Basketball

2021 NBA Draft: Ranking the best offensive skills, led by Jalen Suggs and Jalen Green


Every year around draft time, I start to get questions from people asking what player is best at each skill set. Who is the best passer in the class? The best ballhandler? Who is the best shooter? It’s a really fun discussion topic.

I finally decided to answer those questions this year. I made mini big boards for a lot of different skills that I think about when evaluating how a player would translate to the NBA. I used some of the breakdowns from the NBA Draft Guide that I published last week. We’ll start today with offensive skill sets.

Shot creation

1. Jalen Green, G League Ignite

So much of the NBA now is being able to get your own shot, especially in the playoffs. In terms of purely being able to get to his spots and create a shot out of nothing, Green is the clear top prospect in this class long term. A few other guys may have shown a bit more current upside in this regard, but he tops the class due to his quick-twitch athleticism and explosiveness. It portends real upside beyond the potency he’s already shown in this regard.

Green has a pretty vicious handle because of that quick twitch and elite body control. With that, he does a great job of using little change of pace moves like hesitations and hang dribbles to freeze defenders, then can blow by with a reactive first step or separate backward with very quick crossovers into pull-ups. He’s so quick to react to how defenders get off-balance. He strings moves together with ease to set up defenders, then blows by. From there, can get into his pull-up game from a variety of different angles, directions and foot positions. He loves the right-to-left crossover into side-step pull-up.





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