What should UK expect from their transfers?

WIth Oscar Tshiebwe and Kellan Grady in the fold next year, Kentucky is getting some experienced contributors. What will each bring to the table?

Fans of Kentucky men’s basketball approached this offseason with the nervous anticipation matched perhaps only by Games of Thrones fans during the final season of the HBO hit. Both groups enjoyed supporting an iconic institution, but had some consternation about whether a recent slip from greatness was just a blip or a sign of things to come.

Game of Thrones’ final season was a complete letdown for fans who expected more. Unlike GoT, however, the people in charge of UK’s upcoming season seem to have recognized the need to address weaknesses and are determined to deliver on expectations. In order to do so, UK has made a splash in bringing in two of the top transfers on the market in Oscar Tshiebwe and Kellan Grady. Both players have at least some track record to examine if we want to project what they can bring to UK next season. In this edition of Hoops Insight, I’ll take a comprehensive look at their past seasons and identify the main strengths and concerns for each player.

Oscar Tshiebwe: A beast on the boards, but how much does he help winning?

The first thing UK fans should know about Oscar Tshiebwe is that he is probably the best offensive rebounder in college basketball. Per KenPom, he led the nation in offensive rebound percentage (% of team’s misses he rebounded when on the court) as a freshman, and would have easily led as a sophomore had he played enough to qualify. Tshiebwe himself collects about 20% of his team’s misses; UK as a team only grabbed 33% last season an no Cat got more than 12%. The last 2 seasons have seen UK put up their worst offensive rebounding rates under Calipari. Having Tshiebwe cleaning up the glass should fix that immediately, and it’s reasonable to expect UK to be one of the top 10 teams in the nation in this area.

Another strength of Tshiebwe’s is drawing fouls. As a freshman he drew 6.3 fouls per 40 minutes, a rate no UK player has hit since De’Aaron Fox in 2017. The 2020-21 season saw UK’s worst rate of drawing free throws under Calipari, and Tshiebwe should help in this area. This may even be a bigger advantage as Tshiebwe moves to the SEC. As one of my readers, Trent McBride, pointed out to me, the SEC as a conference has consistently had the highest rates of free throws taken for any of the 6 major conferences since 2014. That was the season when the NCAA starting cracking down on fouls, and the SEC apparently is even more serious than any other conference. Here are the free throw rates (FTA per 100 FGA) for each major conference:

In the 2020 season, Tshiebwe drew about 63 FTA per FGA, about twice the average rate in the Big 12. I’d expect his free throw rates to increase even more in the whistle-happy SEC, and UK may see how the other half lives when it comes to big man foul trouble.

In most other areas I’m a little less bullish about Tshiebwe having a major impact on UK. He was an excellent defensive rebounder at West Virginia, but UK just doesn’t seem to prioritize that skill. Olivier Sarr actually had a better defensive rebound rate during his last year at Wake Forest than Tshiebwe did at West Virginia, but Sarr was a poor defensive rebounder at UK. Kentucky has only finished in the top 100 in defensive rebounding twice under Calipari, and never better than 49th. What’s more, their strongest defensive rebounding teams tend to feature guards and wings chipping in rather than post players being dominant in that area.

I also am not certain how Tshiebwe’s offensive game will translate to Kentucky. He was a solid but not spectacular finisher at the rim, converting about 60-65% of his tries there, and was not much of a threat from midrange. My biggest concern is that UK doesn’t tend to create the volume of shots at the rim that Tshiebwe is used to. Tshiebwe took about 70% of his shots at the rim; the only UK rotation big who took more than 64% under Calipari was Marcus Lee, and most take 60% of their shots or less at the rim.

As a freshman, Tshiebwe was used most heavily on post-ups, but was least effective on this type of play. He had his worst turnover rates, free throw rates, and FG% on post ups (compared to other play types)); he only scored on 47% of his post up possessions. However, is is a very good finisher on putbacks, in transition, and as a roll man. My worry is that UK tends to use their big men in post ups more than any other type of play and I’m worried that doesn’t play to his strengths at all.

Tshiebwe also is not much of a contributor in other ways. While he graded out as an excellent defender on post ups, he has an unspectacular track record of blocking shots or getting steals; he’s actually a tick behind even Olivier Sarr in that regard. Tshiebwe also is not much of a passer from the post; he collected only 18 assists in 41 games at West Virginia.

The question: how does he make his team better?

Tshiebwe left West Virginia this season after struggling to fit into a 2 post offense. The team performed much better with just 1 post player in the game, which to be fair is more a criticism of the coaching staff’s gameplan than of Tshiebwe. However, EvanMiya.com tracks how a team and individual players perform with a player on and off the court, and West Virginia was much better in each of the last 2 years with Tshiebwe off the court than on.

The issue seems to be that the offense was less effective with Tshiebwe in the game, and I worry that this is a direct result of his inefficient post play and his lack of passing. Tshiebwe does not have much of a game away from the basket, so in halfcourt offense he’s best used in pick and roll or on putbacks, but West Virginia didn’t seem to recognize this. When Tshiebwe did get the ball, he very rarely was able to create good shots for others. That’s not a complete disaster; Nick Richards was a poor assist man as a junior but was a huge positive for UK. However, Richards converted over 80% of his shots at the rim, the best mark in the nation; Tshiebwe is not that level of finisher.

I’d rather see Kentucky use a player like Keion Brooks to post up, as Brooks is a much more dangerous passer and shooter than Tshiebwe. UK could use Tshiebwe as a roll man or on putbacks, where he can mitigate any poor shooting by Kentucky by giving them chance after chance. If Kentucky tries to make Tshiebwe post-ups a centerpiece of the offense next year I think they’ll experience the same kind of scoring droughts as they did this year.

I expect Tshiebwe to be very similar to Bam Adebayo in his season at Kentucky, with his activity around the rim allowing the other players to space the floor. Adebayo drew a ton of fouls, finished around the rim, and was a solid defender who didn’t rack up a ton of blocks. Adebayo definitely benefitted from the dynamic backcourt of Fox and Monk, and I think Tshiebwe will need something similar next year in order to significantly help UK.

Kellan Grady: The second coming of Tyler Herro

Through 4 years at Davidson it was prety easy to understand what Kellan Grady was. He consistently was a high usage (27-28% usage rate) and efficient scorer (55% effective FG%). Despite his reputation as a big-time shooter, Grady actually has been more efficient from 2 (54.8%) than from 3 (36.1%, equal to 54.2% on twos). During the 2020-21 season he hit over 60% of his shots at the rim, over 45% from midrange, and over 35% from three; the only other UK guard to do that in the last decade was Tyler Herro.

The similarities to Herro don’t end there. Both Grady and Herro were solid secondary playmakers, with assist to turnover ratios of about 1.5 to 1. Both players also committed very few fouls (<2 per 40 minutes) while nabbing about 1 steal per game. The only significant difference is that Tyler Herro led the nation in free throw shooting at 94%, while Grady had been around 70-75% during his career. Otherwise they have very similar impacts on the court.

The challenge is that Grady has been most effective as a spot up shooter in his career, which would require a dynamic ballhandler next to him. Grady has been graded as excellent on spot ups by Synergy throughout his career, and has been used most frequently on that type of play. He has been more inconsistent on other play types such as pick and roll ballhandler and in isolation, and mostly has graded out as just good or below average on these.

On defense, Grady was ranked as a good defender at Davidson by Synergy, although other defensive metrics are less favorable. It’s pretty safe to assume that he won’t be a shutdown defender at UK since he showed no signs of that at Davidson, but it’s reasonable to expect him to be competent.

The question: How will he handle the step up in competition?

This is always the million dollar question with players transferring to higher levels. Per BartTorvik.com, Grady was much less efficient on offense when playing top-100 or top-50 level competition over the past 2 years. His three point shooting in particular turned horrendous in these games, although he remained good on twos. This will be a concern, as the last thing UK needs is another guard who struggles to shoot in meaningful games.

However, there are some reasons to be optimistic. I did some cursory analysis around guards who moved up from mid-major conferences to high-major conferences over the past two seasons to see how their offense translated. A pretty clear pattern emerged: players generally maintained their efficieny at the rim, from midrange, and from three, with a dip in their usage rate. Put another way, they took on smaller roles than they had before but were able to be just about as efficient since they weren’t forcing shots. The transfers who had a dip in efficiency were the ones who maintained high usage rates against better competition. I can’t imagine Kellan Grady will be taking 27-28% of UK’s shots next season when he’s on the court, so he should be able to be an efficient offensie player in a more reasonable role. I do think Grady is going to need to play off of more dynamic creators, and it remains to be seen if UK has those. I suspect Grady’s most effective role will be as a SF in a three guard lineup, where he can spot up and attack close-outs while also not having to defend smaller, quicker players.

Both Oscar Tshiebwe and Kellan Grady should upgrade Kentucky’s talent level next season, but I don’t think either player is going to be a singular solution to what ailed UK this year. I do think UK will see some improvement on the margins from replacing less efficient options like Olivier Sarr and BJ Boston with these more effieicnt players, but that will depend on putting Tshiebwe and Grady in roles where they can succeed. Both players should shore up weaknesses for UK from last season and raise the floor, but I don’t seem them as making the difference to get UK to championship contention. But hey, it’ll certainly be better than that final season of Game of Thrones!