Keyonte George

I’ll say this, Keyonte George wins the Josh Christopher award given annually to the player who looks most like a legitimate NBA player when you see them move and even make basketball plays, but just doesn’t get any of the results.

Offensively, George is aggressive.  He took a lot of hard shots in Baylor’s offense.  What’s interesting is that many of them weren’t poor shots, but by design or choice, they were a lot of tough shots.  Or put another way, a lot were well contested, but also seemed like a decent decision in the flow of the offense and not like a selfish player displaying poor shot selection.  The problem is that George has a decent first step, but isn’t especially elusive.  Baylor used a lot of screens and P&Rs to try to let him get a step on the defense, but even when he gets a step, George can take a lot of steps preparing for his scoring motion and doesn’t always take the most efficient path to the hoop, giving defenders time to recover.  Now to George’s credit, he showed a nice ability to run off a screen or cut to the hoop for a bucket, but he could also be a bit stationary on the perimeter when it wasn’t a designed action.  When George does get inside, he struggles scoring against length.  But he’s a bit of an odd case.  He actually has solid hops, decent strength, and good hangtime – all components that should allow for strong finishing.  However, he has mixed touch and just seems to take poor angles.  Instead of using his body to shield defenders, he just jumps into them and tries to score over them.  Theoretically, he also should be a good three point shooter.  He has good compact form and looks comfortable in rhythm, after relocation, or off the dribble…. but the results were just ok.  Some if George taking tough shots and that he can lean back when heavily contested.  But he is a good FT shooter, so this could improve in the NBA.  Theoretically, he also has the makings of a nice step back jumper as he creates space on the dribble move.  He just takes a bit too long to square up and gather, allowing defenders time to recover.  And if we want to keep the theoreticals rolling, George actually displayed some decent vision, hitting cutters in stride or to his roll man.  And he moved the ball quickly along the perimeter at times.  He just forced too many plays and made some bad judgement calls, resulting in way too many turnovers.

Defensively, George is just much more limited.  He’s not much of a shot blocker, but can get some steals due to his motor and ability to swim around his man to knock the ball away.  He gives good effort on defense and has some pretty decent speed to cover ground quickly and can jump pretty quickly, but he isn’t especially long or explosive, which can limit his effectiveness contesting shots.  George tries to help on defense, but he makes some odd decisions.  He can lose track of his man or overcommit in moments where help isn’t needed or it doesn’t provide an advantage to Baylor.    And he can get caught ball watching.  I try to be a bit lenient on players helping as it’s not always clear what a coach’s scheme calls for, but it could be really confusing to understand where and why George positioned himself at times.  George also only has decent lateral speed and can struggle to navigate screens.  Because of this he can lean into them or try to anticipate and cheat, leading him to get burned by ball handlers rejecting those screens and just driving straight to the hole.  He also plays a bit off his man at times to give a cushion, which could be problematic against NBA shooters.  George is at least decent at changing direction which should help him prevent countermoves, but he has inefficient footwork and does a little shuffle that can make him slow to react, especially on step backs (George changes directions faster easy to west, than north to south).  Again, at the risk of you hating this word, George theoretically has good functional strength.  And he  will try hard and move his feet and when players can’t get around him and try to drive into him or lower a shoulder, he does a good job absorbing the contact.  However, in the post, he gets moved pretty easily.  At the end of the day, some of the tools are there, but the decision makingi s the biggest concern.  He doesn’t play P&Rs well, gets lost in rotations, and just doesn’t have a high degree of awareness at this stage of his development.