Brice Sensabaugh: 2023 NBA Draft Scouting Report
Does Sensabaugh's incredibly high offensive ceiling outweigh some of the challenges he faces on defense?
Offense comes easy for Brice Sensabaugh.
Despite playing only 24.5 minutes per game as a freshman, Sensabaugh finished 8th in the entire Big Ten in scoring, averaging 16.3 points per game. On a per-40 basis, he is the most lethal freshman in the nation: 26.6 points per 40 minutes, a rate closely aligned with other high-volume-scoring freshmen like Cam Thomas (27.1) from back in 2021.
According to Barttorvik metrics, Sensabaugh was tied for the highest Offensive Box Plus/Minus (BPM) of any freshman in the nation with 7.4 (tied with Alabama’s Brandon Miller). The list of freshman over the last 15 years to reach the 7.0 BPM plateau is a ‘who’s who’ of elite scoring prospects.
Sensabaugh is going to score at the professional level. He’s wired to do so, with a bevy of isolation moves, sweet touch across the floor, and the strong frame to bully guys in one-on-one situations. Nobody seems to question whether Sensabaugh will be able to score at the pro level, although some debate exists about where or what role he’ll fill in order to make that happen.
The rest of the conversation around Sensabaugh is built around his defense. Advanced metrics and other areas don’t do justice to just how difficult of a season he had on that end. Sensabaugh’s metrics are poor, too — he had a DBPM of 0.2! Of the 23 players on the Barttorvik list mentioned above, only two of them had a DBPM beneath 0.5: Sensabaugh and BJ Young.
The worries aren’t necessarily about whether Sensabaugh will score in the NBA. It’s about two things:
Where will he score/ can he establish himself as a true top option?
Will the defense torpedo his ability to stay on the floor to utilize his scoring prowess?
That second question is where I’ve focused most of my attention on Sensabaugh, and why I tend to be a little more hesitant on putting him into lottery range. The Sensabaugh scouting video went out over a week before this written scout companion piece. The biggest reason: I wanted to keep going back to watch more games on defense to see just how worried I should be about his long-term trajectory on that end.