Before the 2015-16 college basketball season started, Grayson Allen was being hyped as a potential first rounder in the 2016 NBA Draft. At the time, I wrote a pre-season scouting report on Allen in which I took a generally pessimistic position on his pro outlook. Midway through the season, he now sits at 26th in Chad Ford’s latest mock and 42nd on DraftExpress.com’s top-100 prospects. While ESPN and DraftExpress seem to have gotten lower on Allen since the start of the season, my opinion has changed for the better.
Shooting
Last year Allen shot 34.6 percent on almost exclusively spot-up 3-pointers, and it was fair to wonder if his reputation oversold his shooting ability. This year he has shot 39.0 percent on a healthy 5.5 attempts per 40 minutes, along with shooting a stellar 84.1 percent from the free throw line on 132 attempts. More impressively is the type of shots Allen has hit. He’s shown the ability to knock down jumpers quickly coming off screens, pulling up off the dribble, and just jabbing and shooting out of triple threat in isolation.
Allen does a good job elevating on his pull-ups, but shoots mostly a set shot on catch-and-shoot opportunities. He has a relatively quick release, but shooting a set shot requires a touch more space to fire away than other top tier shooters. Once it’s out of his hand, Allen gets consistently good rotation on the ball and has a soft enough touch to frequently make 3s that rattle around the rim. I’d like to see Duke stretch his shooting even further by having him launch it a little more, but Allen has done more than enough to show he can be a high level shooter at the NBA level.
Playmaking
From a statistical perspective, Allen is one of the best scorers and creators in all of college basketball. On a team-high usage rating of 25.5, he is scoring efficiently from the field (56.3 eFG%), getting to the line at a crazy rate (.471 FTr) and assisting on 20.0 perccent of teammate field goals with an AST/TO ratio of 2:1. He isn’t quite producing at the level of Buddy Hield, Denzel Valentine, or Kris Dunn, but considering he’s a sophomore and they’re all senior age, Allen’s raw production is similarly impressive.
Allen’s primary form of offense comes from dribble handoff actions with his bigs around the elbow and attacking the middle of the floor. Allen has a fantastic first step and the strength to turn the corner on defenders, allowing him to consistently get in the lane from all over the court. He has gotten better at driving hard to his left and has added some hesitation moves to his game, but still lacks the change of direction moves you want in a high usage guard.
As a result, he has struggled going up against more athletic and long perimeter defenders by not showing the creativity needed to break them down when his raw athleticism is matched. In transition and more open space, he has showed off a few powerful dribble moves and has certainly improved his left hand, but his handle and creativity is still below average for a combo guard.
Once in the lane, Allen’s first look is to score. He has massive hands that in conjunction with his leaping ability allow him to move the ball around and create an angle at the rim in almost any situation. He definitely favors his right hand a little too much but has shown the ability to make tough finishes with his left. According to Hoop Math, he’s shot a solid 62.2 percent at the rim in half-court situations, yet he’s garnered a reputation for being unable to finish against length — largely due to his atrocious 2-11 shooting performance against Kentucky.
From my viewing, it seems that Allen is actually a better-than-average finisher against all types of defense for a 2-guard prospect, but he has a bad habit of forcing shots around the rim against length. He’s used to being able to elevate over and finish against defenses, and he hasn’t yet figured out that he doesn’t have to always shoot when he gets into the lane.
The best part of Allen’s driving game is his proclivity for getting to the foul line. He has a strong frame that allows him to jump into defenders, and as he hangs in the air he does a great job of inviting contact. Being able to get to the free throw line a lot while shooting well from there is a great recipe for efficient scoring. It is worth mentioning that Allen has shown some of an in-between game since the Kentucky game, too. His pull-up jumper around the elbow areas looks really smooth, and he’s even experimented with some floaters and turnarounds when he gets cut off in the lane. It’s definitely not a strength of his yet, but he’s showing encouraging signs.
The area of most obvious improvement for Allen this seasons is his passing. He’s upped his assists per 40 minutes from 1.7 to 4.2 while maintaining the same low turnover percentage of 10.0. The majority of his assists come on dump offs to his big man. He does a great job of finding the opening to hit his big when he draws help, and can adeptly dish both shovel passes and bounce passes depending on the situation. The rest of his passing is still a bit questionable — he can make the easy pass to an open strong side shooter, but hasn’t frequently displayed the vision to look weak side and make skip passes to shooters.
Where his good but somewhat one-dimensional vision is most pronounced is in the pick-and-roll. Allen can hit the roll man with lobs and pocket passes, but he doesn’t make the cross court look that is so often necessary to break down a team’s pick-and-roll defense. In general, his pick-and-roll play leaves something to be desired. He’s a threat to pull-up from 3-point range or attack the big hard, but he hasn’t shown the capacity to put a defender on his hip and slowly manipulate the defense. Allen is undoubtedly an elite creator at the college level, but he might be too much of a “one-read” player to succeed in a high volume creation role in the NBA. His first look is to score, and he focuses on finding a big if that option is taken away. (Basically, he’s great at both things individually but doesn’t seem to be reading multiple things at once when he’s on the court).
Nonetheless, it’s hard to see Allen not being a good offensive player in the NBA. His athleticism is a bit overrated, probably due to his appearance, but he will be at least an above-average shooter, athlete, and passer compared to the average NBA shooting guard. His ball handling and decision making are a little behind, but not so far behind they should prevent him from succeeding. He’s going to be good at attacking closeouts and could provide some creation against second units, but will need to improve his floor reading and get even better shooting off screens to attack starting NBA defenses successfully.
Defense
Allen’s raw frame is somewhat less than ideal for an NBA shooting guard at only 6-4.5 in shoes with a 6-6.5 wingspan, but he is not devastatingly small. Even so, for all the improvements Allen has made on offense so far this season, the same cannot be said about his defense. He’s strong and quick in his stance, allowing him to fight through ball screens and contain players in isolation, but just about everything else is a weakness. His defensive principles and instincts make him a negative defender at the college level when he has the raw ability to be a significantly positive one.
On the ball he has a tendency to press up super tightly on his man and either foul or get burned. Off the ball his rotations aren’t always crisp, and he sometimes misses obvious things like bumping the roll man when he’s on the weak side. The majority of times when he gets beat on the ball is because his off-ball work beforehand puts him in a bad position to contain his man. His closeouts aren’t under control, and even though he fights well through on-ball screens he can be lazy when it comes to avoiding off-ball ones. When Duke has gone zone he’s been even more of a disaster in terms of principles, but that shouldn’t be too much of an issue in the NBA.
The good news for Allen is that he has the physical attributes to not just get relentlessly attacked and will typically be fine on the ball. However, he’s got a ways to go in terms of his defensive IQ before he can hope to be an average NBA defender.
I was a skeptic coming into the year, but Allen’s strong performance across the board on offense and at least flashes of defensive ability has turned me into a believer. He’s an NBA athlete with NBA skills, and not so far behind the curve mentally that his appealing skill set should be discounted. It feels like some people wrote Allen off after the Kentucky game and are failing to realize just how impressive his play has otherwise been. He’s not without his flaws, but I see no reason why Allen shouldn’t at least be involved in the lottery conversation.