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Rashad McCants NBA Draft Scouting Report

Rashad McCants NBA Draft Scouting Report
Feb 13, 2005, 08:59 pm
Strengths
An extremely skilled offensive player. Scores from all over the court and just has a great knack for putting the ball in the basket.

An outstanding shooter with great range. Has great form on his jump shot and should have no problem making the transition to the NBA three point line. Excellent free throw shooter and has a good mid-range game as well (although he doesn't use it enough). Very strong, has good upper and lower body strength and has a good vertical leap. Has an excellent post-up game, but it's hard to see this translating to the NBA considering that he'll always be giving up a couple of inches to his matchup.

McCants is a fiery competitor. He always wears his heart on his sleeve, for better or for worse. He's not afraid of challenges and will take the ball strong to the hoop no matter who is guarding it.

McCants has shown improvement in many areas this year, including his defense, shot selection and passing. He appears to be a more mature player this year.


Weaknesses
Size is a serious concern. He's listed at 6-4, but has hinted that he is actually closer to 6-2. I can't think of even one NBA SG that starts for his team at that size, except Cuttino Mobley. Problem is, McCants isn't even close to being the athlete that Mobley is, and isn't a very good defender at all compared to Mobley either. McCants is going to have problems getting his shot off in the NBA. That's a big concern because if his shot isn't falling for him, there really isn't that much to his game. He might have to even change position in the pros (much like Forte), but has shown nothing to lead us to believe that he has any sort of PG skills. Quite the opposite actually.

McCants isn't an incredible athlete and that hurts his NBA potential considering his size. His first step is just average for an NBA SG, and he doesn't have great quickness either. Combine that with his only average ball-handling skills and you have to wonder how well he'll be able to slash to the hoop in the NBA.

Poor shot selection has always been a problem for McCants, but he's showed some progress in this area this past season.

Defensively, he has shown sparks of being a capable defender guarding players his size, especially with his physical style of play, but doesn't do it often enough. It's not rare to see him getting torched on the perimeter, and this doesn't seem to bother him too much. He has the strength to fight through screens, but doesn't put in a huge effort here. He's often late on defensive rotations, and his lateral quickness is a little suspect.

His attitude is very questionable and this is something the NBA teams will undoubtedly be focusing in on with their psychological tests. Has very poor body language and appears to get frustrated easily when things aren't going his way. Has a reputation for being somewhat of a headcase with the incidents that have piled up over the past three years, including the off the court problems he had with former UNC coach Matt Doherty, which ultimately led him to being benched. Last year he was thrown off UNC's bench by Coach Williams for refusing to cheer on his teammates. The throat slashing gestures he made mid-way through the season at NC State fans didn't help matters much.

He was invited to try-out for the U-20 US national squad last summer, but was sent home for one reason or another by Coach Sampson, despite the fact that in terms of talent he would have been one of the best players on the team.

Most famous are his comments comparing playing at UNC to being in jail, saying that basketball is just a job for him: "my 9-to-5. As my uncle said, I'm in jail right now. You're not allowed to do certain things; you're not allowed to say certain things. But once you get out of jail, you're free. So I'm just in my sentence, and I'm doing my time."

Whether or not his quotes were taken out of context is debatable, but McCants definitely needs to learn to keep his mouth shut sometimes and just be smarter when dealing with the media. The tattoos he has: "Born to be hated" on one arm and "Dying to be loved" on the other sum him up pretty well.


Competition
McCants' scoring numbers are down this year, but that's because North Carolina has a much deeper team and are blowing out people left and right, which has dropped McCants' minutes by 20%.

He's been one of the top scorers in college since his freshman year. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that he's the best pure scorer in the NCAA right now.

Outlook
McCants is a junior and still has his draft card to burn. There's no reason to believe that he won't declare this year, but will have to prove himself in workouts and possibly the Chicago pre-draft camp to be considered an absolute lock for the first round. Some people are very high on McCants' ability to put the ball in the basket, and considering the lack of depth at the shooting guard position this year, he could conceivably work his way into the late lottery with superb workouts. With that said, he could just as well find himself falling out of the first round if his size and baggage scare off enough teams.

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