Malik Beasley

[sweetcity]

What do you guys think of Beasley?

Looks like he might have the chance to be an NBA starter... kinda reminds me of a higher IQ Terrence Ross.

[Notanoob]

Outside of solid spot-up shooting none of his numbers stand out, at least none of them stand out in a particularly good way.

[MotownMadness]

Just read the Pistons are high on him

[Novocaine]

Outside of solid spot-up shooting none of his numbers stand out, at least none of them stand out in a particularly good way.

What are his numbers finishing at the rim, rebounding and on pull-ups? Because he does all those things well. His pull-up jumpshot mechanics are probably the best in the draft.

I love watching Beasley play. Competes super hard and gritty. I think he'll eventually become a very good defender once he gains strength and experience. Excellent shot mechanics. Competes like a madman in every phase of the game, that's a skill in itself. I think he'll eventually be a high-impact role-player after a couple of years. A Wes Matthews, Danny Green, type of player.

[Notanoob]

Outside of solid spot-up shooting none of his numbers stand out, at least none of them stand out in a particularly good way.

What are his numbers finishing at the rim, rebounding and on pull-ups? Because he does all those things well. His pull-up jumpshot mechanics are probably the best in the draft.

He's 68% at the rim, but that's because half of his makes were assisted. He produced marginally fewer unassisted field goals at the rim (that weren't putbacks) in the half court per40 than Jamaal Murray. Sheldon McClellan has nearly identical numbers at the rim but he was elite at drawing contact, unlike Beasley. .9FTA/2PA vs. Beasley's .51 Looking just at FG% at the rim he's in the same range as LeVert, McClellan, Murray, Selden and McCaw.

5.1 defensive rebounds per40 is nothing special at guard. What Valentine and Hamilton did as SGs is when rebounding starts to matter for a guard.

Only 7.3% of his made 3s were unassisted. Mechanics may look nice but he didn't make many pull-up, at least not from deep.

[Novocaine]

Outside of solid spot-up shooting none of his numbers stand out, at least none of them stand out in a particularly good way.

What are his numbers finishing at the rim, rebounding and on pull-ups? Because he does all those things well. His pull-up jumpshot mechanics are probably the best in the draft.

He's 68% at the rim, but that's because half of his makes were assisted. He produced marginally fewer unassisted field goals at the rim (that weren't putbacks) in the half court per40 than Jamaal Murray. Sheldon McClellan has nearly identical numbers at the rim but he was elite at drawing contact, unlike Beasley. .9FTA/2PA vs. Beasley's .51 Looking just at FG% at the rim he's in the same range as LeVert, McClellan, Murray, Selden and McCaw.

5.1 defensive rebounds per40 is nothing special at guard. What Valentine and Hamilton did as SGs is when rebounding starts to matter for a guard.

Only 7.3% of his made 3s were unassisted. Mechanics may look nice but he didn't make many pull-up, at least not from deep.

68% at the rim is an excellent number. I'm well aware that he isn't a shot-creator, hence why I mentioned his high potential as a role-player.

I checked the rebounding numbers. Valetine, I project to be an elite wing rebounder, had a 12.8% rebounding rate, as a senior and was the probably the best rebounding guard in the country. Beasley has a 10.1% as a freshman and being very underdeveloped athletically. And I bet that if we adjust the numbers to contested/uncontested rebounders, Beasley is even closer. That's another excellent number, especially for someone who has such a large margin to grow athletically as Beasley.

7.3% on unassisted 3s is higher than I'd expect. In any case, he'll be deadly when defenders try to chase him off the 3 point line or switch a big to him. He'll be great at sidestepping or attacking the close out with a few dribbles.

[pelifan]

Beasley has a wicked first step. It's a shame he can't use it on more than a scrambling defender though.

[GimmeDat]

What's interesting is he just got invited to the green room, he must have lottery interest.

Not sure what his ceiling is but I can easily be an excellent 3/D guy. Extremely athletic as well.

[sweetcity]

I'm wondering if he got a promise early, like from Utah and thats why he has the green room invite now

[Notanoob]

68% at the rim is an excellent number. I'm well aware that he isn't a shot-creator, hence why I mentioned his high potential as a role-player.

I checked the rebounding numbers. Valetine, I project to be an elite wing rebounder, had a 12.8% rebounding rate, as a senior and was the probably the best rebounding guard in the country. Beasley has a 10.1% as a freshman and being very underdeveloped athletically. And I bet that if we adjust the numbers to contested/uncontested rebounders, Beasley is even closer. That's another excellent number, especially for someone who has such a large margin to grow athletically as Beasley.

7.3% on unassisted 3s is higher than I'd expect. In any case, he'll be deadly when defenders try to chase him off the 3 point line or switch a big to him. He'll be great at sidestepping or attacking the close out with a few dribbles.

Like I noted, a number of other SGs finished as well as he did. 68% is good but it doesn't stand out when five other guys are about as good or better in your class at your position.

You conspicuously left out Daniel Hamilton, who is what an impact rebounder looks like at SG (16TRB%, 27DRB%). 12TRB% is really nothing to write home about at all. Being slightly above average at a skill not relevant to your position is not something to bother with.

In my write up on SGs, you can see that Beasley had the lowest % of makes off the dribble (unassisted). Much lower and we are talking about literally no made shots off the dribble. You can't talk up his off the dribble shooting when he hardly made any shots off the dribble.

Still, we seem to broadly agree. He has a future as a role player. Athlete who can knock down threes and get some pretty dunks in transition.

[Chi town]

I like him. Matthews is a solid comp. I like him more than Luwawu.

[Kilo]

There is 18 players invited to the green room now - they're not all going to go lottery. I think GR invites just means sure shot first rounder at this point.

[Novocaine]

68% at the rim is an excellent number. I'm well aware that he isn't a shot-creator, hence why I mentioned his high potential as a role-player.

I checked the rebounding numbers. Valetine, I project to be an elite wing rebounder, had a 12.8% rebounding rate, as a senior and was the probably the best rebounding guard in the country. Beasley has a 10.1% as a freshman and being very underdeveloped athletically. And I bet that if we adjust the numbers to contested/uncontested rebounders, Beasley is even closer. That's another excellent number, especially for someone who has such a large margin to grow athletically as Beasley.

7.3% on unassisted 3s is higher than I'd expect. In any case, he'll be deadly when defenders try to chase him off the 3 point line or switch a big to him. He'll be great at sidestepping or attacking the close out with a few dribbles.

Like I noted, a number of other SGs finished as well as he did. 68% is good but it doesn't stand out when five other guys are about as good or better in your class at your position.

I suppose this is mostly semantics, but "five other guys are about as good or better" sounds like an elite tier to me. I checked your table: there are only two guys with a higher rimFG% - at .7 points higher, McClellan, who's a 23 years old senior, and LeVert, another senior. How on earth do you conclude Beasley isn't a good finisher from those numbers? And his role was that of a finisher, so obviously he has a larger percentage of shots unassisted - but so does McClellan, for that matter.

Look, a 68% FG at the rim is elite for a freshman guard. It's always been. You could even have 10 other guys with higher numbers, it'd still be elite, it'd just mean that class had lots of strong finishers. Numbers aside, anyone who has seen Beasley playing and can't figure he'll be a good finisher, knows little about basketball. He's equally adept of using both hands, showed the beginnings of a good floater, he can finish jumping off the wrong foot, can finish with an eurostep and is aggressive and tough. And this while still being a bit of a stick.

You conspicuously left out Daniel Hamilton, who is what an impact rebounder looks like at SG (16TRB%, 27DRB%). 12TRB% is really nothing to write home about at all. Being slightly above average at a skill not relevant to your position is not something to bother with.

I was going to ask what Hamilton, but I forgot. That's a ludicrous comparison. Have you actually watched these guys playing? Hamilton is more of a point-forward than a wing. He was quite often the second tallest man in his team lienups, and frequently paired with a big who can't rebound. He'd get tons of free rebounds by design, to allow him to kickstart their transition offense by having the rebounding bringing up the ball (and proceed to suck at it, but that's another story). Played as forward, always had 2 smaller guards alongside him, sometimes 3. Sure, if you call Hamilton a SG (I don't care much about positions, they don't make much sense in todays basketball), he's an elite rebounder. Like Kyle Anderson was an elite rebounder for a PG, or a SG, or whatever title you'd assign to him. The idea that a guard isn't an elite rebounder because he has lower rebounding numbers compared to guys like those is absolutely demented. If you put up the effort to scrutinize all the low mid majors and lower divisions, I'm sure you'll find other nominally backcourt players, or guys who could only play guard in the NBA if they were good enough, with godly rebounding numbers. It has no fruitful meaning. Numbers need to be contextualized.

You're also wrong with that tidbit about a 12% TRB%. I suppose that may be the case if you compare with oddities like Daniel Hamilton, but again, if you want to go by the numbers, that's a really bad way of doing it.

Okay, I queried NBA guards with a TRB% above 9% and who played at least 1000 minutes.

http://bkref.com/tiny/Ec1nx

There's a total of 13 players who met those conditions, so it's fair to say it's the elite of NBA rebounding guards. Feel free to change the thresholds if you wish. Let's see how many of them had higher rebounding numbers than Beasley as college freshman - I'll use per 40 numbers and, when available, TRB%.

Westbrook -3.4 per 40 - Worse
Rondo - 4.5 per 40 - Worse
Sefolosha - N/A, played in Europe as a forward
Will Barton - 6.5 per 40, 9.3 TRB% - Worse
Bazemore - 6.2 per 40, 9% TRB% (as a sophomore, freshman numbers n/a but feel free to check them) - NOPE
Evan Turner - 6.5 per 40 - Worse
Kyle Anderson - 11.5 per 40 and 15.7% - here we go, a 6'9'' player with a completely different role rebounding-wise, there's your Hamilton (a vastly better version, but still a dubious contributor at the NBA level)
Jeremy Lamb - 6.4 per 40, 8.7% TRB - Worse
Shabazz Muhammad - 6.8 per 40, 9.2% TRB - Worse
Tony Allen - 6.9 per 40 - Worse
Lance Stephenson - 7.6 per 40 - marginally better than Beasley, Stephenson was an offensive glass crasher in college
Brandon Rush - 7.4 per 40 - also marginally better
Michael Carter-Williams - 5.7 per 40 and 8% TRB% - Worse

Out of the best rebounding guards in the league, only two of them put very slightly better numbers than Beasley in college, while a 6'9'' point-forward put vastly superior ones. Yet you claim his rebounding numbers are nothing special because... you bizarrely decided to compare him to freaking Daniel Hamilton?

Beasley is a really good rebounder for his position. He's tough as nails, quick off the floor and a bulldog fighting for the ball. And rebounding isn't a super important skill for backcourt players, but it's still quite useful.

And sure, so are Valentine and Hamilton. That doesn't detract anything from Beasley rebounding though.

In my write up on SGs, you can see that Beasley had the lowest % of makes off the dribble (unassisted). Much lower and we are talking about literally no made shots off the dribble. You can't talk up his off the dribble shooting when he hardly made any shots off the dribble.

He made plenty of shots off the dribble, I saw them. And I'm going to guess assists were credited on plenty of his pull-ups because he'd shot after a couple of dribbles, against defenders closing out and such. And of course I can - I know when I see excellent shooting mechanics. He gains separation very easily with his first step and he makes his last dribble "hard", in order to bring the ball up into his motion. That's a fundamental that few players master at such a young age and he does.


Anyway, your description of Beasley as a guy who merely has "solid spot-up shooting" is dramatically wrong. If that's what your numbers told you, run away from them.

[SelfishPlayer]

Daequean Cook

[Upperclass]

Something is missing with him.. cant put my finger on it. I like the Cook comparison above though

[Notanoob]

*talking about finishing*

Wayne Selden finished 71.3%, but I did drop him from the table I posted here because I don't like him as a prospect and wanted to cut down on the amount of guys I had to type about. Not that it matters much.

In any event, we've been talking past one another. I didn't suggest that he wasn't a good finisher, but with three SGs ahead of him and 2 guys behind him by less than 3% each, in a group of just 14 SGs, he didn't "stand out". Being the 4th best in a group of 14 doesn't jump off the page, even if, yes, 68% at the rim is very, very good.

If he was scoring at the rim more often, or drawing contact well, or creating his own shots, I would have noted his finishing, but he didn't. In the NBA, offenses are generally looking for their guards to be creating looks at the rim for themselves or their teammates, not finishing looks someone else made. How many guards get a big part of their offense scoring off cuts to the basket?

I gave OP a one sentence summary of my thoughts on him as a prospect and his finishing just didn't seem important enough to include.

*talking about rebounding*

I'll be completely honest, I didn't give a **** about rebounding from a guard unless it's really exceptionally unusual one way or the other, and I have not been checking each guard's TRB%. I've only been writing down their DRB per40 to summarize their rebounding since offensive rebounding from perimeter players usually has something to do with scheme (see Baylor and WVU for example), and the athleticism required get offensive rebounds shows up elsewhere in their profile anyways (like Beasley's finishing for instance). I didn't investigate the rebounding ability of guards that much, clearly not as much as you have. So when I looked at Beasley's profile, I saw "5.1 DRB per40 pace adjusted" and thought "That's nothing really special". Clearly I'm underrating his rebounding.

But how many guards actually impact the game with their rebounding? Remember, what started this conversation was a one-line summary of my thoughts. Is rebounding an important thing to note, important enough to really deserve a spot in a one-sentence summary, for a guard? Do you really think that he's that special a rebounder that it's going to matter?

He made plenty of shots off the dribble, I saw them. And I'm going to guess assists were credited on plenty of his pull-ups because he'd shot after a couple of dribbles, against defenders closing out and such. And of course I can - I know when I see excellent shooting mechanics. He gains separation very easily with his first step and he makes his last dribble "hard", in order to bring the ball up into his motion. That's a fundamental that few players master at such a young age and he does.

All of your points before this one were perfectly reasonable, but this is complete bull justification. Every single one of these guys made shots after one or two dribbles which got marked down as being assisted. You may have watched a ton of FSU games and all of those off-the-dribble makes stick out in your head, but I have no reason to believe that he was making more off-the-dribble-looks-getting-credited-as-assists than Murray or Whitehead for instance, and thus no reason to move him up from dead last in % made 3s that were unassisted (among SG prospects only of course).

In any event, after all of these words, the basics of my evaluation of the guy haven't changed much. He doesn't create shots for himself and he doesn't create shots for his teammates. Therefore, he isn't going to have the ball in his hands much except to shoot it, and he is indeed good at that. But shooters who aren't tasked with creating their own shot (and Beasley indisputably has created very few of his own shots, relative to his position) are not going to have a ton of opportunities to show off their pull-up game, as their role in the offense is to be a spot up shooter. Great, he'll be an effective cutter too. He's still first and foremost a spot-up shooter in the NBA based on what's he's done. I suppose you'll go "but he can rebound too!" but it just doesn't matter. If Lance and Rush were worse rebounders, would it affect their minutes at all? **** no. Are any GMs out there going to say "Look at his rebounding! That's the deciding factor in whether we draft him or not"? Of course not.