Keyonte George Displays His Path To Stardom

In his second year debut at Summer League, Keyonte George posted a 30-point game despite poor shooting due to his foul drawing skills.

Apr 12, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; Utah Jazz guard Keyonte George (3) passes the ball during the first quarter against the Los Angeles Clippers at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports / Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports

Keyonte George made his second year debut at Summer League last night, as the Utah Jazz took on the Memphis Grizzlies in day one of Salt Lake Summer League. He posted a rather intriguing stat line; finishing with 30 points on 5-for-21 shooting from the field and 17-of-19 from the free throw line.

While much has been made of George's free throw-dependent performance — being able to score 30 points despite shooting under 25% from the field — last night was unironically a look into his path to stardom.

The 6-foot-4 guard has always had an uncanny feel for defenders on his hip and taking advantage by drawing fouls. He posted a 36.4 free-throw rate at Baylor, which was especially good considering he was an undersized guard lacking much vertical pop who didn't get to the rim much. He often drew fouls on drives with his floater, disguising floater attempts as ways to draw fouls with a defender on his hip.

However, he didn't know how balance baiting fouls versus making shots when there wasn't a foul to be drawn, which led to some wild flailing and missed shots on floater attempts. Thus, he shot only 35.0% on 40 floaters at Baylor. That increased to just under 50% on 116 floaters in his rookie year with Utah, though, and only 7 players had a higher free-throw rate on floaters than him.

That increase in floater conversion while maintaining his foul drawing ability is a great indicator for his future as a star. While he'll always be limited at the rim due to his lack of size and athleticism, having an elite floater plus elite foul drawing skills is a path to winning on drives for him.

George was an excellent passer at Baylor too and processed the game very quickly.

I don’t really understand why Keyonte George’s passing doesn’t get more respect. In my opinion he’s one of the best passers in the class. Here’s a video showcasing some of Keyonte’s passing talent. pic.twitter.com/j8qXMB1Jx6

— KJ (@KJ__Hoops) February 21, 2023

With a path to winning on drives despite lacking size/athleticism as a finisher and excellent passing, his stardom rests entirely upon the development of his shotmaking. From high school to his present with the Jazz, he's always had intriguing flashes of off-the-dribble shotmaking but never anything consistent.

That's exactly what he showed last night versus Memphis. He was amazing at drawing fouls and finished with four assists, but was unable to consistently make shots off-the-dribble. This was the tale of a majority of his rookie season too. Though he had a number of games where his tantalizing scoring led to some massive performances, he finished with a 48.2% effective field-goal percentage on the season as a whole, 6.5% below league-average.

George was always a star shotmaker bet coming into the NBA, and if he can put together a season of elite shotmaking, he's bound for stardom.

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