{"id":35683,"date":"2022-12-20T13:03:38","date_gmt":"2022-12-20T18:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=35683"},"modified":"2022-12-20T13:03:38","modified_gmt":"2022-12-20T18:03:38","slug":"with-the-first-pick-bamas-polarizing-brandon-miller-and-arkansas-dukes-star-freshmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2022\/12\/20\/with-the-first-pick-bamas-polarizing-brandon-miller-and-arkansas-dukes-star-freshmen\/","title":{"rendered":"With the First Pick: Bama’s polarizing Brandon Miller, and Arkansas’, Duke’s Star Freshmen"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Luke Scotchie<\/em><\/p>\n

The 2023 NBA Draft is only six months away. That may not seem like a long time, but there\u2019s still enough time for many teams\u2019 big boards to shift. Fringe freshmen can turn into superstars, highly-touted prospects can slide down the rankings and anyone can blossom into superstardom and change the course of their career all before Adam Silver walks to the podium at Barclays Center to announce this draft\u2019s first overall selection in June. <\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already seen all of that since my last article, and I expect so much more to happen in the weeks and months to follow. Let\u2019s take a look at some of the players who have put themselves on the map, for better or for worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alabama’s Brandon Miller has emerged early on as one of this draft\u2019s most polarizing prospects. Some consider him a surefire top five candidate, while others struggle to fit him in their first round. I\u2019ve been very supportive of Miller up to this point, and I still intend to do so. <\/span><\/p>\n

He has a beautiful-looking shot and can unleash it both on and off of the ball. But not only that, he has the confidence to take those shots, routinely launching five, six, seven and many more shots from beyond the arc during games. <\/span><\/p>\n

He attempted <\/span>11 <\/span><\/i>threes during Saturday\u2019s game against Gonzaga, and I don\u2019t blame him. I\u2019d be confident enough to take that many shots too if I had his physical attributes. His height helps him as a shooter and gives him plenty of mismatch opportunities, as well as the length to play sufficient defense. Miller has enough tools to, at the very least, be a lethal 3-and-D type of guy in the league, and I firmly believe he can capitalize on that potential.<\/span><\/p>\n

But for his strengths, Miller has plenty of weaknesses. He almost seems allergic to the basket, taking ill-advised shots instead of driving to the lane. He\u2019s not a good finisher and that will be a serious problem for him if not rectified going forward. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pretty exploitable weakness, and teams have done so by defending him high and forcing him to take those tough, contested shots. That\u2019s how North Carolina was able to hold him to 14 points off of an abysmal 19% shooting in that 4OT thriller, and it\u2019s how Houston utterly locked him up last week, not letting a single field goal of his eight attempts fall. <\/span><\/p>\n

But those terrible games seem further and further away as each day passes, as Miller\u2019s been on an impressive hot streak lately. He had an astounding 36 points on 55% shooting during that loss against Gonzaga, and 24 points off of 54% shooting against Memphis. I love that about Miller: For every bad game, he comes back with the best performances of his life. He has that \u201cprove-them-wrong\u201d mentality that enabled him to surge from a mid-tier prospect to a potential top three selection within a matter of weeks. His shooting, defense, attitude, and work ethic will make any team happy, especially one looking for a guy they can depend on when they need him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of dependable, Arkansas\u2019s Anthony Black has been nothing short of that this season. Two columns ago, I wrote about Black\u2019s subpar collegiate debut and mentioned that despite the game he played, I hadn\u2019t given up on him as a prospect. <\/span><\/p>\n

I was right. And not only was I right, but I\u2019ve grown to love him even more over the past couple of weeks. I\u2019ve always loved Black for his quickness, defense and playmaking ability, in addition to his advantageous height for his position. The 6\u20198\u201d guard represents the play style that NBA point guards are evolving towards: fast, scrappy and tall, and Black is all of those things. <\/span><\/p>\n

He plays basketball the right way, even in today\u2019s shooting-centric game. He\u2019s shooting the ball much better than I expected him to, averaging 39% from behind the line, and that includes his 60% performance at the Maui Invitational, where he proved himself to be the most electric player in that tournament. <\/span><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s so much more about Black\u2019s game that makes me confident in his pro career. I love how engaged he is on defense. I love watching him run in transition. I love watching him set guys like Nick Smith Jr. and Ricky Council IV up for good looks. I love everything about his game, and I think he\u2019s going to be a really, really good NBA player. He\u2019s one of the few guys in this draft I believe can lead a professional offense, and any team in need of a playmaking guard (*ahem* Houston *ahem*) would kill to have him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nick Smith Jr., Black\u2019s teammate at Arkansas, has also been a name I\u2019ve kept an eye on. Before the college basketball season started, I predicted Smith would be the first NCAA player to hear his name called on draft day. I thought\u2014still think\u2014that he could one day develop into a shotmaker from all three levels with a little bit of defense to him. <\/span><\/p>\n

He was one of the players I was most excited to see before the season started. Of course, we had to wait to see him, as he missed his first few games due to a knee injury. But he\u2019s since returned\u2026 albeit to a slow start. He\u2019s averaging only 39% from the field and 30% from three to go with 13 points a game, a far cry from what we expected of him going forward. <\/span><\/p>\n

That game included a five-point stinker against Bradford, where he shot only 12.5% from the field and looked way too uncomfortable with the ball in his hands. Personally, I\u2019m not too worried. Black had a similarly poor start to his college career, but he eventually picked it up. And it\u2019s not like he\u2019s only had bad games. In the two games before Bradford, he had 21 points off of 50% shooting against Oklahoma and 22 against UNC Greensboro. Again, we\u2019re not yet seeing the gravity-drawing, hyper-confident shot creating Smith that we saw in high school, but he\u2019s shown plenty of good stuff in the five games he\u2019s played. I think he\u2019ll be just fine.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Arkansas\u2019s touted first-year tandem of Black and Smith has stuck near the top of draft boards, Duke\u2019s more widely regarded freshman duo, Dariq Whitehead and Dereck Lively II, have been slid down. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whitehead, like Smith, missed his first few games after fracturing his right foot. He\u2019s back now, but he still seems to be finding his footing (no pun intended) on this team. He had his best game of the season on Saturday against Maryland-Eastern Shore: a 15-point performance. But even that was underwhelming for a five-star recruit like Whitehead, who only went 43% from the field and 20% from beyond the arc. <\/span><\/p>\n

He had a decent game and was confident enough to take 14 shots (which I believe to be a good sign), but things look bad when you contextualized with his other performances so far. This was the first time that Whitehead, ESPN\u2019s second-highest rated high school senior in the country last year, scored in double figures. He came close against Iowa on Tuesday with eight points, but he just cannot seem to put the ball in the basket whatsoever. <\/span><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not for a lack of trying. From the field, Whitehead went 2-for-9 against Oregon State and 3-for-11 against Delaware. It\u2019s been bad, but his recent performances and increase in minutes suggest that he\u2019s on the right track. I think it will be difficult for Whitehead to be seen as a potential top five selection at this rate, but it\u2019s not impossible and he has time to prove himself as one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like Whitehead, Lively was also kept out of the early season thanks to a leg injury and has returned. But unlike Whitehead, it\u2019s as if Lively might as well still be injured with the way he\u2019s been playing. If I showed you Lively\u2019s stat sheet and told you that the
\nNo. 1 recruit in the United States put up his numbers, you\u2019d probably laugh at me. <\/span><\/p>\n

But he was rated that high, and he has been playing that poorly. While Whitehead shined somewhat against Maryland-Eastern Shore, Lively struggled mightily, managing to put up just eight points on 38% shooting. For most of the games he\u2019s played, he\u2019s lived up to the roman numeral that follows his name; he notched only two points against Iowa on Tuesday, and three games in a row a few weeks ago against Xavier, Oregon State, and Bellarmine. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the worst part about Lively\u2019s slump is that he\u2019s not even <\/span>attempting <\/span><\/i>these shots. He\u2019s only attempted more than five field goals once, and that was against Maryland-Eastern Shore. He looks like he doesn\u2019t know what to do with the ball in his hands, and that very well could be a death sentence for a player I thought could be a lottery pick. Right now, I\u2019m not entirely convinced he\u2019s still a first-round pick. Sure, his defense is as good as advertised, but it does not matter if he can\u2019t score. Lively has been the biggest faller on my draft board since college basketball began, and it\u2019s going to be very hard for him to climb back up.<\/span><\/p>\n

While some players have fallen, a couple have risen from virtually unknown to very solidly first-rounders. For these past two weeks, Ohio State\u2019s Brice Sensabaugh and Central Florida\u2019s Taylor Hendricks have been sensational enough to plant them into the first-round discussion. Sensabaugh is a legitimate shot-creator and knows how to get to his spots better than most of the guys ranked ahead of him, and Hendricks is a great shooter for his size and has the physical tools to be very disruptive defensively. I\u2019ll spend more time discussing them in a future article, but they both look like NBA players that can benefit any team. I look forward to watching more of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like I said before, anything can change between now and draft day, but we\u2019re already starting to see some guys make names for themselves and attract NBA teams. The draft is still very young, but we have a good idea of what it looks like already. These past few weeks of college basketball has given us amazing basketball, brilliant plays, and players that have a real shot at being selected with the first pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Luke Scotchie The 2023 NBA Draft is only six months away. That may not seem like a long time, but there\u2019s still enough time for many teams\u2019 big boards to shift. Fringe freshmen can turn into superstars, highly-touted prospects can slide down the rankings and anyone can blossom into superstardom and change the course […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21480,"featured_media":35690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1023,1024,1035,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21480"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35683"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35689,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35683\/revisions\/35689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}