Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
You won’t catch me bad-mouthing the guy we traded away to the Clippers at #11. I like SGA. He will be a good-to-great NBA player for the next dozen seasons. But he represents the opposite situation from Porter Jr.: he has too few possibilities for his career. He is who he is.
He is a smart player. He makes good decisions consistently without the ball in his hands. He is active off-ball on defense. He is long and tall for a point guard, and he will likely be a top-10 defensive PG within a few seasons and top-5 by mid-career. He has outstanding footwork and drew a lot of fouls in college. He can switch screens on D. He can finish around the rim. In short, who wouldn’t want this kid on their team!
But here are two things Gilgeous-Alexander is not: an athlete or a shooter. And here’s the problem: players rarely develop into being those things if they do not start out as those things.
His athleticism:
SGA is never going to be more than an average NBA athlete. He has the length (6’6″ with 6’11.5″ wingspan) you dream about in a defensive guard but that gets less important when you don’t have the footspeed to keep up with the NBA’s freak athletes who play at PG. Again, don’t take this as insulting the kid’s game: I’m a believer. But you cannot become an elite NBA athlete simply by working on your game.
SGA actually reminds me of the way scouts talked about Devin Booker’s athleticism coming into his draft: average everything. Average speed. Average lateral quickness. Average verticality. One huge difference between the two prospects: Devin Booker was one of the most consistent and prolific shooters in recent college basketball history–playing at the same school that SGA just left. Booker’s shooting continues to be his calling card as a potential top-10 player.
Long story short, an offensively gifted guard will always be more valuable than a defensively gifted one, and Gilgeous-Alexander’s game will always push him toward being the latter.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a brief coaching aside that you did not ask for: in basketball, even at the prep level where I coach, there are certain players who cannot actually be “guarded.” They can be contained, sure, or you can try to limit what they prefer to do. At the end of the day, though, they’re going where they’re going and getting what they’re getting.
The same is especially true in the NBA where no one is actually able to guard Steph or Harden or Russ one-on-one–it isn’t something that can be done. This is why I’d always choose an athletic guard over a “long” guard or a guard with a great jump-shot over one who makes plays on defense. Good team defense can overcome individual short-comings, especially in a point guard. Nothing I draw up can make you fast enough to beat a guy to the hoop.
His shooting:
The UK guard hit 40% of his 3’s in college, which is awesome, but the sample size is so small (and such a vast majority of them were catch-and-shoot College 3’s) that I don’t necessarily trust that number to say he is going to be a 3-point shooter in the NBA.
Additionally, the chances of him becoming an above-average off-the-dribble shooter are low. Maybe I’m wrong, and he’ll turn out to be a 40% 3-point shooter in the NBA. If that’s the case, he’ll be a top-7 or 8 point guard in the league without much trouble. I seriously doubt that will happen, though. He’ll probably end up shooting 3’s at a similar rate to what Ricky Rubio did this year (.352%): happy to shoot off the pass but rarely willing to fire off the dribble.
We can analyze his shot mechanics and percentage stats all day long, but I think this point really comes down to that timeless, essential truth of basketball: “shooters shoot.” It’s as simple as it is annoyingly true.
Ask any basketball coach. If you have a kid on your team who can hit 3’s consistently, he is going to shoot them consistently as well. Make or miss, guys who can shoot well tend to, do it as often as they can.
SGA did not do that. At Kentucky, he shot 2.6 3’s per 100 possessions according to College Basketball Reference. Compare that to Malik Monk who shot 11.6 3’s per 100 possessions (got to love him, am I right?) in the same UK system. For the record, Miles Bridges shot 10.7 3’s per 100.
(Fun fact: Trae Young shot an incredible 15.1 3’s per 100 possessions at OU. There were games where one out of every five times his team got the ball ended with him jacking up a three. Now that’s a true “shooter.”)
While Bridges had a lower 3-point percentage in college (.375 vs. .404), only 15% of Gilgeous-Alexander’s field goal attempts were 3-pointers. 40% of Miles Bridges field goal attempts were 3-pointers. Bridges also shot over 330 3’s in college over two seasons. SGA shot less than 60 in one.
You’d have to completely ignore sample size to make a statistical argument for SGA being nearly as productive of a shooter as Bridges at the next level. It just isn’t at all likely happen.
Was Bridges the right pick? It’s a toss-up for me honestly. If you told me that SGA and Bridges swapped teams today, I wouldn’t be upset. I think both will be incredible players.