Desmond Bane: Scouting Lessons, Side-Step 3-Pointers & Organizational Fit

Steady improvement and lessons learned from Bane's sophomore explosion with the Grizzlies

Draft Twitter, stand up and take a bow.

A victory lap is well-deserved when it comes to Desmond Bane, the TCU product who was a favorite of online draft analysts and has turned into one of the more complete young wings in the NBA. Bane has gotten off to a scorching-hot start this year for the Memphis Grizzlies, a playoff team that has survived much of the season without one of Ja Morant or Dillon Brooks.

Bane has been the glue to hold things together in their absences, mainly on offense. Averaging 16.2 points while shooting 40% from 3, he is more than simply a 3-point sniper who stands on the perimeter and provides floor spacing. He’s a smart, crafty basketball player who simply makes positive plays happen.

Averaging over 16 a game is not something we foresaw for Bane, at this point in his career or ever. Since Ja Morant’s last game on November 26th, Bane has picked it up a notch: 17.7 points, 2.9 assists and 47% shooting from deep on 6.6 attempts per night. He’s been a revelation for the 18-11 Grizzlies, and one they are in dire need of.

Selected 30th in 2020 by the Grizzlies, Bane came in 33rd on our own big board, as we were a little more hesitant on him than most of Draft Twitter. Our final assessment on Bane was as follows:

A trendy first-round name right now, Bane has some Ginoblian secondary playmaker to him. He's a gym rat with years of consistent shooting, can be a capable passer in certain actions and won't be a negative on defense.

So why so low for Bane? The wingspan and lack of quickness. It may not be immediate, but the bar for upside is pretty low here. It puts more pressure on him to be an impactful movement shooter, an area where his somewhat-slow release and short wingspan could catch up to him. I'd foresee an immediate impact from Bane, then a frustrating "why isn't this guy getting better" discussion similar to Landry Fields about a decade ago. That settles him into a fairly low-ceiling camp for me.

As Jerry “The King” Lawler once said, “keep your words soft and sweet, because you may have to eat them later.” We are eating these words pretty severely right now — not just because Bane has gotten better in a way we didn’t predict but because the perceived shortcomings of quickness and length have not hindered him in the slightest.

More than anything, Bane is a great prospect to learn from in various ways. First, we should take the claims about wings or shooters having a negative wingspan out behind the barn and shoot them. Guys like Bane and Tyler Herro are performing at incredibly high levels in the NBA despite those concerns pre-draft. If anything, wingspan matters most for bigs (as rim protectors who cover ground to contest at the hoop) or undersized point guards (who need every bit of length they can to finish on the interior).

Secondly, there seems to be a correlation between feel as a college prospect and adding tiers to their game in the NBA. Guys like Bane, Tyrese Haliburton and LaMelo Ball all were high-feel prospects before getting drafted but had clear missing links in their offensive arsenal. All made pretty quick improvements once they got to the pro level to eradicate those concerns, or at least get better to the point where it isn’t a glaring hole in their game.

One area we were pretty spot-on with was the instant impact a guy like Bane would have. Because he was a four-year college player, we were confident with him coming in and making a rotation right away. In looking back at our overall rankings, we likely underrated the importance and value of such an impact. Guys who can play and carve out a rotation spot should be ranked ahead of long-term prospects on our list such as Yam Madar (32nd) or Mason Jones (31st).

As we mentioned in our instant impact piece, the statistical measures and eye-test of his versatile offense was clear at TCU. It should have tipped us off to a well-rounded offensive career, not simply pigeonholing him into a smaller role because the large one he got was on an offensively-challenged Horned Frogs squad.

Three college seasons above 40 percent from deep place him in rare company. What's even rarer is that the 6'6" Bane is not your typical 3-point specialist. He's one of two players ever to shoot over 40 percent from deep with 90 makes while recording over 120 assists and 200 rebounds.

Bane is an awesome shooter on the move. He can be used as a cutter and someone coming off screening actions for a second unit in need of offense. That ability to play off-ball is highly coveted.

Off-ball presence isn't the only area in which Bane thrives. He is terrific with the ball in his hands, especially out of the pick-and-roll. He converts as a shooter and a pull-up scorer, which draws help defenders to him. Then he can utilize his passing and playmaking skills, which are the most underrated part of his game.

Bane is also a switchable defender that can guard most wings, and he has a great amount of strength to his frame. He's a smart defender who is aware of his limitations. Even though his wingspan is small, he still blocks shots and affects perimeter jumpers.

On the subject of length, defensive impact was clearly not hindered by having a short wingspan in college. The Big Twelve, one of the better and more athletically-talented conferences in the country, provided enough competition that is NBA-translatable to offset any defensive worries. That said, we look back at his finishing near the rim and believe there was concern with how he finished at the collegiate level. The low finishes, the multitude of blocked shots… they stood out at the time as traits that only hinder long-term upside. Since joining the Grizzlies, Bane has had 56 shots blocked in 97 games.

Judging Bane based on his senior season first and foremost is a bit of a mistake. He was at 60% at the rim in his first three seasons at TCU. In the NBA, he’s been better (albeit still not elite) and has stepped up his game this season.

2021-22: 57.1% on 56 attempts (through 29 games)
2020-21: 53.1% on 64 attempts
2019-20: 51.4% on 74 attempts
2018-19: 61.4% on 83 attempts
2017-18: 59.6% on 52 attempts
2016-17: 61.1% on 54 attempts

While we want to explore further the idea that finishing in the NBA is more difficult than it is in college (our hypothesis: for pro players, it is not), Bane is finishing admirably in a 5-out Memphis system that allows him plenty of time and space at the hoop. What we saw in struggles against Baylor his senior year, one of the longest and best defensive groups he’d face, tipped us off that Bane’s ideal role would be as a specialty shooter. The major concern was the finishing and ability to navigate length, especially with a subpar burst or first step.

So how has Bane offset such worries?

He’s become a master of the pull-up jumper. Still an excellent marksman from deep, the solution for Bane has been dribbling to a jumper rather than trying to bully his way to the rim. It’s working.

As of December 16th, there were 51 players in the NBA to take at least 100 dribble pull-ups in the half-court. Bane is 8th in efficiency, and the seven in front of him are pretty elite company:

Unlike the other names on this list, Bane isn’t getting most of his looks from pick-and-roll creation where he pounds the ball endlessly into the ground before launching. Bane is fifth in the NBA in dribble pull-up attempts from a spot-up situation with 31.

These aren’t your father’s dribble pull-ups either. The vast majority of what Bane gets done is from side-steps 3-pointers, keeping his toes behind the line for an extra point but relying on an effective shot-fake to get open. Because Bane is a making 45.7% of his catch-and-shoot looks, he’s being run off the line — something we predicted in his pre-draft scouting report. But Bane has fully mastered the pump fake so that he still gets a shot off and can register three points for his team:

Tricks of the trade such as Bane’s side-step are routinely seen as inefficient in college but necessary in the NBA. Yet the mastery of the side-step, clearly a byproduct of time spent with the Grizzlies development staff, has weaponized his shooting while negating one of his shortcomings.

To further offset the finishing woes, Bane has added a runner to his bag. He’s 16-32 (50%) on such shots this year, and was 29-56 (51.8%) as a rookie. It’s a great tool to utilize to protect him from getting pinned to the glass or swatted to the second row more frequently. As a rookie, the balance of runners to rim attempts (47% of all interior finishes were runners) was incredibly high. While it’s come down a bit this year (34%), it’s still seen as a major tool for Bane.

The touch translates, but more important is his recognition of when to use it and how to get open. Bane starts his gather sooner and has quick rips past closeouts, once again leveraging his shooting ability to his advantage.

The assist totals for Bane aren’t indicative of his passing ability or creative prowess. He’s got a really good feel creating out of the pick-and-roll as a secondary or tertiary option. He can come off drag screens when he brings it up in semi-transition, attack closeouts to create for others and throw tough hook passes across his body. The vision is there, as is the timing to hit open teammates:

Whenever a secondary playmaker is going to be used off the pick-and-roll, they need to be a scoring threat. Bane’s scoring doesn’t come at the rim, especially against Drop coverage, but is once again driven by the runner. He’s very confident and slows himself down to get this off, knowing he has time in the 12-foot range to flick something up towards the rim.

It’s been great for him this year: he’s 6-8 on runners when coming off the pick-and-roll, according to Synergy Sports Tech.

Every piece of his game blends well with how the Grizzlies play. They run a ton of Spain pick-and-rolls, which Bane can shoot, side-step drill jumpers or drive and create off. The same can be said of the many staggers or high off-ball screens they’ll use him in, which turn into pick-and-rolls.

More than anything, their emphasis on the 3-pointer and surrounding the floor with capable shooters and passers feels very Utah Jazzian. One person can break down a defense, then there are three or four standing on the 3-point line ready to re-penetrate, throw extra passes and find the open guy.

A high-IQ player like Bane thrives in such a system. The Grizzlies play beautiful basketball because they value players like him who can execute every facet of the offense. The result is in seeing Bane start a scramble by attacking the rim, then finishing possessions by filling to the perimeter and knocking down a shot:

Bane is 23 and will turn 24 in June. He’s not old by any means and is one of the youngest four-year college players drafted in recent memory. However, if there’s one player whose role (shooting specialist) and age profile (older in comparison to his compadres) indicate instant success, it’s Bane. Elevating him to top-ten status in the 2020 draft class is a bit of an overemphasis on early returns. Players like James Wiseman, Patrick Williams and Kira Lewis Jr. have all battled injuries. None of the three are of legal drinking age.

Bane is a full two years older than Darius Garland, who was picked in 2019 and is experiencing a major boom this year. Other younger picks from 2019, such as Keldon Johnson or Kevin Porter Jr., have started to hit their stride at the end of their second pro season, or around the time the’re 21 bordering on 22. To leapfrog Bane over some of his draft classmates already would be to practice impatience in our book.

That doesn’t mean Bane was properly rated on our board, though. He’s an NBA-caliber talent who is on the floor for a winning team because he makes winning plays. He’s a lesson in the value of shot-makers with high feel, the lack of need to criticize shooters for smaller wingspans and why the team drafting each prospect matters so much to their success. He’s also a product of his environment in Memphis, surrounded by other gritty and high-IQ players, a 5-out system that maximizes his usage and a player development staff who has added floaters, side-steps and play designs that get the most out of him.

More than anything, Bane is an effective basketball player. There’s always going to be an artistic element to evaluation, regardless of how many data studies are out there to make it seem more scientific and calculable. Bane is a win for the art connoisseurs who saw this impact coming and valued it appropriately.

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