NBA Draft: Don't Overthink Alabama's Brandon Miller

Despite Alabama’s Brandon Miller productive freshman season, there’s been hesitancy around his NBA Draft case.

Prior to the college basketball season, if I’d told you there’d be a 6-foot-9 freshman averaging close to 19 points per game whose upside as a playmaker and defender only stood to grow (and didn’t have a bad starting point), you’d probably be envisioning a top three pick.

Regardless of the fact Alabama’s Brandon Miller has done just that this season, there’s been hesitancy around his NBA Draft case.

But is the hesitancy warranted?

Miller is college basketball’s top freshman scorer this season. He’s averaging 18.8 points per game on 44 percent field goal shooting, and is shooting a blazing 45 percent from beyond the arc on 6.9 attempts per game.

Outside of his scoring, he’s the fourth-ranked Crimson Tide’s second-leading rebounder with 8.2 per game, and he's dishing out a respectable 1.9 assists as well as adding nearly one block a game with solid defensive effort.

So what’s the catch? Well, there may not be one.

There’s of course some concerns with Miller, as any prospect, but nothing tangible enough to drop vastly drop his stock. He needs to work on finishing at the rim, through contact specifically, and his shot selection in general could use some tweaking.

But it all just feels a bit nit-picky. Miller can shoot, put the ball on the floor and functions well in pick-and-roll. He stays active, passes well, is a good transition player and getting better each and every game as a defender.

Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports

But it wouldn’t be the first time a productive, NBA-ready prospect has been put under the microscope a little too long.

Take Orlando’s Paolo Banchero, for example. While the Magic ultimately ended up making the right call in drafting him first overall, there was lots of speculation that he would fall, despite no real holes in his game. Now, the 6-foot-10 phenom is on track to take home the 2022-23 Rookie of the Year Award.

While Banchero and Miller do share a few similarities, if we’re looking at 2022 to 2023 NBA Draft comparisons, Miller likely mirrors that of Houston’s Jabari Smith Jr. quite a bit more. And Smith Jr. did and does have some concerns that limit his game.

But Miller has already shown his starting point for certain skills is further along than Smith Jr.'s, (potentially, due to age), and he's even shown in-season improvement in plenty of key areas.

At some point, front offices and draft analysts alike are going to have to take the 6-foot-9, shotmaking, high-upside player for what he is: a really solid draft pick. 

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