I love this pick, especially after reading Max' scouting report on CelticsBlog; had him rated 4th in draft!!
Grant Williams, Forward
If you follow me on Twitter, you’re familiar with my affinity for Grant Williams. Williams is the strongest player in the Draft, arguably the smartest, and undoubtedly my favorite. While skeptics have often pointed to Williams’ size as detrimental to his NBA translation, he quieted those concerns at the combine, measuring in at 6’7.5” with a 6’9.75”. Williams has NBA forward height and length, but his outlier physical tool is his strength.
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Max Carlin
@maxacarlin
some GRANT
3
4:43 PM - Jun 9, 2019
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On the glass, defending larger players, impacting shots at the rim, finishing through contact, carving out space to get his shot off, Williams applies his strength at an utterly elite level. And that’s not going to change in the NBA:
Sam Vecenie
✔
@Sam_Vecenie
· Jun 14, 2019
Grant Williams is considered by most teams a late 1st, early 2nd rounder. I disagree, and have him at No. 15 on my board.
Why? He’s tailor-made for the modern NBA. I spent a day with him in Santa Barbara, and wrote a breakdown of why I believe in him:
https://theathletic.com/996385/2019/06/14/grant-williams-and-the-challenge-of-scouting-a-player-whose-role-will-be-different-in-the-nba/ …
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Sam Vecenie
✔
@Sam_Vecenie
Everyone knows Grant Williams is a strong dude. But at P3, they tested that strength. On his first day there, at only 20 years old, Williams came in the 96th percentile among their database of hundreds of current/past NBA players regardless of position.
https://theathletic.com/996385/2019/06/14/grant-williams-and-the-challenge-of-scouting-a-player-whose-role-will-be-different-in-the-nba/ …
216
11:51 AM - Jun 14, 2019
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Williams’ strength needs to be discussed more as a game-changing athletic trait. Strength, when applied to all the aspects of the game Williams applies it to, is as valuable as any athletic ability. Watch players lacking positional size like Marcus Smart or PJ Tucker dominate defensively through strength. Tune into the highest levels of play to see Kawhi Leonard ride strength to a Finals MVP. Physically, Williams has the tools to exert his will on NBA basketball games.
Where some worry about Williams’ physical abilities is on the perimeter with respect to his movement skills:
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Max Carlin
@maxacarlin
Grant moving pretty well
1
2:06 PM - May 15, 2019
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I find this to be a legitimate, though overblown, concern. Williams moves well laterally, but has two somewhat significant issues: 1) he’s jumpy on the perimeter 2) he has a very wide turning radius when forced to change direction, which allows for offensive players to create a fair amount of space with east-west movement. I don’t think these are [dang]ing flaws. They put a cap on Williams’ perimeter defense, but only to the degree that he should be solid and unremarkable as opposed to a difference-maker.
Williams is a difference-maker on the interior:
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Max Carlin
@maxacarlin
Gets dunked on in the end but Grant Williams
4
3:17 AM - Jan 13, 2019
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Strength is key to Williams’ defensive brilliance, but intelligence is as integral. He’s a genius with elite awareness and recognition. He routinely makes point-saving out-of-area plays and consistently imprints himself on the game possession after possession. Williams is a defensive playmaker:
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Max Carlin
@maxacarlin
KING
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2:19 PM - Mar 24, 2019
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He’s an offensive playmaker, too:
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Max Carlin
@maxacarlin
The screen. The pass. The board. GRANT in 10 seconds.
33
1:03 AM - May 26, 2019
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Williams is a passing savant. He not only has elite vision and court awareness, but he’s an anticipatory passer, capable of leading teammates like a quarterback and seeing defensive weak points before they exist. In the NBA, he should dominate as a short roll playmaker and post facilitator.
He’s no slouch as a scorer, either. Williams was a high-volume, elite-efficiency (97th percentile) post scorer in college. While I doubt he’ll be that prolific in the NBA, Williams should continue to be successful using strength to generate space for his jumper, which has a high release point that Williams easily gets off over contests from longer players.
While he’s an elite mid-range shooter, Williams has yet to consistently extend his range to 3 (he attempted 46 3-pointers this year), but elite touch and mid-range shooting, projectable mechanics, and strong free-throw percentage (81.9% on 7 attempts per contest this year) have me optimistic range is a matter of when not if for Williams.
The best indicator of whether a prospect will be a good basketball player in the future is whether he was a good basketball player in the past. There are no more than three players in this class who have been better at basketball than Williams in the past. And Williams has achieved that level of goodness despite being a very young junior, still just 20 years old through late November.
I expect Williams to step in immediately as a versatile defensive wrecking ball, potent short roll playmaker, exceptional mid-range finisher, and pick-and-pop threat. It won’t be conventional stardom, and there are certainly outcomes where Williams is too vulnerable defending the perimeter and hesitant shooting the 3, but he should be incredibly valuable and irreplaceable complementary player on good teams for a long time.
Topic: Welcome to the team Grant Williams! (Read 7504 times)