NBA Draft Top Performance Series: Brandon Miller

Breaking down Alabama freshman Brandon Miller's 41-point outburst versus South Carolina in February.

The idea behind the top performance series is to go back and watch the best, or one of the best, box score games of each NBA Draft prospect's season. Doing so will give us a look at how they performed at their highest individual level and what that might show us about their ceiling as a prospect.

There seemed to be no better choice for Alabama wing Brandon Miller than the game in which he scored the most points during his freshman season. A late-February game that saw Miller drop 41 points on 25 field goal attempts, with six made 3-pointers and 7-of-8 from the free throw line.

Offense

The first thing that stands out when really watching Miller and Alabama is the number of NBA actions Nate Oats was running for him. You would be hard pressed to watch too many possessions without seeing him as the fill guy in spain pick-and-roll, ghosting a screen, initiating a ball screen or taking part in zoom action.

While the 6-foot-9 wing struggled to make shots early in the game, it was impressive to watch him continue to let his shot attempts naturally come to him within the offense.

As the season went on, there continued to be more highlighting of Miller’s ability to pass the ball, and this manifested itself even in a game in which he scored 41 points

The Antioch, Tennessee native showed an unselfishness throughout the game with a willingness to pass to his teammates when they were open and make the correct reads.

While much of this may not be considered true creation, due to some limitations in Miller’s off the dribble game, you can still see how well he would fit in an overall offensive system and help keep the flow of an offense going.

Speaking of his off-the-dribble game, it was a little worrisome to see just how high and wide he let the ball get at times. Throughout the majority of the game, the slender, 200-pound, potential top-three pick struggled to get all the way to the rim and finish in half court situations.

However, when the game mattered the most he was not only able to do finish, but was able to do it with his weak hand, going left and finishing through contact.

You can also see the area for growth with this aspect of his game as he adds strength to that frame, as he always is a very fluid athlete in these play types.

While the true isolation needs some work, Miller leaves plenty to be excited about when a slight advantage is created for him. Which could happen quite frequently when playing with a primary creator and considering his 3-point shooting gravity.

The 3-point shot making has been discussed at length and was on full display in this game as well. Miller leaves little doubt about his ability to do this at the next level, but there are a couple small improvements from this game that will help him hit his ultimate ceiling as a floor spacer.

First, Miller missed multiple opportunities to relocate off the ball to create open passing windows for catch and shoot attempts. Second, he seems to rely on a very low dip on these attempts as well and eliminating that dip to get his shot off against faster recoveries at the next level will be important.

Defense

In a game in which Miller put up this type of offensive production, it would have been easy to take the night off defensively. But the Cane Ridge High School alum did no such thing.

Yes, he was beaten off the bounce at times and he absolutely has to grow with his ball-screen defense and not getting completely washed on screens at times.

With that said, Miller took the primary defensive matchup of Gregory “GG” Jackson and gave overall great effort and attention on and off the ball all game long.

He immediately popped on this end of the floor early in the game with his ability to be a defensive disruptor and playmaker. He forced a couple turnovers with his length and then had an incredible chase down block in transition after continuing to play off his own missed 3-point attempt.

Once he adds the aforementioned strength to his frame he seems to be a versatile defender at 6-foot-9 who guarded multiple players in this game and also had possession in the ball screen where he was guarding the ball handler and the screener.

One final aspect that stood out was his overall defensive awareness. Miller showcased multiple instances where he saw the next play, knew the actions that were coming based on scouting report knowledge and had a couple really nice weak side rotations and box outs.

Ceiling

Elite all-around two-way wing.

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