Orlando Magic 2019 NBA Draft Preview: Talen Horton-Tucker shows promise, lacks sizzle
By Zach Palmer
Weaknesses
No Jumper/Negative Spacer
When watching the Iowa State Cyclones play offense, there is one thing you notice any time Talen Horton-Tucker is not involved in the play: Horton-Tucker is standing in the corner and he is being left completely undefended.
As noted before, Horton-Tucker is not a threat shooting the ball at this point.
According to Hoop-Math, Horton-Tucker only shot 27.5 percent on all of his jumpers this season for the Cyclones. This often left the Cyclones playing 4-vs.-5 on offense when Horton-Tucker was not involved in any action.
He finished the season shooting just 30.8 percent from beyond the arc. That is the biggest hole and weakness in his game. He is a completely unreliable shooter.
Not a good NBA athlete
Horton-Tucker’s overall lack of burst, explosion, or twitchiness also jumps out in his game.
Horton-Tucker without the ball in transition is typically one of the last players down the court. He runs a little weird but that would not really matter if he was not slow.
His lateral quickness is not very good either:
Here Horton-Tucker gets beat with a jab step and has absolutely no way to recover. Probably not so coincidentally, Iowa State had Horton-Tucker play big guys in the paint pretty often. His length allowed him that positional versatility, but it is telling of what Iowa State thought of his overall defensive talents.
He does not seem to be able to stick with quick perimeter players well at all.
Defensive IQ?
One thing that I kept coming back to when watching Horton-Tucker that frustrated me to no end was his decision-making. Both offensively and defensively.
Here we see Horton Tucker just standing watching the ball and not reacting. His man had gone to the 3-point line and Horton-Tucker seemingly meandered into the paint to provide help.
Horton-Tucker actually just sits there and does not do anything. This will become a re-occurring theme with him.
Once gain, Horton-Tucker seems to be in a trance watching the ball. While Xavier Sneed is no marksmen, he certainly needs to be defended out there.
On top of falling asleep, Horton-Tucker’s closeout is very sloppy and seems very much like somebody who was trying too hard to make up for a mistake.
Horton-Tucker never picks up anybody in transition here. He literally stares at the ball up until the point that he figures out its the man that he left undefended and has the ball headed his way.
Offensive Decision-Making
Offensively, it seems less like Horton-Tucker is zoned out and more like he is too zoned in.
Horton-Tucker will often times force his way into the paint with no plan whatsoever and it leads to some pretty rough sequences for the Cyclones.
In this clip, we see Horton-Tucker take a shot I am sure his coach was not too thrilled about:
So there is 11 seconds left on the clock and Horton-Tucker did not create very much space here but he decides to let the jumper fly.
This is a pretty common thing for Horton-Tucker. Many could wonder how such an impressive finisher at the rim could shoot only 40 percent from the field and this is it. Horton-Tucker is an extremely poor shot-taker on offense.