The Forbes Report

The Forbes report, when you see a title like that, the last thing you expect is to read about basketball, believe me, we are going to write only for basketball.


I decided that the first report of the blog, should be for one of my favorite players of this year. He just happens to be the best 3-point shooter in NCAA. By checking the last mock draft I was surprised that he was nowhere, not even a late 2nd round pick. I am kind of surprised to be honest but we still have time till the draft night. So, I hope the teams will show him some love at the end and why not, earn a contract.

Name: Bryn Forbes
Class: Senior
Position: SG
Height: 6'3
*Season stats: PER:22.1, PPG:15.2, RPG:2.2, APG:1.6, 3P%:51.5%, FG%: ~50%, FT%: >82%
University: Michigan State

The ones who are familiar with NCAA have an idea of what player he is, but for the ones who do not follow the NCAA and not only, we will try to analyze the strengths and the weaknesses and give you an idea of what to expect.
He has an interesting path, he spend his first two seasons at Cleveland university but he had to return back to his hometown(Lansing), so before the start of his junior season he was transferred to Michigan State for family reasons and in order to be close to his young son. He was even granted a transfer waiver and he was able to play immediately for the Spartans.
Lets leave all these behind and speak for his game. 

Before analyzing Forbes body,defense and offense, I will speak about what I want from him to improve and what I want to see from him in the future. He is a 6'3 SG with limited play making abilities, first of all he lacks the size for an NBA SG, this is the main reason why he is not in any mock draft reports but is not a limitation. I am pretty sure there will be many players under 6'3 that will be drafted and they will not be as good shooters as Forbes.

So why Forbes is not even a late 2nd round pick? As i said at the beginning, his play making abilities are really limited, first of all he needs to work his dribbling and his court vision, 1.6 assists per game is not an acceptable number and if we add the 1 turnover per game looks a lot worst. I would like to see him working on P&R situations, side or middle ones. He should become more familiar and comfortable with running the show and not just coming off from multiple screens and shooting. 
Additional he should improve his ball handling abilities, his mid range jumper and his floater. Defenders will prefer to give him the drive than the shot, the problem with that is that he lacks the strength to go till the end, so by improving his mid range jumper and floater he can work around it. To summarize he should add more play making abilities to his arsenal. This is the way for the next level. 

Strengths and Weaknesses

Body:
A 6'3 SG does not sound good and does not pass the eye test. An average athlete for NBA level, he lacks frame even though he added approximately 15 pounds during the off season, this had great impact on his defense. As for his overall speed, is good, good first step but not an explosive one, he can definitely improve his lateral speed. Generally his body needs work for NBA level. I would like to see him adding more frame and improving his first step. His body balance also should be improved. 
Defense: 
The disadvantage here is his size, he added a lot of frame this year and he is playing with the proper attitude/mentality as a senior, you can see he is really trying out there and he is not just earning his minutes with his shooting abilities. Even when he will guard bigger opponents his mentality is not a lay back but he fights for every inch. Of course is not a Draymond Green kind of player but in my book, heart is always over height. Most probably on NBA level he will have to guard PG and not SG but always depends who you have next of you. One thing that he can really improve is his hands, I want them to be more active. Another note here regarding his defense, is that he doesn't take big risks with trying to steal the ball. To sum up he cannot be consider a great defender but by any chance not a bad one, a respectable one for me, if you are not trying and giving your best out there, you will never have a big role with a coach like Tom Izzo. 
Offense:
Probably the best shooter this season, is just a pleasure watching him shoot, to understand how good shooter he is you should look the reactions of the fans when he shoots, they really believe that he is going to score when the ball is leaving from his hands.
He is the leader in 3-point percentage with 51.5%. Per game he is taking 6.7 attempts from behind the arc and converts 3.4 of them. Per 40 minutes he converts 5 of his 9.7 attempts, pretty impressive numbers. 
Great shooting technique with a nice release, I like how he moves between the screen and how he comes off them, his feet are just perfect, always ready to shoot and attack. It doesn't matter if he will shoot, off the screen, transition 3 or just as a spot shooter. His only shooting weakness is how to create his own shot. He needs to improve it.  

While I was writing this report he made 11 3-pointers in the game vs Rutgers which is a Big ten and a school record also! Haters are going to say, "he did it against Rutgers" and I have to say; then why not everyone made a record? Well this was not his only big night this year and I believe he has what it takes to translate it to the next level, believe it or not but in NBA not even 30 players have scored more than 10 3-pointers in a game.
As far as the rest of his offensive game is concerned, i don't have many things to say, he just took 99 attempts from 2-point compared to 200 from the 3-point range, so as you understand he lives behind the arc and for a good reason to be fair with him.
His penetration skills are limited and as we mentioned above he struggles to finish against strong bodies near the paint, this is the main reason I would like to see him improving his mid-range jumper and his floater. As for the FT, he is a very good shooter, he has a career percentage higher of 82%. 
Finally his ball handing abilities are good but can be improved.

To summarize,  yes, there are questions about Forbes size and playmaking abilities but he is an amazing shooter and in today's basketball where we count more than ever the proper spacing of the floor, the value of the shot and all the advanced analytics around it, Bryn Forbes is a player who has a great future. His work ethic is unquestionable, same goes for his improvement over the last 2 years with the Spartans.
Not drafting and not giving a change to a shooter like him is just insane to my mind. Every now and then the teams are taking big risks with 1st round picks so why not spend a 2nd round on Forbes? I strongly believe that eventually he will be drafted and not even late.

 

Hope you enjoyed the report and looking forward to your comments, even if they are about the player or about what I could improve with the style of the reports and the blog.

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*Please note the stats are till the game @Rutgers 2nd of March. As you understand he still has more games to play.