Joseph Treutlein
A freshman playing a key role on one of the best high school teams in the country, Kevin Zabo is obviously very advanced for his age both in terms of his body and his approach to the game. Having great length and a very good frame for someone so young, Zabo already has close to ideal physical attributes for the point guard position, a scary thought when you consider what he may look like in three years.
On the offensive end, Zabo starts at point guard for an extremely demanding coach, though he probably makes as few mistakes as any other player on the team. Playing a facilitating, game managing role as opposed to dominating the ball and breaking down the defense, Zabo brings the ball up the court and quickly gets his team into their offense, not wasting much time and spending a good chunk of his minutes moving off the ball.
As a passer, Zabo reads the defense well and shows solid court vision, making a lot of simple, smart reads but never doing anything extravagant.
As a scorer, Zabo is equally restrained, spending a lot of his time behind the arc where he is an excellent spot-up shooter, knocking down 5-for-8 from three in the game we saw, including one contested pull-up jumper. He appears to have the speed to take his man off the dribble but usually opts for quick drive-and-kicks rather than taking the ball all the way to the basket, preferring to defer to much of the other talent on his team.
Defensively, he shows good fundamentals, effort level, and awareness, doing a good job in both on and off ball defense and looking very mature for his young age.
Looking forward, it's obviously still very early in his development, but the way Zabo is able to effortlessly contribute against this level of competition given is age is remarkably impressive, even if it's in a very role-defined manner. Expanding his game to include more shot creation for himself and others down the road is obviously something he'll need to do, but he has more than enough time to do so.
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