How Does Nick Smith Measure up to Recently Drafted Combo Guards?

Nick Smith entered the season with top 5 draft potential as the #3 RSCI freshman, with hype as an elite scoring guard with elite touch on his floaters and mid range shots.

But he had an injury plagued freshman season at Arkansas, where he was in and out of the lineup. Over 17 games he averaged 25.8 minutes, 12.5 pts, 1.6 rebs, 1.7 ast, 1.6 tovs, 0.8 steals, on an underwhelming 47.2% TS.

There is a case that perhaps the injuries caused him to underperform his true potential. His stock has slid from preseason, and currently sits at 13th in ESPN’s most recent mock.

Smith is an interesting case study in buying the dip given his strong priors vs. giving up on him based on a small sample where he may not have been his best self. Let’s dive in:

Priors

At a glance of his 15 game EYBL sample, his hype seemed overblown as he averaged a lukewarm 17.6 points, 3.5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2.3 tovs, 0.5 steals, 0.5 blocks over 15 games making 77.3% FT 37.5% 3P. From watching film, his scoring did not pop visually, as he was hyper-dependent on mid-range and floater shots. This is a problem for a one dimensional scorer, since he needs to score efficiently to make it worth stomaching his myriad flaws.

He did have a young birthday not turning 19 until April after his freshman season, but overall seemed closer to a 4 star talent than a high end 5 star.

It seems that his priors are based on some intersection of getting hot from mid-range when scouts were watching (hence the “elite touch” narrative) and the recent draft success of small SG’s such as Anfernee Simons, Tyler Herro, Jordan Poole, and Tyrese Maxey. These combo guard types have been hitting inordinately often, with picks varying from mid-1st to early 2nd.

The most plausible explanation is that scouts wanted to get ahead of the curve and rated the next successful combo guard as a top 5 pick instead of letting him slide.

Are Combo Guards Underrated in the Draft?

The trouble with reacting to the Poole and Herro success stories is that they really haven’t moved the needle for their respective teams.

Jordan Poole played a role in the Warriors’ 2022 championship run, but it is worth noting that the Warriors won each of the final 3 games of the finals by double digits when his minutes were reduced and he averaged just 17.5 minutes per game.

This should have been a red flag before extending him for 4/128. He needed to be white hot to provide some positive value, and even then he couldn’t be trusted to play with the starters in the most pivotal stretch of the playoffs.

In the 22-23 regular season he regressed violently to the mean, and in the playoffs he was a disaster. And now the Warriors have $128M committed to a guy who at his best is productive, but flawed player who can only be useful in specific situations. And at his worst he is bad.

Tyler Herro has been more consistent throughout his career without wild ups and downs. But after barely making the playoffs with a negative regular season point differential, the Heat have been thriving in the playoffs with Herro out and a band of undrafted role players replacing his minutes. He is now due $120M over the next 4 years, which is not ideal for a player who can so seamlessly be replaced by replacement players.

Anfernee Simons is due $100M over 4 years and even an elite season from Damian Lillard was not enough to drag him into the playoffs. Now Portland is hoping to package him with the #3 pick to acquire somebody who they can make a run with.

Philly has a difficult decision to make with Tyrese Maxey. If they give him a big payday and he regresses from 43% 3P, that may be a painful outcome.

Even When You Win with a Small SG, You Still Lose

The consistent problem with these prospects is that while they got good production per draft slot in a vacuum, they ended up getting albatross contracts that were near impossible to live up to.

It is extremely difficult to predict if a prospect lives up to his potential or not. On average, about half do and half do not. All of these guys hitting is tantamount to 4 similar coins all landing on heads in a row, if you ignore the occasional James Bouknight that fails spectacularly.

What is more predictable is how good they are *if* they hit, and these guys have predictably amounted to fine rotation players, but nothing special thus far. Granted, they are still young enough to have further gains, but in such a limited mold significant gains are unlikely.

In that sense, they have all been drafted in reasonably accurate ranges. Yes it has worked, but the result is a flawed player with limited value rather than the type of upside one would hope to find in the top 10 of the draft.

Back to Nick Smith

Bearing in mind that these guys are all more or less living up to their potential in the NBA, let’s see how Nick Smith’s production at Arkansas compares to their NCAA production per 70 possessions:

Smith is a few months younger than these guys on average, so that’s the point working in his favor. But everything else is working against.

None of these guys are known to be physical players, but they all dwarf Smith as rebounders. He was anemic on the glass for Arkansas, which raises a major concern for his ability to be physical and active. These players are all defensive liabilities, but Smith may be outright unplayable because of his lack of physicality on defense.

Herro and Maxey were also clearly better NCAA passers, and that’s with having to both play as secondary handlers to Ashton Hagans (as well as Immanuel Quickley, who had a good deal of his talent hidden because of this). Arkansas had no true PG, and still Smith was unable to showcase any notable ability to create for his teammates once given frequent touches.

The success stories were all around 50%+ inside the arc, while Smith is floating right under 40%. And most importantly— they all destroy Smith at FT’s. Even if you combine his AAU FT stats with Arky, he is still only 75.8% FT— which should debunk the “elite touch” narrative.

The non-elite shooting is a major issue for Smith. He is not a floor general, he does not pressure the rim, and he will likely be terrible on defense. He needs to be an elite shooter just to have a chance of hanging in the NBA. If he is a merely decent or good shooter, he will bust, and that appears to be what he is on track for. And if we look at shot distribution this is even more grim:

Smith has the lowest rate of rim attempts, and by far the highest rate of mid-range. Again, if you cannot pressure the rim and need to pull up frequently, you cannot be a non-elite shooter. All of these comps were great FT shooters in college and have been great FT shooters in the NBA.

Smith is clearly behind as a shooter at this stage. Given his other flaws and no noteworthy advantages, he should be seen as a vastly inferior prospect to this group.

Bust Risk

There have been plenty of combo guards drafted in round 1 who have busted, so let’s remember some of them briefly and see how they stack up vs. Smith. Note that these are career numbers and average age for players who stayed multiple years, per 70 poss:

Smith essentially played like a poor man’s DaJuan Wagner, who was also #3 RSCI. Smith is a few inches taller, but does not play like it with fewer rebounds and blocks. He is a slightly better shooter than Wagner at the same age, but Wagner had far greater offensive output and still completely flopped in the NBA.

Rashad Vaughn is another young top 10 RSCI SG who was 1” taller, stronger, and much better as a college scorer and rebounder than Smith only only slightly worse at passing.

Dion Waiters played for Syracuse whose zone defense juiced his steal rate and hurt his rebound rate, but he still rebounded considerably better than Smith as he is much thicker. He was a bit older, but a considerably better passer than Smith, and otherwise they were fairly similar. Waiters is the one player on this list who did not bust completely, but he was far from a useful player. Being any worse than Waiters would amount to a bust.

Then we have a list of players who were multiple season NCAA starters who had decent enough statistics and could not even get on the floor in the NBA. Perhaps Smith would have surpassed them as a scorer if he stayed in school for multiple years, but they also have major advantages in categories that are less commonly improved like rebounds and steals. There is no clear indication that he should have a better NBA future than any of them.

Granted, Smith is young and may have not been his best self with the injuries. But even pricing in some underachievement, he fits much better with this group than the lukewarm success cases. There may be some recency bias that because a few combo guards have hit recently, that people have forgotten about their propensity to completely flop over the years.

What About His Injuries?

Smith missed Arkansas first 6 games with an injury, returned for 5 games, got hurt for another for another 13 games, and came back and played the last 12. It is likely that injuries caused him to underperform this season, and with a full healthy season his statistics would have been better.

That said, it is unlikely he would have been better by enough to make him interesting. If he grabbed a few more rebounds, he would still be frighteningly bad on the glass. If he made a few more shots, he would still be frighteningly inefficient.

And playing the final 12 games should have been enough to get into some sort of groove toward the end of the season, but he had an awful NCAA tournament and he averaged just 20 minutes in Arkansas’ final 2 games.

Further, if we dig back to his priors there is nothing to get excited about. He was bad at rebounding in AAU at 3.5 per game. He did not show much PG skills at 3 assists vs 2.3 turnovers. He got almost no steals at 0.5 per game, and his FT% and 3P% were only slightly better, and leave him clearly below the Herro, Maxey, and Poole tier of shooting.

And for a guy who both looks frail and plays frail, struggling to stay healthy as an NCAA freshman could be a red flag that he is not cut out for the physicality of the NBA. Maybe he doesn’t rebound because he knows his body might break down if he has to mix it up physically with stronger guys too often.

Bottom Line

The consensus hype machine zigged on Smith when it should have zagged. His hype is likely based on an overreaction to other recently combo guards succeeding, when really it was not necessary to react at all. Conversely, they all are still flawed and limited NBA players in spite of success, and Smith has more weaknesses and less strengths.

Tyler Herro went #13, Maxey #20, and Poole #28. In retrospect, those slots all seem reasonable. Yes they worked out better than the average pick at each slot, but they could have just as easily underwhelmed or busted like a number of other combo guards historically.

Given that Smith is a clearly inferior talent to that group of success stories, it is difficult to justify him in round 1. If you want to take a poke in round 2, sure it may work out, as he is still young. But there is such little to build on, and he needs so much to go right just to be a solid role player.

He needs to develop into an elite shooter, he needs to become passably bad instead of disastrous on defense, he needs to fill out to have some chance of finishing at the rim and handling NBA physicality, he needs this season’s injuries to be a fluke and not a regular occurrence, and he improve his offensive feel in terms of passing, decision making, and shot selection.

And if ALL of that happens, then you don’t get a star. Your reward is a glorified and few inches taller Lou Williams, who likely needs to get overpaid to be retained.

On average the hyped RSCI players who disappoint as freshmen do not drop enough in the draft. It is tempting to cling on to potential and priors, but RSCI priors are not THAT strong because they are ranked at an extremely fuzzy age and half of the top guys flop completely. If they seem like a flop as a freshman, it typically means they are a flop.

And in this case, there was nothing enticing about Smith entering college. He could have just as easily been #40 RSCI who completely fell off draft radar after a dreadful season and ends up transferring to a mid-major team to try to build his way back up.

Overall, Nick Smith Jr. should be a hard pass in round 1. In round 2, maybe there is enough salvageability to take a stab. But he does not need to get drafted, it is OK to pass on him at any stage. He is a bad mold and has a low upside, and most of the time he will not be good enough to be useful in the NBA.

It is far more efficient to focus on the prospects who have shown ability to perform at a high level than cling on to inefficient high school rankings that erroneously put him in the lottery conversation to begin with.

Examples of Better Prospects Currently Projected in Round 2:

Terquavion Smith (#31): Also an undersized combo guard, but at least he plays to the best of his ability on defense, takes a huge 3PA rate, and showed encouraging development of his PG skills as a sophomore.

Trayce Jackson-Davis (#34): As an undersized big, not a great mold either. But I’d take the next Brandon Clarke over the next Jordan Poole, and TJD has better odds of becoming Clarke than Smith becoming Poole.

Brandin Podziemski (#36): This isn’t even close. They are both 6’5, but Podz is better at just about every aspect of basketball. Perhaps Smith has a slight quickness/athleticism edge, but he gets blown out by Podz in terms of hooping ability.

Amari Bailey (#42): A fellow top 10 RSCI 6’5 freshman combo guard. Bailey needs polish offensively, but he is a better athlete than Smith and he is better defensively by a huge margin. Smith’s offensive edge is relatively small compared to Bailey’s superior defense and athleticism.

Adem Bona (#44): Bona is just a role player as an undersized garbage big. But he plays his role very well, and has an easy path to solid rotation guy.

Mouhamed Gueye (#47): Gueye is a gamble on upside, but it is better to role the dice on the fluid 6’11 guy with a bit of perimeter skill than the underwhelming small SG.

Zach Edey (#48): Awkward mold as a slow giant, may not fit in the NBA, but I’ll take the best NCAA player in the draft over one of the worst.

Julian Phillips (#53): It’s curious how low he is valued. He is 6’8 with 6’11.5 wingspan, decent athlete, and had more assists than turnovers and 82% FT as a freshman. He is not a world beater, but those are so many positive signals for a role playing wing. Maybe he has bad intel that is deflating his stock, but on paper Phillips is a clear 1st round talent.

Judah Mintz (#55): It is difficult to project Mintz defense after playing in the Syracuse zone, but it is probably not worse than Smith. Offensively, Mintz showed more PG potential averaging 4.6 assists vs 2.4 turnovers. He is not comfortable from 3 making just 30.3% 3P on 2.1 3PA/game, but his 75% FT gives him OK enough odds of eventually developing a capable shooter. Overall his passing edge seems more significant than Smith’s shooting edge.

Mintz is 9 months older so this is a closer comparison, but he is also a prospect who projects to be available at the end of round 2.