Why The Memphis Grizzlies Traded Up for Cedric Coward

Why The Memphis Grizzlies Traded Up for Cedric Coward

cedric Coward is a bit of a strange player He’s a 6 foot7 crazy long wing who was mostly a postup player at the college level and a lot of his quirks while they’re not inherently good or bad made me fascinated in him and especially when the Grizzlies traded up to take him in the lottery And Coward did a bunch of stuff like this in college where he just overpowered his defender got right to the low block and used his size and incredible touch to hit a mid-range fadeaway because he’s not the best handler which we’ll get into He did a lot of these dribble to post ups This is very unique You know your average 3 and Dish wing bat is hitting spot ups and attacking closeouts and doing those things but Coward is posting up Peyton Sanford in early offense He goes to work doesn’t get to his spot kicks it out repost ends up going for that little hook shot as well Like he’s got a pretty good bag of post moves We saw the fadeaway We saw the drop step Now he goes to this dribbles into the middle right here spins back over his right shoulder over his left shoulder excuse me and hits that post up And I love how Coward fights for seals and inside position I think this makes him a pretty while I don’t think he’s going to be a postup weapon at the NBA like he was in college And we’re going to keep talking about that translation So leave a like comment subscribe if you’re enjoying the video and the content but smaller defender switched on to Coward Beautiful just beautiful job just resealing and getting positioned to finish right to finish real strong And you can just see his incredible wingspan Like he’s like a plus nine or something wingspan and reach Yeah you can just see how high he can get up without even getting that high off of the ground because of his incredible wingspan Like we said we’re going to see Coward shaky handle throughout this He’s he’s certainly got a lot of ways to go Just picks up the ball a lot Has that habit of not keeping his dribble alive but I love how relentless he is looking for these seals He gets a he gets a small on him is constantly like working The ball gets reversed The ball goes back to the middle and Coward is still fighting for position like you know when does he start fighting for position on this possession It’s about it’s about 1627 and he doesn’t get the ball until about 1620 So that’s 7 seconds of working for position and that’s an underrated skill He’s good at this in early offense Shout out like my Pacers who do this a ton with Obi-Wan and Turner and Seakum just getting a mismatch Great entry pass over top Coward uses his size and he was a truly unbelievable rim finisher this season at this season and you know he only played six games this season at at Washington State but just throughout his college career incredibly efficient finisher incredibly efficient mid-range shooter as well And Coward I think has more potential upside than your average just three and Dwing because of his touch and his flexibility These are the really unique traits where Coward can just get this incredible bend right here He’s almost doing the splits but that allows him to stop on a dime create space and pull up in the mid-range While like we said he can’t really dribble at the moment He has enough of a handle at this level again you know just early early in like the six or seven games he played against Washington State hopstepping in the middle of the floor he can get really close to the basket with his stride lengths and his size and just fade away over people because of his great size and touch And while he’s definitely not consistent getting this shot off you can see his ability to to you know hop into this mid-range fade a little bit to the right hit that shot just a really impressive mid-range shot maker for a wing And he’s he’s able to get these shots off over a variety of defenders And his touch is really a highlevel kind of outlier trait at his size And like we said it’s the combination of that touch and the way that his body moves with the length that really has me thinking there could be some scoring creating upside But look at his look at his shin basically parallel to the ground here Like this does not look comfortable getting into that angle and like leg position there But that able that helps him keep balance so he can fade away like I said on balance and ends up scoring right there And that that helps Coward be a really good three-point shooter where he pump fakes away again at the beginning of this play We can kind of see and his lack of ball of ball control But a couple feet beyond the line pump fakes out hits the deep three He’s a pretty high volume movement wing shooter where Coward can catch and kind of relocate right there So he definitely has like the the three part of your general 3 and D right but Coward is really unique with the way that he moves Like we said he gets a travel here but I’m not convinced actually I think this is more I think this is a gather right here One two Like that’s not a travel in the in the NBA But you can also see how good he is at staying on balance Like a lot of players would fall over in this position but Coward plants pump fakes and you know would have gotten a bucket off if they weren’t you know messing with him Maybe that clip was in the wrong place because again we have Coward showing showing off his offball instincts He’s pretty good at just like finding the weak spots noticing this defender is keys in on the ball a little too quickly So Coward sinks in behind him catches on the hop Like he’s got a really pretty looking jumper and he can hit it from really far away So really promising overall But one of my main questions was one how does Coward get on the floor early and then how bad actually was his performance against good competition cuz if we just look at the stats throughout his early Anyways if we look at Coward’s one top 100 quality game that was against Iowa right just horrible efficiency didn’t really get any you know defensive turnovers couldn’t make his shots And then we look at last year as a junior se the seven top 100 quality games His true shooting dipped from 66% overall to 52 He didn’t get any blocks or steals anymore where he’s been a block rate machine throughout his career But we can see against those in those seven top 100 games those kind of blocks and steals went away He wasn’t drawing nearly as many fouls which we can see So there are some real valid statistical concerns And a team like Washington used their length to double him right there and force a turnover But he still was able to do good things against these teams because of his shooting and his ability to take guys off of the dribble Like that is legitimately a valuable trait even against you know because he has NBA size obviously high major size where he can put this defender in jail step to the side pull up right there almost And again his his willingness and ability to fade back is really helpful And Coward’s able to convert a lot of these plays but his vision is pretty spotty And playmaking is my other main concern with Coward where again I really like him getting good post position fighting to the middle but two defenders collapse and all five defenders have their eyes on Coward And there’s some pretty easy kick out three options here but Coward just doesn’t take it Again crazy crazy balance like stepping through with these long almost like again low to the ground strides Doesn’t fall over but he ends up getting blocked at the rim right there And you can see his kind of lack of his lack of speed and high and highend explosion and burst and twitch on a lot of these plays where against these high major athletes he just struggled a bit more to create his shot own shots downhill and he’s already such a raw driver like how like we said Coward was mostly a postup player in college which was you know is going to be an interesting an interesting kind of change up just wasn’t able to get to his spots in the mid-range as easily against a lot of these better athletes There’s Kobe Johnson who I think you know I think probably signs somewhere but look at where Coward gets this shot off He isn’t able to get all the way deep beneath the block where you’ve seen him get on some other positions He’s outside of the paint fading away That’s that’s a makeable shot but it’s just not as easy as the shots he had got previously And I do think while Coward is a phenomenal finishing prospect and I think he has the touch and the physical tools to develop into a great finisher I have some translation concerns because does a good job getting downhill right here using his strides to get deep into the paint Again once he gets deep into the paint he’s usually shooting He doesn’t have the handle to like really dribble out and navigate or kick it out But Coward tries to reverse it Can’t finish it over Owen Freeman And there are a lot of plays at this point where his handle just lets him down right where he’s not able to control the ball against a stronger or more physical defender And then the other place where I think he struggled more against the higher level competition in the games that I watched was with the playmaking in the processing We actually start this with a a good skip He’s not like a terrible passer or anything He’s a he’s like an okay processor good skip pass using his height to see over the defense But then we can see some of his issues as a live dribble processor Great pump fake gets the defender off the floor but again just doesn’t really read this defender right here And this defender this weak side defender does a good job just staying in the passing lane But again Coward picking up the dribble early also contributing to that And even this year you could see against this soft Eastern Washington zone that Coward isn’t able to make an easy pass right here where good job like pump faking this guy out of the way Gets downhill That’s an easy either just drop it off right there or wait lob it over top for an easy layup right but Coward a lot of his turnovers are like travels and dumb stuff So it’s not as much the raw turnover numbers that that worry me but it’s the way that he gets some of them where I just don’t think he’s necessarily reading the floor really well And because he likes to hop step and step back into these mid-ranges that’s what he’s going for here right but he doesn’t get a shot off because this defender was is long and athletic and could contain him and then he just throws it into a contested tight window So this part of his game is definitely going to need to improve and it is a big part part of why I don’t think he’s an NBA ready player right now Good job beating this defender baseline but when he has to read a second defender and you know make a read it’s definitely not as quick where if he could pass off of a live dribble or read this more quickly and get the ball around before number 10 as a chance to sink down maybe he could have gotten that ball through But a lot of the times he just didn’t have the processing speed or game reading ability But there were some solid passing flashes This is one of my favorite passes I’ve ever seen him make where playing against this zone quick passes to the middle immediately give and go cuts and immediately again releases it to the cutter Good job just reading the floor But that’s what a lot of Coward’s passes look like even this season too basic kickouts basic extra passes good entry pass right there where he’s able to find the open space Nothing particularly complex which again I think could potentially cast some doubt on the feel and the playmaking concern but his touch might just be so absurd that he doesn’t need to be that level of advantage creator where he gets by where you can just see the pure like athletic speed difference against his competition stride length where he hangs in the air moves to his left pump fakes and hangs around two defenders and he’s somehow able to flip those in He hits some truly absurd touch shots And when his handle holds up you can see how terrifying these driving flashes are because again he can get his shoulder lower than the defender can drives right by him hops off two feet leans leans around this defender trying to take a charge and ends up finishing So his his touch is absolutely crazy And these are the flashes where Coward takes his game to a whole new level where he can blend his shooting gravity and his finishing Of course the handle being the swing skill there Great job like hesitation opening up the defender And this is again where the special flexibility and movement ability comes in like he’s at a right angle against this defender Regardless of the athletic or strength or quickness difference the defender is going to be cooked Great job being patient waiting for the pump fake scooping and finishing with his left hand And you know he’s not the most incredible handler yet but you can see there’s some movement ability and a little bit of kind of shiftiness to unlock with some more ball control work And he’s such a fascinating offensive player but I do think he’s a ways away I feel that way about his defense too where he can make some plays with his crazy length just poking the ball out from defenders who aren’t necessarily concentrating enough or their hands will lose loose And Coward has good block numbers throughout his career And he was a productive weak side defender in college I think there’s a lot of potential for this ground coverage where he’s rewarded a steal here by the basketball gods for his good positioning earlier in this possession There’s a switch right here and a cut back door Coward knows he has to cover this but also cover the shooter So he shades down but then is ready to close back out Great close out forces a pass and then like we said he’s in the right place at the right time to end up getting a steal there Like we saw the the block rates declined a ton against higher level competition but some of his flashes and instincts getting up to block this lob using this length There’s certainly potential for him to improve as an offball defender but he definitely has issues He struggles a lot with ball screens where Coward just his footwork isn’t great here He tries to step over this screen and this is a bit of this is a bit of a moving screen but this is a trend I’ve seen where he kind of gets stuck on these screens He doesn’t always though and I think he’s better against offball screens where he can get a running start and doesn’t have to just like square up and set He blocks Payton Sanford’s three right here But look what I mean He can kind of chase Payton Sanford dip around kind of slide around that screen and because of his incredible length and size he can stay attached His feel and positioning are quite raw too And though I like his activity right like like he’s calling a switch out right here or he’s calling out this screen Can’t can’t tell exactly what what the call is I don’t know if he’s calling that Coward is going to switch and this guy’s going over It seems like this guy’s going over and Coward just kind of lets Kobe Johnson slip behind him hard exactly to diagnose the breakdown without context but definitely you see on tape examples of Coward just reacting late And you know he has the tools to compensate at times but this was a foul because Coward left left his feet here when this defender was already loading when this guy was already loading up for a shot instead of rotating right now when his defender got beat So Coward has a long way to go in terms of feeling the game and understanding positioning and space and that’s a hard thing to teach Some of it definitely comes with experience Coward is a 21-year-old player He’s not a freshman with these kind of you know young mistakes And that is part of my worry and why I was a bit lower on him But you can definitely see the upside I like weird players who have unique body types and play styles and combinations of skill sets where Coward is a hard player to compare to because he’s not your traditional 3 and D wing He’s not a traditional athlete His great athleticism comes in different ways The flexibility the movement skill the fluidity rather than pure like explosion or speed or power And he has this incredible mid-range finishing touch But the question is right just how does he apply it at the next level but I really like Coward’s potential on offense as a scalable weapon which is part of why I understand why Memphis did this He has the potential to fit into a ton of lineups and play different roles especially if he can improve his handle enough to do a little bit offball scoring This shooting like we said the post ceiling he’s going to add value off the ball And you know I don’t know if Coward’s ever going to be an all league type defender but he has the tools to be a very good one So even though like I said I was a bit lower on Coward and not sure I would have had the balls to trade up for him I can totally understand why the Grizzlies did it It’s a big upside swing that is going to take some patience and intentionality but the but the but the Grizzlies have been pretty good about developing players So I think Coward’s in a good spot and if things go right the ceiling for him as a two-way win with some like real shot making is pretty high So let me know what you think of Coward and what you think of the pick

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