Another product of the lately very prolific Brazilian pool, Marcus Vinicius Vieira de Souza is not your typical 22-year old player.
He first and foremost went through a very strange season for a player his age, rather than already being established with a competitive team. Marquinhos played for a very weak Brazilian team early in the season, and then devoted himself to private training to prepare for the draft. Second, you might expect a guy his age to be a bit more mature at this point, especially considering that hes not a player who learned the game yesterday, nor any kind of newcomer.
Still, Marquinhos shows a very intriguing package. Hes a legit wing player with excellent size at 6-9. He enjoys nice athleticism, because even if hes not a great leaper, he is a quick guy, really quick considering his size. Marquinhos is a nice shooter, being especially worthy of mentioning his ability to create his own shot, as hes really hard to stop given his size and his ability to deliver pull-up jumpers off the dribble. On the other hand, hes rather inconsistent, and tends to fade away on any given shot, even when firing open in catch-and-shoot mode, failing to keep steady mechanics.
This season Marquinhos looks quite improved in the ball-handling department. He looks really comfortable driving the ball, and this circumstance helps him immensely with his slashing game, where he shows a nice first step and the footwork to operate in traffic. Again theres a downside here, as he really suffers to consistently put the ball in the net. Marquinhos lacks some ability to perform layups against any opposition, and he rarely explodes to dunk the ball in traffic. At least, he passes quite well off the dribble, looking for the open man on the perimeter. This is another area where hes much more active now, also willing to take a few more risks.
Defensively, although he looks improved in one-on-one situations, hes not a stopper and his team defense is still very poor. He lacks a bit of activity here, more commitment if you will. In general, hes not a particularly aggressive player, and you can see it on both ends of the court.
All in all, Marquinhos current status comes down to lack of reliability and predictability. His game is not very dependable; not having any source of consistent scoring, and not exactly being an asset to his team on defense. However, hes still a bit of an immature guy who could very well manage to polish his game and find that consistency, which would make him a valuable player. After all, the potential is there, and not every player fulfills it at the same age. Still, it might not be enough for him to crack the first round based off how much of a wildcard he is at this point and already being age-eligible.
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