Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 142: 2023 Draft Profiles - An In-Depth Look at Brandon Miller

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

This episode, the second in the 2023 Draft series, takes an in-depth look at probable #3 pick Brandon Miller. 

Welcome back, everybody you're listening to another episode of Driving to the Baskets. I am Mike here, once again with Price, back at you with another draft profile, only three weeks until the lottery and the night we're recording this episode. Anyway, Price, always pleasure to have you on here. Thank you for having me. Pleasure's all mine. So I'm pretty draft obsessed. Price is even more draft obsessed. So, you know, it's always good to have you on here. I remember, yeah, we were talking about Ivy last year, and I believe. have you said you'd watched like 500 of his shots analyzing his form yeah i mean it was coming to the point where he uh was looking like a likely pick and i was like okay this is the swing skill um

among everything that i could easily readily analyze um so yeah i wasted a lot of time doing that shot analysis yeah so in any case today we're going to do brandon miller the presumptive third overall pick next two episodes of course will be scoot and victor and then you know then the episode after victor is actually going to be on draft lottery nights on which pistons fans will either be uh i suppose ecstatic or moderately happy or incredibly unhappy we've got like a 52% chance of being not incredibly unhappy but yeah if we come out of this season with the fifth overall pick Yeah, it could be unpleasant. It would very, very much seem unfair.

It's going to be a tense moment. I remember, you know, just after the first rebuild season, watching the draft lottery in 2021 was the most anxious I maybe have ever felt, as funny as that is to say. You know, the lottery god smiled quite fondly on us that day, and I hope we are blessed once again. Yeah, that was just an awesome moment. Like, but, you know, in every pick, because I was just kind of the back of my head.

Like, I actually had a good feeling the pistons were going to pick top three, and I predicted they were going to pick number one. But in the back of my head, it's like, okay, you know, the pistons, it's, you know, with how things go, you expect to see their placard flipped over earlier than we would like. And every time, I just, I was expecting, okay, it's going to be the, it's going to be the red and blue. And then the rockets came up, and that was at number two, and that was just great. Yeah. So anyway, let's get on to Brandon Miller here. Yep. So somebody about whom, I'm glad that Chase, you have more to say than I do because I don't really have a ton to say about. I don't have enough to say about him, but he doesn't

strike me as, he strikes me as somebody with a lot of upside, but not a very interesting player. I'll put it that way. But that's fine. You know, if he reaches that upside, he's going to be an effective guy. In any case, played at Alabama was the best player on one of the top teams in the country, is NCAA-69, which probably means he's in the realm of 6-8, maybe a little bit less NCAA players can lose as much as two inches. Like our old buddy on here, Benedict Mathuron lost two inches. He was obviously not 6'7. Yeah, we don't know what Miller's wingspan is, but it's said to be in the realm of

611. It'll be 20 and a half the time of the draft. His stats at Alabama, 32 and a half minutes per game, 19 points, seven rebounds, two assists, one steal, one block, two turnovers. On 43, 38 and a half, 86 splits. So 58% true shooting and a fairly tough shot diet. So it had a really good season, you know, one of the best players in the country. And it's funny.

Like, Chase, I don't think that there's actually been a draft since, like, I think it's extremely likely that Scoot and Victor are going to go first. I don't think there's been a draft in the one and done era in which the top two did not play in the NCAA. Can you remember any? I feel like the last time it happened was Darko and LeBron. You know, I think you'd be right. it's been a long time.

That technically wasn't one and done. LeBron was a nun and won. Yeah, that's what I mean. And it hasn't happened in the one and done era, just like the last two times, the last time the top two players did not play in the NCAA. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Anyway, so yeah, we could have our first NCAA pick at number three,

which would be very, very unusual. In any case, so Naismet's semi-finalist, one of the best scores in the NBA, in NCAA, excuse me, Very consistent early on until that tailed off down the stretch. Then he had a good SEC tournament. I'm triven over my words, SEC tournament, before kind of falling flat in his face in the NCAA tournament,

though apparently he was injured. So just to go a little bit further, shot profile, 30% of the rim, 30% of his shots at the rim, excuse me, about 16% from 2.0.2 point range, 2.Jumper range, rather, and then a little over half is the remainder from 3-point range. So let's get rolling on the pros. Let's talk about his athleticism. What do you think?

Yeah, that is a great place to start with Miller because there's kind of a, he's an interesting profile in the sense that he might not have a lot of the elite burst qualities that he'll look for for one of these high-end wings. But he is very bouncy. and what I'm most impressed by personally is actually his stop-start ability. He has a tremendous ability to stop on a dime and either get a shot off or, you know, put people in jail a little bit and then, you know, make a read, either get to the basket or kick it out. That is, to me, the most interesting part of his athleticism. Yeah, it's definitely noticeable. He's got really good body control. he reminds me like a tiny bit of Cade and that's there's a lot of stop start and trying and trying to assume better position. I mean, he's not like seeing the floor anywhere near as well

as Cade does in that capacity. I mean, Cade's ability to go around a screen and attack and a pick and roll while stopping and starting and basically knowing where everybody is. It was pretty remarkable. But yeah, the body control is definitely there. His agility helps too. He doesn't really have a great first step. He's got to feel like a pretty darn good good second and in particular third step, like once he gets going, if he can blow through an empty lane, he gets he can do it fast or around a screen, he can do it fast. And you mentioned the leaping. It's interesting to me the disparity because he's an excellent two-foot leaver, like excellent. Yeah, but leaping off of one foot is not really that great, in my opinion. Yeah,

I'd share that concern, at least on the athletic end, there seems to be that once he's going, he's going to be a great guy in transition. I think that's going to be kind of one of his bread and butter skills. But once he gets in that tough situation where a guy has cut off his arm, then it seems like he kind of doesn't know what to do and has to put up a really tough shot. Because of his one foot athleticism is just not that great in terms of both the first step, the first jump on one foot. Yeah, yeah, so definitely we'll talk about that when we talk about scoring. Yeah. But, yeah, he's got great length, which he uses well.

You know, whether that be, you know, when he's attacking the basket, you know, he uses that length well. He uses to protect the ball pretty well. And his center of motion, even though he really needs to put on some weight, like his center of movement is really his core, and he's very strong in the core. So, and then that length and verticality make him a strong defensive rebounder. Like he really skies for boards. He's aggressive.

Yep. On the offensive glass, he does decently well. He actually led Alabama on putbacks, like with 18, but, you know, still remod, you know, still worthy of remark. Yeah, I mean, I echo all of that. That's what came up when I watched Brandon Miller throughout the year at Alabama's, that he hustles pretty decently, that his activity level on getting boards is pretty good for a skinny guy.

he's tough for how for pretty undersized I don't remember his weight exactly but he's definitely skinnier 200 yeah yeah he definitely has needs to fill out but it's yeah it's really to me it just comes back to good good activity level good uh sort of tough toughness for his size and I think that even if he doesn't fill out as much as we would like, there's still a good athletic framework. Yeah. Well, let's move on to the offense. You know, the pros on offense.

We're going to structure the same way that we did last time. Just pros on offense, pros on defense, cons on offense, cons on defense. So pros on offense would be the number one thing you'd say. And obviously, this is a rhetorical question because everybody's going to say the exact same thing about Brandon Miller. So what's your number one? The shooting. Oh, really? Wow. Shocking.

Yeah, my goodness. I'm floored. Yeah, sorry. I hate to break it to you, but Brandon Miller's shot profile looks to be maybe the best in the class, at least from Deep. He's got an excellent toolkit as a shooter. He can shoot off the catch. He can shoot off motion. gets really high, gets good elevation, super, super, super clean form.

Just watch Brandon Miller take dribble handoffs and tell me that you could really see any better from anybody. It's super polished. Yeah, he's a sweet shooter, and he's really a true motion shooter. Obviously on spot-ups, he's very good. I mean, he was elite on spot-ups in terms of efficiency,

but on catching shoots also. So, I mean, just catching shoots in general. He's got a sweet stroke. He sets his feet very quickly. I mean, yeah, his form is great. He's got a quick release. Even in some cases, it's dangerous to go over screens against him because he can get a good shot off.

On pull-ups, he shot only about 33%. But that's an encouraging mark at the NCAA level for a guy who was taking a lot of difficult pull-up threes. Yeah, and it's also important to remember that the NCAA court is just smaller and more condensed. So a lot of those pull-ups are going to be more contested than they would be in a wider NBA, more spaced out NBA court and more spaced out NBA offenses. Yeah, yeah, definitely true.

So always a threat to shoot from the perimeter. That's pull up or catch and shoot. Yeah, you just can't leave him open. You can't give him a space. And he's a good off-ball mover. He knows where to go to get open. Yeah, I had the standard play at Alabama in which you just curl around off-ar-ball screens, grab the ball and just shoot fast with a couple of feet.

I mean, that's something that's basically guaranteed. It's a useful skill that's guaranteed to translate to the NBA. Yeah, just sweet, sweet, sweet shooter. We didn't see much of him shooting in the interior. It was a very small percentage of his offense. Yeah, that's definitely if he's going to become one of those primary options on a quality team down the line, you would like to see more of a toolkit in the interior, just what can he do to sort of beat defenses when he's able to get to that second level of the defense,

but not necessarily penetrate all the way to the rim? I think that's kind of one of the extra areas of improvement that you'd like to see down the line. Yeah. And I think just based on his acuity as a perimeter shooter, including on the move. That just bodes well for anybody from mid-range. And Cisi's just somebody who has a good feeling about. And, you know, if you get that, I feel like, you know,

we'll talk a little bit later about, you know, some potential struggles off the drive at the NBA level. That'll just make his life easier in general, but also, you know, your true three-level shooters, or three-old scores, excuse me, those are very rare in the NBA, and I think he stands a decent shot of getting there. So, yeah, anything else you'd like to say about a shooting

before we move on? No. All right. So that's something, another quality I think is very much worth mention is his handle. He's got a very good handle. Yeah. Yeah, unusually good for somebody who is, I don't know if I'd call it an unusual mix of qualities, but it's definitely enticing alongside that, you know, just that potential and acuity as a shooter. You can do cool stuff with the ball. You know, he uses it to solid effect, you know, on the perimeter and also on the weight of the basket. Like the handle is genuinely good.

Yeah, I agree with that as well. The handle is, it's not otherworldly. He's not going to really, like, have the ball on a string as much. But I saw him do some honestly reminiscent of Kade type movements for bigger guys like them to just sort of, I'm just going to pass the ball around the back and, you know, get a shot up. And obviously, we can talk about the processing, a little later, but the fact that that's kind of in his bag, I think bodes really, really well for what he can do on the ball

as at least a play finisher. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And, I mean, a combination of good shooting and a good handle. And, yeah, like you said, I don't mean that he's going to be jukeing guys out of their, you know, out of their jock straps, as Mickey Rybman will put it, but, but it's definitely, you know, it's a great quality have, like a guy who's got a good handle along with, you know, especially if he's a guy who can get that mid-range going.

I mean, that can be a dangerous combination. Yeah. So, yeah, and we already talked about the body control. You know, he doesn't have the greatest first step. We mentioned that. But if you give him time to accelerate, he can really get going. And we saw, like, some cool poster dunks when he got up to full speed and then was able to jump off of two feet. So, you know, it's less that, you know, he's not necessarily explosive, obviously in the first step sense.

but if you give him a little bit of space, he is explosive. Yeah, I think he can finish above the rim with a little bit of runway. I mean, it's not going to be necessarily a real weapon for him, but as kind of an additional option where if the play breaks down, I feel pretty confident he can beat a close-out and put up a poster, highlight real dunk. Yeah, yeah, definitely on close-outs. will have a great ability to attack those at the NBA level.

If you give him an open lane, he can blow through it, which isn't true of everybody. Like, think Sadiq Bay, for example, if you give him an open lane, somebody's going to get there. Right. Yeah. So it's not like a, it's not like a given with shooters. You know, guys can attack closeouts, but there's attack and close outs, and then there's attack and closeouts. So another thing mentioned earlier, he's strong and also he absorbs contact well, and does not shy away from it at all, which is a good quality for obvious.

reasons. And, you know, it also showed in the four and a half free throws per game. He drew despite attempting more than 50% of his shots from behind the three point line. Yeah, I think that it shows the level of fearlessness that I think is going to be key for his success because he has the shooter's mentality. And he also has kind of a finisher's mentality. He definitely wants to be the guy to end the play. and I enjoy watching him, to be honest, a lot. He... It's fun to watch. Yeah.

Yeah, he wants to score. And sometimes that doesn't always happen. But there's like a need and a hunger within him that I think is going to be quite cool and important for him. Just getting his confidence going when the shot isn't falling to stay in the offense, to stay active to keep trying and working whatever angles he has. Yeah, he's a hard worker. He doesn't stand idle. And it's, I'm not sure if it was something he was coached not to do in terms of taking

very few mid-range jumpers. But it's also encouraging. I mean, you have guys at the NCAA level, cough, cough, Jarris Walker, who will stop and choose to take a bad, you know, bad for him mid-range jumper rather than attack the basket. That's one place where I think the Isaiah Stewart comp really breaks down because Isaiah Stewart will never in a million years avoid contact if he thinks that that's going to give him the best chance of scoring. Excuse me, if he thinks that attacking into contact is getting given the best chance of scoring. And Miller did not avoid contact at all. I mean, he went hard

to the basket. Sometimes he struggled there, but he did not settle for bad pull-up shots to avoid contact. Yeah. So I agree. Hard work around the court. Fearless. Those are great qualities. And I feel like when you look at the combination of the above, you know, like a talented shooter with good size and length who has a good handle, can put the ball on the four to a degree. You know, that's, that's a solid combo. You know, it's a very MBA coveted combo. Yeah, I think that you're right. This is why he's number three on pretty much every board that it exists in the public sphere at this stage. He's, has sufficient athleticism, great shooter, and good ancillary skills to make for an intriguing offensive package

should everything come together for him. Yeah, definitely. And it's funny to think about it. I mean, he's the number one NCAA prospect, despite the fact that he's going to get picked. I would say very, very likely number three. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just, it's a funny place we're at where, you know, he's going to be the majority of the top five, you know, assuming that Amen goes in the top five, and I think he will, is going to be a non-NCAA prospect. And one of them is from, as we mentioned last week, a Mickey Mouse League, which is infuriating. The other two, it's from Ju League Ignite, which is a super, you know, which even compared to the NCAA is a tough league. And Victor's playing with pros and, you know, in France for what that's worth. Yeah, I mean, it's a weird year.

It's a really strange year, kind of top to bottom. If we, you know, do more draft coverage after the loto, we can dive deeper into, other guys and you'll find there's lots of just strange players who are you know in the in consideration for top 20 picks yeah i haven't gone that deep yet uh i think i will after the draft well hopefully after the draft i won't be thinking about like 10 and later you know guys with the business get a second pick yeah if i'm having to think between like four and eight i'm going to be real upset uh you know between guys who could who would fall into that range uh yeah because that There are, you know, maybe four guys you could consider at number five.

But, I don't know, I'd have hard time passing up Cam Blitmore at number four or even at number five as well. But anyway, I digress. All right. So moving on to defense, I'm not that there's necessarily a ton to say there. Like, in my opinion, generally solid. Not great, but solid. Can switch onto some quick players, decent IQ and good lengths. Yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

It's just there's enough tools. there in enough effort for him to be a good rebounder, for him to be not necessarily a real shot blocker, but he can rotate onto guards and onto wings pretty well. And with his length and general quick thinking, I think he should be fine on defense. Yeah, I agree. I think he'll be competent. I don't expect him to be a world beer. But competent. and at the NBA level is fine. He's a non-liability. I think he'll be an average to slightly above-average defender.

And, you know, it means that if you're drafting him number three, you've got to really have faith in his offensive upside because he's going to be kind of providing neutral value on defense. Though, you know, within the bounds of an offense, which is me a defense in which everybody has a decent degree of switchability. You know, just being generally switchable, it kind of inflates the value there. So if you can run kind of like a five-deep lineup in that respect,

which you will not really necessarily likely be a, able to do with Ivy, who I think is going to run a little bit behind on the defensive processing in the long term, but hopefully not be a liability. So I don't really know where I was going with that. Yeah. In any case, all right. So let's move on to the cons. And this one I have to bring up, which, and I'm quite certain that Weaver wouldn't draft a guy if you had any, you know, any doubts in this area is murder, with Brandon Miller being known to have passed over to a friend, a gun that the friend subsequently used to kill somebody. Yeah, it's a really unfortunate situation.

And obviously, that's way more important than, you know, the NBA or the NBA draft regardless. But I think it seems like he's in the clear, legally speaking. I don't know about morally or anything. That would be something that would come out in interviews and doing research that we in the public sphere wouldn't ever really have access to. So it's going to be interesting to see if it affects his draft stock. The word, at least on the Twitter sphere and in the Reddit sphere, is no, that NBA teams aren't going to not draft him because of the situation, but it's definitely concerning.

Yeah, yeah, I agree that it's concerning. And again, Troy Weaver obviously is going to be a weeding guy who wouldn't, you know, in terms of not drafting him. if there's any doubt in that area, you know, Weaver who really focuses on character and, yeah, in any event, yeah, unfortunate situation is definitely the way, the way that I would, yeah, this highly unfortunate situation for everybody involved in it. So, but yeah, the local cops said he's not going to be charged with anything, at least for now, you never know. Right. You never know in the long term. But leaving that aside, what would you say is his number one weakness?

I would say one of my areas of concern. I don't know if it's my number one weakness is going to be the passing because he's going to drive a lot of his value, hopefully as a top three pick on the ball, creating offense for himself. The passing wasn't always there on offense. It makes me question maybe more broadly the decision-making when things get difficult,

will he be able to, quote, unquote, move the chains, get the rock moving into a better spot on offense? Yeah, he really wasn't utilized as a passer at all. Or alternately, you can just say that he didn't pass the ball that much. Of course, he was finished on a place from the perimeter. But it was just hard to know off the drive. It's like, is this just how he's being coached? Because it's not like he would make bad passes.

He just didn't really pass. all that much off the drive. So it's hard to tell, like, is this the system? Is he just, I mean, does he need to be coached to pass more? Because guys have learned, definitely. Or is he just a bad passer who just does, I find it hard to believe that he's got, like, such horrendous acumen off the drive as a passer that he just doesn't think to do it. But it's definitely going to become, for obvious reasons, a more valuable skill,

a more necessary skill in the NBA where basically everybody has to be able to pass to some degree now, like even your average forward has to be able to pull off a drive and kick so yeah that i'm you bring up a really good point that i i oftentimes wonder with all of these draft prospects is translatability of systems because oftentimes systems are a really big influence on the role of player plays and the NBA is very very different than the NCAA in terms of almost everything and Oh, yeah. There's a reason why, you know, guys who are short passy types who dominate the NCAA as point guards don't ever make it to the NBA. Even though they're excellent players, you go up and down the list of great postseason performers in the NCAA.

And almost none of them who are these short passy types, I like to call. call them end up really translating because as you said, the size and other factors. But with Brandon Miller, you wonder if that's just a coaching thing where, hey, you know, we don't need you to pass. We just need you to get a bucket. And for most of the season, that's what he did. Yep. Yeah, it does leave a little bit of a gap in our knowledge for sure. I mean, that's something that I'm sure will be analyzed at the combine and in private team workouts. But yeah, it's not so much that we have dad at it he's bad at it. We just don't have data that he's good at it. We don't have data that he's bad at it either. So it's definitely one of those kind of like irritating draft things where you just

really don't know. Yeah, I'd like to go back to something that we were discussing before, which is, of course, we can list amongst his weaknesses, you know, not so much in terms of explosiveness in his first step. And also, it's pretty poor leaper off of one foot. So on the drive, unless he gets up to full speed and can spring off of both feet. But You know, that lacking explosiveness does hamstring him in certain situations when he's, you know, his, in terms of just getting the step on his defender. Yeah. It's going to be something he struggles to do. And that's a valuable skill, of course, because it's really a quick ticket to breaking down a defense.

Yeah, it's one of those things where you wonder if his shot diet's going to get even more difficult, at least at the start of his NBA career, because closeouts happen so fast. guys are able to recover supremely well at the NBA level. All of these guys are ridiculous athletes for the most part. And even when he is able to kind of beat guys, you wonder if that he doesn't necessarily have the wiggle or necessarily have the kind of burst you would need to make those adjustments. And I think that's going to be kind of one of the questions

we want to see answered over the course of the early part of his career, at least, is what can Brandon Miller do to adjust to the heightened athleticism and length of the NBA? Because really, he's kind of a cheat code at the NCAA level. There's just no one is as skilled as he is, quite frankly, at that size. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's shot 58% at the rim on, like 80% on assist. at offense at the NCAA level, and it was a significance, like, you know, I think, I think I said 32 percent, a segment of his offense. So he did well there, but yeah, I mean, there are factors,

like, at the NBA level, just the margins are so razor thin that having this weakness is going to impact you a lot more than it does at the NCAA level. It's just a game of inches at the NBA level. So, yeah, that's going to, it's going to hurt him. And then that one leg leaping, I mean, unless he's built up ahead of steam, with which, again, he can spring. off of two legs. If he has to attack off of one leg, which is going to be the vast majority of opportunities at the rim in the NBA, he's pretty weak and, you know, he doesn't go up very strong. Yeah. And that, you know, yeah, that makes more difficult to score at the rim. And I mean, there are instances in the NCAA, not small a number of instances in which you just got swatted

trying to do it because you got, you got quite a bit of time before he actually gets up there. Yeah, it's the thing where he's extremely quick off two feet in terms of his leaping. Um, his ability as a standstill shooter is amazing. If you give him any amount of space to get a shot off, it's up. But then on the other hand, with his one foot leaping, he really can put himself into difficult situations. And you wonder if, like, the efficiency is going to get hampered once the improved length and approved, as I said, defensive kind of flexibility catches up with him.

Yeah. And any weakness at the NBA level is going to come through pretty strongly. So, yeah, it's just an additional area of concern for his ability to drive, you know, from on the ball. Like, I think he'll find more utility at the NBA level as a cutter when he'll be playing less on the ball. Yeah. And also as a vertical spacer, even, which you can do very ably. and, you know, just attacking through open lanes, created by teammates, like he's not, I mean, the pistons, Ivy and Cade are going to be your own ball types. But like you said, you know, you want, you know, your third overall pick to be able to, especially, you know, if he's, in Brandon Miller's case, it's not like he's going to be providing elite defense.

His value is going to be found primarily on offense. It's not going to be a liability on defense, but it's going to be found primarily on offense. And, yeah, that ability to not be able to put the ball on the floor, you know, lacking that ability to be able to put the ball on the floor and attack the. basket. I mean, yeah, he's going to need to get craftier. Yep. Definitely. And the only other weakness I felt that was of note, he can be a little bit turnover from when he drives because, like you said, he can get himself into some bad situations. For a lot of players, this is kind of an adjustable weakness. And some of them just don't have the situational awareness off the drive. But it wasn't a catastrophic thing. By any means,

he averaged two turnovers per game and was on the ball a great deal. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if I list that as a weakness. It's just something I noticed that occasionally you could get himself in a bad situation. But, yeah, two turnovers per game is not a lot, yeah, for a guy who's operating on the ball a significant amount. So, yeah, anything else on the offensive end, do you think qualifies as a weakness? No, I think that just about covers it. Yeah.

And on defense, I'm just going to say, well, he's got to put on some weight or otherwise he'll be physically bullied a little bit at the forward positions. But aside from that, it's like he's not like a notably, I don't think he profiles a notably be blessed defender, but he doesn't really have any weaknesses. Yeah, as you said, the strength is the key thing. He'll probably be, I mean, everyone's bullied by Janus, but he'll be extra bullied by guys in that mold until he gets some strength. That's just kind of a typical rookie thing.

I know he's a geriatric for some at the ripe old age of 20, but he still has tons of room to grow and fill out. Yeah, especially on the arms and legs. Yeah. And as you said, the core is already pretty solid for a guy of a very slight 200 pounds. So yeah. And the shoulders look broad enough and he doesn't look like a complete slenderman, a physiology.

So you would hope that he can at least add some weight to the frame. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And attacking the contact at the NBA level, he's going to require, it leaves definitely some more strength than the lower body. You know, he was strong enough for the NCAA, but in the NBA, when you have, again, yeah, incredibly athletic guys, very, very strong. You know, that's

just coupling those two things. Yeah, he's going to need some added strength. So, let's move on a comp. Here's just one thing I want to spend a couple of minutes on. Some of you were listening might be asking, you know, how isn't he just kind of like a version of Gibari Smith? And, you know, what I would point out

is that Jabari was absolutely horrible at doing anything inside the arc, whereas Miller shows actually a fair amount of, you know, a decent amount of upside there. At least at the end at the lay level, he did a decent job of it, whereas Jabari was a disaster. Yeah, that's, I think, a really good point of comparison because that was just last draft class. Obviously, Jabari brings a different dimension on defense where there's real consideration for him to be a very high-level impact defender later in his career. on top of the shooting should that turn around, which I'm still hopeful of. I had Jabari quite high.

But nonetheless, Brandon Miller is the far superior at this stage of his career on-ball creator to Jabari. They're almost completely have nothing in common other than body type in the fact that they can shoot. Yeah, more athletic too in terms of, you know, even on the perimeter. Well, just in general, Jabari is not very athletic. Also, another thing about Jabari, we can speculate, like, does what does Brandon Miller have as a score? We don't know. Jabari, we know to be a bad, excuse me, not his score as a passer. Jabari, we know to be a bad passer.

He just sucks at it. So, yeah, Miller in terms of, just in terms of his athleticism on the perimeter, just the off-ball move and the ability to get open, create separation, that definitely exceeds Jabari in that respect. So let's move on the upside. If you had to peg Miller's upside, like best-case scenario, where would you put it? You know, you can comp, whether that's just in general terms or a contuant to an NBA player. So I always like to think of guys, like, what's the pie in the sky?

That's not always helpful. But if we're saying everything works, everything comes together, he's like Paul George. Oh, wow. Maybe not on defense, but on offense. Wow. I mean, Paul George was incredibly athletic before his injury. but what I'm saying is that the ability to be a multi-level score and be obviously maybe even bring a even different dimension as a shooter then at least as an outside shooter than PG.

So I think that's kind of if everything gets fixed and he becomes a true three-level score at the wing position, then you're looking at All-Star to all-NBA upside. Interesting. The comp that I came to mind for me was Chris Middleton. Yeah. And that assumes, of course, that Brandon Miller develops as a pull-up shooter from mid-range, which I think he can.

I feel like he's already got very, very evident Middleton upside as a perimeter shooter in terms of his ability to shoot motion threes, you know, get open, shoot with very, very little space, you know, shoot from a few feet behind the line. and I think you'll be like a somewhat deep three shooter. So if you can get that mid-range game together and, you know, and just of course a guy who can put the ball on the floor, Middleton's handle isn't anything special,

but it's more than good enough for him to attack. And he's got, you know, good agility and just in good body control as well. Well, more just body control. Middleton is a guy who can drive in and spin and get a shot off. Maybe that's a lot to hope for. So maybe a guy who's not quite as good of a mid-brain shooter, but has more acuity in attacking off the ball. He's more athletic than Middleton, without a doubt.

Yep, that's, I think, kind of the, I like that as more of a stylistic or hopeful outcome, but then you bring in the fact that he might be a better offball player or just a more useful offball player than Middleton. So I could definitely see that being like a good, likely outcome rather than, okay, the handle, the passing, the shooting, the mid-range, the ability to handle contested shots, getting all that fixed, like we said, and turning into like a Paul George-ish type guy on offense, then, yeah, I could see it. I could see Chris Middleton for sure. Yeah, and when it comes to his floor, I mean, I think this is, nobody's going with a safe pick. You know, it's not Brandon Miller's the safe pick, but I feel like his floor is still good, like a, like a perimeter shooting specialist who, you know, who can put the ball on the floor to a degree and play,

you know, non-negative defense. That's a disappointing if you pick him third. But, that's still a player that you want on your team. Better Isaiah Livers. Oh, much better, Isaiah Livers. Yeah. Livers, I feel like, was kind of an eyesore this year. But, yeah, in terms of his ability to get open off the ball, not great. Or, you know, or you're kind of step back, pull up three's motion shooting.

Yeah. Yeah. So he's going to be, in my opinion, a useful player, even if he doesn't really improve all that much. Yeah. And then fit. And I think that Brandon Miller can basically fit into any roster without necessarily. much loss of value. It's a wing hungry league and at any team even the the wing filled Toronto Raptors would be a static to add Brandon Miller to the fold, let alone a team as wing

deficient as the Detroit Pistons. Oh yeah. So the fit with us is very good, positionally at least, just in terms of as you said, the floor is you're getting a competent wing. And that's one of Weaver's goals. So yeah. Yeah, you're getting, yeah, with your floor, you're getting one of these guys who can conceivably very effectively spaced the floor for Ivy and for Cade, you know, as a motion three-point shooter, potentially elite perimeter shooter. So, yeah, I feel like that makes the fit very good.

And that they would create quite a bit of space for him to attack into open lanes, at which point he becomes very competent as an athlete, you know, very quite good actually quite good as an athlete. So yeah, I'd say that the fit would be pretty much seamless. And again, not only is he, you know, that potentially weight perimeter shooter, but he's big. Well, he's got good size, you know, probably, you know, in the area of 6-8. So all right, where is he on your board? For me, he's third overall pretty comfortably.

I have him somewhat close to scoot because he is a very rare package of talent. But Scoot is, to me, still just kind of in a different tier of ultimate upside with everything he can do. And Wembe-Yamba is without even in consideration. Uh-oh. Uh-oh, you screwed up his name. What? That's very easy to screw up. Anyway, sorry, that just felt like I should Josh you about that.

Hey, I call him Wembe, okay. All right. Yeah, Wemba Nyama, yeah. Wamban yama. Yeah. Yeah, and obviously he's in the terror of his own. As far as Scoot goes, I mean, the fit is considerably worse, but there is just this very strong instinct for me that it would be a big mistake to pass on Scoot.

Yeah, we can get to that with the Scoot episode, but I think that starting at three, he'd be the slam dunk pick. And if he falls for some reason, then you run that card up to the commissioner's office and say, heck yeah. Yeah. All right. I think that's where we're going to call the episode. Do you have any closing thoughts? No, excited for the draft lottery to finally happen.

Yeah, for sure. It's a long wait, five and a half weeks, another five and a half until the draft. Oh, God. So, all right. In any case, Chase, been a pleasure to have you on the show. And as for all of you, as always, want to thank you for listening. And we'll catch you in the next episode.