In the NBA Draft’s one-and-done era, just nine college basketball programs have produced multiple lottery picks in the same year.
The list reads as you’d expect with plenty of traditional blue bloods — Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and UCLA, to be specific — alongside a few others schools, namely Connecticut, Florida and Ohio State.
Now, an unexpected entrant is looking to make it an even 10.
In the 32 years of the lottery’s existence, no Miami (Fla.) players have been taken in the first 14 picks. In fact, only four former Hurricanes have ever been selected in the first round of the NBA Draft. But a pair of talented guards are set to change that.
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Sophomore Bruce Brown and freshman Lonnie Walker appeared in the lottery of our first mock draft prior to the season and would remain thereabouts in an updated version today, so when the Hurricanes visited the nation’s capital for a matchup with George Washington earlier this month, it wasn’t a surprise to see a handful of NBA personnel on hand for their 59-50 victory at the Charles E. Smith Center.
The 21-year-old Brown struggled with his shooting through the contest, his first game back from a hand injury that was expected to keep him out for at least three weeks. He returned early after receiving permission from the doctor to tape up his hand.
Brown finished with just three points on 1-of-6 shooting from the field, but he dished out three assists and snagged a trio of steals. It was a bit of an exemplar for what Brown represents at this point: a bundle of athleticism and offensive potential anchored by his defense. As his head coach, Jim Larranaga, said afterward, "I don’t think he had a great game by any means, but he is one heck of a player."
The most intriguing part of Brown’s offensive game is his on-ball creation largely centered around his ability to handle in the pick-and-roll. This season, Brown is producing 1.12 points per possession (89th percentile) on offensive possessions derived from on-ball screens, per Synergy. The bulk of his efficiency comes from his passing where he has shown patience drawing in the defense before finding the roll man.
Brown doesn’t possess the elite court vision of some of the draft’s top point guards, but he tends to make smart passes rather than force the issue. He has dropped his turnover rate from 16.1 percent as a freshman to 14.9 this season, per KenPom.
The key for him will be scoring efficiently whether he’s playing on the ball or off it. While Brown has a reputation as a great slasher, he’s not exactly a great finisher. Over the course of his two seasons, he has averaged 0.784 points per possession when attempting to score out of the pick-and-roll, per Synergy. That number would rate out as about average for Division I in either season.
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Brown faces questions in two key areas. First, his athleticism hasn’t translated in traffic. This season he ranks in the 33rd percentile nationally as a finisher at the rim, according to Synergy’s calculations. Playing in NBA space could help Brown significantly here. At Miami, he often plays alongside a non-shooting point guard who constricts the floor for the offense. Surrounded by more shooters, Brown may get more open driving lanes.
The other issue is his off-the-dribble shooting, a critical skill for any prospect with some amount of lead guard equity because it morphs the viable ways opposing teams can defend ball screens.
Last season, Brown ranked 1,078th out of 1,083 Division I players with more than 30 pull-up attempts at 0.324 points per possession, per Synergy. Although I’m not a shot doctor, his two-motion jumper often seems to generate an inconsistent release point over his head that may hurt him. As a sophomore, Brown has been more accurate over a much smaller 13-shot sample, but it’s far too early to draw any conclusions about definitive improvements.
At 6-5 with a sturdy frame, Brown profiles as someone capable of playing either guard position at the next level, but his lead guard potential hinges heavily on whether he’ll develop into an efficient creator for himself. If he were the normal age of a college sophomore, it would be easier to project such improvement, but he’s a year older than most.
Luckily, Brown can fall back into a 3-and-D role that works either as an off-guard or as a nominal point guard next to a wing creator. He has been a career 34.1 percent 3-point shooter on 3.6 attempts per 40 minutes while shooting 70.7 percent from the foul line. If he’s able to clean up his mechanics, his shot should translate to a reasonable percentage at the NBA line.
Brown’s defense is quite good at the point of attack and his strength will make it possible for his team to switch comfortably. He is also active with his hands both on the ball and off it, averaging 1.7 steals per 40 minutes.
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The sophomore guard ranks as a fringe lottery prospect on my board at the moment, in large part because he hasn’t shown quite as much improvement in his sophomore season as expected. Still, his positional versatility, athleticism and defense should present an attractive package to NBA teams.
Where Brown excites as a potential playmaker, Walker has already established himself as an effective scorer finishing possessions with self-creation upside from the wing. He collected 13 points on 6-of-14 shooting with three boards and three assists against the Colonials, including a highlight putback slam that showed off his athleticism.
Walker operates primarily as a spot-up shooter in Miami’s offense with Brown and point guard Ja’Quan Newton eating up most of the on-ball play. His 3-point shooting looks like it should be a translatable NBA skill. Walker has a reasonably quick release, gets solid lift and has NBA range. He’s shooting 35.7 percent on 6.9 3-point attempts per 40 minutes.
Walker struggled from deep against George Washington, connecting on just one of his seven attempts. Larranaga attributed his team’s shooting woes — it finished a collective 5 of 21 behind the arc — to playing in a new arena.
"Whenever you have a different environment, it’s a little bit more challenging for the 3-point shooters," he said.
Monitoring Walker’s free throw shooting for the remainder of the season will be an important exercise. He has made just 65.0 percent of his 20 attempts so far, and continued poor shooting from the line could raise red flags given free throw percentage is a predictor of NBA 3-point shooting.
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Walker’s offensive upside lies with his potential to develop into a secondary creator from the wing. He’s already good enough attacking closeouts off the catch and handling the ball in big spaces — he flashed a nice in-and-out dribble against George Washington, for example — but improving as a pick-and-roll ballhandler would help his stock significantly.
Early returns there have been promising. Walker ranks in the 77th percentile of Division I as a scorer out of the pick-and-roll, per Synergy, and he showed the ability to turn the corner against the Colonials’ zone when given a chance.
Walker is still working to become a more capable distributor out of these actions rather than just using them as scoring opportunities. While he boasts a positive assist-to-turnover ratio, his 2.8 assists per 100 possessions is well below average for wings drafted in the last five years. For perspective, it’s historically similar to other score-first wings, including Doug McDermott (2.9), Andrew Wiggins (2.8) and Bradley Beal (2.6).
On the other end, Walker’s size and athleticism should help him develop into a potentially versatile defender. At 6-4, he projects best as a pure shooting guard, but his 6-10 wingspan will allow him to reasonably defend larger opponents. Against the Colonials, Walker was consistently in a stance and competing on the defensive end. This season, his effort has translated into a decent number of defensive events, including 1.5 steals and 0.5 blocks per 40 minutes.
Notably, Walker hasn’t seen the court as frequently as many of the draft’s other top freshman guards. He’s averaging just 22.0 minutes per game off the bench. That’s more than 10 minutes fewer per contest than Oklahoma’s Trae Young and about three minutes less than Virginia Tech’s Nickeil Alexander-Walker, a fringe first-rounder. The likely culprit is the torn meniscus Walker suffered prior to the season that limited his participation in preseason practices.
Walker’s size, scoring instincts and youth give him the edge over Brown on my board at the moment, but he needs to find his way into more consistent time on the court to showcase his skill set. NBA teams also won’t have a hard time figuring out how to slot Walker into their rotation, and that flexibility is valuable. Let him attack off the catch either with his jumper or with a head of steam toward the basket, and he’ll be fine.
It’s a rarity for any college team to have multiple lottery picks on its roster, let alone when that roster belongs to a program with four first-rounders ever, but if this guard duo continues to impress, they’ll become lottery picks Nos. 1 and 2 for Miami.