Syracuse freshman Oshae Brissett is almost averaging a double-double with 12.8 points per game and 9.8 rebounds per game.
The last SU freshman to achieve that feat was Carmelo Anthony. Even the great Derrick Coleman only averaged 8.8 rebounds his freshman year.
When you add in the recent success of Syracuse underclassmen entering the NBA Draft, it is not surprising that many Orange fans have begun to talk about Brissett as a one-and-done player.
He is unquestionably a tremendous talent, and he was clearly overlooked in prospect rankings coming out of high school. I think Brissett will one day be drafted into the NBA – just not this year.
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Brissett’s problem isn’t rebounding – he’s a monster on the glass – it’s his shooting. So far this season he has shot 36.9 percent on 2-point shots and 22.9 percent on 3-point shots for an effective field goal percentage of 36 percent. That’s worse than every other SU scholarship player, including Geno Thorpe.
Brissett shot better than this in high school, and I think he will eventually improve. But now that we are a quarter of the way through the season we have moved beyond the point where his poor shooting can be waved away as a small sample size.
The NBA Draft website DraftExpress provides advanced statistics for NBA draft prospects. The worst effective field goal percentage in their database of prospects for the 2017 and 2018 drafts is 48 percent. Similarly, The Ringer put together a guide to the 2017 draft, and only two of the guide’s top 30 players had an effective shooting percentage under 50 percent.
Brissett is shooting about 14 percent worse than where he needs to be to have a chance at the first round.
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