[The Athletic] 2021 NBA Draft: Ranking the best offensive skills, led by Jalen Suggs and Jalen Green

Every year around draft time, I start to get questions from people asking what player is best at each skill set. Who is the best passer in the class? The best ballhandler? Who is the best shooter? It’s a really fun discussion topic.

I finally decided to answer those questions this year. I made mini big boards for a lot of different skills that I think about when evaluating how a player would translate to the NBA. I used some of the breakdowns from the NBA Draft Guide that I published last week. We’ll start today with offensive skill sets.

Shot creation
1. Jalen Green, G League Ignite

So much of the NBA now is being able to get your own shot, especially in the playoffs. In terms of purely being able to get to his spots and create a shot out of nothing, Green is the clear top prospect in this class long term. A few other guys may have shown a bit more current upside in this regard, but he tops the class due to his quick-twitch athleticism and explosiveness. It portends real upside beyond the potency he’s already shown in this regard.

Green has a pretty vicious handle because of that quick twitch and elite body control. With that, he does a great job of using little change of pace moves like hesitations and hang dribbles to freeze defenders, then can blow by with a reactive first step or separate backward with very quick crossovers into pull-ups. He’s so quick to react to how defenders get off-balance. He strings moves together with ease to set up defenders, then blows by. From there, can get into his pull-up game from a variety of different angles, directions and foot positions. He loves the right-to-left crossover into side-step pull-up. But Green can left-plant, right-align pull-up with pristine footwork going to his right with ease, which is also a tough shot. He’s good in isolation or out of ball-screen actions. He has real potential to be not just a good scorer, but one of the NBA’s true great ones.

He is a hooper, and has what the basketball community calls: a bag.

2. Cade Cunningham, Oklahoma State

3. Cam Thomas, LSU

4. James Bouknight, Connecticut

5. Jalen Suggs, Gonzaga

Catch-and-shoot 3s
1. Corey Kispert, Gonzaga

Kispert is the king of the class when it comes to movement shooting off the catch. He’s terrific off screens and has consistently been among the best shooters in all of college basketball, hitting 44 percent of his nearly 400 3-point attempts in the last two years. He’s always ready with his feet aligned toward the basket and ready to shoot off the hop. His mechanics are simple, with everything being compact and replicable. The entire shot looks effortless, even as he extends beyond the NBA 3-point distance. He also has a great feel for how to get himself open while maintaining that shot prep and alignment and is really smart at relocating into open areas. Makes shots going both to his left and to his right because of that incredible balance and prep. Moreover, he’s good at running off screens and knowing how to run his defender into the screener. He’s a very good movement shooter in a variety of NBA-caliber situations due to how good he is at finding the open space.

2. Sam Hauser, Virginia

3. Trey Murphy, Virginia

4. Joe Wieskamp, Iowa

5. Jared Butler, Baylor



Florida Gators guard Tre Mann is one the draft’s most prolific shooters. (Arden Barnes-USA TODAY Sports)
Pull-up shooting
1. Tre Mann, Florida

Mann is just an absolute monster out of pull-ups. He hit 40.2 percent of his pull-up attempts this season, many of which came from beyond the 3-point line, which is saying a lot. He just has a ridiculous amount of moves in his bag to get to the pull-up on balance. He decelerates exceptionally well, which allows him to stop on a dime and pull up. The hesitation move is where he makes his money. He’s a big fan of the hang dribble pull-up, but his overall game is much more diversified than that. He plays off the hang dribble with a pretty vicious series of crossovers. He can go right-to-left crossover into a side-step pull-up. He can hit a quick pound dribble with his left into a step-back, which creates real separation from defenders. But his favored move is the left-to-right between-the-legs dribble into a sidestep left pull-up. Once he gets there, has very simple mechanics. He doesn’t elevate much, and there is no ball dip or wasted motion. He just has a very quick transfer from pull-up to fire or catch to fire with nearly unlimited range.

2. Jared Butler, Baylor

3. Bones Hyland, VCU

4. Marcus Zegarowski, Creighton

5. Cade Cunningham, Oklahoma State

Interior finishing for guards
1. James Bouknight

An absolute highlight reel waiting to happen as a finisher. Bouknight made 62.7 percent of his shots at the rim in half-court settings, which is drastically above average for a wing. Brings a real New York mindset of toughness and physicality mixed with a high level of creativity. As a driver, he absorbs contact and finishes through it. Makes these shots as a finisher both below and above the rim. On top of that, though, he can explode for highlight-reel dunks. Those are fun, but the real reason he’s here is that he has strong craft around the basket. He has a bevy of one-footed finishes in traffic that will really translate to the NBA. Loves to attempt and make them wrong-footed to keep the rim protector off balance and off time. He can make these shots because of his body control and balance. He’s great at putting the ball up quicker before the big establishes his area. Has absolutely pristine mechanics around the rim, too, keeping the ball close to his body and using his frame to shield it from rim protectors before using his length extension to finish close to the basket. Makes these shots with both hands, too. Bouknight just has this really high level mix of creativity, toughness, balance and bounce that should allow him to have a lot of success as a scorer inside.

2. Cade Cunningham, Oklahoma State

3. Jalen Green, G League Ignite

4. Bones Hyland, VCU

5. Isaiah Miller, UNC Greensboro

Floater
1. McKinley Wright, Colorado

Wright’s floater game is absolutely outrageous, and a huge reason why I’m a bit higher on Wright’s chances to stick in the NBA than many seem to be. He made a ridiculous 59.7 percent of his attempts on floaters, but this wasn’t on limited volume. He scored the second-most points on the floater in the NCAA last season and was third in the country in efficiency on the shot among the 130 players to take at least one per game. It’s an enormous weapon against drop coverage. He can hit it in a variety of ways from a lot of different angles and footworks, too. He can hit runners while still in motion, or can jump stop onto two feet and jump straight in the air. He can also make them planting off off both his right foot or left foot, and do so with range.

2. Tre Mann, Florida

3. Aaron Henry, Michigan State

4. Jason Preston, Ohio

5. Trendon Watford, LSU

Interior scoring for bigs
1. Alperen Sengun, Besiktas

Sengun is as elite as it gets as an interior finisher, both statistically and in terms of the tape. At the basket this past season, Sengun made 74.7 percent of his shots in half-court settings, a ridiculous number. Among the 65 players to take at least 50 shots at the rim in the Turkish League, that was the second-best mark. He also scored more points at the rim than any other player in half-court settings in the Turkish League. Particularly terrific in the pick-and-roll, which is the most translatable setting that he’ll fill. In large part, he finishes well around the basket because of his touch, his ability to extend and his ability to clear out an angle with his strength from his lower half. He has great hands and coordination that allow him to catch and make a move all in one motion. Sengun can catch the ball below his waist, at waist level, and above his head with ease. His footwork is exceptional. He can spin and finish with balance while keeping his eye on the rim. Also, while he won’t be asked to use it as much, his game in the post is terrific. His favorite move is the quick backspin, and he has great set of counters to whatever the defender presents him. He’ll use step-throughs, up-and-unders, then hit a reverse spin. Generally, Sengun is just an absolute offensive technician inside, and there’s every reason to believe in him scoring on offense.

2. Luka Garza, Iowa

3. Evan Mobley, USC

4. Moses Wright, Georgia Tech

5. Jericho Sims, Texas

 

Auburn Tigers guard Sharife Cooper has arguably the tightest handles of anyone in the draft. (John Reed-USA TODAY Sports)


Ballhandling
1. Sharife Cooper, Auburn

Cooper is clearly the best ballhandler in the class. He is one of the few players I’ve evaluated whose handle can even hold a candle to that of Trae Young’s. He is a ridiculous playmaker with the ball in hand. He has real speed and keeps the ball on a string while changing pace and direction with ease. His feel for shifting gears is spectacular, and he knows exactly how to read defenders’ balance. Cooper has a vicious crossover and a nasty inside-out dribble that freezes defenders. Then on top of it, he has a weird combination of herky-jerky handles with a smooth acceleration out of them. He’s not someone who pre-ordains his moves in a series. Instead, he actually reacts to how defenders play him, then makes his own move after they get on their front or back foot. Despite lacking size, he also plays through contact well. It’s really hard to displace him as he makes his initial move. He has good core strength. Cooper flows one move into another with ease, stringing together counter after counter in a dizzying array of handles.

2. Bones Hyland, VCU

3. Jared Butler, Baylor

4. James Bouknight, Connecticut

5. Josh Christopher, Arizona State

Live dribble passing (halfcourt)
1. Sharife Cooper

Cooper is also an elite live-dribble passer. He can make every pass in the book after drawing defenders toward him. He knows how to patiently bring the help closer and draw them out to open passing angles, and he knows how to manipulate defenders with his eyes before throwing impressive no-look passes. Any situation, he’ll find his teammates. He can do so with one hand directly off the bounce, and throws passes with both his right and left. Can whip left-handed cross-court passes on the fly with ease — and the passes almost always are on the money, right in the shooting pocket. He averaged over eight assists per game, which ranked second nationally. His 51.9 assist percentage would be one of the top marks in the database if he had enough games to qualify. He’s just superb at finding every single angle necessary, and he is the best passer, overall, in the class.

2. Josh Giddey, Adelaide

3. Jason Preston, Ohio

4. Cade Cunningham, Oklahoma State

5. David Johnson, Louisville

Grab-and-go transition passing
1. Jalen Suggs

Just absolutely ridiculous at this skill, which might be my favorite in the draft. Suggs throws some absolutely ludicrous transition passes. I don’t know if you guys knew this, as it was only mentioned on every Gonzaga broadcast this year, but Suggs is a former quarterback in high school. He loves the Hail Mary, one-handed home run pass off rebounds to streaking teammates. His sense of how to weigh long bounces to get them to their target in stride is unbelievable. Check these out.



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2. Jason Preston, Ohio

3. Jalen Johnson, Duke

4. Josh Giddey, Adelaide

t5. Cade Cunningham, Scottie Barnes, Florida State

(Top design: Wes McCabe/The Athletic; AP Photo/Young Kwak)