Denver Nuggets: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s potential fit
By Max Carlin
What makes him special
Phew, glad that’s out of the way. Now it’s time to gush.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s offensive game is all about the pick-and-roll, in which he’s Mozart, crafting symphonies at the tender age of eight:
Gilgeous-Alexander exhibits tremendous poise for a 19-year-old in the pick-and-roll. He’s always content to probe the defense, patiently waiting for the right passing lane to open. When it does, you could bet your life on Gilgeous-Alexander finding the open shooter:
Gilgeous-Alexander’s court vision and awareness really are excellent. He always knows where the help is coming from and who should be open as a result. His height and attentiveness allow him to act on that knowledge, as he can see over the defense and is constantly scanning the floor for open teammates.
Gilgeous-Alexander has all the necessary pick-and-roll passes mastered, including skip passes to shooters, pocket passes to rollers, and dump-offs once he’s in the paint. He’s also an adept lob-thrower with nice touch:
Gilgeous-Alexander’s touch extends to his finishing at the rim:
He has exquisite touch with both hands, so much so that when I first watched him, I thought he was a lefty:
Gilgeous-Alexander’s ambidexterity affords him flexibility, as he can adapt to every individual situation. When he needs to break out a wrong-handed layup to avoid a shot-blocker, he does a convincing Kyrie Irving impression:
Gilgeous-Alexander’s soft touch with both hands, combined with his elite length, enable him to excel around the rim. He uses his length extremely well as a finisher. When he’s unable to beat defenders off the dribble, he is often able to simply finish around them:
Gilgeous-Alexander was typically able to get a step on his defender, though, and not because of his first step.
Athletically, Gilgeous-Alexander really is limited. He’s not a leaper. He’s not explosive. However, he has special craft and creativity as a ball-handler, which is magnified by his elite body control:
Gilgeous-Alexander’s signature move is that beautiful behind-the-back, and yes, it often makes defenders look that silly. There’s nothing conventional or practiced about that drive. It’s just Gilgeous-Alexander starting and stopping and stringing random notes together, like a jazz saxophonist. His riffs are casually brilliant:
While his handle can be a little loose at times, Gilgeous-Alexander’s overall creativity and ambitiousness outweigh whatever drawbacks it has. It’s also worth noting that Gilgeous-Alexander has this wonderful twitchiness to him.
His game is filled with these subtle hesitations, abrupt starts and stops, and random movements thrown in solely to get his defender off balance — an approach vaguely reminiscent of soon-to-be-MVP James Harden.
Like Harden, Gilgeous-Alexander also boasts a knack for getting to the free throw line:
Gilgeous-Alexander’s herky-jerky ball-handling invariably leaves defenders disoriented, drawing them into ill-advised contests, reaches and legitimate fouls. As a result, he attempted 4.7 free throws per game this year, hitting at a respectable 81.7 percent. His free throw attempt rate of .464 even exceeded that of renowned foul-drawer/best point guard in the draft, Trae Young (.443).
Part of Gilgeous-Alexander’s foul-drawing prowess can also be attributed to his Harden-esque dedication to flailing whenever he feels the slightest contact (he’s already ready for NBA stardom):
Regardless of how he draws them, fouls are going to be a major part of Gilgeous-Alexander’s offensive game at the next level. They’ll really help to buoy his efficiency as a scorer.