2014 NBA Draft: Michigan’s Mitch McGary Player Profile

Strengths:

Don’t expect a lot of stats here because there’s not a lot to go off of with McGary right now. This is due to the fact he only played in eight games this past season, skipped the NBA Draft Combine and is at least a week from beginning his individual team workouts and a full physical examination, per his agent.

McGary’s a physical specimen unlike most in this year’s draft class. He’s quick on his feet, has great jumping ability and can power through opponents when he wants to. He’s still a bit raw with his footwork but it steadily improved during the course of his freshman season at Michigan. He has a solid mid-range jumper but works best when he’s operating within a five- to 10-foot radius around the basket. Mitch showed great poise in the pick-and-roll game with Trey Burke two years ago.

Overall, in the time McGary spent on the floor, he showed he can be a great player in the right situation but still has some growing to do. He turns 22 this Saturday, so he’s still relatively young.

Weaknesses: 

Again, there aren’t stats that can serve up as a good sample size for McGary, so we’ll look at his overall game when he was on the court.

McGary become a star during the 2013 NCAA tournament and went into the 2013-14 college season expected to be an All-America performer. It was a six-game sample size that had fans and scouts raving about him. Some had him projected as a lottery selection in the 2013 draft. After six games of good production after having a medicore freshman year, McGary returned to improve his game. He suffered a back injury in the summer of 2013, missing the first two games of the year. He returned quicker than most expected but lasted less than a month (eight games) before reaggrevating his back injury and missing the rest of the year.

In those eight games, McGary put up solid, near double-double numbers. However, he seemed to still be suffering from his injury. Whenever he went into the post, rather than taking advantage of a size mis-match and attacking the basket, McGary would revert to taking fadeaway jumpers five feet from the basket. He wouldn’t get up and down the court as he did in the 2013 tournament and just looked uncomfortable at times.

Now, he must make NBA teams think that his back issue will no longer hamper him — which can come with a clean bill of health during the physical examination — as well as make them sure that his positive marijuana test which led to him facing a one-year ban from the NCAA — which is why he entered this year’s draft in the first place — will not continue in the pros.

There are a lot of questions surrounding McGary that he will need to answer in the next few weeks.