Race between Cole Anthony, Anthony Edwards at top of 2020 NBA Draft starts now
Ball skills
Both players are dynamic with the ball in their hands, but I will favor Cole Anthony here because of his passing and ability to get inside and draw fouls. Anthony Edwards is a superior one-on-one scorer out of the triple threat, but is yet to display near the same feel for timely passing or craftily manipulating a defense.
He is very comfortable though with the ball in his hands and something to keep an eye on will be if he develops throughout the season at Georgia as a play initiator, as Victor Oladipo did during his final season at Indiana under coach Tom Crean.
Cole might be more a great, complete player that happens to be 6’3″, rather than a pure point guard, but that distinction has never mattered less in player evaluation than in today’s NBA. Each of the top five players at the position today have been questioned on their point guard purity at various points.
What I am more curious of is whether Cole’s scoring will translate at the elite level that Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving and others consistently carry.
He actually posted a negative assist/turnover ratio over 16 games in EYBL play last summer (0.89/1), though it should be noted that he played a distinctly different style at Oak Hill last season when surrounded by elite scorers.
The pick-and-roll game should be Cole’s bread and better, both this season and in his NBA future. He’s a threat to pull up, finish at the rim, find bigs or kick to shooters. Here’s a beautiful read, where rather than immediately a dumping a bounce pass to his open roll man, he takes an additional dribble, freezes the defending big, then whips a beautiful laser pass for the finish.
The difference between these two in getting to the free throw line has been significant, as Anthony posted more than double the attempts per game in EYBL play than Edwards had on the UA circuit. I really hope to see Edwards start attacking the paint as aggressively as his stature should encourage.