Oklahoma State point guard Jawun Evans was a McDonald’s All-American last year, and he has really come on strong as of late following a good start to the season. Evans burst onto the scene with a 42 point, 7 rebound and 6 assist performance against Oklahoma on Jan. 13, only to follow it up two games later with 22 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds against Kansas.
Due to standing at only 5-11 and playing at Oklahoma State, Evans hasn’t garnered much attention from the draft community. After the two gaudy stat lines he put up, though, I wanted to take a closer look at his game.
The first thing you notice when watching Evans is his incredible speed with the ball. He’s able to get downhill and gain an edge on almost any defender just by accelerating.
But at his size, just being able to get into the lane is not always enough to make a play. Evans is shooting only 45.6 percent at the rim in non-transition situations, according to Hoop-Math. He gets going downhill fast but doesn’t have the Isaiah Thomas arsenal of shots around the rim to finish at his size yet.
Even when he is able to finish at the rim, it is evident how difficult of a shot he is being forced into.
If Evans ever wants to finish even reasonably well in the NBA, he needs to slow his body down and learn how to absorb contact from rim protectors in the paint. He’ll have to develop more trickery with his release timing, too.
In order to create more space for Evans, Oklahoma State puts him in tons of pick-and-roll action — he gets to run at least one pick-and-roll almost every possession down the court. He has a super tight handle and a surprisingly great feel for manipulating the defense in pick-and-roll. If you hedge lazily, he’s just going to blow his way to the rim.
Evans is shooting 46.9 percent from 3-point range (on only 32 attempts) and 81.4 percent from the line, so you can’t just go under screens when guarding him.
If you switch a ball screen, the big man better be quick because Evans gets to the rim at will.
He even has the patience to steadily break down a dropping big man and score in the midrange.
Teams can’t send too much defensive attention at him, either, because he has great vision.
Watch as he freezes the defense by threatening both his drive and the kick to strongside shooters, allowing him to hit the roll man with a beautiful pocket pass.
Evans has already shown some ability to look off defenders and find teammates, too.
His vision isn’t just limited to ball screen action. He can draw defenders and hit cutters.
Evans also does a good job of looking ahead in transition. Even though he spends a lot of time with the ball in his hands, he’s not afraid to let his teammates try and make a play by making a more “simple” pass.
Clearly, Evans is super advanced for a freshman in his ability to make things happen in pick-and-roll. He combines raw speed and vision with patience, handles and a good floater game to make things happen. However, Evans passing and pick-and-roll play is not all roses. A couple in each game were somewhat fluky, but Evans had 5 turnovers against Oklahoma and 6 against Kansas.
Occasionally, he makes the wrong read in the pick-and-roll.
Other times, he forces a pass that is just a little too ambitious.
Most of his turnovers come when he tries to force his way through the lane. At his size, it is easy for Evans to get caught with nowhere to go.
Sometimes he tries to create driving lanes that just aren’t there.
Despite all these turnovers, I was generally impressed with his decision making. His AST/TO ratio on the year is 1.9/1, but I don’t expect turnovers to be his undoing once he adjusts to playing against NCAA length. It is certainly an issue for him, but in these two games, he looked like a much better decision maker than his turnover total would suggest.
In order to become a high-level offensive player in the NBA, Evans will need to clean up his decision making, increase his array of finishes at the rim and become a more voluminous outside shooter. All those things seem well within his range of outcomes, and if so, Evans would be a dynamic offensive creator.
As is the case with any sub 6-footer, the biggest questions for Evans lie on the defensive end of the court. His raw quickness should allow him to pressure up on guys, and at times he does a great job cutting off penetration. Frank Mason is a very quick dude, so sliding in front of him like this is super impressive.
Other times, Evans seems lazy and uninterested on defense. Because of the load he carries on offense, it makes sense that he might want to rest on defense, but he lazily reaches or doesn’t try to move his feet way too often.
As is to be expected for someone with a slight frame, one of his biggest concerns is getting through screens. There were a couple times Evans did a good job using his quickness to get over, but more often the results looked like this:
Or this:
Evans also had a tendency to over-help when he was one pass away. He has a solid 6-4 wingspan but still doesn’t have the type of length where he can over-help and still recover to contest a shooter. These type of mistakes are typical for a freshman, but at his size, he really needs to work to be the best defender he can be due to his inherent disadvantage.
After watching these two games of Evans closely, I leave cautiously intrigued. He has NBA speed, vision, handles, and is in a good spot with his shooting and creativity on offense. If he develops at a merely baseline level, I could still see him carving out an Ish Smith-type role in the NBA. If he can refine the edges of his game and play a little smarter, he could be a great offensive player who more than makes up for his defensive weaknesses.
Without seeing more of his development, I wouldn’t take him in the top-20, but hopefully Evans stays in college and becomes the very impressive player he has the potential to be.