Does Grayson Allen Deserve the Hype?

By now you’re probably tired of hearing the Grayson Allen story. He spent most of the year riding the bench on Duke’s talented squad before slowly earning his way back into the rotation and eventually breaking out in a stunning title game performance. After the title game, there was talk that he was going to be a first rounder if he declared for the 2015 NBA Draft, despite having played more than 10 minutes in only 15 of Duke’s 35 games. Many people, myself included, thought the hype was a little out of hand, and now Allen enters his sophomore season as one of the more unknown — and more divisive — potential 2016 NBA Draft prospects.

If you’d been paying attention to Duke for the weeks leading up to the National Title game, Allen’s breakout performance wasn’t quite so surprising. From about the midway point of the season, he clearly gained a lot of confidence and it reflected in his play. In his spot minutes, he didn’t hesitate to shoot the semi-open perimeter shot, and he looked to attack the basket whenever he could. In fact, he finished the season second on Duke’s entire team in per minute scoring at 19.0 points per 40 minutes. Some Duke fans, like myself, even suggested that he move into the starting lineup because his talent was evident in the minutes he played.

As a former McDonald’s All-American, it wasn’t surprising to see his success. However, while I am excited about Allen’s college future, his pro future is unclear. This isn’t a case where athleticism would prevent him from competing at the next level — you’ve probably heard about his impressive leaping ability already. Rather, it is unclear how Allen’s game can translate.

Based on what I saw from him last year, Allen is one of the returning players I am the least sure about. There are a lot of things to like about his game, and it is easy to see how his tools could turn into an NBA player. But I’m also left with a lot of questions about his game.

Allen came into college with a reputation as a great shooter, but it is fair to question whether his reputation is overblown. He shot 36.1 percent from 3-point range over 61 attempts in Nike EYBL play during high school and 34.6 percent on 52 attempts as a freshman at Duke. Those are certainly respectable numbers, but not the elite numbers some people suggest he is capable of. His form is solid and he gets good rotation on the ball. In conjunction with his 83.3 percent free throw shooting in EYBL and 84.9 percent in college, there is certainly hope he could become more of a 38-40 percent type of shooter. However, until we see better shooting from Allen over a larger sample, it is tough to classify him as anything more than an average outside threat.

Part of what makes Allen appealing as a prospect — in addition to his two-guard size and shooting — is his athleticism and creativity to get in the lane off the dribble and create for himself and others. Allen is often talked about for his dunking and his shooting, but last year his ability to consistently get into the teeth of the defense was the most impressive aspect of his game. His first step is truly phenomenal, and Allen thrives when he gets the ball on the left wing, dribbles toward the top of the key, hesitates and surges past his defender into the lane.

Once in the lane, Allen displayed solid vision for dumping off to bigs but limited passing ability when it came to hitting shooters on the opposite side of the court. If he looked for his own shot he did a good job of using his massive hands to extend the ball and his leaping ability to create a reasonable look for himself. Due to his ability to create those looks, he often ended up taking tough and contested layups, resulting in poor inside the arc efficiency. He did a formidable job of drawing fouls on his hard drives to the paint, though, and displayed a nice finishing touch with his opposite hand when driving left.

The problem is, as a Duke fan who watched every minute of their season, I’d wager that 80 percent of his non-3-point attempts came from the sequence described above. On the one hand, it is remarkable how often he was able to just use his athleticism to get a step on his man and create a shot for himself. But at the same time it’s concerning that hard drives to one hand made up almost all of his inside the arc offense. Having his level of first step is undoubtedly a good thing, but it is tough to see him getting into the lane at the NBA level frequently unless he adds more diversity to his dribble moves.

This year at Duke, Allen will undoubtedly be given a larger creation role and more focus from opposing defenses. Watching to see if he can consistently create those shots when opponents are more keyed on him will be huge, as will seeing if he can flash the ability to attack in pick and roll with more nuance. I’m not sold that he has the handle or feel for creating to break down defenses by doing things other than going hard right, but we’ll certainly get to see that this year.

The last main area of concern for Allen is the defensive side of the ball. He’s a high-level athlete with a reasonable 6-6.5 wingspan for the two-guard spot, but he wasn’t a standout defender his freshmen year. He often tried to get up on the opposing ball handler aggressively, and while his lateral quicks allowed him to apply some pressure, he got burned frequently. Off the ball he constantly looked to jump passing lanes and, as a result, was prone to getting backdoored. He doesn’t seem to have any physical problems with guarding at an NBA level, but he needs to deploy his athleticism more efficiently on that end. Again, in what should be a heavy minutes role this year, it’ll be much easier to see whether he has the defensive chops to function as a 3-and-D type guard.

Ultimately, there are a lot of directions that my opinion of Grayson Allen could go based on his play this year. If he shoots the ball at something near a 40 percent clip from 3, shows the ability to attack in pick-and-roll along with a more diverse off the bounce game and leverages his athleticism better on defense, he could be a fantastic 3-and-D prospect with some real combo guard skills. If things break badly, he’s an average shooter with poor defensive fundamentals who can’t create his own shot at the NBA level and probably not even deserving of a draft pick.

I tend to land a little on the pessimistic side, just because Allen hasn’t really shown it yet. There are good reasons to believe he could be a high-level top-20 caliber draft prospect, but for now I err more on the side of mid-second rounder when accounting for both his upside and his downside. I, for one, am as excited to see how he plays this upcoming season as almost anyone in college basketball. Seeing how much opposing fans hate him will be fascinating to watch, too.