Weekend Update with Coach Spins: Jan. 24, 2022
Some mid-major risers and plenty of other action from the weekend that was
I’m no Colin Jost, but let me try my hand at spoofing some news bits…
Kentucky freshman Shaedon Sharpe was ruled eligible for the 2022 NBA Draft this week. When asked if Sharpe would sit out the season to focus on the draft or suit up for Kentucky, Wildcats head coach John Calipari responded “what do you think we’re paying him for?”
Alright, that’s enough for amateur comedy hour. Sharpe’s potential declaration for the draft shook up the draft community on Friday when announced, adding a top-five talent to a fairly thin class at the top. While his Wildcat teammate TyTy Washington exited an important top-fifteen matchup with Auburn early, Big Blue Nation wasn’t the sole focus of the weekend. A few other performances really stood out that we want to discuss on this installment of Weekend Update.
Jaden Hardy - CG, G-League Ignite
29 points for Jaden Hardy isn’t an outlier. In fact, it’s the new norm.
We certainly understand the trepidation about the stat profile. A negative assist-to-turnover ratio while barely 40% from two and under 27% from 3 is woeful. The film from Friday against College Park tells a drastically different story than those numbers, though.
What the film reveals is a player who is rapidly improving and learning how to compensate for his lack of elite athleticism and use his pull-up shooting as a means for opening up the rest of his game. Those type of advancements, only twelve games into his career, have us wildly excited for Hardy’s long-term potential.
The pick-and-roll craft is improving, as is his confidence as a finisher. Routinely, less athletic or smaller players have a tendency to try to go fast when attacking the basket, thinking their only chance to score in the trees is to flip up an attempt before the defense can track them down. Really, most success comes from freezing the defense and making them think, react or slow down themselves.
Playing at different paces has made Hardy much better as a scorer.
Yet as good as he was, the numbers aren’t all slam dunks. He was a team-low -26 against the Skyhawks in a ten-point loss (we don’t like individual game plus-minus, but this number is pretty staggering and the only one of its kind on the GLI). He was only 3-11 from deep and still had four turnovers.
Over his last three games heading into Sunday’s matinee with the Long Island Nets, Hardy had been better from a statistical standpoint:
25.7 PTS, 43% FG, 34.5% 3FG, 3.0 AST, 3.7 TO, 3.3 FTA
Then the typical Hardy disappointment game took place, going 0-11 from the field. Just as it becomes easy to defend his improvements, he goes ice cold from the field and -16 in a loss to the Nets.
Right now, Hardy’s stock is all over the place. We’ve remained steadfast that he’s a top-five talent in this class as he starts to piece things together, and that his struggles stand out more when there’s a seeming lack of patience for him in comparison to last year’s more efficient G-League Ignite group. Keep in mind that Jalen Green and Jonathan Kuminga were different types of athletes than Hardy, more of a finesse shooter. We’d expect his type of player to struggle more in a pro league. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not as coveted of a prospect.
Blake Wesley - W, Notre Dame
22 points in 26 minutes? Against a stingy ACC defense like Louisville, that’s an impressive feat. Blake Wesley has soared up our draft rankings, garnering lottery attention after coming into the season as a multi-year prospect. He’s topped 20 points in three of his last five outings and is holding up well against high-major competition.
For Wesley, the scoring is as much about his process as the results. He’s a good, albeit not the most consistent, 3-point shooter. He’s got long strides and gets to the rim or the mid-range in a flash, making positive plays happen. There are many little things to learn, about deceleration and changing pace, but the top gears he plays at and smooth, rhythmic pull-up jumper are as attractive as anyone’s in this class.
Wesley’s been fairly efficient, registering more points than field goal attempts in every game but two since Thanksgiving. He does little else to impact the game offensively. An occasional good pass and some toolsy defense based on his athletic profile will stand out. But he rarely rebounds, doesn’t have enough playmaking desire to rack up turnovers and doesn’t live in transition. Mike Brey is an offense-first coach, making this an impeccable pairing, but Wesley will need a lot more development to get his game to become well-rounded.
A fascinating discourse to me is the one between Wesley and Hardy. Wesley, a relative unknown in draft circles heading into the season, has been Mr. Steady, scoring at a high rate and flashing some real athleticism. He’s longer than Hardy, more bursty and better at making quick decisions off the catch.
He’s risen quite a bit on mainstream boards; this weekend, ESPN’s Jonathan Givony put him at the #9 spot in his 2023 mock draft, indicating a return to school could be imminent. Yet Hardy continues to fall, mainly due to athletic and finishing concerns, efficiency woes to start the year as a scorer and turnover problems.
Let us remind you that Hardy plays in a much higher level of competition and is the same age. His burst or length might not be exactly like Wesley’s, but he’s farther along as a creator for others. In fact, Hardy has shown more demonstrable improvement during the season, starting to slow down and facilitate or make proper reads out of the PNR during several of his latest outings.
Ryan Rollins - CG, Toledo
Prior to the season, Rollins was near the top of our list of best college returning guards, particularly as a scoring guard. Here’s what we had to say about the sophomore at Toledo:
Two areas we hoped to see from Rollins were added quickness and consistent shooting from deep. Shooting 34.8% from 3 on solid volume, he’s doing fine on the shooting front, albeit not blowing anybody out of the water. The quickness, though… that’s gotten a lot more notable.
Rollins plays with more burst and confidence now. He’s a strong 6’4” who can take smaller guys into the post, but he is able to attack gaps more easily and stay athletic for his finishes. Even though he didn’t score and got fouled, one drive to the rim that saw him rise up for a dunk attempt really piqued our interest.
Playing on the road against another top MAC point guard in Mark Sears in a crucial conference matchup, Rollins was dominant. He controlled his team on offense, scored when he needed to and helped contribute to Sears struggling (1 assist and 7 turnovers).
At the NBA level, Rollins will likely have to be a point guard. Shooting and athletic developments aside, he needs to become a super-competent PNR creator for others. We aren’t quite sold on him getting there yet.
Second-round potential and a guy we definitely like, but some talk of getting him closer to the first round is a little ambitious to us. Let’s see the shooting come along a bit more so we at least know how he’s going to consistently score in the pros.
Orlando Robinson - P, Fresno State
This kid is good. Orlando Robinson plays exactly the way you’d want a modern big man to: he makes 3-pointers, rebounds hard, plays his sack off, can block some shots and has a tremendous feel as a passer.
Every box is checked for a role playing big off the bench. Pick & pop or spot-up duty in the corner? Check. Short roll playmaking? Check. Defensive versatility and enough lateral quickness to survive on the perimeter? Check.
Robinson turned in a great performance against Nevada on Friday, and it’s clear he’s a guy with really strong shooting potential for a seven-footer.
Guys like this simply don’t grow on trees. Whether he’s draftable or a priority two-way candidate remains to be seen, but his size, mobility and skill set is exactly what we covet in a bench big.
JD Davison - PG, Alabama
The JD Davison roller coaster of draft evaluation continues. We knew he’d be raw in many regards, and thought both his shooting and PNR playmaking against other athletes and size (which he wasn’t exposed to in high school that often) would catch up to him.
On one hand, we were right. Davison has a 43.3% turnover rate in the PNR, highest in the nation for all players to get at least 50 PNR reps. How bad is that? Of the 412 guys to qualify, only twelve had above a 30% turnover rate. Davison has the same amount of turnovers (26) in the PNR as he does field goal attempts.
On the other hand, Davison’s progression as a shooter is something we buy — at least from a standstill. He’s 12-26 (46.2%) on catch-and-shoots this year, a way higher rate than we ever anticipated seeing.