WILL RILEY
Position/Archetype: Offensive Wing/Guard
College: Illinois
Pros:
Ball handle and Creation: He has a pretty nice bag of moves, pretty crafty with his handle and can find himself some really nice looks at the rim with it. Obviously really neat to have wings who can self create, not gonna be a guy who's primary creating or really much secondary but he can attack with his handle and has a lot of avenues to go in a few ways.
Passing and Connectivity: Makes the basic reads to a strong level positionally and for his age, able to spot cuts and throw lobs occasionally, spots the kick out more often than not and reads the court pretty quickly. Is he a complex passer? No not really but above average with nice positional upside.
Shooting versatility: He can score at most levels, attacking the rim through drives, with his back to the basket on similar sized players with nice spins, can hit some tough fadeaway and some real tricky jump shots out deep. None of it is totally efficient but there is good volume and willingness to attack where you cant really force him into a shot he cant make or won't really want.
Defensive IQ: Stays ahead of his man really well and leads to a pretty low amount of points scored over him on defence which is really nice to see from him. I think it's nothing spectacular defensively, he won't be a super elite wing defender or guard defender more of an average to slight plus connective defender but it weighs up on a few things I think we will see as he enters the NBA
Cons:
Size: He is really skinny, I mean him being 6'9 in game will be very useful for a player who will most likely be a 2 occasionally a 3, but the wingspan is small being only a half inch larger than him. And the 185lbs on him is really light for his size and it gets very obvious on court. If he can get some weight on him he will be able to use his height advantage a lot more and probably be more efficient at generating good looks and being more efficient. It also would increase the switch ability of his defensive game as well which can get exploited and make him more aggressive on the boards.
Settling: one thing that comes really obvious is when he has defenders who know how to stay in front front of him and are larger which we will get to, he can't find that space and ends up taking poor looks from pretty much any level. And pushing yourself into that corner is never great so I'd like to see more business decisions where he passes up from tougher looks even if he can make them. Especially when he's a pretty willing passer in general. This causes him to be inefficient and rush a lot of his shots. A problem with his 3pt form is how rushed his lower half is.
Defensive Playmaking: Doesn't generate stocks at all, he does pounce on some loose balls but he doesn't have active hands and his small wingspan for a wing really makes it hard for him to poke balls and reach in which limits him as a POA defender so It really limits his effectiveness.
NBA Pro Comp: Kyshawn George, Michael Porter Jr in terms of scoring skills
Projection: Im not too high on Will Riley, there's a lot to like but I have about the same questions as I do answers. I think he's a pretty low down role-player in rotation.
CHEESE FINAL BOARD RANKING: (coming soon)