Michael Bethea Jr – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Michael Bethea Jr SG/SF – 6’6, 185lbs – Born 22nd January 1995 Grand Rapids Drive Bethea’s circuitous route to the pros included a year at Grambling State, who had gone winless over Division 1 competition in two of the three previous seasons. On a team needing any help it can get, Bethea – a junior by this time – scored only 5.3 points per game on 29.9% from the field and 25.6% from three-point range. He then moved again, this time dropping to Division 2 Chico State; it did not lead to any offensive uptick, however, as Bethea averaged only 6.0 points, 2.5 rebounds and 0.9 assists per game as a senior. So, how does one go from that to being a double-digit scorer in the NBA’s official minor league? Not sure. I guess he just got better, fast. Bethea has a good frame, standing 6’6 with a good wingspan, and it would appear as though he simply got better as a shooter. It is not the quickest release, yet Bethea is nowadays a confident-enough shooter to take looks both pull-ups off the dribble and feet-set shots off the catch. He creates and handles little, and has to continue to get stronger in order to expand his driving game (strength which would also help on defence), yet it seems as though Bethea has become a plenty solid-enough G-League replacement-level player. The local tryout route, then, strikes again. – 20th June, 2019 This above is extracted from the following page in the The Basketball Manifesto, an entirely free 3,775 page, 1.2 million word-ish basketball reference book which contains reviews, strategies, ideas, opinions, and a whole lot of scouting on men’s world basketball. – View tons more player profiles like this from the Manifesto here.
Johnny Hamilton – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Johnny Hamilton C – 7’0, 230lbs – Born 3rd February 1994 Grand Rapids Drive Hamilton joined the Drive after summer league and training camp stints with the parent Detroit Pistons, who recognised the potential in the late-blooming big man. With a very solid first professional season behind him, their opinion looks vindicated. The former Virginia Tech Hokie transferred to Texas-Arlington for his senior season, whereupon he put in big numbers to establish his professional credentials. A very smooth athlete for his size, Hamilton uses his length and mobility to crash the glass on both ends, be a rim protector and cut to the basket a lot. Lacking any form of jump shot – although a reasonable free-throw stroke suggests a line jumper may be possible down the road – and in not running the court as well as you would imagine he could do, Hamilton nevertheless is a presence offensively through his offensive rebounding, through being a lob threat, through having the sufficient handle to be a dribble-handoff player who can also go to the rim if forgotten about, and in outrunning the opposition when he tries to. On the defensive end, Hamilton’s shot blocking prowess is a big virtue on the interior, although he does tend to play defence with his hands rather than his feet, allowing drivers to get past him in the first place. The fact that he is able to recover so readily with his length, though, means they will sometimes do so at their peril. The rebounding rate again comes through here; although he is more mobile than the ‘traditional’ big mould would normally entail, Hamilton’s game otherwise fits it nicely – screens, boards, cuts, paint defence, fouls when necessary. Hamilton is older than ideal for a prospect, and has a skill set […]
Shep Garner – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Shep Garner PG/SG – 6’2, 196lbs – Born 6th December 1996 Grand Rapids Drive Garner made the Drive’s roster via the local tryout route, and survived for the entire season. He joined them in his first professional campaign after a senior year in which he was almost completely divested of any on-the-ball, inside-the-arc responsibilities, and was instead empowered to gun up the shots. And that, he did. As a senior, Garner shot 7.1 three-point attempts per game, compared to only 1.3 two-pointers a night. He very much figured out what he does best; that year, Garner ranked in the 95th percentile in spot-up possessions, in the 91st percentile in transition plays, in the 83rd percentile for pick-and-roll ball handlers and in the 91st percentile when coming off of a screen. Considering those four play types totalled 84% of his total possessions used, it would be fair to say that Garner caters to his strengths. With a quick, compact release, Garner is shot-happy, and has managed to get slightly more judicious over time to the point that he is not just chucking them. Aggressive offensively outside the arc, Garner very rarely ventures into it any longer, which, considering his struggles to finish at the rim, is probably best. He could nonetheless stand to use his shooting threat more as a decoy and as a passer when coming off of screens, even if he is not going to drive to the basket on curls. Defensively, Garner plays with effort, which is half the battle. He never used to, yet he has improved on that end over time, and he applies good ball pressure to other small guards other than he. It takes an intricate roster balance to fit Garner in the rotation, given his lack of size and playmaking. Those […]
Zach Lofton – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Zach Lofton SG – 6’4, 180lbs – Born 18th November 1992 Grand Rapids Drive After enrolling at five colleges in six seasons, Lofton began his professional career this summer with a summer league contract with the Pistons, one which subsequently turned into a training camp offer and then a two-way contract. Lofton impressed with a strong summer league performance, yet it must be noted that in his final college season with New Mexico State, he was genuinely very good. Then again, he was far older than everybody else. Lofton’s advanced age for a man with only one professional season means there is not a lot of upside to him as a prospect. He just needs to be pretty much NBA ready right now if he is to ever crack the league for more than the dreg minutes of one game he got with Detroit this year. With New Mexico State, Lofton ranked in the 79th percentile in isolation, 76th percentile in pick-and-roll ball-handling, 90th in spot-up shooting and 84th in transition. He is a very adept scorer with spin moves, touch and aggression, a touch undersized for the two guard spot but athletic and determined to make up for it. The problem in his season here with the Drive was that he simply did not make the same quantity of shots. A scorer through and through, passing plays are secondary to Lofton’s nature. He is an aggressive shot-hunter who takes early and difficult looks quite often, something that go-to guys need to do, but he is not a go-to guy if he is shooting this inefficiently. Similarly, if he took fewer early and difficult shots, he would not be shooting this inefficiently. Because of this aggression and sub-par outside touch, Lofton measured out this year to be a […]
Jon Horford – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Jon Horford C – 6’10, 245lbs – Born 16th October 1991 Grand Rapids Drive For some reason, as soon as he turned professional, Al’s brother became an exceptional rebounder. Over the 93 regular season games of G-League experience he has had over pieces of the last four seasons, he has averaged 6.7 rebounds in only 17.7 minutes per game. Given the much more sedentary rebounding rate of his four college seasons between Michigan and Florida, this is a significant increase, and gives him a clear purpose at this level. Michigan used to post Horford up, because Michigan used to post everybody over 6’8 up, because college basketball is antiquated. Horford was never good in this role; he lacked for speed and touch, was neither especially strong nor athletic, favoured his left despite being a right-handed shooter for some reason, could not pass out of the post and rushed to try and finish the shot against anyone with true length. Instead, when he transferred to the Gators, Horford felt empowered to start taking spot-up threes. He still does this, albeit not efficiently; that, plus some rolling to the basket and anything he can get off of his own offensive rebounding, is it this point the sum total of his offensive offerings. This is not a rim-runner, a shooter or a skill player. Instead, this is a hustler, in the best possible sense of the word. Horford will go at the glass despite invariably losing either the speed or strength match-up with whoever is trying to contest him. Defensively, very slow feet make it difficult for him to hedge and recover, defend in space or close out to cover ground, and he is also not blessed with a shot blocking leap either. Yet in going to the defensive glass, taking […]
Speedy Smith – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Kenneth “Speedy” Smith PG – 6’3, 180lbs – Born 28th January 1993 Grand Rapids Drive With the exception of the very first few months of his professional career, in which he made an unsuccessful attempt to sign in Latvia, Smith has played the entirety of his professional career in the G-League, including the last two full seasons with Grand Rapids. He has been a sometime-starter, sometime-reserve for the team, a flexible and useful full-court point guard who has improved his own efficiency metrics each year of his G-League career. The man they call Speedy – because he’s speedy – has good size and length for the point guard position to go with that. He is a reliable ball-handler, which is good considering he plays almost entirely on the ball. Not a good outside shooter at any point in his career – although improved slightly overtime – Smith is also not really the type of guard who will get beyond the first line of the defence, collapse and kick. He is instead the type to always keep the ball moving, create plenty of transition possessions, who is unselfish to a fault in the halfcourt, who finds the open man without forcing the issue, throws lobs and keeps the pace up. As a scorer himself, Smith finds it difficult to get to the rim and is disinclined to do so, shooting a floater when he does. But he does not look too score. He will only take the shots if they are really, really there. Instead, he is in to share the ball and defend. Smith is an effective free-safety on defence, quite a strong player to go with his speed who is very pesky on the perimeter. He gambles well, and always seems to know where everyone is at […]
Todd Withers – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Todd Withers PF – 6’8, 216lbs – Born 6th May 1996 Grand Rapids Drive I have no idea how Synergy Sports manage to go as deep as they do. But somehow, they were able to cover and analyse every game of Division II’s South Atlantic Conference in 2017-18. And with that, they were able to determine that Withers was a 92nd percentile spot-up shooter that season. That combined with his athletic 6’8 frame made for an intriguing combination, and Withers thus made the Drive roster as a local tryout player to begin the season, surviving for the entire year. In that season, Withers has come out pretty well. The basic numbers do not overwhelm, and his three-point shooting is not where it needs to be, nor what Synergy suggested it would be. Offensively, Withers does appear to be very much limited to the running dunk and the catch-and-shoot three, with any in-between game or shot creation being a rare bonus. Look at those defensive metrics, though. For a player untested beyond the Division II level previously, Withers seems to know how to play on that end. Withers plays with a very good level of energy on the defensive end. He uses the athleticism that he has, combining it with his good length to cover a lot of ground on that end, and he also got caught out of position far less than a man of his relative inexperience normally would. Withers really did impress offensively this season, and assuming his three-point shots go in again, he has made himself a three-and-D candidate at the forward position at the NBA level. It need not really matter that he does not handle the ball much if he does those two things well enough. – 20th June, 2019 This above is […]
Marcus Thornton – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Marcus Thornton SG – 6’4, 205lbs – Born 5th June 1987 Grand Rapids Drive There are three Marcus Thorntons in high level professional basketball today. There is the one out of LSU who played many years in the NBA. There is the one drafted by the Celtics in the second-round out of William and Mary who has a lot of hair and scores a lot of points. And then there is the power forward from Georgia. This is the first one, the man who formerly was the future of the New Orleans Pelicans backcourt with Darren Collison, seeking to be the next veteran to make his way back into the NBA via the minor league route. Thornton last played in the NBA in February 2017, when he was traded by the Washington Wizards to the Brooklyn Nets as an ancillary part of the trade that swapped the pick that became Jarrett Allen for Bojan Bogdanovic. Immediately waived by Brooklyn, Thornton has been with the Drive since December of that year, save for a brief stint in China down the stretch of last season. 21.5 points per game in 29.0 minutes per game is a colossal return, even if Thornton takes a very large share of the shots to do it. A scorer through and through, Thornton can make pretty much any kind of shot. He is an excellent catch-and-shoot player when open, yet he also can hit them when contested. He works off the ball to get open, runs the court at every opportunity even now into his 30s, cuts on the baseline, and is an excellent player to have off the ball on the offensive end. Less successful with the ball in his hands due to an inability to create space with the dribble alone, Thornton nevertheless […]
Adam Woodbury – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Adam Woodbury C – 7’1, 245lbs – Born 13th January 1994 Grand Rapids Drive Three years into his professional career out of Iowa, Woodbury has spent his entire time in the G-League, and has now been with six different franchises. Indeed, he managed four this season alone. Woodbury initially returned to the Westchester Knicks, was traded before camp started along with Buay Tuach to the Capital City Go-Go for third- and fourth-round picks in this year’s draft, was waived the next day (along with Tuach; highly successful trade, that one), was picked straight back up by Westchester, waived again at the start of the season, spent a fortnight over November and December with Stockton, and only then was picked up by Grand Rapids, where he spent the remainder of the season. In combination, this would suggest that he is a fringe G-League player. Maybe he is. Or maybe he was, because he just posted a career-best season. Woodbury only does a few things on the court, and has to be used in a certain way to have any positive effect. With respect – and do please get to the end before thinking I’m beating up on the guy – there is quite a lot he does not do. He is a seven-foot post player who does not post, who doesn’t handle, who doesn’t shoot and who does not block many shots either. He does not jump, he does not have good touch at the rim, he does not create offence, and he does not even have that much toughness on the ball. He struggles to pass out of double teams (not that he is drawing many), he does not have the lateral foot speed to keep people in front, and he also does not dunk that much. What […]
Elijah Brown – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Elijah Brown SG – 6’4, 200lbs – Born 19th February 1995 Grand Rapids Drive In his first professional season out of Oregon (via Butler and New Mexico), Brown began with a summer league spot on the Golden State Warriors, followed by being drafted in the third round of the G-League Draft by the Drive, appearing in 11 games and averaging 4.9 points per contest, before being waived in December. He subsequently signed in Lithuania with Dzukija, averaging 14.0 points in 22.6 minutes over the team’s final 18 games. Mike’s son has some athleticism and perimeter scoring about him, but does not exhibit the kind of offensive discipline to take advantage of that. A good spot-up shooter, the lefty with the long stride has a quick release, moves off the ball a bit, and can run the court a bit with his decent speed, yet he seems not to want to handle in traffic when he can instead just raise up for a jumper. Not all of them were good looks – indeed, many were not – and Brown all too often forces the action. The bigger concern was his defence, where Brown would not play with a good motor or with his hands up, and thus did not make the impact he could have done with his length and speed. There is talent within him, but perhaps all the movement in his career thus far has not allowed him to fully take advantage of it, learn how to play in rhythm and within a team concept. As an individual, however, he has responsibility for his own defensive intensity, and that needs to pick up. – 20th June, 2019 This above is extracted from the following page in the The Basketball Manifesto, an entirely free 3,775 page, 1.2 million […]
Randy Haynes – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Randy Haynes SG – 6’4, 215lbs – Born 23rd April 1995 Grand Rapids Drive Despite having the name of a truck-driving minor character in an 80’s coming-of age movie, Haynes is also in fact a 2018 Old Dominion graduate who averaged 12.4 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.3 steals per game as a senior, something he was able to parlay into a five-game stint with the Drive to begin the season after making the roster via the local tryout route. Haynes scored 10 points and grabbed 5 rebounds in 34 minutes across those five games, before being waived in early December and not signing elsewhere for the remainder of the season. A slightly undersized two with decent speed, Haynes played a largely three-and-D role in his senior year for the Monarchs, with a three-point rate of .539 on the season, born out of a good degree of off-ball movement and use of screens. The percentage he shot on those of only 32.2% was not high enough, yet with very smooth form, this seems improvable in time. Haynes also took a few turns on the ball offensively, and although he lacks the handle and sheer explosion to readily create space in which to drive or shoot – save for a step-back move he likes to use regularly – he does nevertheless like a measured spin into the lane for a runner or floater, and runs the lanes in transition where he can. Defensively, Haynes often took on the opponent’s best guard or wing offensive player, using his good speed and length to play a decent level of man-to-man defence. He is prone to the occasional gamble, as well as the occasional missed help assignment, yet Haynes grew into his role at ODU and became a very decent two-way […]
Joe Kilgore – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Joe Kilgore SG – 6’4, 200lbs – Born 25th April 1996 Grand Rapids Drive Kilgore was the Windy City Bulls’ first-round pick in the past G-League draft, selected 12th overall in his first professional season out of Texas A&M Corpus Christi. He played in 18 games for the Bulls before being waived in mid-December, then was picked up by the Grand Rapids Drive, where he played nine more. Waived again in late January, the Bulls picked Kilgore back up again in mid-February and played him in one more game before waiving him in late February, whereafter he did not sign or play anywhere else. At A&M CC, Kilgore spent 48.5% of his possessions as either the pick-and-roll ball-handler or in isolation, averaging a combined 0.772 points per possession over the two. That is not a great mark, but then Kilgore was playing the lead guard role. As an athletic 6’5 player, he would surely be better served playing off ball; instead of driving from a stand-still every time, he could be driving curls, ball-reversals, backdoor cutting and the like, running the lanes in transition, spotting up (where he shows some potential and shoots much better off the catch than the bounce), and playing pressure defence. That said, in his time across both the Drive and the Bulls, Kilgore recorded only a 7.2 PER, shooting 12-52 from three-point range. Gotta make more shots than that, because the G-League has plenty of other 6’5 athletes it can go to. – 20th June, 2019 This above is extracted from the following page in the The Basketball Manifesto, an entirely free 3,775 page, 1.2 million word-ish basketball reference book which contains reviews, strategies, ideas, opinions, and a whole lot of scouting on men’s world basketball. – View tons more player profiles like […]
Dakarai Allen – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Dakarai Allen SG – 6’5, 193lbs – Born 4th February 1995 Grand Rapids Drive Grand Rapids have been Allen’s third G-League team in his two G-League seasons, as they traded the returning player rights to Nnanna Egwu to Agua Caliente for him back in January. In those two years, he has continued the incremental development he showed over his four years at San Diego State, while also operating within much the same limitations. One of the best athletes on this or any team, Allen is a rangy wing who best applies his favourable physical profile on defence. His speed makes him able to press hard and recover, to fill in a lot of space, to deflect in the passing lanes, and have some versatility in match-ups on that end. Allen also plays with some good defensive determination, the other half of the battle, and aside from some positional errors, his defence is a strong suit. Allen applies the same determination offensively, albeit to more mixed results. He correctly understands that with his athleticism, he should be catching the ball on the move rather than trying to create from standing with the handle, and he can often be found in transition or cutting to the rim. That said, Allen lacks for finishing poise at times, contorted up some wild things at other times, and is overly right-hand dominant. He also still lacks for any consistency in his jump shot, a big hole in his game which means a lack of floor spacing from a key spacing position. The defence, though, is very commendable. And if Allen sticks in the G-League a while longer and really develops his ability to hit open looks, it will serve the rest of his career well going forward. – 20th June, 2019 This above […]
