In part one of our prospect report series, we look at Deandre Ayton: a center with undeniable physical tools, but whose mental makeup and skills will determine his NBA success.
“Vulcan’s Anvil.”
That is the nickname commentator Bill Walton bestowed upon Deandre Ayton, the Bahamian behemoth widely expected to go top three in this upcoming NBA Draft.
The Orlando Magic’s season has long been out of hand. FiveThirtyEight projects them to finish with 26 wins, with playoff odds currently less than one percent.
There are no shortage of scapegoats – injuries, talent, fit, culture – to point at. But it is time to start looking ahead to the 2018 NBA Draft, where the Magic will once again be picking in the high lottery.
In this first part of my prospect report series, we will be taking a look at Arizona Wildcats center Deandre Ayton.
Ayton is a physical freak. He is more than seven feet tall with a reported 44-inch vertical leap. Ayton is incredibly quick off the ground and has excellent top-end speed for his position. He combines all that with advanced coordination, offensive feel and body control.
His tools are not his limiting factor. How effectively he applies them will be.
So far the results have been mostly positive but mixed nonetheless.
Contrary to preconceived notions about his drive and determination heading into this season, his motor under Arizona head coach Sean Miller has been impressive. He consistently fights for position, runs the floor hard and battles under the boards.
His effort in these areas has been a massive boon to his overall productivity because when he is determined to go somewhere or do something, there is little most NCAA athletes can do to put up resistance.
His upside as a post facilitator, post scorer, rim-runner and rebounder is tantalizing. He has more issues to iron out on the defensive end, but there are some positive indicators.
The Magic need a player with equity as a shot-creator. Ayton might fit that bill. But he also might simply be the best prospect available when they draft.
So, without further ado, let’s dig into the numbers and film.
Posting Up
Deandre Ayton has been nearly unstoppable on the low block this season because of his quick feet, strength, coordination and passing ability.
He knows how to leverage his lower body to get position wherever he wants on the court. He can use his long arms to make himself a huge target for a post entry pass. And if an early double comes, he recognizes it and handles it with composure.
Take the above clip for example. Although he does not get the ball initially with the mismatch, watch how large his catch radius is despite the defense fronting him.
More importantly, he recognizes the weakside help arriving immediately. Without even fully setting his feet, Ayton dodges the help defender’s steal attempt and fires off a high-velocity pass right on the money to a corner shooter. The ball lands right in the shooter’s pocket and the defense has no chance to close out in time.
This video illustrates the tension Ayton can both apply to a defense and exploit. He draws a double and forces a strongside zone, leaving two defenders guarding three offensive players on the weak side. He diagnoses this seam immediately and launches a bullet pass for an assist.
Similar concept in this clip, except it is a weak-side zone. Watch how focused the UNLV Rebels’ defense is on Ayton as soon as the entry pass is made. All five defenders are in the paint once he touches the ball.
Another assist:
The numbers bare this out as well.
According to Synergy Sports, Ayton generates 1.529 points per possession when the defense commits on his post-up possessions. Including passes, he generates 1.372 on hard doubles. Both of those numbers are far better than average in both the NCAA and NBA.
However, about 82 percent of his post passes have been to standstill teammates on the perimeter. He has only made six passes to cutters out of the post, and although the conversion rate on those is impressive (zero turnovers and 1.5 points per possession), that low number begs the question of how effectively he is able to make passes either within an offensive scheme or with freelance motion.
His post scoring is perhaps more impressive at this stage than his post passing. Ayton is light on his feet and moves them with a purpose. He understands when to use a dribble to get his defender moving laterally and when to leverage lower body to back his man down.
Once he creates an advantage, he usually moves quickly and efficiently to exploit it. If there is no advantage, he identifies an open man on the perimeter and kicks it back out. He wastes very little time and movement on the low block.
In this clip, Ayton gets the ball on the right block. Watch how he recognizes the help defender and avoids losing the ball, gets his defender moving laterally with a jab step then takes it to the rack:
He is guilty of sometimes settling for shaky face-up jumpers, which he has far too quick a trigger on considering his mediocre 0.813 points per possession rate on those shots.
He is currently in the 91st percentile of efficiency scoring on post-ups. But when finishing in the pick and roll, he is only in the 45th percentile, which is surprisingly average for a player who checks most of the important rim-runner boxes.
Is that a hole in his game, or will that improve at the next level?
Finishing Pick and Rolls
The first, arguably most important part of a pick and roll is the initial ball screen. Ayton’s screen-setting is inconsistent at this point, as he does not always make solid contact. But that can be improved as his increases his offensive feel with more experience.
That said, he has rolled to the basket on only 15 possessions this season. The rest of his “roll man” possessions — about 70 percent of them — are pick and pops, where he generates a national-average 0.892 points per possession. He generates 1.067 on rolls, which is worse than the average.
Perhaps when the sample sizes increase his efficiency as a roller will normalize, but it could also have to do with the fact that he frequently plays with a second big man, Dusan Rstic, clogging the paint. He would likely fare better on a spaced NBA floor.
He sets a lot of flat ball screens at Arizona, which are designed primarily to get the ball handler a look at the basket going downhill. Oftentimes, when he rolls, he does not receive the ball and instead sets up on the block for a post-up. He rolls more frequently than his play-type data would indicate. But it does not show up on Synergy because he does not receive the ball that often in this offensive scheme.
But we can still draw some conclusions, albeit with the sample size caveat.
In this clip, Ayton rises up in traffic for a one-handed lob. The biggest thing to note here is that although he slows down near the rim, he barely needs to load up to get off the floor.
This is a textbook example of both his catch radius and standstill leaping ability, both of which will serve him well as an NBA roll man.
You see a similar concept in this next clip, where Ayton again is at the rim before the late-arriving lob. He still manages to get up to throw it down, though.
There is no reason to believe his lob-catching will not translate. But a larger sample of roll-man possessions might help us figure out whether he will be able to make passes on short rolls.
But because Arizona’s ball handlers tend to get him the ball so late in their pick-and-roll possessions, and because he has had so few pick-and-roll possessions in general, he has not had the opportunity to conclusively show one way or the other if he is capable.
His quick-twitch leaping ability also benefits him on the glass, where he is a force to be reckoned with.
Rebounding
Deandre Ayton’s energy and sheer brute force on the glass are remarkable.
He has both the tools and instincts to be a star on the NBA boards. He uses his quick-twitch standstill leaping ability to sky for misses as soon as they bounce off the rim, often leveraging his lower body to box out defenders, using his springy second-jump ability to tip contested balls his way and/or using his length to reach over opponents.
Sometimes his opponents cannot do anything but foul. In fact, his foul rate on putbacks (15 percent per Synergy) would be the NBA’s third highest rate in NBA.
In the clip above, he tips the ball out over four Oregon Ducks defenders and draws a foul.
This is not a rebound per se, but it is still an excellent example of how NCAA opponents simply do not stand a chance against Ayton when there is a loose ball around the basket. Whether it is with his strength, intelligence, reach or some combination of those, Ayton will find the ball, grab it and do something good with it.
In this case, it is throwing down a monster dunk.
His rebounding numbers — an offensive rebound percentage of nearly 12 percent, defensive rebound percentage of nearly 30 percent and 11.3 rebounds per game — are historically elite. Especially considering he often plays power forward with Rstic at center.
If Ayton is your main man in the middle, with starter’s minutes he could be a solid 11-13 rebound per game guy in the NBA considering both his size and his willingness to make second efforts. That is something the Magic have missed for quite some time.
That brings us to the defensive end, where Ayton has work to do.
Defense
Deandre Ayton’s defensive issues revolve around recognition.
For a big man with a relatively high offensive IQ, it is strange that he seems completely unaware at times of when to rotate over and play help defense. This will only become more difficult at the next level when he must deal with the NBA’s defensive three-seconds rule.
Here you see Dusan Rstic and Parker Jackson-Cartwright defend a side pick-and-roll. They trap the ball handler, allowing Oregon’s roll man to get free. It is Ayton’s job to then rotate over and get between the roll man and the rim.
Most NBA schemes ice side pick-and-rolls, not trap them, so Ayton might not encounter that specific play very often at the next level. But still, he needs to be aware of what the defensive scheme demands of him. In this case, he needs to be ready to rotate over and pick up the roll man as the primary defenders put pressure on the ball handler.
Not to mention, bringing over help from the weakside in general is one of the NBA center’s most important jobs. Ayton simply must improve in this area if he wants to be a positive defensive player.
Everywhere else, he has at least shown signs of potential. He is good defending at the level of ball screens, moving laterally and up and down to hedge and switch.
On this play, Ayton steps up to defend at the level of the ball screen, but the ball handler rejects the screen and instead drives left towards the basket. This is a common offensive tactic to counter this kind of defense, and in most situations, would give the ball handler a massive advantage over an out-of-position big.
But Ayton shows off his impressive quickness and recovers to block the jumper.
Here, Ayton is on an island defending a perimeter player. Watch how he quickly rotates his hips back-and-forth to stay in front of the offensive player despite the jab step and then moves his feet laterally with his hands up. Another block:
Arizona does not play too much traditional drop or ice coverage so it is hard to judge his ability to contain ball handlers at this point. But his mobility and size are both reasons for optimism. His numbers defending roll men are good – only conceding 0.708 points per possession per Synergy – but the sample is still small.
Lastly, he shows high energy levels and proper technique closing out on shooters. He does not quite have the stopping ability to execute at an elite level yet, but he doesn’t run past shooters. He knows to get into position, force baseline and keep his hands up to contest.
Here he does exactly that, blocking the offensive player at the rim as a result:
Ayton needs to figure out how to harness his physical makeup into consistent results. With proper NBA coaching and a strong ecosystem, he could easily morph into a positive defensive player in a modern league that demands switchability and mobility.
Analyzing Fit
It’s not clear at this point who, if any of the Magic’s current players will be part of the long-term future. But it is probably safe to assume that Jonathan Isaac will be around for a while and that Aaron Gordon is seen as a potential building block.
Aaron Gordon and Jonathan Isaac are both at very different stages in their offensive development. But neither are consistent shot-creators at this point.
Gordon has shown flashes as a pick-and-roll passer, but his isolation numbers and overall decision-making ability are questionable at best. Isaac has looked lost on the offensive end.
Gordon has excellent instincts as a cutter and Isaac is developing as a spot-up threat. In a scheme tailored to their abilities, both would get their offense more from the weak side as screeners and off-ball cutters or shooters, not as strong side ball handlers.
Taking that into consideration, the Magic clearly need a strong-side player — one who can create offense for himself and for others from any position. They also need a rim-running big with gravity as a lob-catcher that can catch pocket passes, draw in defenders from the corners and hit shooters on short-rolls. They also need more spacing.
In theory, Ayton can provide all of that.
Orlando Magic
Ayton’s potential fit with the Orlando Magic depends on how much you believe in shot-creation ability.
In the NCAA, he has shown impressive flashes of post scoring and passing, but he needs to improve his consistency. He is prone to missing open men and committing occasional ugly turnovers. This goes for the defensive end too, where on some possessions he looks completely lost but on others is an absolute force.
But the Magic already have several play finishers and offensive support players in Gordon and Isaac – they need a player with legitimate creator and facilitator equity before anything else.
Isaac and Gordon, two athletic and physical freaks with the ability to defend multiple positions and make weakside rotations, would help ameliorate some of Ayton’s weaknesses and mental lapses he is bound to make early on. But the defensive fit only truly works if you believe he can improve his understanding of team concepts.
Ayton has all the tools necessary to be a generational NBA talent. His equity as both a go-to post scorer/facilitator and as a multifaceted support player in a pick-and-roll heavy offense give him multiple avenues for NBA success.
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He would be best served going to a situation that can help him iron out the recognition and awareness issues he faces defensively. If he can do that, the sky is the limit.