2023 NBA Draft Scouting Reports: Keyonte George
In our very first Scouting Report for the 2023 NBA Draft Class we take a deep dive into Baylor's Keyonte George
A walking bucket, Keyonte George stepped on to a veteran laden squad with aspirations of once again being National Champions and established himself right away as THE primary option. A guard that score in a variety of ways, most scouts questioned his playmaking and defense coming into his freshman year. Now that his year is over, let’s look at how he kept his reputation as a top scoring option and see if he did address any of the concerns scouts had about him.
For Your Consideration
As we begin our individual scouting reports, we want to begin each one with a little segment we like to call “For Your Consideration.” These opening segments will shed some light on an important aspect of the scouting profile we think needs to be at the forefront of the discussion for each player. Rather than JUST looking at the numbers and film. we want you to think of this part of the profile first before we dive into stats and game tapes.
For Keyonte George you have to consider two things: he was playing the small forward position almost exclusively at Baylor and he suffered an ankle injury on February 25, 2023 against Texas that bothered him in his final four games after that.
Why it is important first and foremost to consider Keyonte George was playing small forward for Baylor is that George is listed at six-foot four-inches tall and 185 pounds. To say he was playing out of position is an understatement. This means George had to match up against other forwards in the Big 12 like Kansas’s pair of six-foot eight guys Gradey Dick and Jalen Wilson, six-foot six-inches tall Chuck O’Bannon of TCU, and six-foot seven-inches tall Emmitt Matthews Jr. of West Virginia just to name a few.
I start here because when you look at ANY part of Keyonte George’s game, just remember he is doing this playing out of position. Just look into Baylor’s lineup data and you will find that Keyonte George played at the guard position in only ONE of their top 15 lineup combinations. In all of the other lineups he was at the small forward position. There is reason to believe that when George is allowed to play in his more natural position at shooting guard where he won’t have to make up for his lack of size at his position, his numbers could look a lot better.
Another reason to believe his numbers could look better is because the ankle injury he suffered late in the year against Texas really robbed him of being able to attack. The final five game statline for George is brutal and tells the tale of a player trying to gut through an injury. Before that ankle injury, however, these were his numbers:
16.9 points per game, 4.5 rebounds per game, 3.0 assists per game, 1.1 steals per game on shooting splits of 43.3% from two-point distance, 35.8% from three-point range, and 80.6% from the free throw line.
ANYTIME a player suffers an injury that should be taken into account as it does effect some part of their game. So keep this and his playing out of position in mind as we dive into Keyonte George’s strengths, areas for improvement, and his NBA Player Comparison.
Strengths
The first thing that should jump out to anyone that watches Keyonte George is his volume Three Point Shooting. One look at his 228 total three-point attempts compared to his 184 attempts from two-point range and you see George’s main weapon is that three-point shot. While his 33.8% from downtown on the year seems below average, remember, this is dragged down by the final five games where Keyonte’s ankle injury really deprived him of getting lift on his jumpshot.
Even with the ankle, injury, however, the volume of attempts is rare. Only Brandon Miller attempted more three-point shots than Keyonte George among true freshman this year in Division 1 NCAA. George’s 33.8% from three for the year is also very similar to Bradley Beal’s 33.9% from three on 186 attempts in his lone season at Florida. It’s also better than Tyrese Maxey’s 29.2% at Kentucky in his freshman year. While I am not going to comp George to either of these guys, I think both have a similarity to George in that their teams NEEDED them to be a primary floor spacer and things such as the form on their jumper or their free throw percentage were HUGE indicators that their jumper was actually really good.
And the MOST important aspect to highlight about Keyonte George’s volume three-point shooting is he can get these threes off in just about any situation. This is not just a guy who will wait behind the three-point line with his hand in the air waiting to be fed catch-and-shoot jumpers. He is: skilled at attacking closeouts with a solid shot fake; has the ability to sidestep a defender and reset his feet to create a wide open shot; and get shots off the dribble in isolation with his own dribble moves and step-backs or operating out of the pick and roll. Point blank: Keyonte George is able to sink ANY kind of three-point shot on a regular basis.
The second thing I really like most about Keyonte George’s game is his physicality. Part of why the “For Your Consideration” was about George playing out of position was to circle back to this. He more than held his own on both ends of the court because he was never afraid to throw his body around. Getting to the line 150 times, pulling in the third most rebounds on the team (the only non-big man on Baylor’s roster to pull in over 80 rebounds), and routinely finding himself guarding a big man on D, Keyonte was always willing to do the dirty work. Don’t just take my word for it, though, take a look at some of the clips I put together showing Keyonte taking care of much bigger players in the hyperlinks in this sentence.
His man-to-man defense looked great as he was not only able to take on the challenge of guarding bigger players, but also handled guards when switching. Really his engagement and desire to get into the opposition on any and all switches is commendable and makes him ready to do the same in the NBA and not try to hide from quicker or stronger opposition.
Last, but certainly not least is Keyonte’s ball handling and expanded playmaking. George has a solid handle that he uses to attack on offense whether in isolation, operating as the primary ball handler in the pick-and-roll, or squeezing his way through traffic after attacking a closeout. He did also address some of the passing concerns teams had about him coming into the year as he dished out 91 total assists. What was most encouraging to me was that George consistently flashed really good passes off-the-dribble. Many times he was able to hit his teammates in stride on a bounce or skip pass. He also got better as the season progressed in passing out of double teams and finding an open teammate which then sent the defense into scramble mode.
Now these were FLASHES and he still has work to do when it comes to his playmaking, but there were many signs of progression in the kinds of passes he saw and could complete. Yet, seeing that Keyonte only managed 1.8 assists per game in his senior year at IMG Academy the 20.1% assist percentage he displayed this year is a good step in the right direction.
Areas for Improvement
Number one area of improvement, for me, when it comes to Keyonte George is turnovers/shot selection. I group these two together because there are times when Keyonte’s poor shot selection works like a turnover to kill a drive or derail his team’s offense so I lumped them together. I also think for this kind of player—a volume shooter/scorer—it is imperative they learn how to lean into the more efficient and intelligent shots as that is one of many ways to take better care of the ball.
While George’s 16.4% turnover rate is not alarmingly high, he did post more turnovers than assists at 95 total. Couple this with a 52.4% True Shooting and you begin to see there were many times Keyonte was throwing away possessions between taking ill advised shots and throwing errant passes. When you look at his effective field goal percentage—a stat that JUST compiles the shots he took under live fire and eliminates free throws in the equation—his percentage dips even lower to 47.0%.
That puts him near other prospects who have been hit majorly with the Inefficient label such as Jalen Hood-Schifino at 46.3% and Jordan Walsh at 47.9%. This is not good as Hood-Schifino and Walsh both are sub par three-point takers and shooters. You would think that being primarily a three-point shooter with average efficiency on those shots would inflate his effective field goal percentage above guys like this, but it points to another major need for improvement in George’s game and that is his two-point shots.
Keyonte’s inside the arc game, right now, is severely lacking. Just look at this shot chart courtesy of CBBAnalytics.com:
It is cold out there with all that blue! While you may also be questioning the three-point shot also, remember he had that ankle injury that made him way less than his usual self in the final five games where he went 5/27 from deep. To put it another way, if he makes just 2 more shots in each of the three-point zones that are currently blue, he is shooting at 34% or higher in each zone. And lastly, Brandon Miller was the only other freshman able to get off this amount of threes, so this kind of shooter is rare.
The two point percentages have little to no reason to be this bad, however. Particularly concerning for me are the numbers at the rim and in the paint. Judging by his team leading 150 free throws we KNOW Keyonte George can get into the teeth of the defense, but he does not have a consistent shot in there. Whether a runner/floater in the paint or some kind of soft touch finish Keyonte needs something to make his trips to the line more of the And1 variety. And lastly, 62 attempts at the rim is inexcusable to me as this makes up a miniscule 15% of George’s offense.
While I do think Keyonte George can and should develop a floater there in the paint with how he shows touch and extension on his jumper, I think the thing any team that drafts him should tell him the minute they get him on the phone is, DRIVE TO THE RIM MORE! He really needs to work on attacking the cup more and use his solid handle and ball skills to get in there. Here is where playing out of position at the small forward probably hurt Keyonte the most as he ended up on guys with wingspans that could bother him more easily than if he was lined up on another guard.
Still, this is the area that I personally feel would vault Keyonte George from being an inefficient jump shooter, into being an efficient scorer who can put pressure on the defense by consistently getting into the lane and taking contact while also being a great volume three-point shooter. Please Keyonte if you ever read this ATTACK THE RACK MORE!
NBA Player Comparison
While I’ve evoked the names of guys with similar size and games like Bradley Beal and Tyrese Maxey, the more I watched of Keyonte George the more I was reminded of Houston Rockets Eric Gordon. Gordon has led about three different NBA careers so I want to make it very clear: I am NOT saying Keyonte George is the mega athlete and rim rocker version of Eric Gordon who was drafted by the Clippers. Keyonte is also NOT the post-injury inefficient version of Eric Gordon on the AD New Orleans Pelicans.
I am saying Keyonte George, to me, is more like the version of Eric Gordon that played for those Houston Rockets teams that took Golden State’s KD teams to the brink from 2016 until 2019. On these teams Gordon was defined by two things, mainly: taking 8.8 three-point attempts per game to the tune of 36.4% and playing tough man-to-man defense. I can see Keyonte George being able to do these two things at the very least.
We already have seen when he is healthy, George can put up this kind of volume while draining them at 35.8%. He also shows the kind of physicality Eric Gordon displayed on these Rockets teams as he also had to play out of position at small forward and make up for the lack of defense James Harden displayed. While I am not going to advocate that Keyonte George maintain this small forward role, what I will say is imagine if THIS Houston Rockets version of Eric Gordon was actually allowed to play shooting guard alongside a true small forward.
And in that three year span, Gordon’s per game stats of 16.8 points, 2.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists are the kind of numbers I would expect for Keyonte. While I do see the POSSIBILITY that Keyonte George could morph into a Bradley Beal or Tyrese Maxey, I think without the consistent ability to attack the rim AND finish there, George and the team that drafts him should lean into his three point abilities while letting the rest of his game come along slowly. And even if he ends up being in a more supplementary role as a result, he could be one of the most important #3 or #4 players the way Eric Gordon was for the Rockets.
Let us know what you think of Keyonte George in the comments! Where do you rank him in the draft? Would you want your favorite team to draft him? Keep your eyes glued to RezBall as we will keep turning out Scouting Reports just like this as Draft SZN in full swing!