Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Deep Dive: How Would Possible Kansas Jayhawks Transfer Target Julian Phillips Fit In With KU?

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Tennessee forward Julian Phillips might just stay in the NBA Draft, but if he does decide to pull out from the process he becomes an interesting transfer portal option for the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team. Scouting report on Phillips from defense to the shooting, how he would fit in at KU next to Hunter Dickinson and fighting with KJ Adams, and Phillips or Kaluma if you have the choice?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BirddogsToday's episode is brought to you by Birddogs. Go to birddogs.com/lockedoncollege and when you enter promo code, LOCKEDONCOLLEGE, they’ll throw in a free custom birddogs Yeti-style tumbler with every order.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, deep diving into Julian Phillips, transfer target from Tennessee, who might just stay in the NBA draft, but in case he does decide to transfer, let's talk about how he'd fit at KU. Deep dive into his game next. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. You can hear me as well Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Man, if only I could speak.

Good thing that's what I do for a living. You can also listen to us here with Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us, like, subscribe to us on our YouTube page. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be talking Julian Phillips. Deep dive into him.

Now, as today of me recording, Julian Phillips has not made it official yet that he will be either staying in or pulling out. I'm kind of getting the assumption that he is going to stay in the draft. We'll get to that here in a second. But should he come out, he would be very, very interesting

for the KU side of things. First of all, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of Locked On. Make every moment more. Visit FanDuel.com slash Locked On today to get started. So, yeah, Julian Phillips is someone who was a five star recruit, top 20 recruit in the country, goes to Tennessee. Tennessee has the number one defense in the country, makes the Sweet 16, had themselves a very nice season, and he entered the NBA draft process. And on the last day possible, he also entered the transfer portal

to kind of give himself options. But he's going through the NBA draft process. He entered all over the place in rankings headed into the Combine week last week. These rankings are, once again, pre-C pre-combine espn he ranked 52nd so that's like oh he could easily come back cbs he ranked 19th so that's like no he's for sure staying in and then the athletic right in between at 39 which is like he could stay or could go so basically you look at those and you're like that means nothing i don't know so then at the combine he in some of the physical tests performed very well as you would imagine him to do because that's what

he's mostly known for as being this incredible athlete he had a 43 inch vertical leap which was the leader in that regard kind of stole the show and i believe he actually pulled out after some of the testing at the combine. Now, could that just be because that was the plan all along from his camp where, you know, from his camp, he viewed it as, Hey, we know we're going to test really well. Uh, we're a really good athlete. Let's leave on a good note. You know, you want to walk away from the conversation before it gets too boring before it gets to a point where, you know, the, the other party is like, eh, I don't know. You want to leave on a high note. So they're wanting more. Right. And so if you leave on that high note of, oh,

look at this kid, like here, we only focus on the positives because that's all you got to see. We left after the positives, right? That could be a plan. That could be something that you're trying to do. That makes sense. That's smart from like a agency camp type of perspective at the same point in time it's also entirely possible that julian phillips um pulled out of the draft process from there or not the draft process but the draft combine i should be clear there because a team gave him a promise right a lot of times if right there's no need to keep doing things and and show much that's that's going to change stuff up and sometimes the nba teams want this let's say there's a team that you just want to be a first round pick you just want to have that guaranteed contract of being a first

round pick and let's say a team picking 25 or 28 or 26 or whatever is like hey we like what we saw we are promising you we get if you're available at our pick we will take you there and you know from the nba team perspective they're like it'd be great if you pulled out of the draft because then if if it's a spot that the client that the player that the agent would like their kid to go to they think it would be good for them or it's a good destination they might be like all right let's let's stop showing off eyes to other teams because we'd be comfortable going to that place and that would be a great fit for us so we don't want to show out for other teams at the same point in time you would also view it as um hey i just want to get that first round guarantee okay boom i got a guarantee i have

nothing else to prove right like i know worst case scenario that's my landing spot now it can be a bit of a dangerous game because what if, you know, that team tells you, I promise you're here. And then all of a sudden, somebody who was supposed to go in the top 10 falls to that point in the draft. And they're like, well, I know we promised you were going to go here, but we did not think that guy was going to be available. But if you maybe get two promises, then it's like, okay, now at this point, we feel really

good about it. So that's entirely possible. And if that is the case, basically, the reason me bringing this up is that that means that he would be staying in the NBA draft, that he would have a guarantee of a first round pick and that would be good enough for him. And he would be staying in the draft at that point, which means he would not be a transfer option for KU to possibly land. At the same point in time, it could have just been the first thing, right? And I haven't really seen anything official about like KU reaching out, but certainly just kind of connect the dots about the idea that, hey, you're looking for somebody who can play the three and four. He does those things. He's one of the better transfers available at this point. If he does decide to leave the NBA draft process and come back to college and go through the transfer

portal process, which he has already entered, it would make so much sense for KU to be in on him especially when you look at some of what he does well some of his scouting report that Bill Self he would be a Bill Self type player and in a lot of ways would even be kind of a Kevin McCuller replacement for KU in a lot of different areas so obviously KU would have a ton of interest should he decide to enter the portal but if you're asking me right, my expectations that he's going to stay in the draft process. I think when you look at some of the rankings, when you look at some of the physical performance, I think there's too much there that I expect him to kind of stay in. But it is worth talking about and it is worth monitoring because you still don't know at

the end of the day. And this is the type of kid where this isn't someone who, you know, oh, if some team promised him he's going to go pick 28, it's never going to be better than that. No, because of his athleticism and size and length, he is the type of player, Julian Phillips, that if he came back, let's say he came back for sophomore year of college, wherever that was, and he had a really good offensive year or like a better offensive year he averaged you know 13 points per game and he shot 34 from three all of a sudden in a week draft in 2024 maybe that is the type of guy that you would be talking about yourself being a lottery pick right so he does have real reason to possibly want to come back and then he could soar up the rankings but also if he comes back and struggles in the same way offensively, it's a risk because at that point, you have two bad years of offense where maybe then the first-round discussion thing is out of the book. So it is a risk-reward for him to decide what he wants to do,

but right now that would be the way that I would certainly be leaning. All right, we'll get on to his scouting reports, strengths and weaknesses. First episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make a fast break to FanDuel during the NBA playoffs because right now new customers can get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's $1,000 back in bonus bets. If your first bet does

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On to the scouting work. We go for Julian Phillips, the swing man forward from Tennessee. So immediately, I think you look at it. Great size and athleticism comes in at about six foot eight six foot nine um good wingspan really good athlete as we talked about 43 inch vertical he can play the three or the four like athletically he can very easily play the three lengthwise he can very easily play the four i think lengthwise you could even with his you know six foot eight six foot nine with his jumping ability you could even have his, you know, six foot eight, six foot nine with his jumping ability. You could even have him back to the conversation we were having about Arthur Columa. You don't ever really want to play him at the five. That's never the destination, but he's your emergency five.

He's your fourth string center in case of like a bunch of weird stuff happening, which it's never bad to have extra coverage at every position. So that's great to have that. He also comes in playing at a really high level for a really good team that demanded defense. You're talking about playing in the SEC, playing on a team that was a sweet 16 team, right? And it wasn't the greatest first season for him, but he did enough really good things. I think most impressively of all, Tennessee was the number one defense on Ken Palm. They were the number one defense in the country. Rick Barnes demands you being a good defender, and he was a great defender. I would argue he was the best defender on the best defensive team in the country.

Individually, he ranked in the 95th percentile on synergy and overall defense, and in the 94th percentile in man-to-man defense on synergy. This is an elite defender he's a switchable defender he is just a really good defensive presence on that end of the floor so let's say kevin mccullough stays in the draft and you're able to get julian phillips to come out and come to ku there's your kevin mccullough replacement and at that point if you're you're surrounding you know dewan harris uh arterio morris good defender marco jackson has the athleticism to be a good defender and you got

you know him coming in with kj adams and hunter dickinson who's at least a good rim protector and post-up defender um you have the makings of a really good defense and then you just say well offensively hunter dickinson and dewan you carry the load and take us from there. Nick Timberlake gets some threes. Boom. And you're covered. So, elite defender would seriously be in consideration for the Defensive Player of the Year award as soon as he stepped on campus at KU. He

also had some production on a team that made the Sweet 16. You know, it wasn't I don't know, jump off the page numbers, but eight and a half points per game, 4.7 rebounds per game, 1.4 assists per game in 24 minutes per game as a true freshman with that great defense. So solid production enough at an SEC level. He ranked 10th in the SEC only games in offensive rating in O rating, which is actually pretty amazing considering that he's not known for his offense, despite the points per game and the shooting numbers not jumping out. So what that tells you is that, yes, there are things he needs to work on with his

offense, which we'll get to that here later. But at the end of the day, he still found ways to be a productive offensive player for that team or being a great defender and putting up some other numbers there. Scoring inside was a big reason why that worked out for him because he's really good at scoring inside. He uses his athleticism to get inside drive it be a monster in transition and finish over the top of defenders obviously Kansas likes to get out and run when they can uh Julian Phillips would be a great lob threat he would be the guy that like KU used Ochagbashi in this way and we see it all the time those out of bounds plays where they throw it up for for a really athletic wing and he throws down a dunk, right? He would be in that same mold.

That's how you would use him a lot. He would be a great transition player for you. He shot 46.6% on the year on two-pointers over the course of the season, which isn't like a number that jumps off the page. But that really raised over the course of SEC games when he started to mature more during his collegiate career. In SEC-only games, he shot 54.5% on two-point shots, which is really good. That ranked in the top 20 of the league in conference-only games, and most of the guys that you're going to see in that top 20 are centers. So this kid was really good at being able to get to the rim and finish inside. He ranked 68th percentile in transition.

He ranked 98th percentile in offensive putbacks. Because he is a springy athlete, it's funny. Defensive rebounding to me is mostly about boxing out good angles, good hands, anticipation, knowing where the ball is going to be. Offensive rebounding, yes, all those things matter and are helpful, but a lot of times it's the springy athletes who are the better offensive rebounders versus the defensive rebounding. He is that.

But the 98th percentile in offensive putbacks isn't just about getting the offensive rebound. It's about finishing after the offensive rebound. And because he's such a springy athlete, that second jump we hear about sometimes, like you'd hear about with Andrew Wiggins at KU, when he gets the offensive rebound, he goes up so quick with it, it's hard to block him and kind of deflect his shot after he gets the offensive rebound. Rebounding, by the way, is a strength for him.

He was good on the offensive glass, especially. He averaged 1.8 offensive rebounds per game in just 24 minutes per game, so really good offensive rebounder. And he averaged, if you're one of the good numbers to look at to try to take away pace is per 100 possessions. Because then you have teams that are slower, teams that are faster, you equal it out to per 100 possessions, now things are equal and pace is basically taken out.

Well, he averaged 11.8 rebounds per 100 possessions. Tennessee was a slow-playing team. So you see his total stats on the air, and you're like 4.7 rebounds per game. That's a modest number. But they were slow. So 11.8 rebounds per 100 possessions out of comparison Ernest Uday for Kansas last year was at 12.1 so you're not that far off there KJ Adams was at nine so you're getting a good rebounder if you're getting Julian Phillips um he also has the potential to take a

huge jump in year two he was a five-star 19th overall in 24-7 sports in the class of 2022. This was from Jerry Meyer, who did his scout and compared him to Corey Brewer, two-time national champion, future first-round pick. Long, lanky, and athletic. Has an NBA athletic pop to him. Has a good feel for the game and a knack for coming up with the basketball. Outside shot is developing and expected to be reliable from beyond the arc. Good with the ball in the open court.

Straight line driver who can deliver a pass on the move very effective going to his left and which is his weekend and effective finishing with his left high potential prospect who needs to gain weight and strength and i think the biggest avenue for that improvement would be the shot we'll get into the shot on weaknesses but do keep in mind he shot 82.2 percent on free throws which ranked eighth in sec only games when he got it up to nearly 83 so he's clearly got good touch he got there at a solid rate too so he shot a good amount of free throws he clearly has touch he clearly has more potential from three if you can unlock that this is a potential lottery pick because of the athleticism and the defensive ability and the driving ability he just needs to figure out that shot and kind of the overall scoring acumen and

then you do have that potential lottery pick on to the weaknesses though the three-point shooting we'll start right there he shot just 23.9 from three last season um he only took 17 threes in the 14 sec games he played that means that he wasn't overly confident in it that means the tennessee offense wasn't overly confident in it and the percentage wasn't great either he ranked in just the 20th percentile in spot-up shooting going 7 of 29 or 24 from three-point range so it's not like well he was he was at least a good spot-up shooter but you know we didn't really use him in that way because we had Vescovii or whatever. No, that wasn't totally the case.

So you're looking to kind of rebuild the shooting here, which you're hoping for a big step in year two. Because of his defense and driving ability, if you can even get that up to like 30%, that's kind of the question, though. He also really struggled in the NCAA tournament. That's something to bring up here. He had five total points on two for eight shooting in three combined games during the NCAA tournament. Did he lose favor with Rick Barnes in the rotation? Was he playing through injury? Whatever it, it takes till year three to take that jump. Some guys till year four. Will he take that jump on the offensive end in year two or will you be basically getting the same guy you got in year one, which is still a very useful player, one of the best defensive players in the country

and a lot of good attributes, but certainly would make it for KU as you're looking to add more floor spacing a little bit more difficult for how much exactly he could play on the team, and you wouldn't really be able to play him next to K.J. Adams, right? Now, this is from The Athletic

on his transfer little piece. It says, he is long and switchable with aggressiveness that allows him to be effective on any player one through four that he's guarding. On top of that, he's an impactful help defender all over the court, rotating well within scheme and wreaking havoc for offensive players. Speaking of offense, that was a bit of a mixed bag this year. Phillips was a good shooter in high school that made some slight mechanical tweaks

entering his freshman year that didn't pay off, as he made only 24% from three. Because of that, he was actually at his best, attacking the basket out in transition and as a cutter, averaging about four free throws and eight points per game. Phillips is is also an entry into the 2023 nba draft and seen as a potential first rounder uh blah blah okay so something interesting to pull up there as far as the shooting thing phillips was a good shooter in high school that made some slight mechanical tweaks entering his freshman year so maybe it just took a little bit longer and he was still working through the mechanical tweaks and with just more reps over the summer here,

that three point shooting will be better, but at least it was there in high school and he shot well from the free throw line. I think it's a bet that I would be willing to take because of how good he is. And so many of the other ways, let's finish up there though, how he would fit in final verdict.

And where does he rank? I guess if we're going to compare him to say Arthur Kaluma in the transfer portal with locked on Jayhawks, transfer portal with Locked on Jayhawks? Finishing things up with Locked on Jayhawks, how exactly you would fit in? By the way, on tomorrow's show, I think the plan is to do a Grant Nelson deep dive. But I guess if any big new stuff comes down, then we might pivot to that instead. So how Julian Phillips would fit in? Obviously, his defense.

You would look at having arguably the two best defenders in the Big 12 at that point with him and Juan Harris. And he would help make you probably a very elite defense at that point in time. He would obviously fit in as being a three and four man. If the shock came around, maybe you could play some lineups with him at the three cage at the four. Realistically, I think you'd be looking him as a four man who maybe could play a little bit at the three when Marcus Adams is in there more realistically because Adams would be the shooter. Maybe he's your emergency five man. I think it'd be a competition with him or KJ to start, but either way, they'd both be playing 22, 25 plus minutes per game. And I think that he would be just kind of a great fit to be that

extra impact player in the rotation to kind of fill things out for you verdict he's an obvious take if he's willing to commit but let's say you have the choice let's say you have both Arthur Columa and Julian Phillips said they wanted to commit which again I remain to be on this side of I expect Julian Phillips to just stay in the NBA draft process but let's say it is something that that you do have the option there and you're like well we can't bring in both because it's going to upset too many people and we're not going to be able to fulfill both of them being big enough role players and it's not going to work out. I think you look at it, Columa would be the better offensive fit and has a more veteran

presence. I know it's only one extra year, but you get a little bit older there, which is always helpful in college basketball. Phillips, I think, has the higher potential, the higher ceiling. I think he's the better defensive fit. Now, as far as the, it's interesting because a lot of this comes down to the offensive three-point shooting. And with Kaluma, he's shown to be a better three-point shooter so far in college. He hasn't been great, but he's been better at it. But with Phillips, because of the free-throw shooting and his high school acumen, you can make the argument that the ceiling for the three-point shooting

might be pretty similar there between both. I think, honestly, oh, gosh, I don't even know. I almost lean Phillips ahead here and just bank on the potential working out because the idea there is if the potential doesn't work out, you have KJ Adams that you can just play more instead, right? So that would be my lean. But if you end up with Kaluma too, I think that's just a great fit as well.

At the same point in time, I don't know how realistic Phillips will be because I do expect him to be on an NBA team next season. But you never know. Transfer portal's weird. Draft process is weird. And you never know what's being said or what's working out kind of behind closed doors.

All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Like I said, Grant Nelson, Deep Dive coming up maybe on our next show here to get into what I view to be the number one guy available to go get. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find us anywhere you get

any of your podcasts or on YouTube. Like and subscribe to the show. See you next time. Later.