June 17, 2014

College coaches - this needs to stop. Immediately.

Marble is an unconventional guard, a 6'6 off guard with point guard tendencies who relies on IQ and versatility rather than any explosiveness. Save for a mediocre free throw stroke and a tendency to drift at times, he contributes a bit of everything and has no glaring weaknesses. A much improved long range shooter and defender, Marble is much more efficient than his 42% field goal shooting suggests due to the high volume of threes he takes (albeit at only 34%) and the high number of times he gets to the foul line. He has added range to his mid range jump shot and the ability to create spacing for the jumper with a step-back, jab steps and a pull-up, as well as shooting off curls.

Without the speed to collapse a defense on the regular, Marble finds seams using his body control and will take contact at the basket. He is not an especially good finisher at the rim, but he will get to the line as much as he can. Marble spends more of his time playing more away from the rim and using screens, either as the curler around them or when calling for ball screens when serving as the primary ballhandler, as he can occasionally do. When running the offense, Marble plays the pick and roll well and demonstrates solid vision and decision making - he will never be a lead guard at this level, but it helps. And defensively, while Marble is still prone to reaching in and gambling for steals rather than moving his feet, caught looking in help defense situations all too readily, he is improved in man to man defense and uses his size to deny passes.

This all sounds a bit like Matt Bouldin, admittedly. But he's slightly bigger, slightly faster and slightly better. Which suffices.

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