Denzel Valentine’s college career at Michigan State didn’t exactly end as he’d planned it. Just 40 minutes of game time after Valentine’s senior foray into the NCAA Tournament began, it was over. The Spartans’ shocking 90-81 loss to Middle Tennessee State in the first round was by at least a few measures the biggest upset in March Madness history.
That Michigan State was even in such a position — with the team as one of the tournament’s favorites and Valentine as a National Player of the Year candidate — was a bit of an upset itself. The Spartans entered the season ranked 13th in the preseason AP poll, which has done a good job recently of predicting tournament success. And while Valentine was labeled a second-team All-American before the year, few expected him to deliver one of the most impressive statistical seasons in recent memory.
Valentine (19.2 points, 7.8 assists, and 7.5 rebounds) is the only player in Basketball Reference’s database (which dates back to 1994-95) to average 19 points, 7 assists, and 7 rebounds per game over the course of a season. When those numbers are adjusted for pace and converted to a per 40 minutes statistic, Valentine nearly posted a triple-double (23.3 points, 9.4 assists, and 9.1 rebounds).
Still, despite Valentine’s impressive senior season, there are questions about his ability to be a productive rotation player in the NBA. In particular, while the 22-year-old has solid measurements for an NBA shooting guard (6-6 in shoes with a 6-10 wingspan and 8-7 standing reach), he lacks the explosive athleticism and quickness that characterizes most of the league’s successful players. Whether or not Valentine can overcome that deficiency on both the offensive and defensive end is what will determine his success or failure at the next level.
Offense
Valentine’s viability as an NBA player hinges on his offensive versatility. His excellent court vision and high basketball IQ combined with the ability to shoot it well from the perimeter made him an outstanding playmaker at the college level.
For many of his minutes during his senior season, Valentine acted as head coach Tom Izzo’s point guard, initiating the offense and frequently playing with the ball in his hands either at the top of the key or in the post. Izzo surrounded Valentine with two of Division I’s top 50 3-point shooters (Bryn Forbes and Eron Harris) to help space the floor and allow him to operate high ball screens with either Matt Costello and Deyonta Davis. Valentine rewarded Izzo’s decision by posting the country’s second highest assist rate (45.8 percent) while leading the Spartans in assists.
Valentine’s height and thick frame also gave him the ability to post up smaller players at the college level, where he could use his excellent awareness and passing to find open shooters on the perimeter:
Or locate cutters or big men at the rim for dump offs:
Valentine’s ability to move the ball and find open teammates should translate well at the next level. Intelligent basketball players are always potentially valuable pieces on NBA teams, especially as the league’s best offenses focus on finding open looks in the right spaces rather than just isolating their best players.
Valentine’s other skill that should translate well at the next level is his shooting and it’s interesting to track his year over year improvement in East Lansing. Thanks to Nylon Calculus’ Jeff Feyerer (who wrote this excellent piece on Buddy Hield’s evolution), we know that since 2006, only Valentine, Hield, and J.J. Redick improved to attempt greater than 28 percent of their team’s shots while posting a true shooting percentage above 60 percent as seniors. Valentine’s 44.4 percent 3-point accuracy on 9.2 attempts per 40 minutes is the primary source of his excellent true shooting numbers. At worst, Valentine will be a solid floor spacing role player in the NBA, where he can knock down catch-and-shoot 3-pointers, but Valentine’s playmaking with the ball in his hands and ability to convert outside shots off the dribble makes him a much more versatile threat.
Unfortunately, while Valentine is a great passer and good shooter, he lacks the quickness and elite handles to be a triple threat in the pick-and-roll. As a senior, Valentine attempted just 16.4 percent of his total shots at the rim, per hoop-math. For comparison’s sake, Hield attempted nearly double that percentage. Valentine doesn’t have the explosive burst necessary to blow by defenders in one-on-one situations and he hasn’t developed an arsenal of dribble moves to get to the basket either. In the Spartans’ home loss to Iowa, the Hawkeyes occasionally hedged hard on Valentine’s high ball screens in order to get the ball out of his hands. Because Valentine lacked the quickness necessary to punish those hedges, Iowa’s strategy succeeded.
Defense
A look at Valentine’s physical attributes, especially his long wingspan, would suggest that he has the potential to be a decent defender at the next level, but his lack of athleticism and quickness are more exposed on that end of the floor, especially when he is required to run through screens to chase shooters. Valentine’s defensive box score statistics don’t provide much hope for growth either. His steal rate hasn’t reached 2.0 percent since his sophomore season and for the past two years, Valentine has averaged just 0.3 blocks per 40 minutes. While Valentine would seem like a candidate to guard all three perimeter positions based on his height and wingspan, with minimal athleticism, it would seem that his ceiling is to hopefully develop into a plus defender.
One area where Valentine will be valuable as a defender is on the defensive boards. With lineups increasingly growing smaller, guards with a nose for the glass will become more important. His long arms help him retrieve rebounds against taller opponents and his thick frame gives him the physical strength to hold off his assignment. Valentine’s 21.1 percent defensive rebound rate ranked 151st in Division I last season.
Outlook
Valentine currently has real athleticism issues that seem to limit his upside. He’ll continue to work on his agility and quickness in a variety of ways, though, and with enough training could overcome some of those barriers. Still, he seems likely to slot somewhere in the 15-20 range in June’s draft — both Trevor Magnotti and I have Valentine going to the Detroit Pistons in the late teens in our mock drafts for FanSided — but if a team falls in love with his work ethic and knack for improvement while believing in his ability to be a secondary ball handler and playmaker, it’s possible that he could go earlier.
At 22-years-old, Valentine is a more refined product than most of the other prospects that will come off the board in the teens. He has a solid floor that suggests he can at least be a playmaker off the bench that can run the second unit’s offense and in the right situation, he could be a bit more than that.