Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Deep Dive: How Would Kansas Jayhawks Transfer Target Nicolas Timberlake Fit in at KU?

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Kansas Jayhawks basketball transfer portal target Nicolas Timberlake wrapped up a KU visit last week. What are his strengths and weaknesses, how would he impact and fit in in Lawrence for Bill Self's squad and where are things at in his recruitment.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, we do a deep dive on Nicholas Timberlake and why he would be a big get for KU headed into 2023-24. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well, Monday through Friday, Rock Chalk Sports Talk from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And you can also find us on YouTube and subscribe to the show there.

On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be doing a deep dive on Nicholas Timberlake. I want to do these with some of the players that have visited or will visit KU. We don't need to do this with every transfer person who KU reaches out to, but at least the players who go on visits, which Nicholas Timberlake did. I think it's worthwhile and worth the time. And Timberlake represents the first visit, I believe, of the transfer portal class.

I mean, obviously KU had an in-home visit with Jameel Reynolds. They've had Zoom meetings with different players. But the first visit to KU was Nicholas Timberlake. So let's get into the deep dive. We'll get to his strengths and weaknesses. We'll get to how he would fit in kansas what it would mean for the roster and everything then uh you know we'll uh get to maybe next week some other deep dives and also we will uh get to some more uh top 10 rankings of different

positions later next week as the transfer portal continues to to churn and be a never-ending cycle that uh comes through for us so first things first before we get into the strengths and weaknesses kind of the scouting report where are things at right now with ku and nicholas timberlake well first of all he had his visit his visit was last weekend he uh came out on friday i believe he left on easter sunday he came out for the spring showcase Friday night. I'm sure he did all sorts of great things on Saturday and shown around places. And I don't know which players were the ones that were kind of showing him around and sure let him have a good time and everything. Now, a lot of times, as far as the transfer portal game goes, it's very dependent. Like you almost have to get the kid to commit to the school at the end of the visit or on the visit.

That didn't happen with Nicholas Timberlake. But this seems to very much be a kid who is definitely very cerebral with this decision, which, you know, more power to you that you're going to take everything into account. He went on a North Carolina visit. And they tried to maybe get him to commit and, you know, wasn't successful. He ended up leaving, coming to KU, doesn't end up committing. Now he's going to Connecticut this weekend to have a visit with the reigning national champions. I would imagine he's not going to commit on sight and scene there either. Because, again, I think what he's going to do is probably after he has all these visits, take everything into account, sit down,

have some conversations with the close people to him that matter about it, and figure out everything that is the plus and minus for every school and make a calculated decision that way. Never blame a kid for doing something like that. So I don't necessarily view this as one of those.

Like a lot of times, if you do have a kid who visits and they don't commit and then they go visit somewhere else, that can be kind of a bad sign that like, oh, he's not going to come here. I think in the case of Nicholas Timberlake, that's just who he is. He's just someone who wants to make a measured decision as a veteran player,

a sixth-year player in college basketball, an experienced player that is just more mature into making a type of decision that way that is probably the smarter way to do things. So still absolutely a viable option for KU seems like KU would love to have him and it makes a lot of sense when you look at the things that he does well and when you look at some of the deficiencies that next year's Kansas team could have on the roster that we look at and say well you don't have this you don't have that you need more shooting you need more scoring and you know you always want experienced players out of the

transfer portal he fits a lot of that bill and there's a reason they set up a visit on him i think they're still you know in on him and trying to uh keep pressure applied to make sure that they're in it to the very last part of this and and can possibly try to get a commitment out of it um he's i don't think probably like i think priority number one for kansas is hunter dickinson and he's i don't think probably like i think priority number one for kansas is hunter dickinson and you know i don't i don't know where he would rank in terms of for timberlake the priority list goes here but we did yesterday the top 10 list of combo guards uh that maybe could fit in for ku and he was tier two we only had two players in tier one max ace miss and tyler perry hasn't really heard

much in terms of ku's interest in either of those guys or if there's reciprocated interest or you know where those relationships might be going in theory timberlake right now is the number one like combo guard that ku has prioritized on their list keep that in mind as we head into things here all right let's get into the strengths and weaknesses side of things for his game and what he could bring to KU in just a second. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Built Bar. If you're like me and you want to make healthier snack choices, but you don't want to compromise on taste, I've got just the thing for you.

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like bounty brownie batter puff say that five times fast you take me later with bill barr strength and weaknesses to the game of one nicholas timberlake uh let's start with the strengths the shooting obviously need in my opinion right now is shooting and guys who can score the ball last season ku was about an average three-point shooting team to begin with, and that ended up being a flaw that hurt them. And if you took Grady Dick off, then the rest of the team was below average at three-point shooting at best collectively.

So that automatically was something they're looking to improve from last year. But then you lose Grady Dick, who was your best three-point shooter. You lose Jalen Wilson, who was your highest volume three-point shooter and you know was about average in terms of his percentage and now it's like well how do we even just get back to where we were last year and then try to improve on it because it wasn't good enough and then beyond that another thing is do they have enough guys who can create shots for themselves and hit shots for you in tough situations last year was Jalen Wilson Grady was more of someone who you know was created for him created off the ball working off a screen

or somebody uh driving into the paint and him getting a spot up opportunity in the in the corner or him cutting off the ball uh we saw Kevin McCuller create a little bit toward the end of the season he had that nice spin move into the lane and some nice drives really over the last like three or four weeks of the season but for the the most part, KU didn't have enough creation. Like it was, it was every so often KJ would, you know, drive in on a center every so often and DeJuan would have sweeping like right-handed hook, but it wasn't consistent all the way through the roster. You need more of those things, shot creation and shooting the basketball. And when you look at the roster KU has for next year, it's obviously very incomplete,

but there should be a team that has pretty pretty good amount of athleticism. Obviously, they're looking to add more on the wing, but KJ is a good athlete. Ernest and Zuby, those are pretty good athletes for you. They can throw down a lot of lobs and get up there and catch rebounds high and get blocks and stuff at the center position. So you got pretty good athletes there. The freshmen you bring in, like Marcus Adams, good athlete. Chris Johnson, good athlete. Jamari McDowell, good athlete. Elmarco Jackson, great athlete. So you should have a decent amount of good athletes throughout the team.

And then you have defensive pillars. Like DeJuan Harris was the Big 12 defensive player of the year. Ernest Uday and Zuby Edgifer in year two should be even better defensively and at rim protection and rebounding. KJ can be a good defender for you. like you have a good base to the defense and if you have some of those athletic freshmen you would think they have at least potential to be good defenders but what you're missing is that shooting and that is what nicholas timberlake brings to the table so in his fourth year of school he was a fifth year player last year. He'll be a sixth year player this next year. In his fourth year of school, Timberlake shot 40.6% from three on 5.6 attempts per game. So good volume there.

Very good percentage. Last season, his fifth year of school, he shot 41.6% from three on 6.7 attempts per game. Again, very high volume, very good efficiency. He's also shot over 80 at the foul line the last three seasons to show you more about his shooting ability and one of the more impressive things he shot well against better opponents you obviously have the question how is he going to jump up in competition from the colonial and where towson plays to the big 12 versus ken palm top 100 teams 29 of 63 on three-point shots last season.

That is 46%. Versus Ken Palm top 50 teams, limited sample, just 8 of 18, but that's still 44%. And for what it's worth, he has two career games against Virginia, who we always think of as this defensive juggernaut in a Power 5 level. He went 5 of 9 from 3 in the two career games he played against Virginia. But if you total it all up over the last three seasons for some more sample size versus Ken Palm top 100 competition,

you get 17 games over three seasons where he went 50 of 113. That is 44% on 113, three point tries a little better sample size. That's a great percentage to have. Now you're going to be playing top 100 every night in the big 12, but at least he showed that he did it even in the limited sample size, that's a great percentage to have. Now, you're going to be playing top 100 every night in the Big 12, but at least he showed that he did it, even in the limited sample size, better than the alternative, right? His shooting level, or his level of shooting, I think,

comes in a myriad of different forms, too, which is really important and really nice. So with Grady Dick, he was an unbelievable three-point shooter, but because he was a freshman, he was still learning how to move without the ball. He was still learning how to operate off of screens. He was still learning some of the intricacies of the game that, for instance, if you compare to Ochai Baji the season before, Ochai was the best in the country at doing those things, moving without the ball.

But Ochai was a senior. Ochai was an older player. It takes time to learn that stuff. Grady Dick did about as good as you could ask for a young freshman, but he was a older player. It takes time to learn that stuff. Grady Dick did about as good as it, as you could ask for a young freshman, but he was a younger player. Nicholas Timberlake is an older player. He'll be in year six. He knows how to move without the ball. He knows some of the intricacies.

Last season, he was 94th percentile was Nicholas Timberlake in spot-up shooting. That would be a lot of what KU was asking him to do. He would be creating less for himself than he was at Towson. He also ranked 55th percentile, which is above average off of screens. Out of comparison, Grady Dick was 34th percentile. So you could get an upgrade there.

Grady Dick was in the 74th, I think, percentile in shooting spot up versus Timberlake being 94th percentile. Again, Dick playing better competition than Timberlake. But also because Dick was such an important player for KU, he created so much gravity to himself that he was getting face-guarded, and maybe Timberlake would too, but realistically, when Timberlake's on the floor, he might not be one of the top options the same way that Grady Dick was, or maybe he would get open a little bit more.

But you watch some of the Nicholas Timberlake highlights too, and he showed the ability to hit deep threes. That was something that we never really saw from Grady. Every so often, there were a few in there where he hit from maybe 25 feet or something, but sometimes it was almost like shoot more from deeper, shoot more 25 footers, shoot more 30 footers, because it'll just make the defense have to draw out further on you, open up spacing even more, or it might be your only way to actually get an open look with Timberlake you look at some of the highlights he's shooting those a little bit more consistently he's hitting deep threes to further stretch the spacing of the court and he can even hit some tough ones off the bounce though maybe not as consistently you could make a real argument that while Grady Dick probably a better player and not probably a better player than Nicholas Timberlake overall and did it against better competition you can make an argument that

just from a shooting standpoint just that one attribute of the game that Nicholas Timberlake as a sixth year player next season will be better than a freshman version of Grady Dick now would sophomore Grady Dick or would Grady Dick by the time he's the same age as Nicholas Timberlake be you know better probably but that's not what we're comparing here it's last year's Grady Dick by the time he's the same age as Nicholas Timberlake be you know better probably but that's not what we're comparing here it's last year's Grady Dick is freshman to a six-year Nicholas Timberlake and Grady did so many things other things well transition play sometimes off-ball defense getting some steals rebounding cutting to the basket that he was playing 30-35 minutes per game with Timberl, he might not be playing that many minutes per game

that you don't get the benefits of the shooting as often over the course of the game. But just from a shooting aspect, this is one of the better shooters in the entire country with his ability to get him off in a lot of different ways. I think some other strengths, he's a 6'4 combo guard. Sometimes you get in college, those combo guards are 5'11", 6'1", range. Not totally ideal to play next to DeJuan Harris and Elmarco Jackson. Timberlake at 6'4 gives you at least a little bit of a size there. And all things considered, he's been a decent defensive rebounder,

I think, because of that size at 6'4". Again, it's against CAA competition, so it's a little easier to get those rebounds, and there's not nearly as many tall people in the caa that there are in like the big 12 but uh just to show you he had about an 11 a little over an 11 defensive rebounding rate last season takes out like tempo and stuff out of comparison grady dick was at 13 last season kj adams was at nine percent ernest uday was at 13 so pretty good defensive rebounder and i think the other thing you put in the strength column is experience he was in his

sixth year of college or it will be this next season excuse me and it's good to have older players on your team you're gonna have a lot of freshmen coming in good to have that experience to help them learn good to have experiences in general in college basketball. Older teams tend to win games in March. As far as the weaknesses, the defense. Defense has been a problem. So this, not great. Synergy, looking at the numbers. Nicholas Timberlake ranked in the fourth percentile.

You heard that right, fourth percentile. That means 96% of college basketball was better in both overall and man-to-man defense. That is a problem. And that is especially a problem for a head coach and Bill Self, which if you make a mistake defensively, if you make a mistake doing one thing or another, you're going to hit the bench. And that can limit your amount of playing time,

which if it limits your amount of playing time, it's limiting the amount of impact you can have as a three-point shooter. Now, we have seen KU um be insulated around good defenders before and then still be able to play three-point shooters that didn't really do much else think back to brandon green you think back to like isaiah moss just a few years ago and you were okay doing that but that certainly goes in the weakness column there and that was against caa competition and not the big 12 my biggest worry here is that he is joe cremo i don't know if this name rings a bell for people joe cremo uh was at albany i think they made the ncaa tournament 2018 and his last

year at albany he averaged 17.8 points per game around in line i think actually slightly better than what timberlake averaged at towson 4.1 rebounds per game 3.8 assists per game both those numbers slightly better than timberlake 45.8 on three point shots 5.2 per game that's better than the 41 from timberlake though timberlake more three attempts per game so all those numbers are slightly better than what timberlake did at towson which towson ranks about 20 25 spots better on ken palm than that albany team so slightly better team both conferences ranked around the same on Ken Palm but Cremo ended up I think he visited KU um and that was a talk of like oh is he going to come to KU he ended up

transferring to Villanova he picked Villanova over Kansas he then went on to make just five starts that season he played just about 16 and a half minutes per game he only scored four points per game on 34 percent from three and honestly honestly, that's still a useful player, right? He's still playing 16 minutes a game. He's filling a specific role of being a three-point shooter. And you look at this KU team, you would love that. I mean, after last year where the bench struggled every game, you would love to have somebody who can just come off the bench

and play 15, 16 minutes per game and can hit threes consistently for you. That would still be a huge boon to this Kansas team from where they were last year. It's a very useful player. I'm not arguing against that. But the worry would be, you know, if you if you give the scholarship there, are you preventing a scholarship from somebody else who maybe could play a little bit more or be a further bigger impact player? My verdict, though, when tallying all this stuff up is that I think Timberlake would

be a pretty ideal, perfect fit for Kansas. I'm not as concerned about the defensive limitations there because to me, they just need the offense. As I mentioned, DeJuan Harris, big 12 player of the year in the backcourt. Elmarco Jackson, I would think, should be a good defender with his size, length and athleticism at a guard position. You look at some of the freshmen, they should be able to play hard and with athleticism to be solid enough defenders. KJ Adams, good defender. I expect Ernest and Zuby to take a step up in terms of their defensive ability, and we know they can be good rim protectors and defensive rebounders.

You could bring on another transfer who, I don't know, plays good defense to where they have the defensive insulation. You know, this is like the, maybe not to this level of, you know, what you expect them to be or anything, but the Yudoka Azubuki Devon Dotson team in 2020, that team had like the best defense in the country. They were able to add Isaiah Moss, who was not a very good defender, but because they had the defensive insulation around him, they were like, Hey, we just need a three point shooter. Just give us Isaiah Moss, you know, and that ended up being okay. And so I think you have the defensive insulation around you that I expect this to be a top

10, top 15 defense, especially with Bill Self. Just get the guy that can hit threes for you because you don't have enough of that on the roster. Get the guy that can make shots for you. And Nicholas Timberlake is about as good at that stuff as anybody that's available in the transfer portal. Let's get on to how he'd fit at Kansas in just a second with Locked on Jayhawks. So how he would fit at Kansas.

As I mentioned, he would be your go-to three-point shooter on the roster right now. He would be your go-to guy that late in the game, if you need a three, you probably take him in. But would he be a starter? Would he be a bench piece? I think what ideally would happen, you assume DeJuan would start at the one, obviously. What would happen is then you would have an open competition in the offseason between Elmarco Jackson and Nicholas Timberlake. Would it shock you if Timberlake started the first few games of the year and then Elmarco overtook him would it shock you if Elmarco started the year as the

starter no neither would would shock you so I think what you're looking at there is Timberlake could be someone who plays really anywhere between you know if the defense really isn't hitting and he's missing shots that night maybe it's a guy that night who only plays 10 minutes per game. But also probably in that 10 to 20 minute range, probably looking at a 15 minute per game guy off the bench that can fill in for you at the two position, right? You'd move El Marco over to the one when DeJuan's off the floor for the handful of minutes. That'll be and Timberlake comes in at the two. Maybe you could even play him next to El Marco and DeJuan for a handful of minutes in lineups with three kind of smaller guards next to each other um and he's playing as a bench player i think the floor you'd be looking at yeah 10 15 minutes a game somebody can come off the bench and

give you more bench scoring than you were getting last year i think the ceiling would be maybe he does end up starting right what if el marco jackson isn't quite as ready as as i think and we think is going to happen but it gives you a veteran option that if he isn't quite as ready as I think and we think is going to happen, but it gives you a veteran option that if he isn't then end up being ready, like we've seen with a lot of other freshmen, that you have a real option who's played real college basketball minutes that can come in for him and be a 25 minute per game guy. Or maybe he even does come off the bench, but he still does play 20 to 25 minutes a game and he closes games where you need the offense in there just because he fits a specific niche that you do not really have up and down the roster.

So I think he would be a great fit for KU because of the way that he helps in a lot of your weaknesses, and I think it'd be a big-time get if KU is able to land him in the end. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back on Monday. Maybe we'll do a deep dive on like Primo Spears or top 10 wing transfer options. I don't know.

Maybe some breaking news will happen over the weekend and we can talk about that instead. So we'll see what happens next week, but stick around for it with locked on Jayhawks. You can find us wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can find me on Twitter at D Johnson radio, and you can all also see us on YouTube. Have a good rest of your day.