Weekend Update: Jabari & The Returners

A few of the best prospect showings from the weekend of December 11th

Happy Monday morning! It’s time for your weekend recap, and as we usually do, let’s refrain from long-winded intros and fluff. This weekend’s edition focuses on Jabari Smith, the fantastic prospect who is among the top-tier players, and a group of collegiate returners and upperclassmen who are making their cases for true draft position.

Bennedict Mathurin - W, Arizona

Arizona might be the best team in the country. The Wildcats, under first-year head coach Tommy Lloyd, went on the road to Illinois this weekend and withstood a wild 17-0 run to earn a gutsy victory. Mathurin was the best player on the floor without doubt, scoring 30 points on 17 shots, going 5-8 from deep and 5-6 from the charity stripe.

Time and time again, Mathurin proves he’s one of the best shooters in the country. He can drill shots while spotting up, cutting off screens, being used in the pick-and-pop or off the dribble.

Perhaps the biggest change in Mathurin from freshman to sophomore year has been his confidence off the bounce. He’s shooting 69% at the rim, an absurd number that’s driven by his athleticism (he’s always been a good leaper) and growing faith that he can handle contact. He’s only 3-11 on shots off the bounce, but as he continues to finish at the rim, play defense and drill shots in a variety of ways, Mathurin is far more than a simple 3-and-D prospect.

The consistency of his shooting and athletic play leaves us to believe he’s a lottery prospect. Moving into the top-ten might be more difficult without improved off-the-dribble shooting consistently, but in an era where we’ve seen several specialty shooters go in the 11-16 range (Moses Moody 14th, Corey Kispert 15th, Aaron Nesmith 14th, Cameron Johnson 11th), Mathurin stands out as the most athletic and overall versatile of that group.

Jabari Smith - F, Auburn

We keep waiting for a game where Smith goes a bit cold from deep, goes 0-4 from three and only hits on shots in transition or near the rim.

Those games haven’t happened yet. Smith has hit multiple 3-pointers in eight of his nine contests, is 21-47 (44.7%) on the year and 33-39 (84.6%) from the charity stripe. At this point, he’s an elite shooting prospect with enough data to back up the ridiculous eye test of his shots.

Combine that shooting with his massive frame (6’10” with a 7’0” wingspan), elite leaping and an athletic profile that resembles General Grievous, Smith is as high-ceiling of a prospect as there is. One more outing to show his dominance came this weekend, scoring 21 points in 23 minutes against Nebraska to go along with 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals.

Smith is entrenched in our top-three. He has a few areas to improve, including his ball handling and processing speed as a face-up driver. But the shot-making is something we haven’t seen for a guy with his athletic profile. Kevin Durant might be the closest comparison for college basketball, but Durant wasn’t nearly as filled out as Smith and had a much smoother handle.

Of the top-three prospects right now (Smith, Paolo Banchero and Chet Holmgren), Smith has the highest offensive ceiling of the group. He may also have the most risk, but as we get deeper into the season, what he’s doing statistically becomes impossible to deny.

Jordan Hall - ATH, St. Joseph’s

This is officially turning into the shooting recap post, as all our top performers are guys who got molten hot this past weekend. Jordan Hall might be the hottest shooter in the country, going 15-27 from 3-point range over his last three games. He’s kept the Hawks somewhat close with Villanova and anchored cross-town wins over rivals Penn and Temple.

Hall is up to 38% from deep on the season, ahead of the 35.1% he registered a season ago. The mechanics are speeding up and getting smoother, he’s hitting from deeper and does so off the bounce when teams go under, rectifying one of the major criticisms or improvement necessities we had for Hall coming into his sophomore season:

Many have Hall as a first-rounder, and his production certainly warrants consideration for the later part of the round. We still worry a bit about his first step, but the combination of size (6’8”), passing ability (career 7.0 assists per 40 minutes) and newfound shooting could make him a bargain bin Josh Giddey. The Neuman Goretti product needs to keep up this streak of shooting to enter first-round discussions for us.

Caleb Love - CG, North Carolina

Our third sophomore on the list, Caleb Love is the one who is having a major transformation from freshman year to present day. While Hall and Mathurin have added one element to their games, they were both pro prospects who flirted with the draft a year ago. Caleb Love is drastically different from where he was last year.

Freshman Love lacked confidence and struggled making decisions, shooting or finding any space to operate in Roy Williams’ spacing-starved system. Hubert Davis, injecting a dose of confidence and improved offensive flow into the Tar Heels, has modernized their play and gotten the most out of Love.

Here are his per-40 minutes from last season against this year

2020-21: 15.2 PTS, 3.7 REB, 5.2 AST, 4.5 TO, 31.6% FG, 26.6% 3FG

2021-22: 20.0 PTS, 4.9 REB, 4.6 AST, 2.5 TO, 45.1% FG, 43.2% 3FG

Major gains in ball security, 3-point shooting and finishing have provided an uptick in Love’s draft stock. Coming into his freshman year at Carolina, he was seen the next in a line of one-and-done point guards at UNC (Cole Anthony in 2020, Coby White in 2019) to go high in the NBA Draft. A top-fifteen recruit out of high school, Love was seen as a great shooting combo.

Now, he very much looks the part.

Love is back in late-first discussions for his. He still isn’t a pure enough creator to be a point, but now that the turnovers are under control he’s a solid option there. He’s not an elite athlete, so there’s a need for the shot to fall consistently if he’s going to be an NBA guy. The shooting, from range and off the dribble in the mid-range, are attractive pieces worth investing in.

Oscar Tshiebwe - P, Kentucky

Three years ago, we got to see the Big O play multiple high school games where his insane athleticism and size stood out. Tshiebwe was much more skilled than he got to show during his days at West Virginia, where he was used as a screener, rebounder and post-up threat.

The move to Kentucky has, ever so slowly, begun to peel back layers into where Tshiebwe can be more skilled.