Chinanu Onuaku C – 6’9, 250lbs – Born 1st November 1996 Greensboro Swarm Salary dumped by the Rockets onto the Mavericks at the start of this past summer, Onuaku was the first between he and Zhou Qi to lose their job as the Rockets’ prospect centre due to the arrival of Isaiah Hartenstein. Two consecutive years in the G-League on assignment to Rio Grande Valley has not seen Onuaku improve his output any; indeed, it even took a slight backwards step. This year, after an unsuccessful training camp stint with the Portland Trail Blazers, Onuaku wound up going the G-League Draft route. He was picked second overall by the Swarm and started at centre for them the entire season, and was given more offensive responsibility than before. This resulted in a greater scoring output, a new affinity for a three-point shot that seemingly is going to need a lot more work before it becomes a thing, and an even higher turnover rate. Still setting a lot of moving screens, still taking dribbles where he perhaps does not need to do so, and still easily stripped by guards reaching down, Onuaku’s offensive game remains fledgling. As above, the mid-range jump shots have moved out to the three-point line, but that is hardly a weapon right now. The seal-and-finish game potentially availed by his strength does exist, but the turnovers make it risky. Onuaku’s hands are still a bit rock-solid, and the hook shot touch a bit rudimentary. But he is at least contributing out there. Incremental progress offensively flanks his good defensive presence at this level. The question is whether he can convert on this to make it back to the NBA. A very good rebounder and a long wingspanned interior defender, Onuaku is an old-school paint big in […]
Tyler Nelson SG – 6’3, 180lbs – Born 9th August 1995 Greensboro Swarm Nelson was the third overall pick in last year’s G-League draft, beginning his first season as a professional after a four-year career at Fairfield in which he averaged greater than 20 points per game across his two upperclassmen seasons. The draft does not draw in the calibre of player that it once did for reasons not worth going into in this space, yet in Nelson, the Swarm found themselves a very versatile scoring player with experience of both working off the ball and being the go-to player on an otherwise undermanned team. The 42.7% from three-point range Nelson has shot here in his first professional season greatly outstrips the 35.3% he shot as a senior. Yet it figures to be more of the norm for him going forward. On a limited Stags team, Nelson’s degree of difficulty on his shots was far harder than it will be hereafter, and regardless of whether he is running off screens or off the dribble, the jump shot is the lynchpin of his offensive game. Everything else and all the savvy that goes with it are built around its success. Nelson shoots very well off of curls and screens, as well as just traditionally spotting up, and he works off of the attention that brings with timely cuts and good passing vision through the space that is opened up. A good decision maker as well, Nelson occasionally takes turns on the ball and pushes it about as well as a small and kind of slow player can, and although it is difficult for him to finish at the rim when contested considering his lack of explosion, Nelson can get to it off of a curl as long as he […]
John Gillon PG – 6’0, 178lbs – Born 31st March 1994 Greensboro Swarm Gillon began the year with the Erie BayHawks, and was acquired by the Swarm in trade in exchange for Cat Barber. The Swarm had been using Barber as a sixth man type off the bench, and clearly felt as though they needed a more traditional type of point guard in their line-up instead. Enter the incredibly solid all-around Gillon, who is exactly that. Gillon’s small size caps his upside and makes it difficult for him to do certain things – for example, finish at the basket, defend any position other than point guard, reach the highest shelf in the supermarket, or become a sumo wrestler. What he lacks in the size and athleticism departments, however, he makes up for with guile and craft. He is a very solid playmaker, a man always probing off the pick-and-roll and able to kick to the perimeter or drop his own floaters around the basket. Gillon does have a tendency to slow things down when he could make quicker decisions; he likes for some reason to take a few seconds before he decides what to do, and while this does not necessarily result in him making bad decisions, he reduces his options by letting a defence get set. He does not need to be a speedster to be able to move slightly quicker before the defence is entirely ready for him, so the sometime-dithering is strange. Nevertheless, half-court decisions are a strength of Gillon’s game, and he pairs it with pushing in transition and some good shooting of his own. As an offensive player, he is solid, judicious and reliable, if not a game-changer. The same sort of thing is true defensively as well. Only able to defend the […]
John Dawson PG – 6’2, 205lbs – Born 12th April 1995 Greensboro Swarm Dawson made the Swarm roster as a local tryout player in 2017, and after returning for this past season has now spent two complete years with the team. He has however played only 66 regular season games in that time, and averages only 13.8 minutes per contest. He is the backup point guard behind the starter of the moment, and his role is to provide some stability. He sort of does this, albeit with distinct limitations. On the offensive end of the court, Dawson does not do a whole lot beyond bringing the ball up. Without great speed or explosion, it is not easy for him to get to the rim at this level or to finish once there; he instead initiates the ball movement, is ready to spot up or come back up top for the reset, and executes simple passes while occasionally taking short floaters or driving and kicking. It is however a very undynamic offensive package; Dawson does not shift the defence nor shoot over it, and is an executor of the simple stuff. This is not merely a measure of the level he is playing at right now, either; he did this while an upperclassman at Liberty, too. Dawson’s better value comes on the defensive end. Again, he is not a speedster, and those that are can go at him. He also does not measure well with his basic defensive stats. But what he does do is understand position and play accordingly. Using the upper body strength that he has, Dawson competes to stay in front, providing some defensive stability off the bench if not a whole lot offensively. It is a limited package, and he plays accordingly. But it has […]
Roscoe Smith PF – 6’8, 215lbs – Born 1st August 1991 Greensboro Swarm Smith joined the Swarm to begin the season as a returning player, and appeared in 23 games, averaging 7.7 points and 4.6 rebounds per game, before being waived by the team in January. It is not clear whether that was due to injury, or simply whether they decided they would rather have Malik Pope, acquired in the corresponding move. Those averages are nevertheless less than half of what Smith averaged five years ago in the then-D-League back with the then-L.A. D-Fenders, after having signed for training camp with the parent club L.A. Lakers. Having been one of the nation’s best rebounders at UNLV and a national champion with Connecticut before that, Smith was once a prized prospect. The last few years, though, have seen him lose that status. When playing at his best, Smith is a tremendous rebounder, an offensive put-back merchant, cutter and occasional post who never much developed a jump shot or ball skill, but who had the physical tools to defend the both the interior and the perimeter, as long as he hustled. Inconsistency, though, came to define his game. And having regressed rather than progressed in his production across his five-year professional career, he needs a redux entering what should be his prime. – 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.
Sam Thompson SF – 6’7, 200lbs – Born 11th November 1992 Greensboro Swarm The hope when Thompson joined Ohio State way back in the day was that he would develop the offensive and playmaking skills required to maximise his excellent physical profile. With good size for a wing, Thompson has the length, frame, athleticism and leaping ability to play anywhere, including at the very top level. What he hasn’t done is add much to that. Thompson has developed some skills, but not much, particularly in the way of offensive nuance. He handles the ball little – very little, in fact – and thus his offensive impact is capped by the quality of the players around him, his own level of movement, and his shot making ability off the ball. Thompson’s offensive game therefore as a result is all jump shots and dunks, and without having added shooting consistency to his sporadic outside range, this makes him inefficient offensively overall. You can run lob plays for Thompson, you can encourage him to run in transition, you can run the occasional curl play to the rim or the pull-up, you can stand him in the corners and you can prompt him to work the baseline. Yet in needing setting up offensively almost always, being streaky with his shooting and having questionable offensive flow – sometimes hesitating, sometimes taking bad ones – Thompson remains a specimen more than a reality on that end. That said, the above profile also makes for a player who can still play in any league in the world, as long as they can defend. Here, Thompson measures out much better. He can defend either forward spot with regularity and is a good option in switches at all five positions, and although he is thin, he compensates […]
Isaiah Wilkins SF/PF – 6’8, 205lbs – Born 23rd September 1995 Greensboro Swarm In Zach Smith’s profile two pages ago, I mentioned that he plays some technically precise defence. I stand by it. But no one plays as technically precise of defence on this Swarm team as Wilkins does. Raised in the endlessly disciplined defence of the Virginia Cavaliers’ Pack Line, Dominique’s nephew is a testament to the value of advanced statistics. Were you to look at his rebounding numbers and his stocks totals, you would not know him to be as good of a defender as he is. This is only true inside the arc, to be fair – when called upon to come out to the perimeter, Wilkins does not seem to have the ability to change direction quickly enough to stay with the play, and thus all his technical understanding is a bit meaningless if he is not fast enough to apply it. Yet on the interior, he makes good plays on the ball and reads the play very well, fuelled by an excellent hustle and some sneaky athleticism. Wilkins is built like a small forward and plays like a centre, which makes him something of a power forward by default. He left the Cavaliers, though, needing to be able to expand his perimeter game. Be it as a small forward or a face-up four, his future at this size is out there. Wilkins rarely shot from outside with the Cavaliers, and when he did, he did not do so well. Offensively, he was mostly a cutter and bit-part scrapper with no go-to areas of the court. In his season with the Swarm, Wilkins has sought to prove that he can become an outside shooter, and there have been some early results – 35.1% shooting […]
Zach Smith SF/PF – 6’8, 216lbs – Born 5th January 1996 Greensboro Swarm Zhaire Smith got all the plaudits and the NBA first-round draft selection last summer; he was younger, more athletic, was able to play more positions and was already better in terms of his basketball skill set than Zach. Yet there were two Z. Smiths that the Texas Tech Red Raiders rode the defence of all the way to the 2018 Elite Eight, and now that he too is a professional with the Swarm, Zach is transferring that strong defensive versatility to the G-League as well. A very good run-and-jump athlete in his own right, Smith has the body more of a small forward, especially considering that he does not have the length an athlete of this calibre would normally be assumed to have, yet his ability to leap like he does makes him quite the lob catcher and dunker. Indeed, very rarely does he catch in the post or create with the handle; there is no point. It doesn’t suit him. A man like this should be catching the ball on the move at every opportunity, and in crashing the offensive glass, cutting where he can and running the court, Smith does just that. Very occasionally, he will add a jump shot to the pile, but it is a marginal part of his game that needs developing in the future. As of right now, the offensive game is cutting, running, dunking, making some interior passes, adding vertical spacing and very occasionally dropping a hook shot. Polished, no. Powerful, yes. Smith’s best usage is on the defensive end. Not being strong or wide does at least make him light, and thus quite laterally quick. While Smith will overhelp as a means of compensating for the fact […]
Malik Pope PF – 6’10, 220lbs – Born 25th July 1996 Greensboro Swarm With his height, length, versatility, perimeter inclinations and very memorable name, Pope has been on the NBA radar since his San Diego State career began, if not before. He developed a bit in his years with the Aztecs, but perhaps never lived up to the lofty billing, and now finds himself in the G-League rather than the NBA. Pope’s first professional season did start on the L.A. Lakers’ summer league team. Instead of signing in the NBA, though, he went to Greece with PAOK Thessaloniki, only joining the G-League in mid-January. But Pope has never entirely figured out how he wants to or should play, and PAOK couldn’t figure it out either. A tall fluid athlete with long arms, Pope has always played with the smooth face-up game that suggests he could be a floor-stretching four or five man in short order. But the jump shot has never become a big-enough weapon. He hits a few, but only a few, and teams will generally feel comfortable leaving him open. As a roll man and cutter, Pope’s length allows him to sneak the basket with good body control, but his very limited handle makes it difficult to change direction, and his limited core strength sees him struggle to finish through contact. Perhaps the potential he will best realise will be on the defensive end. Although his rotations in help defence can be slow, Pope has proven himself over time to be a good post defender one on one, even though there are many match-ups down there he gives up strength to. This perhaps bodes well for his potential as a undersized but skilled stretch five, in the Chimezie Metu role. This is not however a big […]
Luke Petrasek PF/C – 6’10, 215lbs – Born 17th August 1995 Greensboro Swarm The Hornets have had their eye on Petrasek since he left Columbia back in 2017. They signed him for training camp that first year, have now allocated him to Greensboro for two consecutive seasons, and snuck in a summer league stint in between them. What they see in him is quite clear – they see a 6’10 player with a sweet corner jump shot, and they are hoping they will be able to make something of that over time. Petrasek’s game is heavily jump shot focused to the point that he is pretty much a specialist. Back in his Columbia days, he would get some touches in the post, normally attacking the basket with the dribble but also sometimes turning round for the jump shot, never utilising a hook at all. That has not been a part of his professional repertoire, though, because the opposing defenders are always going to be too big and strong now. Instead, Petrasek is the lefty spot-up guy who takes shots within the flow of the offence, never the creator or the aggressor. In being thin and without great length or athleticism – he does not even jump much to shoot – Petrasek is immediately disadvantaged defensively. There are no good match-ups for him, and he is a sub-par rebounder because he cannot gain and hold position, nor does he have the speed to readily rebound out of his area. Petrasek is thus a floor spacing option who will occasionally cut to the rim, occasionally make the extra pass to a cutter and try to compete while overmatched defensively, yet for the most part he is just on the weak side, waiting for a look. Nothing wrong with that. He’s […]
Jaylen Barford SG – 6’3, 202lbs – Born 23rd January 1996 Greensboro Swarm This was Barford’s first professional season, and as with so many G-Leaguers, it started with the summer league/training camp/allocation cycle, all via the Charlotte Hornets. What the Hornets will have seen in him at Arkansas was a level of versatility that belied his height. Due to his height, Barford is listed as a combo guard generally, but it is hard to identify his game as such. Not anymore, anyway. A scorer at heart, Barford would take isolation possessions for the Razorbacks and handle the ball up top quite a bit more than he did with the Swarm, and also quite a bit better than he did here as well. As a member of the Swarm, Barford was more of an off-ball perimeter shooter and a one-man fast break machine who created offence through movement. That said, he needs to improve his shot making from every area of the court. The very occasional post touches of his Razorback days will surely not continue, and Barford will need to improve his ballhandling, ability to shoot off the dribble, changes of direction and getting to the rim if he is to be a combo guard at high levels going forwards. As of right now, short for a point guard and without great athleticism or length, he is particularly short for the off guard game that otherwise better suits him. Barford however does not let this affect his defensive tenacity. The word so often used to describe him on that end is ‘bulldog’, and it very much has a basis in fact. Barford has strength on his frame and is very competitive with it, putting forth good effort and playing as physically as he can, trying to compensate for […]
