It’s another edition of the NBA Draft College Coaches Poll. Over the last three weeks, I reached out to 50 assistant coaches across college basketball to assess potential NBA and professional prospects across the sport. I talked to coaches from 25 of the 32 conferences in the country, had over 1,800 minutes worth of conversations, and discussed 227 prospects around college basketball with the unbiased people who know their games best: the coaches who have scouted and played against them.
The crux of the idea: in exchange for anonymity, I asked them to dissect every potential NBA prospect they’ve played this season. The result of these discussions was over 60,000 total words of breakdowns from the opposing teams that have to devise a way to slow down the best players in the country. With all of that content in tow, this week The Athletic will release a series of articles, spotlighting the most interesting subjects and insights garnered from coaches all across the country.
The goal here is not to have some sort of quantitative analysis confirming where someone should be ranked on my big board. Rather, we were looking for qualitative insights into each of these players’ games. These are the unfiltered, full thoughts of coaches that have played each of these guys. What makes them special? What are their weaknesses? How do they go about stopping them, and how can they be exploited? What are the contextual factors that affect their play?
Of all the players outside of the projected lottery in the 2019 NBA Draft class, I get asked what I think about Markus Howard more than any other.
It’s easy to understand why that would be the case. The guard out of Arizona is on his way to a first-team All-American season while leading Marquette to a 23-4 record going into Wednesday’s game against Villanova. Most players with his track record of production and accomplishments would be considered bonafide first-round picks. With Howard though, questions persist in large respect because of his height. As a part of the poll, I spoke with six coaches about Howard’s game, what they think of him on the college level, and whether or not they thought it would translate to the next level.
MARKUS HOWARD, MARQUETTE
Relevant Measurements: 5-11, 175 pounds. 6-0 wingspan
Relevant Per-Game Stats: 25.6 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 4.2 APG, 1.1 SPG, 0 BPG, 44.6 FG%, 43.8 3P%, 91.0 FT%
Relevant Per-40 Stats: 30.7 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 4.9 APG, 1.3 SPG, 0 BPG
Advanced Numbers: 28.2 PER, 61.6 TS%, 55.1 eFG%, 28.4 AST%, 11.9 DEFREB%, 15.1 TO%, 0.1 BLK%, 1.8 STL%
First Coach
“I’m a big fan of his. I’ve never seen a guy in college make that many hard shots. He’s the focal point of everybody’s defense every game, and he’s got guys draped all over him, and he’s 5-foot-10, and he goes for 50. Think about those games. Creighton’s played him like six times and they know everything Marquette is going to do and he still goes out and scores 53 points.
“Having said that, he’s a really poor defender. But he’s better in ball-screens than people realize. He’s got a better kind of feel as a passer than people realize. But that’s not his role with their team. They need him to score and go for his, and if he can occasionally get a shot for one of the Hauser kids, great. He’s got a pretty good floater/pull-up package, he’s gonna have a hard time finishing at the rim. That’s something he struggles with in college, so I imagine that’ll be magnified at the next level. It’s hard. You have a 5-10, short-armed, non-defending, scoring point guard. But like, to me, he’s a hell of a lot better than Patty Mills was at Saint Mary’s. Why can’t he be that? People say J.J. Barea. Why can’t he do that?
“He’s got the step-back off of his left-hand. He can get to that. A lot of time he gets it by pushing off, but he can get there. The other thing is, his shot is such a threat that he’s constantly got you light in your feet. You’re not really sure if you can close out hard, or if he’s going to shoot it. You’re on high alert, and I think that makes him a bit quicker. He’s able to cat-and-mouse you with his eyes and his ball-handling, and he’ll get you on edge to where you’re not solid with your footwork or your positioning. That allows him to dance in the lane a little bit and make some of those shots that are in-between shots.
“I believe in him. He’s incredibly confident in what he does. His shooting is very, very real. He doesn’t guard anybody, he’s got physical limitations with his length, athleticism, and general size. But I think he’s a second-round pick and I think he makes a team.”
Second Coach
“He’s a kid who is just incredibly intelligent on the court. He plays like an old man. He knows angles, understands spacing. He needs zero time to get his shot off. Even if you’re there on the catch and you’re taller, even if you’re a split second late he can get that shot off. If you do leave your feet, he takes full advantage of closeouts and his ability to create space on the bounce. The threat of that jump shot puts defenses in panic. He just shoots the ball so well. Any air space, it’s done. You’re dead.
“I know he’s small. He’s slight of frame. He can’t finish great going to the basket, but he’s capable. He’s just really smart, and knows how to get his shot. And he shoots the ball at such a high level. He’s got great range. He’s kind of got a boxer’s mentality. When he gets going and starts letting his hands go, he just stays on you. He doesn’t let up. That translates to basketball where if he starts making shots, it doesn’t stop. It’s like an onslaught. He just gets in such a groove. He’s so crafty, and the ability to make that jump shot opens up the whole game.
“We were relentless on our guys that the defense on him starts in transition. When he brings the ball up the floor and gets into that drag screen, we were jumping that drag screen. You have to make the game hard on him. He needs to see two guys when he comes off of a ball screen. We were committed to a hard hedge to make him give the ball up. We wanted to make the other guys beat us. We didn’t want guys closing out, we wanted guys already out. Right on top of him. You gotta make the game hard on him. Any ball-screens or dribble hand-offs, he’s gotta see two guys on him.”
Third Coach
“(Laughs) Markus Howard is an interesting guy. He is the prototypical fucking outstanding college basketball player. I’ll throw some names at you. Similar games, but you’ll get where I’m going. Randolph Childress. Shawn Respert. Guys that can flat out put the fucker in the basket, but do they translate at the next level? I don’t know.
“He’s not a point guard, but he can play the point. I just think that a guy with his ability to score the basketball, that he’s going to play in the league. I just don’t know what his role or his niche would be. But you would think that a guy who has done it at such an incredible clip, you would think it’d be an easy translation to being an all-star. I don’t know. I really don’t know. But because he scores it, because he shoots it so well, he’s going to play in that league. I just don’t think he’s going to be an elite player.
“He’s got no wiggle. He’s not going to be shaking you down like Allen Iverson and getting something on his own. Where he gets his separation is he lifts you because he shoots it so well, that now he’s created an angle for himself. We felt like with him, he’s gotta beat us with 2s over hands. We thought he couldn’t wiggle from us, so we thought it would be very difficult for him if he couldn’t beat us with 3s.”
Fourth Coach
“I like the little guy. I like him. It’s hard to guard him. You try to get physical with him, he draws fouls. He can score. There’s no reason to say he can’t be an NBA player. Only thing you can knock is his size.
“It’s the craziest thing in the world. He’s not super fast. But he is strong. He’s stronger than he looks. He’s 175 pounds, maybe 180 pounds, and what he does is he keeps you off balance. Because he will shoot the ball, you have to honor him and close his space. So his little short bursts will get by you because you have to honor his jump shot.”
Fifth Coach
“We’re a big fan of his. We felt like we guarded him well, hanging in. Then all of a sudden, it’s a volcano. It happens so quick, within a matter of minutes. He can just put the ball in the bucket. It reminds me of Kemba Walker a little bit. Just he explodes, the way he gets to the free throw line, too. He’s very efficient. He’s one of the best point guards in the country, an All-American. Next level, I think some people are concerned with his size. But his ability to score the ball is elite. He’s fun to watch.”
Sixth Coach
“I mean, shit. I really didn’t study Trae Young, I’ve seen the highlights and all that, but I can’t imagine there’s a whole lot of difference in their game. Markus might even be a better shooter. He’s not an elite passer, though. In the NBA, with guys like (Russell) Westbrook, you’ll worry about teams trying to post him. Not the most physical kid. But in terms of shooting the basketball and game-planning for him, you have gotta pick up the ball and the 5-man has to be connected to his man because he comes across on those drag screens and he’s 30 feet away from the basket, you’re worried about him putting it up.
“You can’t give him any space. And when you don’t give a guy any space like that, they’re going to be able to get to the rim. When you’re literally trying to stay chest-t0-chest with him, he’s going to be able to get to the rim.”
Vecenie’s Take
Howard is a fascinating prospect because you can legitimately make the case that he’s the best off-the-dribble shooter to enter the NBA since Stephen Curry. Keeping the numbers more basic, he’s the first high-major player in over a decade to hit at least 44 percent of his 3-pointers while attempting over 600 of them. But we can get more granular than that.
This season, among the 178 players to take at least 75 jumpers off the dribble, Howard is fifth in terms of efficiency at a 57.0 effective field goal percentage on them. But here’s the more impressive part: he’s also fourth in terms of volume, taking 165 of them. None of the other top-10 players in terms of shots off the dribble are even within five percent of Howard’s aforementioned 57.0 effective field goal percentage.
This isn’t just a one-season wonder, either. Last season, Howard similarly finished fourth among all players with at least 75 pull-up jumpers in effective field goal percentage off the bounce at 62.8. Oh yeah, and during his freshman season, Howard only took 52 shots off the dribble. But among the 622 players that took at least 50 that season, his 70.2 effective field goal percentage was tops in the country. Genuinely, Howard’s ability to hit jumpers is among the best singular skills any player has in this draft.
But the NBA now is all about being able to do multiple things. And at the NBA level, I’m not entirely sure what else Howard does. Howard is an okay college defender that tends to get exploited by bigger guards. The NBA is littered with those, and his lack of length figures to be a real concern in help and recovery at the next level, where there is a lot more space to cover in the half court. As a lead guard making plays for others, Howard has improved but still probably isn’t quite there in terms of reading actions around him — likely in large part due to the scorer’s mentality and role he plays for Marquette. Ultimately though, that’s where the comparison to Trae Young breaks down. Young is already an elite passer even by NBA standards. Howard is nowhere near that level, and that’s not even a slight to his game.
Still, there is real room for growth here. Despite being a junior, Howard is a teenager who is actually younger than Young. The 5-11 guard doesn’t turn 20 until March, and he’s made leaps every single season of his career. From freshman to sophomore, he became a much more technically gifted ball-handler. This year, he’s become a better playmaker for others. He’s not the typical underclassman that is closer to his final stage of growth.
There are physical limitations here, though. He’ll always have to defend point guards, and he’ll be a liability in switch-heavy schemes. He’s not the quickest guy in the world, and hasn’t yet shown much wiggle as a ball-handler yet. He’s not as creative around the basket, for instance, as Stephen Curry. And again, he’s about five inches shorter than Curry without any advantage in terms of length, ending that comparison before it starts.
Realistically, Howard is going to be a scheme-dependent player at the next level. There are places he can work, particularly with teams that have big wing initiators like Milwaukee, Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Lakers. They can allow him to be a secondary creator and elite level shot-making, creating space for wings around him. In such places like that, I think he can be a really useful NBA player. You can even see a case for those teams giving him a first-round grade. However, most executives around the NBA have Howard with a second-round grade, with the potential to make a team.
(Top photo: Brian Spurlock / USA TODAY Sports)
It’s another edition of the NBA Draft College Coaches Poll. Over the last three weeks, I reached out to 50 assistant coaches across college basketball to assess potential NBA and professional prospects across the sport. I talked to coaches from 25 of the 32 conferences in the country, had over 1,800 minutes worth of conversations, and discussed 227 prospects around college basketball with the unbiased people who know their games best: the coaches who have scouted and played against them.
The crux of the idea: in exchange for anonymity, I asked them to dissect every potential NBA prospect they’ve played this season. The result of these discussions was over 60,000 total words of breakdowns from the opposing teams that have to devise a way to slow down the best players in the country. With all of that content in tow, this week The Athletic will release a series of articles, spotlighting the most interesting subjects and insights garnered from coaches all across the country.
The goal here is not to have some sort of quantitative analysis confirming where someone should be ranked on my big board. Rather, we were looking for qualitative insights into each of these players’ games. These are the unfiltered, full thoughts of coaches that have played each of these guys. What makes them special? What are their weaknesses? How do they go about stopping them, and how can they be exploited? What are the contextual factors that affect their play?
Of all the players outside of the projected lottery in the 2019 NBA Draft class, I get asked what I think about Markus Howard more than any other.
It’s easy to understand why that would be the case. The guard out of Arizona is on his way to a first-team All-American season while leading Marquette to a 23-4 record going into Wednesday’s game against Villanova. Most players with his track record of production and accomplishments would be considered bonafide first-round picks. With Howard though, questions persist in large respect because of his height. As a part of the poll, I spoke with six coaches about Howard’s game, what they think of him on the college level, and whether or not they thought it would translate to the next level.
MARKUS HOWARD, MARQUETTE
Relevant Measurements: 5-11, 175 pounds. 6-0 wingspan
Relevant Per-Game Stats: 25.6 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 4.2 APG, 1.1 SPG, 0 BPG, 44.6 FG%, 43.8 3P%, 91.0 FT%
Relevant Per-40 Stats: 30.7 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 4.9 APG, 1.3 SPG, 0 BPG
Advanced Numbers: 28.2 PER, 61.6 TS%, 55.1 eFG%, 28.4 AST%, 11.9 DEFREB%, 15.1 TO%, 0.1 BLK%, 1.8 STL%
First Coach
“I’m a big fan of his. I’ve never seen a guy in college make that many hard shots. He’s the focal point of everybody’s defense every game, and he’s got guys draped all over him, and he’s 5-foot-10, and he goes for 50. Think about those games. Creighton’s played him like six times and they know everything Marquette is going to do and he still goes out and scores 53 points.
“Having said that, he’s a really poor defender. But he’s better in ball-screens than people realize. He’s got a better kind of feel as a passer than people realize. But that’s not his role with their team. They need him to score and go for his, and if he can occasionally get a shot for one of the Hauser kids, great. He’s got a pretty good floater/pull-up package, he’s gonna have a hard time finishing at the rim. That’s something he struggles with in college, so I imagine that’ll be magnified at the next level. It’s hard. You have a 5-10, short-armed, non-defending, scoring point guard. But like, to me, he’s a hell of a lot better than Patty Mills was at Saint Mary’s. Why can’t he be that? People say J.J. Barea. Why can’t he do that?
“He’s got the step-back off of his left-hand. He can get to that. A lot of time he gets it by pushing off, but he can get there. The other thing is, his shot is such a threat that he’s constantly got you light in your feet. You’re not really sure if you can close out hard, or if he’s going to shoot it. You’re on high alert, and I think that makes him a bit quicker. He’s able to cat-and-mouse you with his eyes and his ball-handling, and he’ll get you on edge to where you’re not solid with your footwork or your positioning. That allows him to dance in the lane a little bit and make some of those shots that are in-between shots.
“I believe in him. He’s incredibly confident in what he does. His shooting is very, very real. He doesn’t guard anybody, he’s got physical limitations with his length, athleticism, and general size. But I think he’s a second-round pick and I think he makes a team.”
Second Coach
“He’s a kid who is just incredibly intelligent on the court. He plays like an old man. He knows angles, understands spacing. He needs zero time to get his shot off. Even if you’re there on the catch and you’re taller, even if you’re a split second late he can get that shot off. If you do leave your feet, he takes full advantage of closeouts and his ability to create space on the bounce. The threat of that jump shot puts defenses in panic. He just shoots the ball so well. Any air space, it’s done. You’re dead.
“I know he’s small. He’s slight of frame. He can’t finish great going to the basket, but he’s capable. He’s just really smart, and knows how to get his shot. And he shoots the ball at such a high level. He’s got great range. He’s kind of got a boxer’s mentality. When he gets going and starts letting his hands go, he just stays on you. He doesn’t let up. That translates to basketball where if he starts making shots, it doesn’t stop. It’s like an onslaught. He just gets in such a groove. He’s so crafty, and the ability to make that jump shot opens up the whole game.
“We were relentless on our guys that the defense on him starts in transition. When he brings the ball up the floor and gets into that drag screen, we were jumping that drag screen. You have to make the game hard on him. He needs to see two guys when he comes off of a ball screen. We were committed to a hard hedge to make him give the ball up. We wanted to make the other guys beat us. We didn’t want guys closing out, we wanted guys already out. Right on top of him. You gotta make the game hard on him. Any ball-screens or dribble hand-offs, he’s gotta see two guys on him.”
Third Coach
“(Laughs) Markus Howard is an interesting guy. He is the prototypical fucking outstanding college basketball player. I’ll throw some names at you. Similar games, but you’ll get where I’m going. Randolph Childress. Shawn Respert. Guys that can flat out put the fucker in the basket, but do they translate at the next level? I don’t know.
“He’s not a point guard, but he can play the point. I just think that a guy with his ability to score the basketball, that he’s going to play in the league. I just don’t know what his role or his niche would be. But you would think that a guy who has done it at such an incredible clip, you would think it’d be an easy translation to being an all-star. I don’t know. I really don’t know. But because he scores it, because he shoots it so well, he’s going to play in that league. I just don’t think he’s going to be an elite player.
“He’s got no wiggle. He’s not going to be shaking you down like Allen Iverson and getting something on his own. Where he gets his separation is he lifts you because he shoots it so well, that now he’s created an angle for himself. We felt like with him, he’s gotta beat us with 2s over hands. We thought he couldn’t wiggle from us, so we thought it would be very difficult for him if he couldn’t beat us with 3s.”
Fourth Coach
“I like the little guy. I like him. It’s hard to guard him. You try to get physical with him, he draws fouls. He can score. There’s no reason to say he can’t be an NBA player. Only thing you can knock is his size.
“It’s the craziest thing in the world. He’s not super fast. But he is strong. He’s stronger than he looks. He’s 175 pounds, maybe 180 pounds, and what he does is he keeps you off balance. Because he will shoot the ball, you have to honor him and close his space. So his little short bursts will get by you because you have to honor his jump shot.”
Fifth Coach
“We’re a big fan of his. We felt like we guarded him well, hanging in. Then all of a sudden, it’s a volcano. It happens so quick, within a matter of minutes. He can just put the ball in the bucket. It reminds me of Kemba Walker a little bit. Just he explodes, the way he gets to the free throw line, too. He’s very efficient. He’s one of the best point guards in the country, an All-American. Next level, I think some people are concerned with his size. But his ability to score the ball is elite. He’s fun to watch.”
Sixth Coach
“I mean, shit. I really didn’t study Trae Young, I’ve seen the highlights and all that, but I can’t imagine there’s a whole lot of difference in their game. Markus might even be a better shooter. He’s not an elite passer, though. In the NBA, with guys like (Russell) Westbrook, you’ll worry about teams trying to post him. Not the most physical kid. But in terms of shooting the basketball and game-planning for him, you have gotta pick up the ball and the 5-man has to be connected to his man because he comes across on those drag screens and he’s 30 feet away from the basket, you’re worried about him putting it up.
“You can’t give him any space. And when you don’t give a guy any space like that, they’re going to be able to get to the rim. When you’re literally trying to stay chest-t0-chest with him, he’s going to be able to get to the rim.”
Vecenie’s Take
Howard is a fascinating prospect because you can legitimately make the case that he’s the best off-the-dribble shooter to enter the NBA since Stephen Curry. Keeping the numbers more basic, he’s the first high-major player in over a decade to hit at least 44 percent of his 3-pointers while attempting over 600 of them. But we can get more granular than that.
This season, among the 178 players to take at least 75 jumpers off the dribble, Howard is fifth in terms of efficiency at a 57.0 effective field goal percentage on them. But here’s the more impressive part: he’s also fourth in terms of volume, taking 165 of them. None of the other top-10 players in terms of shots off the dribble are even within five percent of Howard’s aforementioned 57.0 effective field goal percentage.
This isn’t just a one-season wonder, either. Last season, Howard similarly finished fourth among all players with at least 75 pull-up jumpers in effective field goal percentage off the bounce at 62.8. Oh yeah, and during his freshman season, Howard only took 52 shots off the dribble. But among the 622 players that took at least 50 that season, his 70.2 effective field goal percentage was tops in the country. Genuinely, Howard’s ability to hit jumpers is among the best singular skills any player has in this draft.
But the NBA now is all about being able to do multiple things. And at the NBA level, I’m not entirely sure what else Howard does. Howard is an okay college defender that tends to get exploited by bigger guards. The NBA is littered with those, and his lack of length figures to be a real concern in help and recovery at the next level, where there is a lot more space to cover in the half court. As a lead guard making plays for others, Howard has improved but still probably isn’t quite there in terms of reading actions around him — likely in large part due to the scorer’s mentality and role he plays for Marquette. Ultimately though, that’s where the comparison to Trae Young breaks down. Young is already an elite passer even by NBA standards. Howard is nowhere near that level, and that’s not even a slight to his game.
Still, there is real room for growth here. Despite being a junior, Howard is a teenager who is actually younger than Young. The 5-11 guard doesn’t turn 20 until March, and he’s made leaps every single season of his career. From freshman to sophomore, he became a much more technically gifted ball-handler. This year, he’s become a better playmaker for others. He’s not the typical underclassman that is closer to his final stage of growth.
There are physical limitations here, though. He’ll always have to defend point guards, and he’ll be a liability in switch-heavy schemes. He’s not the quickest guy in the world, and hasn’t yet shown much wiggle as a ball-handler yet. He’s not as creative around the basket, for instance, as Stephen Curry. And again, he’s about five inches shorter than Curry without any advantage in terms of length, ending that comparison before it starts.
Realistically, Howard is going to be a scheme-dependent player at the next level. There are places he can work, particularly with teams that have big wing initiators like Milwaukee, Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Lakers. They can allow him to be a secondary creator and elite level shot-making, creating space for wings around him. In such places like that, I think he can be a really useful NBA player. You can even see a case for those teams giving him a first-round grade. However, most executives around the NBA have Howard with a second-round grade, with the potential to make a team.
(Top photo: Brian Spurlock / USA TODAY Sports)
