The KD Scouting Report

[benhillboy]

Crude pasting from my phone notes but this is The Definitive KD Scouting Report. Walk with me...

Overall On-Ball (Dribble-pass-shoot) 9
Athleticism 7
Jump 6
Hands 8
Floor Running 8
Size 6
Length 10+
Strength 4
Quickness 7
Leadership 5
Jumpshot 10+
Shot selection 7.5 (couldn’t do a whole number lol)
Handling 8
Passing 7
Intangibles/Toughness 5
Off ball movement 3
Defense on ball 7
Defense off ball 8


Absolutely Indefensible jumper. The opening, body, and conclusion of his First Ballot Hall of Fame Case without question. Majesty of form, the body straightness, the elbow that has never been untucked ever, the perfectly pointed head. His all-net makes are awe-inspiring, arguably the prettiest ever.

Yet he (and most onlookers) has an inflated confidence of three point ability due to said shot majesty (career .381 on 5 attempts not ideal)

Deadly accuracy from midrange. Tailor made to bail out bogged down offensive sets.

Handle improved by leaps and bounds from rookie season.

No problem bringing the ball up, ambidextrous enough, unbelievable crossover for height.

Doesn’t waste dribbles, milks the clock appropriately. Stays out of considerable traffic when handling because he doesn’t crouch low to vary dribble heights, also making him unable to face up and “dance” his way into a jumpshot rhythm. Not much of a hinderance when release point is never an issue.

Very skilled passer although best suited as a secondary playmaker. Easily illustrated by his career 4:3 assist to turnover ratio. He doesn’t look remotely that bad night in and out but he is/ has been.

Ability to see over defense is huge, very accurate passes, particularly overhead. Quickly recognizes skip passes and pocket passes within the paint. Should recognize and attempt more crosscourt passes.

Doesn’t finesse the baseline as much as a player of his “slitheriness” should. Should have more short push shots and under-backboard finishes along that area.

Inconsistent awareness of floor balance/imbalance, favorable matchups that aren’t his own, and shot selection when he’s on the ball.

Exquisite FT shooter. Probably the best representative of his BBIQ along with awareness of the rhythm and variation a midrange game creates.

Length masks how poor of a leaper he is. No hangtime. Literally hundreds of finishes and higher-quality shot challenges left on the floor throughout career as a result. No burst off the floor, but decent second-jump ability.

Great hands and catching on offense. Not very quick on defense, certainly not strong, conscious of hand injury. Should be a much better steals guy and league leading deflections player with condor-like length.

Sometimes a funkiness can hover over his game due to confusion on what to be. “Should I be on the block or the wing?” “Do I feed the hot hand or trust my supreme skill?”

Communication average. Aware of getting matched up in transition but isn’t terribly concerned with pointing or yelling. Seems to be the player receiving instruction/ in the wrong when debating teammates about a coverage or read. Much more likely to be pumped up and encouraged than the other way around. Teammates seem to like or be indifferent to him. No love or hate.

Great touch on layups. Athleticism lies in extremely fluid body control despite weak upper body. Doesn’t get Bigs in foul trouble. Strays away from traffic but is smart enough to take advantage of weaker/smaller/less rugged front lines.

Runs the floor much better on offense than defense, should be a chase-down block master but far from it. Fills the lane better than his strength suggests, knows when and where to space if need be in transition.

Doesn’t take nearly enough corner threes nor does the things necessary off the ball to create them.

Will rarely if ever cross the width of the court without the ball.

Stands at the arc with his hands out entirely too much.

Amazingly doesn’t have a pump fake and drive game, a HUGE hole. Overzealous, out-of-control closers who leave their feet or the more conservative ones who stop on a dime will be shot over 90% of the time (partly in an effort to draw a cheap shooting foul) when the far better play is dribble around them inside the arc with a 5 on 4 advantage. I don’t think his form on the lower half lends itself to presenting a believable shot fake. Lacks the exaggerated leg action of a Bosh or Embiid.

Easily pushed and manipulated when calling for a post up. Back to basket game suffers from poor center of gravity and impatience. Allows opposing coaches to steal defensive possessions with guards on him.

Not very willing to make “role player-styled” intangible plays unless team is amidst a run. Never confused with or mentioned as a gritty player. Again, fully self-aware and held back by his strength limitations and foul ledger.

Not a self-starter on defense. Best suited as a weakside defender.

Uses length very well on the perimeter. Footwork pretty good but poor lateral movement. Frequency of accepting/demanding tough defensive matchups is very poor for a player demanding his offensive usage.

Able to make great rim protection plays in half court sets. Has very good awareness of angles and team positioning but team suffers considerably when asking him to anchor more variable or lesser-used lineups.

Miss quality on jump shots is good not great. A few too many bricks and untrackable caroms off the back rim. Too many misses lead to opponent transition opportunities. Doesn’t get the soft rim love off the sides and front that the purest volume shooters have allowing teammates to crash the boards.

Not physically equipped to catch and shoot quickly off movement.

Questionable durability. Takes too long to recover or gets too seriously injured on otherwise benign actions.

Yet 37 minutes per game for his career speaks to his splendid game conditioning.

Doesn’t use fouls optimally. A little too concerned with staying on the floor. Rarely fouls hard or timely.

Rarely draws fouls outside of jump shot, draws charges when motivated. Rare rebound action or loose ball draws.

Very mediocre rebounder for “7 feet”, rare “unavailable” grabs. Gains many due to sheer length and playing time, loses the same amount due to inconsistent box out and unwillingness for contact. Team offensive rebounding really suffers with him on the floor (.7 per career mark)

Awful screen setter, disinterested, never uses his chest, narrow base.

Lifelong Blue Chip who has never had to overachieve or learn how to play off the ball. The main difference between he and The Warrior Core. An obvious super max talent who’s fatal flaw is never fully grasping the concept of 5 Men Scrapping beyond the stat sheets and individual glory. The Warriors get a quality of ball movement, possession-protection, comradery, and toughness that they just can’t achieve with him on the floor. A team with such a high IQ can routinely replace his raw stats and even produce a higher quality of momentum, team rhythm, and home crowd participation while doing it.

Please feel free to discuss, add, delve deeper, dispute with {RIPRPMxMPH} /(fake +/-) ^ conference pace, like, clown, lol. It’s all welcome.

[benhillboy]

I’m usually not the type to bump my own posts but I thought this was poignant 4 years and 1 day to the day. I couldn’t believe I didn’t get any responses to this as much of a lightning rod dude is here. Find a better scouting report of KD if you can (you can’t).

A couple amendments:

.385 on 5 attempts per is ideal. Many would say he could easily bump it up to around 9 in this climate but I don’t think he’d see an increase in efficiency.

He pumps and drives more than he used to, which is great.

I didn’t realize ”skip” pass and cross court pass are basically the same thing. Well in most cases. The nomenclature was new at the time or at least to me.

Gotta toot my own horn on GS replacing him easily. They filled his role with a career bust who didn’t even really care about hooping lol. I didn’t think it would be that easy but damn near. If you’ve ever compared him to Steph bless your heart up to heaven.

The casual NBA fan has no idea how much Durant doesn’t/ can’t do and these “analysts” never mention any of the weaknesses I did. Trust me they weigh on his team over time and diminish his returns. And his failures in the postseason lately aren’t because of his injuries: the man was never an athletic standout and he shot the highest TS% of his career by far this past season. His game hasn’t been hampered by age or injury in the slightest.

One of the glossiest, shiniest role players in NBA history. And this is coming from someone who cites advanced metrics a great deal (KDs are awesome, obviously). They are considerably inflated due to his blocks, usage, and FT shooting.

A player who shoots only 6% of his threes from the corner (at 45%!), has no desire to affect the defense off the ball, offensive rebounds worse than Trae Young at 7 feet, screens awfully, rarely boxes out, turns over too much for a mediocre initiator, and never sniffed All Defense with condor-like length is a low IQ player, I’m sorry y’all. The most impressive improvement he made on the floor was his help/ weak/ team defense, which I attribute a lions share of credit to Draymond’s tutelage.

You could do a whole nother scouting report on his awkwardness off the floor.