Marvin Bagley III Scouting Report

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Marvin Bagley III (Big, 19, 6'11", 230 lbs)

Statistical Profile

Strengths

Bagley is an incredibly fluid and agile athlete for his size and has the coordination and movement ability of a player four inches shorter. He has a perennially great 2nd and 3rd leap, with the ability to get off the ground with extreme quickness. He is very explosive as a leaper and plays with a high motor and impressive aggressiveness offensively. He is an elite offensive rebounder, especially off his own misses, and is one of the quickest players to the ball in recent memory. He has great touch and finishing ability to go along with superb body control, making him a high level roller and lob-catcher. He’s a superb cutter, scoring 1.429 points per possession on 16% of his scoring possessions. He was only the roller on 24 pick and rolls all season at Duke according to Synergy Sports, but he scored 1.5 ppp on those, good for the 97th percentile.

He is both a promising shooter and ball handler, making for an intriguing ball screen prospect due to his potential as both a roller and popper. As a ball handler, he can grab and go in transition, and possesses excellent body control when he decelerates on the fast break. On 23 guarded catch and shoot possessions, he scored 1.304 ppp, good for the 90th percentile.

He can face up slower big men and beat them to the rim as a ball handler, and has advanced footwork to go along with a bevy of jab step and spin moves in isolation from the high post.

He has shown flashes of passing ability and vision, using his coordination to fit balls into tight spaces on the move as the defense collapses.

Defensively, he has excellent range and quickness, and has switching potential due to his low stance and mobile feet. He is a strong jumper and quick off the ground on the defensive glass, often high-pointing rebounds and out-jumping his competition with relative ease.

Weaknesses

Bagley is a horrific team defender and lacks positional awareness and instincts on that end of the floor. He constantly rotates late, lapses on switches and fails to diagnose actions as they develop making him a poor help defender. He lacks the frame and strength to compete with more physically imposing centers, and lacks the length to recover and contest when he’s beat to the rim. Offensive centers can either go through him or over him in the post, making him a massive liability as a rim protector. His frame limits him in contain situations as well, as ball handlers can give him a bump with momentum and beat him to the rim. While his footwork is excellent offensively, he has terrible defensive footwork, opening his feet too wide on dribble drives, biting on shot fakes in switches, overextending himself out of position in ball screens, and failing to box out on the defensive glass while trusting his athleticism and jumping ability.

Offensively, he is a poor and non-physical screen setter which limits his potential as a roller. He has no right hand at all, especially as a finisher, and teams will use this to his disadvantage as an isolation scorer and a ball handler. Watch how he switches to his left on this drive despite a complete lack of angle. This clip exemplifies his incredible body control and contortion as well as his flexibility, but but shows his complete aversion to his right hand.

He has no shake as a ball handler, is a high dribbler, and tries too often to elevate as a scorer instead of using his agility to move around defenders in the mid post. He’ll often drive right, fail to create separation, and try to finish left with an awkward and predictable floater. Here is an example of such a play that will fail against NBA length and athleticism.

While he was an effective shooter in college, his mechanics are awkward and he has a flat arc. If his shot doesn’t translate, especially in the mid range, he’ll have a limited ceiling as a face up attacker.

Summary

Bagley has a massively high ceiling if he can correct his play defensively and thrive in an offense catered towards his ability as a finisher. The team that drafts him needs to have a dynamic ball handler and defensive versatility that can cover for his weaknesses, as well as a secondary rim protector. If a team drafts him hoping for a DeAndre Jordan-type anchor, they will be sorry. His motor, intensity, leaping ability and refined offensive skillset gives him a decent floor as an energy big, but he will fail to reach his ceiling unless he improves his right hand, becomes more consistent as a shooter, or corrects his propensity for lapses on defense. He has one of the widest floor-to-ceiling windows in this class. He could very easily become Kenneth Faried, an almost unplayable energy big who can’t shoot well enough to play the four and is too poor defensively to play the five. He could also become Amar’e Stoudemire with a three ball if his team surrounds him with the right pieces and optimizes him offensively to maximize his finishing ability and offensive rebounding.