Can Wheeler be the guard UK needs?

Kentucky is hoping that a transfer point guard with prior SEC success can take the keys to a revamped offense, but what does his prior performance indicate?

As the Kentucky Wildcats revamped their roster this offseason to avoid a repeat of last year, the final piece of the puzzle was landing a top notch point guard. John Calipari’s Kentucky teams have tended to have strong point guard play, and the two worst seasons (2012-13 and 2020-21) coincided with struggles at the point.

While a number of names were linked with Kentucky through the offseason, they ended up landing Sahvir Wheeler. He has a proven history in the SEC, with 2 years as a starter and leading the league in assists per game last season on the way to making 2nd team All SEC. His teams at Georgia didn’t have much success, however, so it’s uncertain just how good he can be.

We’ve got 2 years of data on Wheeler, so in this edition of Hoops Insight I’m going to highlight some strengths and weaknesses as I try to paint the picture around what type of player he might be at Kentucky next season.

Shooting

Wheeler has been a pretty inaccurate shooter so far in his college career, and this is the area that most point to when raising doubts about him. He posted a 42% effective FG% as a sophomore, which is very poor. That’s not much better than Devin Askew (40%) or BJ Boston (41%) put up during last season’s horror show, and at first glance it’s a poor fit for a roster that looked to upgrade shooting through the portal.

Looking a bit deeper, there are some things to like. Per hoop-math.com, Wheeler hit 54% of his shots at the rim, which is a solid rate for a 5’10” guard. That wasn’t just a byproduct of lots of fast break layups either; Wheeler hit 52% of his halfcourt shots at the rim, higher than Mintz, Askew, or Boston for UK last season. This wasn’t just on a small sample, either; Wheeler took over 46% of his halfcourt shots at the rim last season. That’s a higher percentage of shots taken there than any UK player except Isaiah Jackson and Lance Ware. This wasn’t a one-year wonder, either; he hit 58% of his shots at the rim as a freshman.Wheeler has legitimate skill at getting to the rim and finishing, especially for a 5’10” guard.

Away from the rim is where it got ugly last season. He hit just 29% of his shots anywhere else, and 23% of his threes. That’s just an awful percentage, and unacceptable for a lead guard on a team with any real aspirations. There are glimmers of hope, though. As a freshman, Wheeler hit 32% of his threes overall, and a very solid 37% in halfcourt offense.

Synergy data reveals some really bizarre splits for Wheeler. Last season he hit 37.5% of his catch and shoot threes when guarded, but only 12.5% when unguarded. He also hit just 16% of his jumpers off the dribble. During his freshman year, Wheeler his 38% of his unguarded catch and shoot threes, which seems more reasonable. Wheeler can likely hit 35-38% on catch and shoot threes, and shouldn’t need to take very many threes off the dribble given the talent around him.

The Synergy data does indicate that Wheeler has real trouble in between the three point line and the rim. He’s been a poor shooter on 2 point jumpers for 2 years (14 of 56, 25%) and has also been poor on runners (6 of 22, 27%). Wheeler can be a solid scorer at the rim and a decent shooter from deep, but he absolutely has to develop some kind of in-between game in order to be really threatening. To really unlock the shooters Kentucky has on their roster next season, Wheeler needs to be able to draw the attention of perimeter defenders and kick out passes. He won’t draw much attention if they know he’s throwing up bricks unless he’s at the rim.

One area that should give UK fans optimism is that Wheeler seems to have struggled last year due to carrying a heavier scoring burden. He took 24% of Georgia’s shots when he was in the game last year after only taking 18% the year before. BartTorvik.com has player charts to estimate how their offensive efficiency changes with more usage, and Wheeler’s indicates that his shooting drops off when he takes 20% or more of shots. With UK’s roster next year, he shouldn’t need to carry a huge burden. The last UK starting PG who took more than 22% of the team’s shots when on the court was De’Aaron Fox, and in the last 3 seasons each starting PG took less than 20% (counting Askew as the PG last season). This type of smaller shooting role seems perfect for Wheeler.

Overall, I’d expect the following type of shooting from Wheeler:

• 54%-56% at the rim, while taking roughly half his shots there

• 32-34% shooting from three, largely on catch and shoot

• <30% shooting everywhere else

If Wheeler can minimize the 2 point jumpers, he should be able to end up with a FG% around 44% and an effective FG% around 49-50%. That’s good enough.

Playmaking

This is what gets most fans excited. Wheeler was 5th in the NCAA in assists per game last season and 11th in assist rate (percentage of teammates made baskets he assisted). This wasn’t a fluke, as he was 76th in assist rate as a freshman. Synergy data also points to Wheeler as being a very productive passer. While last season he ranked in the 33rd percentile in the pick and roll as a scorer, he shot up to the 87th percentile as a passer.

Wheeler also demonstrated a strong ability to create three pointers for his teammates. Last season 55% of his assists in halfcourt offense were threes. That’s a higher number than any UK point guard has put up under Calipari, and it’s especially exciting given that Georgia was a poor 3 point shooting team. The Bulldogs hit only 29% of their three point attempts in halfcourt offense, but whatever they hit was usually created by Wheeler. Georgia players not named Sahvir Wheeler hit 95 threes in halfcourt offense last season, and Wheeler assisted on 63 of them. Given that Wheeler played about 88% of the minutes, it’s fair to assume that he created about 75% of the threes his teammates made when he was in the game. Just imagine what he can do with shooters like CJ Fredrick, Kellan Grady, Dontaie Allen, and TyTy Washington on the reciving end!

Wheeler’s raw assist totals will likely decline this season as he plays fewer minutes and shares playmaking duties with Washington, but I’d expect him to rate in the 90th percentile or above per Synergy in creating offense off of passes.

Defense

Even thought we have 2 years of stats on Wheeler, it’s tough to know exactly what to expect from him on that end. He’s a 5’10”, 180lb point guard, which is very small for a Calipari team. Tyler Ulis and Quade Green are the only other Kentucky point guards under 6’2” in the last decade, and while Ulis was a sensational defender Green was not. So, what kind of data can we look at to evaluate Wheeler?

One place to start is steal rate, or the percentage of possessions where the player got a steal. “Good” rates vary by position and anything above 3% is usually good for a point guard. Wheeler was at 2.6% last year and ranked 344th nationally per kenpom.com. That’s pretty solid. However, there are 2 reasons to believe that number is a bit inflated. First, he was at just 1.6% as a freshman, and a full 1% jump in steal rate is pretty surprising. Second, Georgia as a team had 4 rotation players above 2% with Wheeler being the 3rd highest. It seems that their coaching staff wanted to prioritize disruptive defense over a more fundamental approach and likely encouraged aggressive gambling for steals. Calipari isn’t likely to coach the same way.

Synergy tracks player defensive performance overall and by play type when serving as the primary defender. Wheeler was graded in the 64th percentile last season after ranking in the 33rd as a freshman. He improved on a number of play types from being rated Below Average or worse to mostly being rated Average or better. While some of that is likely due to steals, there are cnouraging signs. Wheeler improved the most when guarding spot-ups and isolations, and the improvement was due to lower opponent shooting percentage instead of more frequent turnovers. While he forced more turnovers when guarding the pick and roll, he actually declined considerably in his grade on those plays (from 52nd percentile to 23rd). This is more evidence that his increased steal rate was due to gambling, which yielded easier baskets when he didn’t get a steal.

Georgia’s roster last season probably didn’t do Wheeler many favors on defense. They had almost no interior defensive presence, with only 1 rotation player above 6’6”. This offered him little help even if he was able to slow down his offensive assignment. The most interesting stat I found is that, as a freshman, Wheeler was excellent at guarding pick and rolls where his man dribbled away from the pick. These types of actions are tough to defend for smaller players, as they have to prepare for the contact from the screener and can get caught off balance if the dribbler suddenly switches direction. Wheeler had no problems with this type of play, indicating that he has the quickness to recover and does not have any mental block around the physical contact of screens.

Calipari’s UK teams are usually very good at defense, and pride themselves on containing the point of attack. Wheeler isn’t in the same league as an Ashton Hagans or Tyler Ulis in this regard, but he should be able to hold up just fine.

Sahvir Wheeler is coming into a situation where he will usually be the 4th or 5th option on offense. This should relieve some of the pressure that hampered his shooting last season, when Georgia had almost no other creative players. If Wheeler can focus on his playmaking, getting to the rim, and catch and shoot threes, he should be able to direct an improved Kentucky offense. On the other side of the ball, he should benefit from having a better defensive team around him and can focus on using his quickness to contain ballhandlers. This should be an excellent role for him, and Kentucky fans should feel pretty comfortable with what he brings to the table.