Is Scoot Henderson the 2nd Best Player in the Draft?

After a promising ‘21-22  season for G League Ignite and an impressive preseason performance vs Victor Wembanyama, Scoot Henderson seemed like a lock for a top 2 pick.

But since then he has had an underwhelming G League season where he has been in and out of the lineup with injuries. It’s been good enough given that he recently turned 19, as he is averaging 29.5 mins 18.1 pts 4.9 rebs 6.4 asts 3.4 tovs 1.3 steals 56.6% TS. But he has not quite looked like a can’t miss star.

His upside is as a high usage point guard who teams can build an offense around. He is only 6’2, but is functionally bigger with a strong frame and excellent 6’9 wingspan. He is quick with a good handle and passing, and can create a high volume of offense for himself and his teammates.

The downside is he is a high friction player who needs to be carefully built around, and cannot seamlessly fit it into any lineup. He is only an OK shooter, making 34.5% 3P on 2.6 attempts per game and 75% FT. Also he is a merely good but not great athlete, which results in a disappointing amount of rim attempts and a mid-range heavy shot distribution. His frame and length should help him on defense, but he is nevertheless small and prone to getting beat off the dribble. He also has a bad habit of picking up lazy reach in fouls after getting beat.

It’s tricky to find a perfect comparison, especially since it requires a cross league comparison of G League to NCAA. But let’s review some past high draft picks who fit a similar mold based on pace adjusted per 40 stats:

At a glance it may seem great that he is similar to these types against a higher level of competition, but G League is currently undergoing a small ball offensive explosion with hardly any big men to protect the rim. The “Opp D” column shows the average defensive rating each player faced, and Scoot’s shows the offensive friendly nature of the G League. It’s difficult to estimate a precise exchange rate from NCAA to G, but this likely makes this cross league comparison close enough.

The scary point is that he is on the low end of dunk rate, and not for lack of trying. He is 11/17 on dunk attempts this season, and seems to be an eternal optimist in his ability to hammer attempts home. He also has the lowest 2P% of the bunch in spite of almost no rim protection in the G League. It appears he may not be athletic enough to consistently get by his defender and finish at the rim, which is a major red flag for a guy whose main value is meant to come from penetrating the defense.

The interesting thing is how similar all of these guys are with such a wide range of outcomes outside of Morant being an obvious stud.

This signifies Scoot’s status as a boom or bust prospect. If there is a signal that differentiates the successes from the failures among the non-Morants— Fox, Wall, and Rose all played for elite John Calipari teams whereas Fultz and Dennis Smith Jr. NCAA teams massively disappointed. Scoot falls somewhere in the middle, as G League Ignite is bad, but they are always bad and are a bit less bad when he plays. So let’s dive into mechanics to try to find clarity:

Ideally you are hoping for a Derrick Rose or John Wall type PG, but Scoot isn’t the same level of explosive athlete, and he is behind Wall defensively at the same age. He has enough going to have a shot at matching pre-injury Rose, but this seems close to the pinnacle of optimism for him.

The more realistic hope for him may be as a De’Aaron Fox type. He is athletically closer to Fox as a quick and fluid type, but he also has better length + much better strength which theoretically gives him more upside. But Fox got to the rim a ton in college, and seemed to have better feel than Scoot on top of more shake and/or athletic pop. So it’s not as cut and dry as Scoot’s body making him better— both guys have their own set of advantages and there’s a good case Fox is the better prospect based on pre-draft.

On the downside, Scoot has similarities to a couple of disappointing PG’s from 2017: Dennis Smith Jr and Markelle Fultz.

He is not as explosive as DSJ, but he is longer and smoother. They have a similar check-boxy feel as guys who offered just enough of everything to qualify as a high upside PG, but didn’t have a clear calling card to greatness. But this is a mean comp— DSJ’s feel eye tested as horrible, and his NC State team massively underachieved in spite of his productive box score.

Scoot is similar to smaller Fultz in the sense that they are both long, fluid, and a bit too dependent on mid-range pull-ups. Similar to DSJ, Fultz had a terrible college team which suggested that his statistical output may not translate to wins. And while he made 41% 3P, he only made 65% FT. His team struggles and poor free throw shooting were underrated signs of his downside. But he also had a robust box score for a young PG with elite dimensions, and was a viable #1 overall candidate at least on paper.

In spite of his flags, Fultz was likely a better prospect in Scoot. But he hit a low end outcome as a shooter, and may have been further plagued by psychological issues. Regardless of the cause, Fultz shows that sometimes talented prospects fail to realize their potential.

Where Will Scoot Land on this Spectrum?

There is a wide range of outcomes for Scoot, but he seems closer to DSJ/Fultz than Wall/Rose. He should be better than DSJ and Fultz on average, but he has no major advantages over them that would require catastrophe for him to disappoint similarly.

Even if “B athlete” is a slightly harsh description and he is a B+ or even A- athlete, he is not close to Wall or Rose who are athletic outliers. And without that calling card to success, what could be his path to greatness?

He also lacks their pre-draft winning pedigree, and his defensive is actively bad. Perhaps he can become a better passer than them, but it is difficult to see how he does so by enough to offset the athletic disparity. Overachieving as a 3 point shooter is likely his best path, but that’s essentially praying for good luck that could happen to any prospect.

And this is the wrong archetype to pray for perfect luck, because there is limited value for these types when they become merely decent.

The Downside of Ball Dominance

The flaw with heliocentric players is that they cannot be paired together without a significant erosion of value.

The best example is the Miami Heat super team with LeBron, Wade, and Bosh. The prior season leading their individual teams, they had elite ratings via real plus-minus of +9.9, +6.2, and +3.7 respectively. Based on advanced stats, it appeared they would collectively smash NBA records and be completely unstoppable. But in their first season together, they dropped to +5.7, +4.1, and +2.7, the Heat won 58 games and lost in the finals to Dallas.

Because these players needed the ball to max out their value and did not provide the best spacing for their teammates, there was a truckload of value lost due to poor fit. They were talented enough to win 2 championships in 4 years anyway, but based on their performances in ideal conditions that should have been an easy 4 for 4.

Who Needs a Heliocentric Point Guard Now?

If we look at the list of top 10 contenders, the only team that even a prime Derrick Rose could really help is the Clippers. They are in a rare situation where they are loaded with quality wings, and they have two of the lowest friction stars in the league in Kawhi + PG who complement a high usage offensive hub very well. But every other team has plenty of creation, and outside of *maybe* Boston it is difficult to see even a prime D Rose solidly moving the needle. Whereas teams like Philly, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Memphis, Denver, Phoenix, Golden State, and Dallas have limited use for a player like him, and have greater use for a quality role playing 3 + D wing.

Even if we drop down to the mid-tier of teams, Utah and Brooklyn are really the only two teams that sorely need a PG. And there are still more teams that where one would be ill fitting: Portland has Dame, Lakers have LeBron, OKC has Shai, Chicago has LaVine + DeRozan, Miami has Jimmy/Bam + needs shooting, Toronto has FVV/Barnes/Siakam and needs shooting.

Especially Atlanta experienced first hand this summer how hard it is to improve the roster when your star is a high volume little guy, as they traded multiple draft picks for another high usage little guy in Dejounte Murray. The result has been that both guys have seen a hit to their output and the team has slightly regressed. 

And this is after pairing two young all-stars together. If you have a low-mid tier starting PG in the mold such as Jeff Teague, there is no value to keeping him if you want to add another heliocentric guy. And if a player is any worse, there is hardly any value to rostering him at all (see: late career Westbrook).

Should high usage PG’s be ignored?

This is not to say that Rose isn’t a valuable piece to target in the draft. The Grizzlies used #2 overall on Ja Morant in 2019, and since then have vaulted to one of the better teams in the West for two consecutive years. They built around him well, and given the youth of their core, they have good odds of eventually a championship.

But Morant was dripping with goodness as a prospect, and obviously worth a #2 overall choice.

Teams can get into trouble when they reach for a creator who proves to be less than great, like the Rockets did taking Jalen Green #2 overall over Evan Mobley. Not only did they miss out on an obviously superior prospect in Mobley, but they are now left with an enigma in Green.

What happens if they land #2 overall this year? On one hand, Scoot would be a welcome addition so they can cut KPJ and have an actual point guard. But on the other hand, you cannot have a core of Scoot and Green and expect good outcomes. They pair horribly on offense since they both need the ball, and it is impossible to hide them both defensively. If the Rockets ever did claw their way into the playoffs, their defense would get shredded with two small liabilities for teams to hunt.

And then if Scoot underwhelms, the cycle repeats. Or if he hits a middle ground outcome where he is a +3/-2 offense/defense, that will be a helpful piece to get out of the gutter. But it will be extremely difficult to surround him with adequate role players to build a team fit for a playoff run.

Stephon Marbury is an example of #4 overall player who seemed to have a good career on paper as a 2x all-star, but because of lackluster defense, efficiency, and shooting, he never made a real impact. He never started for a team that won more than 45 games or a playoff series, and had a career record of 361-455 as a starter. When the Nets traded him for Jason Kidd, they immediately went to back to back finals. When the Suns replaced him with Steve Nash and hired Mike D’Antoni, they immediately won 62 games.

While Marbury had a good career on paper, he had little functional value outside of helping bad teams stay out of the gutter. For teams to become serious contenders, they needed to replace him with a superior ball handler. Even though he became as good as he was supposed to become, it was nevertheless an all-time draft fumble to pick him over Ray Allen who was better in a vacuum and a far better fit on contending teams. 

Even a largely forgotten role player like Kerry Kittles who was never considered close to Marbury’s caliber should have been valued higher, as he was a crucial role player for the Nets team that went to consecutive finals, and arguably the second best player on the team behind Jason Kidd.

“All Star Upside” is a Scam

Ultimately a +1/0 role player crushes a +3/-2 offensive hub in value, because you still need many more of those role players and cannot fit another hub without a significant value erosion.

This runs counter to conventional wisdom, which is to get the creator search out of the way. On the contrary, teams should be incredibly selective about committing to the right creator. When in doubt they should focus on adding role players to have an ideal cast in place when the right go to scoring option comes available.

And sometimes, you may even get lucky targeting role players when Kawhi Leonard becomes capable of being the #1 option offensively on an NBA champion. Or when Franz Wagner goes from 12.5 pts/game as NCAA soph to 19 pts/game as NBA soph.

Little Guy Longevity

The two traits that age the best are height and shooting, and incidentally the little guys who get by on athleticism such as Rose, Westbrook, Wall, Marbury, and Iverson are prone to harsh early age cliffs. Rose and Wall had an early decline exacerbated by injury, but Scoot has dealt with injuries this year as well.

Of course Scoot isn’t the same level of athleticism as any of these guys so it feels dubious even imagining he can reach a similar upside.

The little guys who age the most gracefully are the ones with high skill and feel such as CP3, Curry, Conley, Jrue, and Nash. Perhaps Scoot works his way into this group over time– Conley and Jrue did not stand out as skilled as NCAA freshmen. But as of right now neither his skill nor feel seems exceptional.

Where Does This Leave Scoot?

It’s hard to say. It may be too soon to completely close the book on him developing into a pre-injury Derrick Rose, but those odds are looking increasingly slim. De’Aaron Fox is a more realistic outcome, but even Fox is likely better than his median. And if he is less than Fox, the next step down is a Jeff Teague, which is hardly what teams are seeking at #2 overall. And he clearly has the risk of being a Fultz or DSJ level disappointment.

It is arguably still OK to draft him at #2 overall, due to lack of better options. Brandon Miller was looking like the best alternative, but he hurt his odds of leapfrogging Scoot with his involvement in a fatal shooting which may make teams uncomfortable taking him as high as #2.

But it’s also OK to just not take Scoot and take any number of guys instead. Brandon Miller is an infinitely better mold and might be a better prospect too. If you want to price in 10% odds of getting his career derailed by legal issues, that’s not so bad considering the more likely odds that Scoot will never be good enough to help any contending team.

And going further down, are we sure that Scoot is better than Cason Wallace? Cason’s by far top statistical comp at barttorvik.com is Jrue Holiday. It is not particularly likely that he develops into a player of Jrue’s caliber, but is it really much more likely that Scoot becomes a Rose type? And given the choice of Jrue vs Rose, Jrue is an easy decision. They peaked at similar levels according to most advanced stats, except Jrue had much better longevity and fits into a wider range of lineups which is in part why he became a champion. Rose would have been an awful pairing with Giannis, and it’s difficult to see him being the missing piece to vault the Bucks to a title.

And in the more likely outcomes that Cason is an ordinary level of good, he is still more universally useful and easier to fit into a wide range of lineups. He can fall well short of being a Jrue level star, and still be a Patrick Beverley type role player who is capable of making a positive contribution on a number of winning teams.

We can go even further down the board and look at somebody like Dereck Lively. He has potential to be a Rudy Gobert or Ben Wallace level defensive stud. In all likelihood, he will be worse, but there are plenty of middle ground outcomes like Tyson Chandler, Serge Ibaka, or Steven Adams that are useful pieces without maxing his value.

And you can go on with guys like Gradey Dick, Taylor Hendricks, and Anthony Black. The reason why most people think you *need* to take Scoot over them is because he has all-star upside. But that is backwards logic, because he is probably not an all-star, and if he is not an all-star he is not going to be particularly useful. And he may not even be that useful as a low end all-star, as he could be a Marbury type who never fits on a contending team. 

All star upside is massively overrated, it’s time to modernize draft perception to value players who can be universally useful in common outcomes. And there are number of players in this draft who may be more useful than Scoot in the most likely outcomes.