Leonard Miller
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 12:05 am
This is from The Athletic top 100 draft prospects
13 . Leonard Miller
F | G League Ignite | Birthdate: Nov. 26, 2003 (Age: 19) | 6-9 | 215 LBS | Hometown: Scarborough, Ontario BACKGROUND
Mother is Carline. Youngest of four brothers, including Emanuel, who plays at TCU and is a future NBA Draft prospect in his own right. Miller grew up in the Toronto suburbs with his family. Really picked up basketball when he was a teenager and started training heavily. Traveled on buses for multiple hours per day to get to his first prep school. Moved around a lot to try to find the right spot for him to keep developing. He started at Thornlea, and then moved to continue his training at Wasatch Academy in Utah. Miller was around 6-foot-6 and then started growing over the course of the next year to about 6-foot-9 or so. Did not play a lot for a Wasatch team loaded with upperclassmen. Transferred down to Florida and went to Victory Rock but suffered a broken right wrist that required surgery. Decided to do a post-graduate year at Fort Erie Prep back in Canada where he played for long- time family friend Charles Hantoumakos. It was there that Miller finally broke out and thrived. He was dominant and picked up scholarship offers around the country. Was invited to Nike Hoop Summit that year and impressed evaluators. Decided to declare for the 2022 NBA Draft but ended up withdrawing to get more experience. Decided instead to commit to the G League Ignite, where Miller thrived again after some adjustment. By the end of the season, he was one of the best players on a nightly basis as a ballhandling big forward who could lead the break and live at the rim. Was automatically eligible for the 2023 NBA Draft and was invited to the 2023 NBA Draft Combine. Miller is a very high-level mixture of competitive, intellectually curious and hard-work- ing. Every reason to believe he will get the most out of his ceiling long term.
STRENGTHS
Miller has a terrific intersection of skill level and size. Measured 6-foot-9 1/2 without shoes with a 7-foot-2 wingspan and a strong 215-pound frame. Elite size for a player who can handle the ball, make plays and get out on the break. Strange blend of athletic traits. Constantly lives on the edge of being off-balance where it looks like his body is moving in different directions at the same time. However, he’s clearly confident and comfortable within his own movements, which means he’s able to get to his spots. Great body control and takes bumps well, displaying the fact that his balance is quite good despite how it seems. Very strong. Tops that off by playing hard all the time. Aggressive player who uses his athleticism to make an impact all over the court both as a leaper and on the ground. Seems to get off the floor quickly as a leaper. Quick reactions. All of this leads to him being a very real mismatch threat in a lot of different situations. He particularly excels out on the break. Tremendous grab-and-go player out in transition. Averaged over 10 rebounds per game this past season in the G League, many of which started instant offense down the floor. Very long strides. Covers ground quickly. Kind of a freight train out in space. Uses that ability to understand space and how to maneuver within it well. Changes direction well and acts as a heat-seeking missile to try to find the man at the basket’s body. Will initiate contact to create that little bit of space, maintain that balance and power up through contact. Miller’s strength is ridiculous for his size. He’s incredibly strong and physical, and the strength looks like it will continue to get better as he ages. It’s hard to overemphasize how terrific Miller’s finishing acumen is. He has superb touch. Because of his ball skills, he’s very versatile in the actions in which he can be used. Has an enormous bag of tricks on the interior. Great hand-eye coordination and can finish above the rim when rolling out of ball screens and rim running as a cutter. Can also leap off two feet out of the dunker spot and finish. Made 66.7 percent of his shots at the rim in total and 61.3 in half-court settings. Given some of the degree of difficulty on some of those, impressive numbers. Really good instincts for when to time his cut out of the dunker spot, and when to time his roll because of his ability to put the ball on the deck out of short-roll scenarios. But more importantly, can also attack in straight lines in the half court. Will get the ball in the mid-post and try to attack in a straight line. Can still go through contact and get all the way to the rim with his Euro steps or deceleration techniques. But where the mismatch situations really come in is when he’s matched up against a big on the perimeter. He’s good at getting his hips lower than them and driving by with a smart first step, then getting all the way to the rim. Not wildly explosive but very good at finding those angles. The blend of physical traits allows Miller to be a terrific finisher. Those weird movements allow him to throw off rim protectors and avoid contact, creating finishing angles others can’t really find. Loves to Euro step or crossover and get back to his right hand. Can change direction without having to change speed with his handle at his size. Makes them with either hand as well. Has that rare blend of touch at the basket. Throws up some ridiculous, different shots at the rim that go in. Despite being a lefty, he can get to the right-handed floater and knock them down. I buy him as a passer and playmaker at his size in a secondary role long term even with the warts right now. Ignite used him occasionally in some ball screen opportunities as a ballhandler, and I liked his vision as a playmaker. Hit some smart cross- corner passes. Numbers don’t jump off the page because Miller wasn’t typically asked to be utilized in a playmaking role. But his tape at lower levels really showcased high-level passing vision. Very good at the jump pass, drawing defenders toward him then quickly reacting to who is coming. He averaged only 1.6 assists per game, but much like the rest of the season, he showed tremendous growth in the second half. Over his last 15 games, he averaged 2.5 assists per game versus 1.5 turnovers. There are also some real defensive tools I buy into long term. I think he will be a plus on-ball defender in the NBA. Miller plays very hard and never gives up on plays. When he has an assignment, he excels at it. Think the growth he showed on that end this past season in terms of tools and technique was strong. Defended multiple position types. Can deal with players from the wing up to the center position. Can slide and stay in front of wings, but because he’s so strong, you also can’t go through his chest as a driver by lowering his shoulder. Walls up and stays in front of his man. Does so with his arms very high in the air. Can defend men on the block. Plus, he uses that immense length with an 8-foot-10 1/2 standing reach to be able to contest shots. Had some moments of navigating off-ball actions well just by being willing to fight. Has shown some upside with weakside rim rotations. Averaged about one steal and one block per game.
WEAKNESSES
Miller is extremely raw and does not have a ton of high-level basketball experience. Plays almost entirely reactively right now because he still doesn’t know 100 percent what he’s doing on the court at times. Miller is kind of the ultimate test case for a question that NBA evaluators have different opinions on. Does a lack of experience mean a player still has upside to grow into as he gains it? Or does it mean he’s lost a lot of important reps that he can’t get back? Another big question with Miller is the jumper. Made just 32.1 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-point jumpers this past season, per Synergy. Many of them were entirely unguarded opportunities as teams played off him, daring him to shoot. He had a lot of mechanical flaws despite that real touch mentioned above regarding his finishing at the rim. His shot prep was very square to the basket, meaning it seemed like his elbow wasn’t always aligned and he was kind of turning in midair. Has a really bad base. Release was inconsistent in terms of rhythm and tempo. Sometimes he’d really speed it up. Sometimes it was slow and methodical. Landing area was always different from shot to shot. Also had a lot of off-hand interaction in the shot, which led to right/left misses. Very inconsistent misses overall. Did not look like something he had a lot of faith in from one shot to the next. Having seen him in pre-draft workouts, Miller’s jumper has improved in terms of rhythm, landing in the same space and with off-hand placement. He has upside in this respect because he has elite touch. But until he proves it in-game when guys are closing out on him, it’s impossible to trust. Miller can be a bit turnover-prone. Improved his overall intensity as the season went on, understanding what it takes to be constantly always engaged. Gets loose with his handle because of it. Was a bit casual early in the season, probably the result of his lack of experience and previous ability to dominate lower levels with ease. Got ripped with way too much ease. But also has occasional processing problems too. Picks up his dribble absent-mindedly a bit too easily. Seems to still be a bit mechanical and not quite as fluid as you want to see someone you hope develops into being a point forward. He is kind of indecisive. Again, this improved throughout the season, which offers real upside hope long term. But he needs to showcase it over a longer stretch in real games. Defensively, Miller is hit or miss, especially away from the ball. Way too inconsistent. Really bad closeouts. That might be the biggest part of his defensive issues. Closes out very high and has bad feet. Legit ends up getting dropped by players attacking his heavy closeouts somewhat regularly. But even more than that, he gets attacked every time and gives up easy attacks and rim pressure. Probably won’t be able to play in the NBA until he fixes this. Still misses rotations more often than you’d like. Again, a lot of this comes down to experience. Miller seems to react late on those rotations to close out, which means he’s closing out heavily and putting himself in bad spots. A lot of the issues come down to being put in spots where he has to be overaggressive. He bites on pump fakes and pushes out onto his rotations too often. But he also misses on a lot of seeming communication errors where he seems to be the one who wasn’t totally sure on the coverage, and it results in an easy layup. Will switch when he shouldn’t or play too high at the level and miss his gaps.
SUMMARY
Miller is going to be an incredibly polarizing prospect. He was last cycle as well. The only difference is that this time evaluators are forced into making a decision on him as opposed to being able to kick the can down the road. The other key difference is that Miller has displayed success against elite competition after his last month and a half in the G League. Miller does stuff you can’t really teach. He’s a big ballhandler who hits the glass and can really attack and cover ground quickly with long strides but also decelerate and change direction with the ball. His athleticism is a rare blend. He’s an elite finisher with incredible touch around the basket – the touch that kind of gives you hope long term that an elite shooting coach will be able to fix it. There’s some passing ability here. There’s some defensive upside here. It’s all just in the form of an entirely unshaped diamond who may never reach its full form because he’s starting from such a deficit in terms of experience. Miller had never played a level above the Ontario Scholastic League prior to this past season. He didn’t get to play AAU basketball against high-level athletes who can match him. Before he played at Nike Hoop Summit and the combine last year, he’d never even consistently played in games against Division I-level talent. For him to figure out the G League within a year is remarkable when put in that context. But even with that terrific play, he still has a lot of warts that will be taken advantage of to a greater degree in the NBA. I just hope Miller goes to a positive developmental situation that will be willing to take their time and teach him. The intel is pristine. He is a sponge who wants to learn. If you’re willing to be patient, you could end up with a steal. To answer the question posed above regarding a lack of experience meaning lost reps or upside, I think the answer depends on the person. With Miller, I tend to buy that there is real upside here because I buy the human being involved. Miller is intellectually curious and wants to be great at basketball. I’ll buy that he can pick up the time he’s lost already because I think he’ll put in the extra time to do so.
13 . Leonard Miller
F | G League Ignite | Birthdate: Nov. 26, 2003 (Age: 19) | 6-9 | 215 LBS | Hometown: Scarborough, Ontario BACKGROUND
Mother is Carline. Youngest of four brothers, including Emanuel, who plays at TCU and is a future NBA Draft prospect in his own right. Miller grew up in the Toronto suburbs with his family. Really picked up basketball when he was a teenager and started training heavily. Traveled on buses for multiple hours per day to get to his first prep school. Moved around a lot to try to find the right spot for him to keep developing. He started at Thornlea, and then moved to continue his training at Wasatch Academy in Utah. Miller was around 6-foot-6 and then started growing over the course of the next year to about 6-foot-9 or so. Did not play a lot for a Wasatch team loaded with upperclassmen. Transferred down to Florida and went to Victory Rock but suffered a broken right wrist that required surgery. Decided to do a post-graduate year at Fort Erie Prep back in Canada where he played for long- time family friend Charles Hantoumakos. It was there that Miller finally broke out and thrived. He was dominant and picked up scholarship offers around the country. Was invited to Nike Hoop Summit that year and impressed evaluators. Decided to declare for the 2022 NBA Draft but ended up withdrawing to get more experience. Decided instead to commit to the G League Ignite, where Miller thrived again after some adjustment. By the end of the season, he was one of the best players on a nightly basis as a ballhandling big forward who could lead the break and live at the rim. Was automatically eligible for the 2023 NBA Draft and was invited to the 2023 NBA Draft Combine. Miller is a very high-level mixture of competitive, intellectually curious and hard-work- ing. Every reason to believe he will get the most out of his ceiling long term.
STRENGTHS
Miller has a terrific intersection of skill level and size. Measured 6-foot-9 1/2 without shoes with a 7-foot-2 wingspan and a strong 215-pound frame. Elite size for a player who can handle the ball, make plays and get out on the break. Strange blend of athletic traits. Constantly lives on the edge of being off-balance where it looks like his body is moving in different directions at the same time. However, he’s clearly confident and comfortable within his own movements, which means he’s able to get to his spots. Great body control and takes bumps well, displaying the fact that his balance is quite good despite how it seems. Very strong. Tops that off by playing hard all the time. Aggressive player who uses his athleticism to make an impact all over the court both as a leaper and on the ground. Seems to get off the floor quickly as a leaper. Quick reactions. All of this leads to him being a very real mismatch threat in a lot of different situations. He particularly excels out on the break. Tremendous grab-and-go player out in transition. Averaged over 10 rebounds per game this past season in the G League, many of which started instant offense down the floor. Very long strides. Covers ground quickly. Kind of a freight train out in space. Uses that ability to understand space and how to maneuver within it well. Changes direction well and acts as a heat-seeking missile to try to find the man at the basket’s body. Will initiate contact to create that little bit of space, maintain that balance and power up through contact. Miller’s strength is ridiculous for his size. He’s incredibly strong and physical, and the strength looks like it will continue to get better as he ages. It’s hard to overemphasize how terrific Miller’s finishing acumen is. He has superb touch. Because of his ball skills, he’s very versatile in the actions in which he can be used. Has an enormous bag of tricks on the interior. Great hand-eye coordination and can finish above the rim when rolling out of ball screens and rim running as a cutter. Can also leap off two feet out of the dunker spot and finish. Made 66.7 percent of his shots at the rim in total and 61.3 in half-court settings. Given some of the degree of difficulty on some of those, impressive numbers. Really good instincts for when to time his cut out of the dunker spot, and when to time his roll because of his ability to put the ball on the deck out of short-roll scenarios. But more importantly, can also attack in straight lines in the half court. Will get the ball in the mid-post and try to attack in a straight line. Can still go through contact and get all the way to the rim with his Euro steps or deceleration techniques. But where the mismatch situations really come in is when he’s matched up against a big on the perimeter. He’s good at getting his hips lower than them and driving by with a smart first step, then getting all the way to the rim. Not wildly explosive but very good at finding those angles. The blend of physical traits allows Miller to be a terrific finisher. Those weird movements allow him to throw off rim protectors and avoid contact, creating finishing angles others can’t really find. Loves to Euro step or crossover and get back to his right hand. Can change direction without having to change speed with his handle at his size. Makes them with either hand as well. Has that rare blend of touch at the basket. Throws up some ridiculous, different shots at the rim that go in. Despite being a lefty, he can get to the right-handed floater and knock them down. I buy him as a passer and playmaker at his size in a secondary role long term even with the warts right now. Ignite used him occasionally in some ball screen opportunities as a ballhandler, and I liked his vision as a playmaker. Hit some smart cross- corner passes. Numbers don’t jump off the page because Miller wasn’t typically asked to be utilized in a playmaking role. But his tape at lower levels really showcased high-level passing vision. Very good at the jump pass, drawing defenders toward him then quickly reacting to who is coming. He averaged only 1.6 assists per game, but much like the rest of the season, he showed tremendous growth in the second half. Over his last 15 games, he averaged 2.5 assists per game versus 1.5 turnovers. There are also some real defensive tools I buy into long term. I think he will be a plus on-ball defender in the NBA. Miller plays very hard and never gives up on plays. When he has an assignment, he excels at it. Think the growth he showed on that end this past season in terms of tools and technique was strong. Defended multiple position types. Can deal with players from the wing up to the center position. Can slide and stay in front of wings, but because he’s so strong, you also can’t go through his chest as a driver by lowering his shoulder. Walls up and stays in front of his man. Does so with his arms very high in the air. Can defend men on the block. Plus, he uses that immense length with an 8-foot-10 1/2 standing reach to be able to contest shots. Had some moments of navigating off-ball actions well just by being willing to fight. Has shown some upside with weakside rim rotations. Averaged about one steal and one block per game.
WEAKNESSES
Miller is extremely raw and does not have a ton of high-level basketball experience. Plays almost entirely reactively right now because he still doesn’t know 100 percent what he’s doing on the court at times. Miller is kind of the ultimate test case for a question that NBA evaluators have different opinions on. Does a lack of experience mean a player still has upside to grow into as he gains it? Or does it mean he’s lost a lot of important reps that he can’t get back? Another big question with Miller is the jumper. Made just 32.1 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-point jumpers this past season, per Synergy. Many of them were entirely unguarded opportunities as teams played off him, daring him to shoot. He had a lot of mechanical flaws despite that real touch mentioned above regarding his finishing at the rim. His shot prep was very square to the basket, meaning it seemed like his elbow wasn’t always aligned and he was kind of turning in midair. Has a really bad base. Release was inconsistent in terms of rhythm and tempo. Sometimes he’d really speed it up. Sometimes it was slow and methodical. Landing area was always different from shot to shot. Also had a lot of off-hand interaction in the shot, which led to right/left misses. Very inconsistent misses overall. Did not look like something he had a lot of faith in from one shot to the next. Having seen him in pre-draft workouts, Miller’s jumper has improved in terms of rhythm, landing in the same space and with off-hand placement. He has upside in this respect because he has elite touch. But until he proves it in-game when guys are closing out on him, it’s impossible to trust. Miller can be a bit turnover-prone. Improved his overall intensity as the season went on, understanding what it takes to be constantly always engaged. Gets loose with his handle because of it. Was a bit casual early in the season, probably the result of his lack of experience and previous ability to dominate lower levels with ease. Got ripped with way too much ease. But also has occasional processing problems too. Picks up his dribble absent-mindedly a bit too easily. Seems to still be a bit mechanical and not quite as fluid as you want to see someone you hope develops into being a point forward. He is kind of indecisive. Again, this improved throughout the season, which offers real upside hope long term. But he needs to showcase it over a longer stretch in real games. Defensively, Miller is hit or miss, especially away from the ball. Way too inconsistent. Really bad closeouts. That might be the biggest part of his defensive issues. Closes out very high and has bad feet. Legit ends up getting dropped by players attacking his heavy closeouts somewhat regularly. But even more than that, he gets attacked every time and gives up easy attacks and rim pressure. Probably won’t be able to play in the NBA until he fixes this. Still misses rotations more often than you’d like. Again, a lot of this comes down to experience. Miller seems to react late on those rotations to close out, which means he’s closing out heavily and putting himself in bad spots. A lot of the issues come down to being put in spots where he has to be overaggressive. He bites on pump fakes and pushes out onto his rotations too often. But he also misses on a lot of seeming communication errors where he seems to be the one who wasn’t totally sure on the coverage, and it results in an easy layup. Will switch when he shouldn’t or play too high at the level and miss his gaps.
SUMMARY
Miller is going to be an incredibly polarizing prospect. He was last cycle as well. The only difference is that this time evaluators are forced into making a decision on him as opposed to being able to kick the can down the road. The other key difference is that Miller has displayed success against elite competition after his last month and a half in the G League. Miller does stuff you can’t really teach. He’s a big ballhandler who hits the glass and can really attack and cover ground quickly with long strides but also decelerate and change direction with the ball. His athleticism is a rare blend. He’s an elite finisher with incredible touch around the basket – the touch that kind of gives you hope long term that an elite shooting coach will be able to fix it. There’s some passing ability here. There’s some defensive upside here. It’s all just in the form of an entirely unshaped diamond who may never reach its full form because he’s starting from such a deficit in terms of experience. Miller had never played a level above the Ontario Scholastic League prior to this past season. He didn’t get to play AAU basketball against high-level athletes who can match him. Before he played at Nike Hoop Summit and the combine last year, he’d never even consistently played in games against Division I-level talent. For him to figure out the G League within a year is remarkable when put in that context. But even with that terrific play, he still has a lot of warts that will be taken advantage of to a greater degree in the NBA. I just hope Miller goes to a positive developmental situation that will be willing to take their time and teach him. The intel is pristine. He is a sponge who wants to learn. If you’re willing to be patient, you could end up with a steal. To answer the question posed above regarding a lack of experience meaning lost reps or upside, I think the answer depends on the person. With Miller, I tend to buy that there is real upside here because I buy the human being involved. Miller is intellectually curious and wants to be great at basketball. I’ll buy that he can pick up the time he’s lost already because I think he’ll put in the extra time to do so.