NBA Draft: Who is Tyler Harvey?

The Bad

Harvey though is not Stephen Curry. Not even close.

While his shooting and dribbling moves and the way he gets those shots might be reminiscent of the NBA’s MVP, Harvey lacks a lot of the secondary skills that make Curry so special.

Harvey is 6-foot-4 and so is not quite a shooting guard’s ideal height. He is not known as a solid defender, just a scorer, and he was not a distributor at the collegiate level. Really Harvey’s entire career will bank on whether he can be a solid off-the-bench scoring option.

The other thing you notice a lot in his highlight tapes is how dependent on his left hand he is.

That is not completely a bad thing. Left-handed players do tend to throw a defense off. But that is not enough on its face to make it in the NBA (otherwise, I would be playing instead of writing . . . no, I wouldn’t).

NBA defenses though are going to force him to use his weak hand and shoot going to his right. They are going to press up on him and force him to put the ball on the floor. He is not going to be able to bail himself out as quickly with his step back.

Harvey gets his shot up quick too. There is no denying that. But his form still looks a little funky. Those questions about his release and whether he can get it off against a tight NBA defense may persist. Guys with weird forms tend to get that question.

The bigger question for Harvey is whether he can produce the same kind of play without having the ball in his hands. Can he be a spot-up shooter?

The Magic are not going to rely on Harvey as their primary scoring option. No NBA team would. He is just not a good enough creator. So the question then becomes what happens when his usage rate is not up to 27.5 percent?

Harvey will have to pick his spots to attack and, especially, move quickly off the dribble as defenses close out on him. He has to become better as a catch-and-shoot player to make it at this level.

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