The Cade Cunningham Draft

There's one player that is the prize at the top of this year's draft class.

This is an excerpt from the Cade Cunningham scouting report that subscribers to The Rebound received. To access the full article here, subscribe below:

The best pick-and-roll guards in the NBA are able to make this pass … :

… look easy with either hand. Cade’s just about there, but there’s more to it than simply being able to make a crosscourt pass.

Look at that clip again. David McCormack doubles Cade off of the ball-screen. As that’s happening, Ochai Agbaji, the low-man, tags the roller, leaving Ice Likelele all alone in the corner. That’s the open man, the right read.

Now, look at this clip, which is the next possession:

McCormack doubles again. The low man now is Christian Braun, but he’s not tagging, Jalen Wilson is. Cade reads that he’s only bumping the roller, leaving a wide-open lane to the rim for Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe. Layup.

(That’s a blind pass, by the way. He’s throws that around McCormack because he knows there’s space in the paint. That is a high-level read and high-level execution.)

And a third clip, which is two possessions later:

Again, McCormack doubles. Agbaji is the low-man, but you can see him point to Wilson to tell him to tag. Wilson leaves Likelele, Cade reads it, and while he doesn’t get an assist out of this, he creates a close-out that leads to a layup.

That’s really impressive stuff.

“But Rob,” I can hear you asking, “if he’s such a good passer, why did Cade only average 3.5 assists?”

The full scouting report can be found here.