022-23 season. Trades were made, roster spots were consolidated, but still, the Warriors struggled to get production from the youth.

This season marks a turning point, all from the back of one man. Jonathan Kuminga‘s breakout as a legitimate second scoring option. That breakout stems from one word: drive.

I wanted to explore what has…driven this breakout, the only way I know how: watching every drive of Jonathan Kuminga’s career and tracking his development in four key areas: handling, finishing craft, midrange counters, and creating for teammates. I’ll work through each category in chronological order, starting from his rookie year up until the present day. So, let’s get going.

Handling

If you watched rookie year Kuminga, you can probably guess where this starts.

He was legitimately one of the worst handlers I’ve seen. Dribbling off his foot, failing to read help, losing the ball when the momentum got away from him. All that could go wrong did go wrong.

The turnover numbers certainly could have been worse: his 7.2% turnover rate on drives was in the range of James Harden, LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and many other stars. It’s the context of the turnovers that hurts: Kuminga was a low pass percentage player on the drive, and wasn’t creating a lot of offense for himself either. One turnover for every 4 baskets made is not ideal.

He had one handle play he could count on: the spin move. It was the one thing he had some semblance of control over, and he used it so often it would make Pascal Siakam blush.

You can see the flashes of advantage creation with his handle. Driving with the intent to draw help and spin away is huge, and he thrived while doing it at full speed. These were still simple reads and handle plays on the whole, and it wasn’t all sunshine and roses when he went into the spin cycle:

The slow spins were pretty rough. He failed to create advantages and was often trapped into bad shots or turnovers. Even with the majority of the spin results being positive, one good move does not a solid driver make.

Beyond the spins, most of his handle successes were 2-3 dribbles in a straight drive. There’s something to be said for a lack of wasted movement, but when that’s just about all you can do, it’s concerning.

But I did want to note one particular play, a foreshadowing of sorts for his handle development:

That body control and awareness combination – a running stop without traveling AND the well-timed fake – was a small sign of what was to come.

Moving to his sophomore season, his bag of tricks grew exponentially. To be sure, he still used the spin move to a high degree:

You can see the development in his methods with the spin. Incorporating fakes, changes of pace, a drop step on the finish. All of this requires a higher level of footwork and ball control in addition to the fast processing speed as he reads the defense.

Other tendencies remained. His propensity for travels contributed to an increased turnover rate on the drive, up 2.1% from his rookie season:

Despite this, the good in his handling started to outweigh the bad. Kuminga began to challenge himself, chaining multiple moves to create better advantages while cutting down on the careless lost ball turnovers. He created an impressive set of dribbling highlights in comparison to what he produced in that first season.

There were still the “oh no” moments, to be sure, but they were fewer and further between.

It’s also worth noting that the quality of his straight-line drives increased. He powered through digs and nail help, even bigs being placed on him, to get the looks he wanted.

With the handle tightening up, we got to see more of his power/speed combination on display. Put too slow or too weak of a wing/forward on him and he can dust them. Put a big on him daring him to shoot, he goes right around them. It’s the beginning of a serious defensive conundrum; all he needs is to add consistency.

Year three brought that longed-after handle consistency. Chaining moves, mixing up his looks and speeds, and keeping the handle-based turnovers way down.

The sheer volume of unguardable drives also increased. He began to exert his will over opposing defenders, some of whom are known for their defense:

There are still issues, to be sure. He has cut down on the travels this season but they remain, and he’ll lose his handle from time to time or have a rough gather affect his finish.

The development in this department cannot be ignored. He went from simple 2-3 dribble drives and constant, predictable spin moves to move combinations, maintaining balance with good footwork, and manipulating defenders with his dribble. By and large, Kuminga will be able to physically overwhelm defenders with his athletic tools. There will be situations where more advanced dribbling is called for to create advantages, and he is beginning to seize those opportunities.

Getting yourself to the rim is one thing. What happens when he gets there?

Finishing Craft

This is another area in which Kuminga has grown by leaps and bounds. Much like his rookie-year handling, the finishing was generally ugly and inconsistent.

Jumping off the wrong foot, using the wrong hand, not aligning himself into the shot leading to bad mechanics. A lot of major red flags. It only got uglier when he tried more complex footwork patterns in his finishing, like drop steps or drag steps.

Finishing with the left was a clear issue. Too often he tried to force it with his right hand in situations that called for the left or tried to adjust a drive to get to his right when the left presented the better option. But he did have some solid flashes with his right, showcasing a baseline level of coordination on the move.

Kuminga managed a solid 58.4% finishing rate on his drives, but if anything this was a reflection of how easy the majority of his drives were. 2-3 dribbles and a dunk were prevalent outcomes, especially when considering the bigs or slower wings that were tasked with guarding him. It’s not to take away from his skill – excelling at the easy stuff is important – but it left lots of wanting.

Going into his sophomore season, the finishing numbers dropped tremendously to 51.3%. This, however, is not an indication of a decline in finishing skill. It was a sign of pushing harder to get tough finishes.

The volume of his straight-line drives went down, replaced with tougher finishing angles after more complex dribble moves. As covered earlier, his turnover rate also rose during this season – another confirmation of the increased difficulty present in the film.

In a strange twist, the disparity between his righty and lefty finishing grew larger – in favor of the left. He displayed a lot of good touch with the left throughout the season:

A greater control over his body was leading to better results. His momentum was contained, he could pick better angles off the glass, and slow himself just enough to get soft finishes instead of clunkers.

It was the strong hand finishes dragging him down. Some of this was a product of the defense; at times they would dare him to finish left in single coverage, but sent major weak side help if he managed to penetrate the paint going right:

A major part of that increased difficulty on his drives was the increase in finishing moves he applied. Instead of spamming the spin button repeatedly, Kuminga mixed a healthy set of drop steps, drag steps, pump fakes and hesitation moves to unsettle his defenders.

Of course, some spins were still mixed in.

You’re probably wondering “Hey, this all looks great, but why the drastic drop in production?”. Well, there were a LOT of finishes that didn’t quite work out despite his best efforts.

What was important to me was that he was trying things. Development isn’t a process of doing the same things over and over until they’re perfect. Development is polishing those things that are good while working on those that are bad. So, you have to power through a LOT of bad to get to the good.

This process of trying things led to another important development: serious foul-drawing potential. With Kuminga putting together more consistent drives and drawing the attention of the defense, on-ball and help defenders alike chose to hack him down instead of allowing a finish. For the second straight season, Kuminga finished tops on the deal in percentage of fouls on the drive amongst rotation players with more than 2 drives per game.

Those final two clips are the most important to me. Pressing an advantage on a line drive and getting hacked is one thing. Using fakes and hesitations to get defenders off-balance or in the air and forcing the contact? That’s an important tool in the bag of an elite driver.

Now that we’ve seen the increase in difficult finishing tries and foul-drawing techniques, let’s see how he has put it together this season.

In the current season, Kuminga has risen to new heights of efficiency mixed with increased difficulty. His 57% finishing mark on the drive is not only a 6% increase from the previous season, but it also leads all Warriors players who get at least one drive per game. He’s also second on the team in personal fouls drawn per drive, with only Dario Saric beating him there.

Another important mark is the rise of his right-handed finishing. It jumped over 6% to sit at 50% for the year, nearly equaling his 51% mark with the left. It’s been great to see him power through increased defensive help on his stronger side and convert tough finishes.

Kuminga’s growing awareness has led to better finishing outcomes in many ways. His quick floor reads have led to an increase in “catch and go” possessions, where JK scans the floor to see an opportunity to drive off the catch and poises himself to take off as soon as the ball hits his hands. That gives extra fractions of a second before his defenders can turn to contain the drive.

It’s all coming together from a finishing and foul-drawing standpoint. You can see the complex moves to draw contact mixed with tough finishes:

His points percentage on the drive has reflected this. His rookie season, full of easy line drives, recorded a 77.4% mark. That dipped to 60.2% in his sophomore year, yet another reflection of the increased difficulty and defensive attention he garnered. Now, with all of those strenuous factors still at play, he has risen back to 77.2%.

To put that in context, 116 players in the league match or exceed his mark of 5.6 drives per game. Kuminga places ninth of all those players. Here’s a snapshot of who has him beat:

That’s your last 3 MVPs, another former MVP, and a whole bunch of All-NBA/All-Star players in front (Alpie, you were robbed!). I’d say that’s good company.

We covered the development in his handle, and the finishing has risen to match it. He went from struggling with complex dribbles and finishes to pulling them off with relative ease in only two years. Now he finds himself as one of the elite players at generating points off the drive.

But there is more to this than how you get to the rim, or what happens when you get there.

Midrange Counters

This has always been a very important aspect of driving to me, even if less so for wings/bigs.

Once a player gets past the three-point line on a drive, there are essentially three ways it can go: rim attempt, midrange attempt, or pass attempt. Knowing what the driving player is capable of dictates how the defense will play them. If only a rim attempt is likely, the whole defense will load up the paint. The midrange as a counter move can buy extra time for the driver to read the help. It also offers an alternative to the rim if the paint is loaded and no passing options are available.

(We will get to the importance of the passing aspect later; don’t fret.)

I don’t think it is reductive to say Jonathan Kuminga is a rim-first driver. He should be, in all honesty; what midrange attempt or kickout pass brings more value than a guy finishing 75% of his rim looks? But if that’s the *only* thing he threatens to do off the drive, it makes things quite difficult to generate those shots. Therefore the midrange is a necessity for the development of his rim pressure.

You could probably guess that the midrange was a bit ugly in his rookie season. Results were poor overall – 34% in the short midrange (26th percentile) and 5/11 on long twos. To be sure, there were some decent-looking possessions and he had confidence in his shot:

Ugliness was the dominant result, however, especially when it came to floaters. He simply did not have the touch for one-handed shots on the move, and the majority of his movement twos looked similar:

But the signs of life were there. He was willing to try and understood to some degree that a balance between the rim and the midrange had to be found. Even without good results, Kuminga rated in the 42nd percentile of midrange frequency in that rookie season. It was a threat, but not a convincing one. Compared to his rim looks, the midrange was a dull knife next to a katana.

The knife was sharpened a bit during his sophomore year. The confidence remained and the results looked a bit better; his short midrange jumped up 9 points to 43%, a 58th percentile mark. A rise in frequency was a welcome sign to boot – midrange shots went from a 24% to 29% share of his total shot profile, while three-point attempts dropped. Increased volume and efficiency is tough to pull off for *any* shot type, but especially the midrange since they are nearly all self-created.

He especially got comfortable with the turnaround over his right shoulder. It was an easily repeatable and often available shot. Kuminga seemed to be more settled physically when shooting the midrange; it felt less forced and more mechanically sound. This led to more soft-touch rolls on his shots, contributing to better results.

However, the floater still refused to come along for the ride. There were makes, but they looked awkward and with poor footwork/body alignment. The vast majority of the looks ended up looking like this:

Still, he tried much harder for those shots. Floater attempts became a bigger part of his game. He was on a similar track to his rookie season: take a lot of attempts and process the failures to deliver better results later on. He wasn’t just missing shots, he was collecting data in the process.

Now, the current season. Once again we see a huge jump in frequency, this time from 29% to 36%. That is an 86th percentile frequency amongst all wings. Paired with his 85th percentile rim frequency, you’re now looking at a player seeking to dominate at the first two levels.

Another important development in frequency is the number of long twos. 11 attempts in his rookie year were followed by 20 in his sophomore season. You could call it an increase, but at that level, it could have been a simple scaling up in shot attempts. He’s up to 38 attempts in this current season and still has 29 games left to add to it. Now we have a trend.

He took major steps in the variety of his midrange looks as well while seeing comparable success in terms of his makes (42% last year to 43% this year). There was a lot more variety beyond the right shoulder turnaround. He could comfortably pull up left and right, use the step-back, put defenders in jail, turnaround left, whatever you wanted.

It’s becoming a thing of beauty. He’s mixing increased volume, solid efficiency, and a deepening arsenal of moves to greatly advance his scoring profile.

Here’s a snapshot of forwards that can match Kuminga’s midrange frequency (35+%) and efficiency (43+%) with more than 200 midrange attempts: Kevin Durant, DeMar DeRozan, Tobias Harris, Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Julius Randle, and Mikal Bridges. That’s some damn good company for midrange success.

This success has enabled him to add further layers: drawing/baiting fouls in the midrange, using pump fakes and step-throughs to get himself to the line.

It never hurts to snatch some reliable points by getting your defender up in the air. His processing speed has grown by leaps and bounds in so many respects this season.

In addition to the massive gains in his midrange success, the floater showed real signs of life:

The additional confidence (and success) with his floater has done a lot for his midrange success, especially around the restricted area. Not only does it enable his short midrange frequency, but boosts the array of moves he can pull to keep defenders off-balance when anticipating his finishes.

As we saw with his handling and finishing development, Jonathan Kuminga was already a tough cover. Adding this level of prolific midrange shotmaking brings him to a new level of danger. The only forwards in the league that can match his driving and midrange efficiency? Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard. End list.

There is a last category, however; one that brings him down a rung.

Creating for Teammates

This part gets ugly. We’ll just rip the Band-Aid off.

Only one player posted a worse rate of passing out of drives (3+ per game) and assist percentage than rookie Jonathan Kuminga: Jaren Jackson Jr. The film asserts what the stats say. He couldn’t handle more than the most obvious reads, and even many of those were a struggle.

Here are his best plays made off the drive that season:

No, really. Highlights.

Then, you have the lowlights:

Bad footwork. Late reads, or entirely missed ones. Poor pass placement and body control. He checked all the telltale signs for a player struggling to catch up with the speed of the game. Picking up two turnovers for every assist on the drive was a tough scene.

It got somewhat better in his sophomore year. The passing rate on the drive increased (27.4% to 33.7%) and the assist rate jumped (3.4% to 11.0%) while the turnover rate increased modestly (7.2% to 9.3%). Much like his driving to the rim and midrange, he scaled in volume with increased success while not letting some bad results get in the way of him trying.

There were still plenty of bad turnovers on the drive and processing issues, to be sure:

This was balanced with better execution of simple reads: kicks to the near and far corner/wing, dunker spot finds, reading cutters or open shooters in space. It’s not impressive playmaking, but beats the hell out of no playmaking.

So it would seem his playmaking is on the up and up. But as I’ve stressed in previous articles, development is not linear, and his playmaking off the drive has crashed back out in the current season.

This season, he’s back at the bottom of pass rate (26%) and assist rate (2.8%) with – guess who! – Jaren Jackson Jr. To some credit, he’s cut down on the turnover rate (9.3% to 8.3%) but it’s nothing to write home about with that playmaking drop.

The bad pass placement could have been expected, but it seemed like he was less active in reading the help and has been prone to lazy turnovers. Despite the scoring heights he has reached the current season, the playmaking on the drive has clearly regressed.

Another problem with his drive playmaking has cropped up: running into an excessive amount of charges. Failing to read the help and carelessly running into turnovers feels like rookie-year behavior, not the player we have seen this year.

The most frustrating part is that he still put on the flashes of a solid passer, and even showed a better sense of how to manipulate the help on the drive to get higher-quality looks for teammates:

It was a question of consistent effort on Kuminga’s part, not a true regression of skill. If anything, the gap between his good and bad playmaking widened. The problem is that the bad once again outweighed the good.

This lack of consistent playmaking for others, especially considering the driving gravity he will draw, could become a major limitation of his star status. It’s something I’ll keep a close eye on as we track his trajectory.

Wrapping Up

It’s clear through the tape and stat mix that Kuminga’s development in handling, finishing, and midrange scoring has taken a major leap, all contributing to huge success on the drive. There are obvious playmaking concerns that loom large over this, but he has all the time in the world. He won’t turn 22 until next season. And don’t forget he went from utterly inept on the drive to borderline dominant in the span of 2.5 seasons.

Parts of this article may come off as overly critical and expectant for a player his age. That was partially my intent. He has put himself into a stratosphere of offensive performance that demands expectations for further development. When your game grows this quickly, why would it stop? We (the fans, the analysts, the team, Kuminga himself) all want the same thing. To see his game kick into an even higher gear, and the next one after that. And the next one. And the next one…

The post Jonathan Kuminga’s Drive to Stardom appeared first on Swish Theory.