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Why Duke's RJ Barrett is not among our top-five NBA Draft prospects
Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Why Duke's RJ Barrett is not among our top-five NBA Draft prospects

As we near the NBA Draft on Thursday night, RJ Barrett appears to be the consensus third-best player in this draft. At Yardbarker, he’s not in our top five. We owe you an explanation. Below are three reasons why Barrett, a star at Duke, isn’t No. 3 to us.

YB's in-depth prospect reports: No. 1: Zion Williamson | No. 2: Ja Morant |
No. 3 
Darius Garland | No. 4 De'Andre Hunter | No. 5 Jaxson Hayes 

More NBA Draft coverage


RJ BARRETT AGE ON DRAFT NIGHT: 19

HEIGHT: 6-7 | WEIGHT: 202 | WINGSPAN: 6-10

2018-19 RAW NUMBERS (Totals per game)

GP  | MPG |  PPG  | RPG  | BLK  | AST | STL 

38      35.3      22.6      7.6        0.4      4.3      0.9


His value is tricky to identify

Barrett, Yardbarker's sixth-best NBA Draft prospect, is essentially a big point guard. That means his value as a prospect in the NBA should be derived by the things he can do with the ball in his hands. The problem with that is, Barrett is a long way from being a capable primary ballhandler.

According to the database at Synergy Sports, which provides in-depth film analysis of basketball players, Barrett ranked average or below average in every category -- hand-offs, pick-and-rolls and off-screen shots -- that put the ball in his hands. He was slightly better in isolations, but he still finished in the bottom two-thirds of the country. Now those numbers obviously aren’t ironclad predictors, but they don’t paint a rosy picture of Barrett’s ability with the ball in his hands.

So if Barrett doesn’t provide significant return on investment initiating plays, he should just be moved off the ball, right? Once again, you run into a value problem. He isn't a  good catch-and-shoot player,  though that is a skill Barrett can certainly improve over time. He also finished in the bottom half of the country when it came to scoring in spot-up situations (which are exactly what they sound like, the times a player shoots when starting out spotting up along the perimeter).

That means despite Barrett's gaudy raw numbers (22.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game in 2018-19)  and physical tools, he doesn’t project to be impactful -- at least without major improvement --  in any one area.

The players he’s often compared to were further ahead in key areas at his age

Two players stand out as possible projections for what Barrett could become -- Houston’s James Harden and Brooklyn’s D’Angelo Russell. Given their size (Harden is 6-foot-5 and Russell 6-foot-7), de facto point guard roles and, well, left-handedness, it’s not a real wonder why left-hand-dominant Barrett gets linked to them. Yet when you pore over Harden and Russell’s production as freshman in college, some things stand out.

For starters, Harden and Russell shot more than 40 percent from three (Russell was at 41.1, Harden 40.7) as freshman. Barrett, on the other hand, shot just 30.8 percent from behind the arc. That’s even more concerning when you factor in Barrett played alongside Zion Williamson, another elite prospect defenses were forced to hone in on. Russell (Ohio State) and Harden (Arizona State) didn’t have anyone close to that talented making life easier for them as freshman.

Harden also is built far differently than Barrett. Watch Harden play anywhere from an NBA game to an open gym and you will see the powerful guard bounce defenders off him time and again. In Barrett’s film, he is typically the one bouncing off opponents. That also partly explains why Barrett put up such poor numbers -- once again in the bottom half of the country -- when it came to finishing around the basket.

One other slight difference between Russell and Barrett doesn’t have as much to do with scoring as it does passing. While Barrett was pretty good hitting the roll man out of pick-and-rolls, he averaged just 4.3 assists compared to 3.2 turnovers -- a 1.3-to-1 ratio. In his lone season at Ohio State, Russell averaged five assists per game to 2.9 turnovers, a 1.7-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. The numbers may seem irrelevant until you remember, once again, that Barrett played with players (Williamson and Cam Reddish) who also will be selected in the lottery.

He’s a passer with a shooter’s mindset

We’ll call this the Evan Turner corollary. For much of his NBA career, Turner has flashed ability to be an impactful, playmaking wing. The problem for Turner has been that at every stop, he’s never been able to ditch his penchant for mid-range jumpers. If Turner had just leaned into the idea of being a distributor first, second and always, his NBA career would be significantly better.

At Duke this past season, Barrett launched 6.2 three-pointers per game despite hitting just that 30.8 percent of them. That raw number is a bit unfair to Barrett given the circumstances at Duke (and it’s generally good he shot threes instead of off-the-dribble twos), but there are certainly times on film where he locks in on scoring instead of simply moving the ball.

It takes a special kind of player to change that mindset. Barrett’s pro prospects might depend on him being one.

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