Like many on this board, I am intrigued by this guy. The eye test tells me that he has a good handle and feel for the game, and his 3-point shooting in the G League tells me he has potential to be a 3-point threat. He also shot 44% on threes his last year in college, adding to the intrigue. So many of us have questioned why he can't be in the rotation on a poor team.
I think the answer may be in the bad Nowell data. For some reason, he has had little success making threes in the NBA. His 1-6 last night left him at 26% on the season, and we (and Ryan) haven't forgotten that he only made 3 out of 26 attempts last year for an abysmal 11.5%. A closer look at his two years in college shows why he was not highly regarded in the draft. While his handle looks pretty good to me, he had almost as many TOs as assists in his final year, and his 44% 3-point shooting seems less impressive when you realize he only had about 3 attempts per game. He also doesn't seem to be very impressive athletically, so he needs to be a knock-down shooter to carve out a role, and so far he hasn't been.
He also finds himself on a team with a glut of PGs and wings that were more highly coveted coming out of college. But with Culver in a boot and J-Mac limited by his 2-way deal, I think Nowell is going to get more minutes for the next couple weeks. I for one will be interested to see if his G League experience was a mirage, or if he can replicate it in the bigs.
Jaylen Nowell
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Q12543 [enjin:6621299]
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Re: Jaylen Nowell
I agree that for the reasons you cite above that his draft position was appropriate and there is somewhat of a limit on his upside. Having said that, I think he needs 15-20 games of regular rotation minutes for us to really assess him. It can take time for young shooters to get their rhythm in the NBA. I don't know how serious Culver's injury is. Hopefully Nowell makes a case for himself.