1) Cole Anthony, I believe, rates somewhere between three and maybe ten or twelve, by consensus. He’s higher on the boards around here to be sure, if we look at Mike’s, or Ross’s, or in the general vicinity of The Stepien, Big Wafe’s. He rates one or two on all three boards. However, popular draft media and seemingly actual NBA circles are far from in love with Cole Anthony’s prospecthood.

For that reason, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Cole Anthony is still being pretty seriously slept on. This was the case with Zion last year when he wasn’t rated #1 by absolutely everyone, and indeed, by almost absolutely no one, despite the fact that it was obvious well before the season that he was not only the best prospect in his class, but also potentially generational. Such seems to be the case with Anthony.

Not that Anthony is necessarily a generational prospect, but that he seems to be the best prospect in his class, even if it will take part of a college basketball season to make it clear.

2) Unlike many high school basketball players, I’ve seen Cole Anthony play meaningful basketball more than a couple of times. When I’ve seen him, he’s basically always popped. He’s athletic in multiple ways with a real deal first step, explosiveness and sudden vertical leaping, fast hands, start-stop ability and change of direction agility with the ball in his hands. He’s also skilled in multiple ways with finishing, mid-range ability, a 3- point shot off the catch and the dribble (even if he’s still developing), the ability to draw fouls, the ability to create lanes for his teammates and read defenses, ridiculous free throw accuracy, rebounding ability and decent creation of defensive events.

3) Here’s highlights of the Hoops Summit game showing examples of Cole’s ability to get to spots.

4) So why don’t people like Cole Anthony as a prospect? Apparently because he has a small upper body (did we learn nothing from the 2009 draft?) and he’s a score first point guard. As if all the best point guards in the league aren’t score first point guards.

5) The question about size is legitimate. As you can see, he has trouble bothering Carmelo Anthony.

Of course, basically no point guard is bothering Carmelo Anthony once he’s at his spots. What we’re really talking about is a ridiculous double standard being extended to Anthony, which is not only not being applied to other players in his class, but in turn to the players who play his position in the NBA.

6) Yes, I’m aware Cole scores quite a few times on Carmelo in the video as well. It’s just a one-on-one game, but the advantages small players have in getting open from deep and hitting what seem like difficult shots is precisely why they tend to be pushing offensive efficiencies to places we’ve never seen.

7) The more legitimate defensive questions are in terms of lateral shiftiness, reactions and anticipations. Anthony in this respect is certainly lacking. Of course, the lack of this facet doesn’t make him notably different from players like Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, or a totally unengaged Russell Westbrook. So he’s a stash defender. Here’s the thing — like Curry, Cole’s defensive strengths in terms of rebounding and defensive event creation are likely to make him a much more than adequate off ball defender, especially when guarding stationary offensive players.

8) That aside, here are some pertinent numbers (thanks to Ross Homan) comparing Anthony to two other top order US initiation prospects in Tyrese Maxey and Nico Mannion.

Cole Anthony Per36 EYBL:

30.8Pts/8.8REBS/4.5AST/3.8TOV/2.9-7.6 3Pt/9.1-10.2FT/60.28TS% Tyrese Maxey Per36 EYBL:

24.33Pts/4.7REBS/4.3AST/1.1TOV/3.27-9.3 3PT/3.7-4.5FT/62.07TS% Nico Mannion Per36 UAA:

18.9Pts/4.8REBS/6.6AST/3.2TOV/

2.8-7.3 3P/4.4-5.5FT/57.92TS% — Ross Homan (@Ross_homan1) July 16, 2019

All three have intriguing numbers, but the number I want to lock in on here is Cole Anthony’s free throw percentage at close to 90 percent and on fairly high volume. Add to that the 86 percent he shot during his senior year on very high volume, and we can reasonably guess that Anthony is going to shoot somewhere above 85 percent from the line in his freshman season, likely with an excellent FTr, FTA:2PA and excellent total volume. This is the kind of thing that often accompanies the line of a future offensive star on the rare occasions it does occur. I’m talking Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Jimmy Butler, Trae Young and James Harden as concerns the latter three numbers, but just Lillard and Young as concerns those numbers in concert with the high free throw percentage.

9) To point out again how rare Cole’s percentages were, shooting above 85 percent from the free throw line has happened exactly one time from an RSCI top ten point guard. His name was Kyrie Irving. And it’s only happened two more times, I believe, that such a point guard even shot 84 percent from the line as a freshman with Chris Paul and Jerryd Bayless. Other notable freshman point guards to shoot 84 percent or better from the free throw line: Stephen Curry, Trae Young and Damian Lillard. You see, aside from Jerryd Bayless who isn’t really a point guard (he’s just short) that I’m listing pull-up gods, right? All of them, pull-up gods.

Cole Anthony has a really good chance to follow them. In the highlight videos above, look at the range he already pretty clearly possess on his jumper.

10) What’s more, upper-level athletes with upper-level skills and free throw shooting that is outlier high often improve at outlier rates. Trae Young, who is not nearly as good of an athlete, is one example. Stephen Curry is another. Jayson Tatum is another, and also one of the rare top ten RSCI guys with this type of free throw shooting. Myles Turner and Karl-Anthony Towns weren’t quite there, but were outlier for centers at over 80 percent.

11) I’m not sure if anyone remembers now, but once upon a time there was a lot of consternation on whether Luka Doncic would shoot 3-pointers at good percentages, the reason being that his Euro percentages weren’t that good. At the time, on the old Ode to Oden site, I wrote a piece about Doncic claiming there was no need to worry. The reason for this was simple; that every player with threshold athleticism/size plus across the board boxscore production of high magnitude and a high volume of 3-point attempts accompanied by an extremely high free throw mark did eventually shoot from distance, almost regardless of what their 3-point percentage was at the time. I couldn’t find one that failed.

Manu Ginobili, Gordon Hayward and Paul George are prime examples.

There are times we overrate free throw percentage as an indicator. However, there are also times when we underrate it. The latter case specifically occurs when a preternaturally gifted young player with requisite size and athleticism puts up statistical production across all the boxscore stats and also happens to be preternaturally gifted at making free throws.

12) The most asinine criticism I’ve seen of Anthony is that people are concerned as to his jump shot and don’t believe he’ll shoot. This is a player who made 95 of 110 free throws at Oak Hill and 174 of 195 free throws in EYBL.

First off, shooting 195 free throws in 21 high school summer league basketball games that he averaged less than 27 minutes in is crazy. Second, Anthony has made 269 of 305 free throws over a calendar season at an 88 percent clip. That’s the kind of number that belongs to a likely future 90 percent free throw shooter. Period.

Third, Anthony hit 41 of 112 from 3 at Oak Hill and 54 of 142 in EYBL. That’s 95 of 254 from 3 over a calendar year of competition, or 37.4 percent. Please, find me one player who shot nearly 90 percent from the free throw line on remarkable volume, 37 percent from 3 (many of them pull-ups on remarkable volume), and had per-36 averages anywhere close to Cole’s who didn’t shoot.

It’s much more likely Cole Anthony ends up a full-on pull-up god than a mediocre shooter.

13) To emphasize that further, let’s return to our per-36 stats above, and make the assumption that Anthony is strong in the areas he showed strength in during high school play. What’s more is that his production is likely to translate at reasonable rates, and given that in high school play we saw Anthony rack up 229 assists in 24 games for a cool average of 9.5 per game, we should even perhaps expect his assist numbers to rise from his summer totals.

Reasonable assumptions? Semi-reasonable? Okay.

Now, let’s totally ignore free throw percentage. Instead, let’s focus on total rebounds, 3-point attempts, free throw attempts, assists and field goal attempts, and let’s search the Sports-Reference database for the players who happened to be good in all of these categories during the same season. (The search below being rebounds in a season over 195, assists over 148, free throws over 158, and 3-point field goal attempts over 162, while sorting by field goals and cutting the table after James Harden.)

Of course, this is a ridiculously gerrymandered search, and one designed to return the names Anfernee Hardaway and James Harden. (Kemba Walker’s presence was a pleasant surprise.) On its face, the fact that no freshman in the searchable database has achieved such accomplishments should make us dubious to Cole Anthony’s potential to do so.

However, especially at UNC, a school notorious for pushing the pace, it is well within the realm of possibility. (At least if Cole Anthony gets minutes.) We’re talking over 35 games of 6.3 field goals, 5.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 4.5 free throw attempts, and 4.6 3-point attempts a game. For a player who just averaged 31 points, 9 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 10 free throws per 36 in EYBL (the high school season numbers are even more ridiculous), while having range well behind the 3-point line, these are per game numbers that are well within reach. And if Cole Anthony hits them, or perhaps more likely, even if Cole merely comes close to satisfying the search, his per 100 possession numbers in kind are going to score him as one of the best college point guards in history according to analytical models, even if he is indeed old for a freshman. Also keep in mind free throw percentage and the likely efficiency that will accompany this production.

14) For fun, let’s do another ridiculously gerrymandered search, noting that these are only possible because the best players in history often tend to perform similarly well in precisely the same categories. This one will focus on free throw percentage, 3-point attempts, assists, 2-point percentage and turnovers per game (with more being what we are looking for, since turnovers here are an indicator of creation burden).

It should strike you how easy it was to create threshold searches that identify precisely the players I was looking to identify, and then, that there is a player in the 2020 class whose game could function in terms of boxscore production as the intersection between the two. (At the very least, he’ll come close to satisfying this search as well.) The pull-up + efficiency gods who can pass and make decisions + the total college productivity gods like Hardaway and Harden. And some people don’t have him in the top five of the 2020 draft, which means he’s either going to fall off of a cliff in college (unlikely) or 2020 is going to be one of the all-time rich-at-the-top draft’s in history. (Doesn’t have that reputation.) That leaves, again, the most likely conclusion as this one — Cole Anthony is being slept on.

15) Let’s watch another Cole Anthony highlight video.

16) No, not that one, though it features a great recovery block on Nico Mannion several clips in. This one that shows once again Cole’s easy vertical explosion and power.

Now let’s think of the pull-up god point guards. We’re talking about Stephen Curry, James Harden, Damian Lillard, Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, Chris Paul, Mike Conley and Trae Young. Exactly one of them has in-game ups — Damian Lillard.

Still, I’d argue Damian Lillard doesn’t have ups like this.

Point blank, Damian Lillard can jump, but Damian Lillard doesn’t have ups like this. Potential pull-up god + real deal handles + reads + all-time great free throw percentage future + explosive vertical athlete above the rim finisher at the point guard position. He’s not Dennis Smith Jr. He’s the player people wished Dennis Smith Jr. was. (Editor Note: I’m upset).

17) The draft is difficult to be sure, but three of the last four years we’ve had an obvious preseason number one who would go on to be postseason number 1 as well. Ben Simmons in 2016. Luka Doncic in 2018. Zion Williamson in 2019. And every one of those years, decently-sized swaths of the NBA and the draft community got it wrong, picking Ingram over Simmons, Ayton and Bagley over Doncic, and RJ Barrett plus in some cases Cam Reddish and Naz Little over Zion.

Well, this year we are continuing the trend. We have an obvious preseason number one overall who will more likely than not be number one come draft time in Cole Anthony, and everyone is reluctant to rank him there. Let’s not make this more difficult than it has to be. Let’s simplify our task by allowing the easy decisions to be just that, easy. The draft is a difficult enough task as it is.