This is the 1st part of my deep dive series into Dennis Smith Jr. of NC State. Part 1 is an overview that looks at his statistical profile. If you want to skip ahead Part 2 looks at his handle, driving ability and finishing at the rim, Part 3 examines his outside shooting profile, Part 4 deconstructs his defense (or lack thereof), and Part 5 looks at his passing and decision making. Click on any of the links to read them.

Dennis Smith Jr. is clearly one of the top freshman point guards in the 2017 draft class, and he compares favorably to a number of other successful point guards over the past decade. He is a somewhat controversial prospect because of the narrative that surrounded his only year at NC State. The team struggled greatly in the ACC and Smith did not always show the best attitude, maturity, or in terms of his on-court game, best shot selection. However, his statistical profile as well as his athleticism indicate that he has the potential to be an all-star point guard in the NBA.

First I want to look at his overall statistical profile before turning to video to examine specific parts of his game.

Statistical Profile

Smith is a scoring point guard. He has a reputation for being a bit of a gunner, which we will examine further in his shot selection, but he also was a very good distributor who involved his teammates. Thanks to Marc Whittington we can see how he compares to Fultz, Ball, Fox, as well as recent NBA point guards. Note these are per 40 numbers, not per game numbers.

Notice that Smith is average to above average in each of the categories with no red or orange categories at all. There are no red flags here. He does not have one area that is an outlier among this cohort, but his overall strength is especially impressive given the NBA comparisons include six all-star point guards, and the point god (CP3). His strongest category is actually his assist rate. He had a 34% assist rate despite being surrounded by mediocre at best teammates. Notice also that both his rebound and steal numbers are good for point guard prospects. This goes against the narrative that he contributes nothing on the defensive end (though he certainly has his issues there.) Some of these steals came from gambling off the ball, but I think that the steals as well as the rebounding (at 6'3") also speak to his excellent athleticism.

One aspect of his profile that stuck out here was the remarkable statistical similarity to Derrick Rose's freshman year at Memphis. The scoring profile (points per 40, true shooting, free throw rate) is almost identical with Smith having ever so slightly higher numbers across the board. Additionally they had virtually identical free throw percentages of 71.2 % and 71.5%. Rose was a slightly better rebounder, but Smith was better both in terms of assists and steals (surprising given the much better defensive reputation Rose had in college). Rose was poorer shooter from outside hitting on 33.7% of his 104 attempts, while Smith sank 35.9% of 152 attempts.

Smith , like Rose, profiles as an elite athlete at the point guard with a focus on scoring but also an ability to create for his teammates. Both are on the shorter end at 6'2" or 6'3" depending on which measurements you believe. However, Rose is significantly longer with a 6'8" wingspan while Smith measures out at 6'3-4". This, combined with a touch more explosiveness and in-air flexibility probably allows Rose to finish around the rim at a better rate than Smith. Unfortunately, hoop-math data does not go back that far and I was unable to find the numbers on Rose's rim finishing.

The statistics on Smith's finishing are surprising positive. Again, courtesy of Marc Whittington we can see that he compares well to a similar cohort as above (the older NBA prospects did not have this data available.) Lillard's numbers from now on come from his senior season at age 21 since they are the only ones available.

He finished at a very solid 64.9% at the rim while being assisted on 20% of his makes, and he got to the rim unassisted 4.4 times per 40 minutes. Again, there is no one outstanding statistic (like Ball's fg% or Evan's insane ability to get to the rim) but everything is average to above average. All of the other players in this cohort are significantly longer than Smith (Fox has a 6'6.5" wingspan and Lillard 6'7") with the exception of Evans and his lack of length clearly shows in his fg%. For Smith to finish this well at his size against quality competition in the ACC is quite impressive (he played 9 games against top 25 competition, more than everyone but Fox who had 10.) There are still some concerns about his ability to finish over NBA length that we will see in the film section, but these worries do not show up in his numbers.

The ability to be a three level scorer in the NBA (from the 3 point line, midrange, and at the rim) is a crucial element for any high-level point guard. Here, courtesy of hoop-math we can see the breakdown of how many shots these same prospects took at each level.

Ball is clearly the most efficient scorer here (on much lower volume), but he is either incapable or unwilling (I lean towards the former given his shot mechanics) to score in the midrange. Fultz, Fox, and Lillard all shot significantly more often from the midrange than Smith did. Not surprisingly the true shooting percentages correlate most strongly with the percentage of shots taken from three. The more a player shot from there, the higher their shooting efficiency. Smith and Fultz were the only players to shoot at least 25% of the time from each area which seems to indicate an ability to get shots off from all three zones. Smith often gets criticized for being a gunner and having poor shot selection (which is true at times). However, he took fewer overall shots than any prospect other than Ball (who isn't really a lead guard), and took far fewer from midrange than Fultz or Fox.

Here, again via hoop-math.com, we can see how much Smith created his own shot in each range. Unassisted shots are generally self-created ones (put-backs also count, but Smith only had 9 all year.) At the rim he is at the middle of the pack, but both in both the mid-range and from three he creates a higher % of his own shots than anyone except for Jawun Evans. Both players were forced into a similar role carrying the offensive burden for their teams. Smith's ability to create offense for himself, while still maintaining good overall efficiency is certainly a positive sign for his creation potential at the next level. It is also positive context for the following section on his shooting efficiency.

This is one area in which Smith clearly struggles in comparison to his peers. The 30.5% on 2pt jumpers stands out as even poor shooting De'Aaron fox shot 6 percentage points better. This is a concern. It may be due to his lack of length, his inconsistent form on off-the-dribble jumpers, poor shot selection, or from a more systemic perspective it may be the lack of spacing and the necessity for him to create within the NC State offense. Regardless, it is a concern going forward and something that needs to be corrected. How correctable it is, is an important question in assessing his NBA potential.

The 35.8% from three is also worse than all of his peers with the exception of Fox, although it is not a negative number in a broader context (John Wall, Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose, and Mike Conley all shot worse and on much less volume). His free throw percentage is also mediocre, though it looks good in comparison to the poor numbers that Fultz and Ball put up. Smith's true shooting percentage is still strong overall because he took fewer 2pt jumpers than his peers and he got to the free throw line more often than everyone other than Lillard, as we saw above with his .476 free throw rate.

However the outside shooting is an enormous question. Nylon Calculus' statistical formula is bullish on it as, in both models, it projects him to shoot 35% from three, which is an excellent number for a lead guard as athletic as he is (Westbrook and Harden both shot 34.3% and 34.7% this year.) This, along with finishing over NBA length, is the real question mark for Smith, the swing skill which can unlock star potential. If teams have to respect his jumper, Smith clearly has the handle and driving ability to penetrate and compromise the defense.

Finally, one last summative chart from Marc Whittington, which compares this year's crop of freshman point guards (along with Jawun Evans in both years).

Here, once again notice the abundance of green and yellow in each category for Smith as he is average or above average in each area with the exception of free throw percentage. Even there, his numbers are much closer to Fox's average 74% than they are to Fultz' or Ball's poor shooting. Here I would also point out two things that I haven't previously talked much about: his turnovers and his defense. His assist/turnover ratio or 1.82 is remarkably similar to Fultz' 1.85 and his turnover/usage rate of 0.28 is also just outside the "good" range when compared to Evan's 0.27 from his freshman year. It is easy to spot some lazy passes or bad turnovers that he had on film. However, given how much he handled the ball, it is not a weakness in his game.

The defensive numbers are also surprisingly average to positive given the awful reputation that he has earned on that end. His DBPM (which is based on box score stats) is plus 1, and his defensive rating vs. the NC State's team defensive rating is a positive 0.7 which (if I am reading it correctly) means they performed better defensively by 0.7 points per 100 possessions with him on the court. Of course that may also speak to the poor quality of players that NC State had behind him on the bench.

Part 1 has gone on way too long, so I will save Part 2 for a separate article in the coming days. In that article I want to look specifically at certain aspects of Smith's game via video breakdown. Thanks for reading this far.