NBA Draft 2017: 5 potential second round steals

1. Monte Morris

Morris is everything an NBA team could hope to acquire as a second round draft pick. He’s experience with four years of college play in an NBA style offense, he takes care of the ball extremely well and his feel for the game outweighs most of the negatives he possesses. The soon-to-be 22-year old Morris wrapped up his senior season with averages of 16.4 points, 6.2 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game.

He leaves Iowa State as the record holder for both assists (768) and steals (225) and is known throughout the land for his ridiculous 4.68 career assist-to-turnover ratio. He finished with just 164 turnovers in his time at Iowa State and it’s hard to fathom how truly low that figure is, considering he had the ball in his hands the majority of the time. Morris’ ability to create for his teammates and find them with pinpoint precision passes will translate to the next level and he projects as a formidable backup point guard for any club. He made 38.1 percent of his 3s over his four year career, but is not a prolific outside shooter by any means. His shot mechanics could use some work and the main issue is that he struggles to stay on balance, the further he moves away from the basket. Creating for himself should be priority number one this summer as showing that ability will be important for prospective teams to see.

Morris is just 175 pounds, so he will need to add some bulk to his frame for matchups against players in the NBA, but his defensive fundamentals are already in place. He knows where he should be at all times and can anticipate passes before they occur, which helps outweigh his lack of length at 6-foot-3 with just a 6-foot-4 wingspan.

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Morris is a pro and teams like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando and Denver — all of which have multiple second round picks — should be high on him.