Is Isaiah Collier Worthy of #1 Overall Hype?

This year’s draft is weaker than normal, and the #1 overall spot is considered open for the taking. ESPN currently has Isaiah Collier ranked #1, he has averaged 17.3 pts and 4.5 assists on 60.9% TS for USC, and has good PG size at 6’5 with a strong frame.

Collier’s strengths are heavily indexed on his abilities as a bulldozing, as he excels at getting to the rim and finishing, as well as getting to the free throw line. He is shooting 55.7% inside the arc, and 73.5% from the line.

Otherwise he is fairly limited. While he is a willing passer, he struggles with turnovers, averaging more turnovers (4.6) than assists (4.5). He is making his 3’s shooting 8/20, but only attempts 2.5 per game, as this is not his comfort zone. And he does not offer much as a defensive player or rebounder as he has a lackluster motor— you are explicitly drafting him for his abilities to get in the paint and score or draw free throws.

For a player heavily indexed on one outlier strength, let’s take a look back at the GOAT one dimensional bulldozer: Corey Maggette.

Remembering Corey Maggette

Maggette was drafted 13th overall in 1999 by Orlando Magic. He had a decent 20 year old rookie season, and then was understandably traded to the Clippers to clear salary for the Magic to sign Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady.

He then went on to have 8 seasons of solid box score #’s for LAC. Statistically he was an above average player, with an 18.6 PER and 1.1 BPM in his Clippers career. This was based mostly on his unique ability to draw free throws as he had a monster .635 FT rate, and made 82.4%.

Back then I was a big fan of Maggette because his style seemed so efficient. He was able to post 57.8% TS on 25.7 usg over his Clippers career in an era where league average TS ranged from 52-54%, so he was a solidly above average scorer in both volume and efficiency.

But he came with flaws attached. He was a passable 3 point shooter, making 33% on 2.5 attempts per game for the Clippers. This was fine, especially back then, but he did not provide the best spacing for his teammates. He also had SG dimensions at 6’6 with short arms, and was not particularly good or versatile on D. And he was not a particular good passer, with a slightly worse than 1:1 AST:TO ratio when the league average was around 1.5.

While his scoring was efficient on its own, all of these flaws made it harder for him to fit on a good team as he was below average at passing, shooting, and D. Let’s review his career and where he may have ranked in terms of goodness on various teams in his prime. Exp W’s = expected wins based on team point differential.

He joined a young Clippers team where Lamar Odom was the clear best player the first season, and then they traded for Elton Brand to be the clear top dog for the remaining seasons.

He was still improving over his first few seasons in LA, but his 23 year old season stands out as notable. The top 4 players in minutes played on that roster were 26 year old Andre Miller, 23 year old Elton Brand, 23 year old Maggette, and 23 year old Lamar Odom— and they still couldn’t win 30 games.

This is an extreme example of the sum being less than the parts. Miller + Odom had their worst seasons of their 20s, and Brand had his worst full season as a Clipper. Maggette had his typical Clipper production, but provided no assistance to his teammates outside of his own scoring.

At age 25 he had his most impactful season of his career, where he vied for 2nd best player with Bobby Simmons for a team that was almost .500. Maggette had better box score stats, but Simmons played slightly more minutes and fit a better role player mold.

The next season, the Clippers had their best season of his tenure when he got hurt and only played 32 games. The Clippers acquired 30 year old Cuttino Mobley and 36 year old Sam Cassell, who were well past their primes but still capable of decent minutes. Chris Kaman had the best season of his career at age 23. And Elton Brand had by FAR the best season of his career at age 26.

Clippers made the playoffs and beat a weak 44 win Denver team in round 1, and then gave the 54 win Nash/Marion/Diaw/Raja Bell Suns a decent run before losing in 7 games. Maggette was healthy and productive for the playoffs, yet was only 7th on the team in minutes played, slightly behind Quinton Ross and just ahead of Vladimir Radmanovic.

The following season he was healthy and productive again, but Kaman and Brand both saw significant declines in their output in spite of being 24 and 27 respectively. Cassell and Mobley regressed as well, although it could have been due to natural aging for them. Regardless, the Clippers dropped back to 40 wins and missed the playoffs again.

The following year Brand got hurt and played just 8 games, which left Maggette as the best player on a terrible team. After that he signed with Golden State as a free agent, and struggled to fit in his first season as he was starting to age and saw downticks offensively.

Maggette’s last decent year came in Steph Curry’s rookie season, where the two players vied for best box score stats on the team. That said, Maggette was 2nd worst in RAPM on the team, ahead of only Monta Ellis who had similar fit issues. CJ Watson and Anthony Morrow were slightly behind him in box score, but well ahead in RAPM, because they fit better role player molds. And once you have Steph, you need decent role players much moreso than a one dimensional bulldozer.

And this is the story of Maggette’s career. Always doing well for himself, but it always came at the expense of his teammates. He was below average at both 3 + D and not a passer, so you can only get so far with him. The only time his team ever made the playoffs was when his minutes were limited coming off the bench.

So you are left with a guy who can be the best player on a bad team, 2nd or 3rd best player on a mediocre team, or a bench player on a playoff team. There’s no scenario where he is a key contributor to a contender, which is a major flaw in the mold.

How Good Was Maggette?

Assessing Maggette’s ultimate value is a tricky proposition. Based on pure box score numbers, he was a top 15-20% player for #11 to #15 draft range. But his overall impact was clearly less than his box score due to his flaws, and he was in his ideal context to thrive playing for a perennial mediocrity.

A guy like Maggette can help a team climb from 25 to 35 wins, but those are low leverage wins that nobody cares about. People care about climbing from 40 wins to 50 wins, or 50 wins to 55 wins, and his archetype struggles to help in this regard because it pairs so poorly with other good players.

It is better to have a Maggette than a bust, but for the ultimate goal of building a contender, you need to target guys that can possibly contribute to the first unit of a 50+ win team. And the one dimensional bulldozer mold is not built for that.

Collier vs Maggette

It’s only been 8 games thus far for Collier, and his final numbers may look quite different, but let’s do a quick and dirty comparison of how his freshman year has compared to Maggette’s freshman season at Duke. Numbers are pace adjusted per 40:

Maggette is 1” taller at 6’6, and he played much bigger with double the rebound rate and triple the block rate. They had similar scoring outputs, although Maggette was more efficient inside the arc, drew slightly more free throws, and attempted more 3PA even in the stone age of 1999. And Maggette played a more difficult schedule, facing an average kenpom DRtg of 95.1 compared to Collier’s 102.3.

Maggette also played for the highest rated kenpom team in its 26 year history, while Collier’s USC team has underachieved early, dropping to #34 kenpom after starting the season at #21.

They are similar, but Maggette is a cut above across the board. The one advantage that Collier has is that he makes a greater effort to impersonate a PG with nearly double the assist rate. Although he is not entirely successful at it, as he is a horribly inaccurate passer and has more turnovers than assists.

And frankly, his turnovers do not do justice to how bad his passing has been. It is abysmal to watch, as he is responsible for some of the worst passes that any NBA prospect has ever made.

Turnover Woes

Not every bad pass that Collier has made has shown up in the box score.

Against Seton Hall, he turned a 99% transition layup into a near turnover. He also made a pass that Josh Morgan had low odds of catching, but the turnover was scored for Morgan.

Against Gonzaga, he threw an inaccurate lob that Morgan couldn’t catch and finish, and was scored as a missed dunk for Morgan.

And some of his turnovers are unspeakably bad, like the time he threw a pass 10 feet over his teammate’s head, or the 2 on 1 fastbreak that he tragically squandered. If he cannot even make simple passes remotely on target, how can he ever be trusted to pass efficiently vs an NBA half court defense?

Inaccurate passing is not the only culprit in his high turnover rate. He is also is uncharacteristically oafy for a PG prospect.

Against Oklahoma, he was benched for most of the final few minutes for having some nasty turnovers. Then with 42 seconds left, he was put back in the game with a play called for him, and he tripped over his own feet for a turnover.

In the Nike Hoop Summit, he tried to corral a loose ball and ended up tripping over the ball. This stood out as particularly bad, as I cannot recall ever seeing this happen to a decent NBA guard.

These are collectively uniquely bad lowlights. Young prospects can struggle with turnovers to some extent and improve as they age, but it is difficult to recall any past prospect who turned it over in such horrific fashion.

Poison Ivey

One recent prospect who Collier has parallels to is Jaden Ivey. Let’s look at Ivey’s career NCAA stats compared to Collier per 100 possessions:

Again— still a very small sample for Collier, but it’s against slightly weaker competition than Ivey and is unlikely to drastically improve as he plays more games against better defenses.

Both players are combo guards who get to the rim and line a bunch. And both lack a degree of smoothness to their movement, and are bad on defense.

Ivey is more explosive with far more dunks, more comfortable ripping 3’s, and much better rebounding as Collier’s defensive effort is inconsistent. Collier’s main advantage is a higher assist rate, but it comes with a worst A:TO in spite of similar scoring loads.

You typically want guard prospects to be willing passers, but if 3 extra assists come at the cost of 4 extra turnovers with equal scoring, the additional passing is likely a net negative.

Right now Monty Williams needs to be begged to play Ivey real minutes on a 2-18 team because his flaws as a one dimensional scorer with subpar passing + D makes him such a net negative. He still has a chance of eventually becoming something in the NBA, but his current outlook is grim.

If Collier continues to play like a poor man’s Ivey throughout the season, then why would anybody want to draft him? Ivey is facing serious bust risk himself— a poor man’s version is going to be a heavy favorite to bust with no real upside.

How Good Will Collier be in the NBA?

The challenge with being an elite slasher is that it requires good passing and limited mistakes. A player can be an elite shooter and spacer without making great decisions by simply catching and shooting. But navigating traffic requires constant decision making as well as smooth footwork and ball skills. If a lead handler cannot consistently find open teammates and limit turnovers, it’s going to sorely limit the offense as a whole.

In the best case, where Collier manages to heavily trim down his turnovers and become a capable NBA passer, you are looking at something like a PG version of Maggette. He needs to be much better at passing than Maggette to be his equal, because he does not have the same size, rebounding, athleticism, or scoring talent.

And in that case, how big of a win is it? You get a guy who can be best player on a bad team, 2nd or 3rd best on an average team, and bench sparkplug on a playoff team. It’s something, but it’s not an exciting range of outcomes because his usefulness falls off a cliff in higher quality lineups.

And more likely, he is a cheap knockoff of Maggette with bigger flaws and weaker strengths, and he busts.

This is a horrible range of outcomes. Forget #1 overall, do you even want to draft this player in round 1? Even in a weak draft, there are plenty of guys whose potential outcomes range from bust to decent role player. This should be valued over a mediocre bulldozer prospect, as good teams need average role players much more than they need a heavily flawed #1 who doesn’t fit with other stars.

The fact that he is rated above Nikola Topic is comical. Topic is also an outlier at getting to the rim and finishing, except he is taller, longer, much better at passing, doesn’t have horrifying turnover issues, and is the far better shooter. He is strong where Collier is strong, strong where Collier is weak, and is 10 months younger.

It is difficult to envision any scenario where Collier ends up as the more useful pro without Topic getting ravaged by injuries.

DJ Wagner has fallen out of favor dropping to #24 in ESPN’s most recent mock, but is clearly the superior prospect as he is 7 months younger and is capable of creating offense without turning it over.

Reed Sheppard is currently listed at #36 at ESPN, as he is smaller than Collier and cannot pressure the rim to save his life. But he is much better at defense, passing, and shooting, which gives him much better odds of contributing to a good team, and he should clearly be valued higher.

Or even Collier’s teammate Kobe Johnson (ranked #42 on ESPN) is not a shot creator. But he offers much better defense, better passing, and likely better shooting as well. He’s never going to be a star, but could be a decent role player which is better than a one dimensional bulldozer.

Frankly, you can argue almost anybody other than Bobi Klintman as a better prospect than Collier. He is a bad player in a bad mold.

Bottom Line

Collier’s distribution of traits can trip people up as he has one clear and significant strength of bulldozing. He has flaws, but every prospect has flaws, and sometimes flaws improve.

But the disconnect is that his flaws are uniquely heavy. He plays sloppy, out of control, and makes horribly inaccurate passes on top of having subpar 3 + D.

Ability to play in control is one of the most underrated qualities in a prospect— especially for a lead guard who is the team’s floor general. The GOAT of playing under control is Chris Paul, and this strength played a large role in him being best player in NBA history under 6’3.

There are a number of elements that go into controlling the game— body control, controlling the ball, having controlled footwork, knowing how to manipulate the defense, and making intelligent decisions. CP3 excels at all of these aspects, whereas Collier is a disaster across the board.

Collier is essentially inverse Point God when it comes to controlling the game. It is special how bad he is at it, and any NBA offense that relies on him to lead is probably going to hell.

This heavy, heavy flaw is married to his one strength of bulldozing, and as a subpar 3 + D guy he needs to have the ball to be useful. Which means that whoever drafts him needs to live and die (mostly the latter) with his horrible floor general skills, and it’s extremely difficult to see everything adding up to a positive player.

Collier might have one of the worst seasons in NBA history as a rookie, and could challenge Anthony Bennett for worst #1 pick of all time if he actually gets selected there.