Rasheer Fleming

Offense

Fleming plays with a high motor and excellent quickness, especially for a PF / C. He’s at his best using his speed to quickly transition between perimeter actions, screens, cuts, and crashing the glass. He’s particularly fast transitioning dribble handoffs (DHOs) and on-ball screens into a roll to the hoop or pop for his jumper. However, while he’s willing to screen on and off the ball and can transition quickly, there are time I wish he’d wait a beat longer and hit the defender a bit more substantially to free up his teammate.

As a driver, Fleming brings speed and strength, but his attacks are mostly straight-line drives. He doesn’t possess many moves in his bag, which leads to wild, off-balance shots when defenders meet him in the paint. He struggles to finish through congestion, lacking the touch, bend, and vertical explosiveness needed to consistently convert in traffic. His drives are often predictable and can result in offensive fouls as his two moves are basically to try to bully the defender or utilize a quick spin move.

Fleming is mostly a below the rim player who can jump quickly but doesn’t have great hangtime or bend and can struggle to get good angles when he can’t just quickly beat his man and use his frame to hold them at bay or use his long arms to create a good angle. He also has very mixed touch and missed too many “easy” shots inside. Rasheer can also play a bit sped up and looks rushed and out of control at times like the old cartoon Tasmanian devil. This energy can be good and contagious when used well, but can also lead to inefficient possessions and forced shots.

As a shooter, he’s still a bit more theoretical than reliable. He’s not shy about launching threes, but his form is a bit stiff and mechanical and  inconsistent. While he can hit shots in rhythm, there’s almost no off-the-dribble or movement shooting.  And when contested he tends to rush his shots and his percentages seem to drop.  On film, it looked like even a lot of college teams seemed content to let Fleming shoot threes and he had lots of pretty wide open attempts.  We can question if that was out of respect for his ability to drive and they wanted him to settle, if they weren’t that scared of his shooting, or a combination of the two.

Rasheer is a very good rebounder. His speed, leaping ability, and motor allow him to make plays on both ends of the floor. He consistently boxes out and competes hard for boards, particularly on the offensive glass where he gets a lot second-chance opportunities off sheer effort.

As a passer, he’s fairly limited. Most of his assists came from basic swing passes, variations of DHOs, or kick-outs after offensive rebounds. Even on his assists, some of his passes were shaky. He struggles with accuracy and decision-making, leading to two main types of turnovers: sloppy passes (either errant or poorly timed) and ball-handling errors. His footwork is often unpolished, and he gets stripped or called for offensive fouls on drives.  He doesn’t have much elusiveness and will just drive straight into defenders. He also commits moving screens, though considering how often he screens, it’s not overly concerning.

Defense

Fleming’s defensive impact is driven by his energy, lateral speed, and theoretical switchability, but also limited by his inconsistency and questionable judgment. He moves well laterally and has decent directional agility, but he’s often a beat late reacting to fakes or misdirection. While he has the tools to contain guards or wings at times, he can be flat-footed or stuck processing what’s happening, allowing easier blow-bys than expected.

He brings value with his ability to switch and recover on the perimeter. At his best, he contests shots well and can absorb contact from guards or average-sized wings. He also fights through screens with good technique, often going over the top and using his speed and motor to stay in the play, but also showed an ability to switch and not look like a liability.  However, against stronger, taller bigs, Fleming struggles. He lacks the strength and low center of gravity to hold position in the post or challenge players who drive through his chest. Despite decent block numbers, he’s not a traditional rim protector. Many of his blocks come on contests against his own man or help situations closer to the ground. Now this isn’t bad or to discount his blocks.  The fact he could switch onto guards and block them as they tried to score on him or drive into him in drop coverage is great.  But I wouldn’t mistake him for a Myles Turner or JJJ type of rim protector you could use to cover for other’s player’s defensive mistakes.

However, some of these limitations raise concerns about who he guards at the NBA level. He’s looked a bit small even as a Junior playing next to some big men at a lower level of competition and could be pushed around inside and scored over.  So I wonder if he can guard traditional NBA bigs.  Meanwhile, his discipline and instincts on the perimeter need work before he can reliably defend wings. That said, he creates congestion in the lane with effort and will rotate quickly to help, even if he doesn’t always convert it into high-level contests.

Fleming is also a solid help defender on the perimeter, but with some issues. He has good speed to run out and cover for his teammates and the quick jumping and length to help and contest shooters, but also could also overhelp at times and give shooters he had been guarding too much space. Sometimes he was playing a near zone and just sitting in the key and would let his man get wide open shots. Even opposing players who were good shooters. Though it’s unclear if this was his judgement or Coach Lange’s defensive design.  He probably needs to refine judgement here.  Fleming will also jump out at perimeter players a bit too aggressively at times, letting them pump fake and get an easy drive to the hoop.  He also just has a bit of a “jumpy” style and will sometimes just play to sped up and over pursue a player and let someone you would think he could contain get to the hoop.

Still, Fleming can bring value with his hustle and defensive playmaking. He generates steals with anticipation and quick hands, whether by jumping passing lanes, digging down to poke the ball loose, or using his motor to pursue loose balls.

Finally, I at least need to note that defensively I’m a bit concerned with performance versus bigger schools.  His performance against stronger competition was mixed. He got bullied at times in the paint and had difficulty with stronger guards or bigs, which raises questions about how translatable his defense will be against NBA-caliber athletes.  As an example, when they played Texas Tech, Darrion Williams looked good in P&R versus when Fleming tried to switch and cover him, though it was a very small sample.  But Williams was able to shoulder bump him and create space and Williams is a marginal NBA prospect.  So film of Fleming sliding his feet and absorbing contact versus Duquesne or American University guards may be a bit misleading.