#60 - Sam Merrill - Utah State

[ShootingtheJ]

Get Merrill with Suki, change his build. However, he is surprisingly agile, and can move laterally enough. Like Luka, he's strong without being muscular. He hit tough shots, some big game winners.

[stellation]

Utah Luka.

Lutah

[CJTURT]

Giannis picked him

[LuessiT]

Read on Twitter

[emunney]

Kennard 2.0, now with added age

[Willie Colon]

The NBA is a mismatch-hunting league, so the big question for most scouts is whether Merrill can defend at the next level. Well, Smith put Merrill on the other team’s best perimeter player every game, and that included away-from-home wins against future pros at Florida and LSU last season. What Merrill may lack in foot speed he makes up for with instincts, smarts and hours of film study. He’s such a “film freak,” as Smith calls him, that he’ll sometimes, unprompted, text his friends detailed breakdowns of NBA or NFL plays he sees on TV. Merrill described himself as “a pretty boring guy,” because all he wants to do is watch sports and work on his game in the gym.

From The Athletic.

[M-C-G]

Cool. The meh Ragu


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[jakecronus8]

I’ll stan for him, because fat dudes in the nba are awesome.

[JayMKE]

What we’ve always dreamed about, questionable athlete white guy who is deadeye from deep.

[sdn40]

Where is this YMCA college located ?

[SirChurros]

Will be worth it if he's on the floor during crunch time in a tight game and Bud barks out to his semi-young charge "Utah, get me two."

This is very well played and has gone unnoticed too long.

[chonestown]

Where is this YMCA college located ?

This is Utah State shaming, sir, and frankly, has no place on the internet.

[crkone]

Hollinger

Spoiler:

Anyway, this year my number one Bad Geography Guy is Sam Merrill from Utah State. To the extent he’s been mentioned at all, he’s been posited as a late second-rounder … which means that nobody is bothering to make a special trip to Logan, Utah, to see this dude play.

To be sure, there are concerns here. Merrill is average at best defensively, even in college, and he may turn out to be too flammable at the pro level for his offensive value to offset.

That said, his production and skill level suggest his draft stock is far too low. Let’s start with the fact that in our quest to find the next Duncan Robinson or Davis Bertans, someone who can launch multitudinous 3s with 40 percent accuracy, Merrill has some serious possibilities. He shot 41.0 percent from 3 and 89.3 percent from the line last season, and his career numbers from 3 are even better (42.0 percent). This wasn’t cherrypicking either — many of his attempts were off the dribble because he was the team’s primary shot-creator, and he was a volume launcher who took nearly seven a game. He has a great shot fake, too.

We’ve had a lot of good college shooters, however, and many of them were unplayable at the NBA level. The difference in Merrill’s case is how good he is on the ball for his size. He’s a 6-5 guard who appears to have decent length, and is extremely comfortably coming off of curls and playing in pick-and-rolls. While he doesn’t have the dynamism to get to the rim consistently, even with a screen, he makes the right decision darn near every time. He played in the mid-major Mountain West Conference, but the tape says that even in games against athletic SEC teams like Florida and LSU he was the best player on the court.

The numbers are pretty emphatic here. Merrill’s rate of 6.5 assists per 100 possession is a really high figure for a wing player who is supposedly just taking jump shots, but what stands out even more is his piddling 9.0 percent Turnover Rate. He’s making plays while hardly ever making mistakes. The only significant prospect with a lower Turnover Rate is Florida State’s Devin Vassell, and Vassell is a guaranteed lottery pick. Merrill is going in the late second round.

Again, Merrill was doing this in a high-usage role that saw him average 32.6 points and 6.5 assists per 100 possessions, while knocking down 41 percent of his 3s and shooting 51.5 percent on 2s. Obviously, Merrill won’t be a primary ballhandler at the NBA level, but the numbers above bode well for his capacity to operate as a second-side playmaker who has a Plan B if he’s not open from 3.

Merrill’s rebound-block-steal numbers aren’t great and signify that he’ll likely face an athletic deficit, and that correctly dampens his draft stock a bit. But in a league increasingly tilted toward skill, Merrill has it in bunches. I don’t know where that puts him on my final board yet, but at worst he’s a second-round sleeper who has been significantly undervalued. And I strongly suspect that not nearly enough people saw him this year.

[jakecronus8]

What we’ve always dreamed about, questionable athlete white guy who is deadeye from deep.

Nothing questionable about it. He’s not an athlete.

[RiotPunch]

Herd looking STRONG after tonight.

[sdn40]

Where is this YMCA college located ?

This is Utah State shaming, sir, and frankly, has no place on the internet.

Yes - I've spent my whole life shaming them. I simply meant we drafted a YMCA guy. Sir.
I did rip the tags off all my pillows if you want to worry about that

[LuessiT]

Herd looking STRONG after tonight.

I think Merrill will be somewhat useful for the Bucks but I get where you're coming from.

[trwi7]

His nickname is Gary Andersen. Don't care if you guys like it.

[RiotPunch]

Herd looking STRONG after tonight.

I think Merrill will be somewhat useful for the Bucks but I get where you're coming from.

Love him in a lot of ways, just don't think he sees ab NBA floor anytime soon.

[RandyBreuer]

Mickey Davis, Mike Dunleavy, and Brian Winters 4.0 I'm pumped