![]() Having a player who can simply get in the lane and get to the foul line would be a huge boost to the team. It is a major thing holding their offense back. The Orlando Magic have obviously struggled to get to the line for the last decade. ![]() McGowens is hovering around that territory as a prolific foul drawer and free throw shooter. James Harden, perhaps the most prolific wing player at getting to the foul line, had a free throw rate of 54.0-percent last year. That essentially means, he was shooting one free throw for every two field goal attempts. He had a free throw rate of 49.1-percent (47.4-percent in Big Ten). He routinely missed opportunities for assists with all the attraction he gained in the paint.īut that trait though suggests McGowens knows how to get to the line. He was not doing much to shoot mid-range jumpers and he does not have much of a game off the dribble outside of those finishes at the rim. He was largely getting to the rim or bust throughout his college career. That driving ability is his biggest selling point.īut this driving knack might account for some of his inefficiencies. He has enough on-ball sense to know when and how to attack and the size to finish when he gets there. He is tall and lanky enough and is a smart enough attacker that when he gets to the basket he will burst through and finish at the rim with force or slow down and absorb contact to finish at the rim. The question will truly be what translates from his college game into a likely smaller role in the NBA. The Cornhuskers handed their entire offense to him and he did all he could to keep that team afloat.Īt 6-foot-6.5 with a 6-foot-8.75 wing span, McGowens certainly has the size NBA scouts like for a wing. There is no doubt there is talent there and someone who can be an impact player. The question is how does that translate to the NBA? This is the perfect definition of a player who was just a pure scorer and did whatever he had to do to help his team win and was probably asked to do too much. That is a reflection of how much the Cornhuskers had to rely on McGowens and the fact that McGowens is not going to be able to lift a team into contention on his own. Nebraska was not a great team - 10-22, 4-16 in the Big Ten. His usage rate hung at 27.2-percent and he was able to get to the line for a little more than six free throw attempts per game. McGowens just had a lot of field goals - 12.8 per game for the whole season (4.7 3-point attempts per game) and 13.3 per game in conference play (4.7 3-point attempts per game). In Big Ten play, McGowens averaged 17.3 points per game and 4.8 rebounds per game with shooting splits of 39.5/28.9/85.8. That free throw percentage would suggest there is a lot more of his shooting to unlock. McGowens averaged 16.8 points per game and 5.2 rebounds per game with shooting splits of 40.3/27.4/83.1. Still, McGowens is an impressive scorer with Lottery-level talent who will likely go late in the first round. He might have done well to stay another year in college - like Jaden Ivey, a likely top-five pick, or Keegan Murray did - to show off the improvement in his skills. But there are a lot of parts of his game that need to fill in to be successful in the NBA. He is an undoubtedly talented player with a knack for scoring. Nebraska guard Bryce McGowens is very much at the center of this kind of transition for young players in the league. And it is the biggest challenge facing promising guard Bryce McGowens. The transition from college star to NBA role player can be a tough one. These are among the best 450 players in the world, not everyone is going to make the cut.Īnd not everyone is going to have the ball. Plenty of really gifted players and scorers slip through the cracks because they get put on the wrong team or they are unable to make this adjustment. And oftentimes it is the ones who successfully make this transition that find success. Only a few of those players will be doing that when they get to the league. They had the ball in their hands and the ability and the necessity to score. Most of the players entering the draft were the stars of their teams. Team context and the roles a lot of players have played in college will be vastly different than in the NBA. It is a point we have come across plenty already in draft discussions. It is perhaps the one, most essential question NBA decision-makers have to make as they evaluate and assess players in the draft. ![]() There is always a difficult transition for a lot of college players when they make their way to the league. By Philip Rossman-Reich 3 months ago Follow Tweet
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |