Bennedict Mathurin: Tell Me What You See
The unique value of movement shooting and the perils of projecting handle development
Photo Credit: Kelly Presnell - Arizona Daily Star
Bennedict Mathurin - 20.0 - Sophomore
Height: 6’6 - Weight: 205 - Wingspan: 6’9 - Standing Reach: 8’8
Bennedict Mathurin was a trendy name this time last year as a potential first round pick before he returned to Arizona for his sophomore season. That turned out to be a prescient choice as his stock has skyrocketed throughout this season culminating in top-10 buzz as the season ended. In many ways Mathurin is a “beauty in the eyes of the beholder” prospect with lots to like and a few sticking points in his projection. What skills do you value in an off ball wing? How good of a shooter can he be? What weaknesses do you think can be developed? Your perception of development is going to determine those answers and they almost certainly won’t be the same for everyone.
Box Score Stats Pts/Reb/Ast - Stl/Blk/To - Fg/3p/Ft 17.7/5.6/2.5 - 1.0/0.3/1.8 - 45/37/76 Shot Distribution (% Assisted) Dunk - Rim - Mid - 3PT 38/42 - 111/174 - 24/86 - 83/223 90.5 % - 63.8% - 27.9% - 37.2% (57.7) - (33.3) - (77.1) Advanced Stats USG/TS - AST/TO - 3PAr/FTr 23.5/57.7 - 13.8/12.9 - .368/.369 BLK/STL - OR/DR - OBPM/DBPM 00.8/01.6 - 5.1/12.6 - 05.8/01.0 Points Per Possession (Synergy %) Transition - Cutter - Off Screen 1.223 (82) - 1.426 (86) - 1.064 (69) PnR DBH - Open C&S - Guarded C&S 0.647 (69) - 0.786 (17) - 1.103 (77)
Hits: Off-Ball Scoring, Finishing, Athleticism
The off-ball scoring package here is pretty (transitions into ridiculous Eminem impression) phenomenal. There are few players in this class with his ability to hit difficult shots off the catch whether flying around screens or shooting over a heavy contest. His footwork and fluidity getting into his shot is really impressive off-ball and creates a floor of offensive value that should allow him to stick in the league on that alone. Off-ball shooters that provide gravity not just in spot-up situations but out of movement actions are worth their weight in gold and go a long way in driving offensive success.
While the shooting is certainly the calling card here his ability to leverage his athleticism and get downhill became one of his greatest skills. Whether it be curling off a screen or attacking a closeout with a straight line drive Mathurin showed a real ability to get to the rack and did a solid job finishing and drawing contact. He is by no means a one trick pony and that ability to pressure the rim (albeit in specific contexts) is incredibly valuable for an off-ball scoring wing. The more ways you can punish a defense the harder it is to scheme you out of a gameplan.
He’s an effective cutter and off-ball mover, punishing defenses for turning their back and relocating to create easier windows for drivers to kick out. All in all I loved his overall package as a complimentary wing scorer and think it allows him to fit in almost any context in the league. He will not demand the ball in order to be most effective and should thrive playing next to any type of on-ball advantage creator he plays with in the NBA.
For someone I don’t anticipate to get a ton of primary creation reps Mathurin showed well as a passer this year. He did a good job reading the court and he’s strong as hell, throwing one-handed whip passes with surprising velocity. He had a good synergy with Koloko throughout the season and should fare well with (insert any rim-running big) at the next level. He wasn’t anywhere close to the best passer on the Arizona roster but he was significantly above average for the role he was asked to play and showed some valuable in-season improvement.
Mathurin’s athleticism is very real and is a big part of what makes him such a dangerous offensive player, particularly off-ball. If he is drafted by a team looking to run in transition (I truly hope that he is) Mathurin is going to be dynamic. He’s great stopping on a dime in transition and with a full head of steam has some fantastic moments finishing around the rim. That is the makings of a great transition scorer at the next level and should help supplement some of his offensive shortcomings in the half court that make me a little nervous.
Nits: Handle, Touch, Defensive Impact
The handle is far and away the biggest concern offensively, though maybe not the most interesting from a scouting perspective. He struggles to string together any combination of moves to create space and can be pretty loose with the ball. He has solid burst out of a standstill but if you are asking him to do anything more than drive in a straight line the results were mixed at best. While he does have the athletic profile of a wing scorer I don’t see that happening much in an on-ball role at an NBA level. If he is struggling to create advantages against Pac 12 competition I struggle to see how that improves to a large enough degree for him to do that consistently against pros.
You see the limitations a lot when trying to get to his jumper off the dribble. He’s incredibly fluid getting into his shot off the catch but it feels much clunkier off the dribble. He just doesn’t have the cohesion getting into his shot off the dribble I look for in potential creators and without the threat of a mid-range jumper defenses will have an easier time guarding him when trying to create with the ball in his hands.
Mathurin’s touch is one of the more interesting parts of this evaluation considering he profiles as being a very good shooter in the league. 29% on runners and 15% on long 2s is not great and a pretty good representation of the limitations I see as a shot creator. He gets a ton of lift on his jumper and isn’t particularly bothered by contests but I wonder how much room for growth there is in his shot creation on-ball. I don’t trust him to get to his jumper off a dribble move and I don’t trust his touch to consistently convert those looks at this juncture.
There is a very real chance the above numbers are all just noise, and I hope that is the case. His form shooting jumpers is awesome, I love watching him shoot, but there were some misses this year that were surprisingly ugly and lead me back to wondering just how good of a shooter he is going to be. He could be a great one, and I think the general projection falls somewhere around “very good”, but there is a little more variance here than I would prefer for an off-guard prospect who’s best skill is shooting the rock.
The defensive questions are what give me the most hesitation when it comes to pushing Mathurin up higher in the lottery. He has all the athletic tools to be an impactful defender on guards and wings but that doesn’t show up in the tape as often as I’d like. He isn’t very active as an off-ball defender and is merely fine fighting through screens.
Some of this may be attributed to his workload at Arizona, but I am not sure I buy that. He had a lower usage than most of his contemporaries and played on a really good team, I would have liked to see more defensive effort and impact night in and night out.
Every prospect will need to improve defensively in the league and most do, but it is difficult to go from a low impact defensive player to a high impact one. Mathurin is someone I trust to be fine defensively regardless of his context, he won’t get picked on and should improve enough to be a net positive there, but the high end upside is a little murkier. There are certainly flashes, but I am not sure how confident I am in betting those flashes expand into something greater than above average.
Bits: Paul George, Lonnie Walker IV, Andrew Wiggins
Yes, I agree, Paul George feels like an incredibly unrealistic outcome for Mathurin. Now that we are on the same page, I’ll explain why he is listed here.
George has had an incredible career and even more astounding developmental arc once he entered the league. Yes, Mathurin is a little smaller, but what has made George such an incredible complimentary star is his ability to get his shot off ball, shooting off screens, curling off pin downs and taking advantage of an already tilted defense. His peak here was probably his last season in OKC where he was the best off-ball scorer in the league.
Mathurin has a lot of similarities in that facet in particular. He is really athletic, has a high release point and is deadly pulling up from deep in a variety of contexts. In order to hit on a PG-ish outcome for Mathurin he would need to become a premier shooter from deep (not incredibly unrealistic), improve drastically defensively (not incredibly realistic) and have some true outlier growth in his handle. The first part doesn’t feel crazy but the latter two feel increasingly more implausible.
It is important to note George’s growth as a ball handler is essentially unprecedented. PG is one-of-one in that regard and to expect, or even project, that kind of growth feels foolhardy.
This takes me to Lonnie Walker IV, another prospect with phenomenal athleticism and a positive shooting projection and one I think is a great example of the potential downside here. Like Mathurin, Lonnie is a small wing without the ability to guard primary initiators or the instincts to wreak havoc as an off-ball menace. He has improved a great deal on that end of the floor since entering the league but ultimately was best this year when hidden on a weaker offensive option on the perimeter.
That is all well and good if you are still hitting shots at a high clip and Lonnie did not do that this year. He has shown signs of becoming a very good shooter but struggled to hit shots off the catch consistently. His flashes of self-creation were tantalizing (I would go as far to say he had better flashes than Mathurin did as a prospect) but it hasn’t developed to the degree it needs to.
A lot of that has to do with the handle which again has improved, but he still is not able to confidently execute moves or maintain his dribble through pressure. The margin of error as an initiator are very small and his handle has been a huge deterrent to not only getting his jumper off consistently but providing reliable rim pressure. He has all the bounce in the world but very little consistency is utilizing that on-ball.
Most of my worries for Mathurin fall in the same buckets here and while Lonnie was still receiving rotation minutes I do not think drafting Devin Vassell and Josh Primo in back to back seasons was an accident. San Antonio is still searching for answers on the wing in their opening and closing lineups and I would be surprised if Lonnie ended up being that answer.
Finally we have reached my favorite bit, Andrew Wiggins. Again, Wiggins has a bigger frame than Mathurin and is probably a better athlete, but not by a large margin. Wiggins, taken 1st overall, was given the reigns early in Minnesota and really struggled to create efficient offense without playing much (if any) high level defense despite his physical gifts. Skip ahead to his time in Golden State and you have an entirely different player. He’s accepted a more off-ball role and has become one of the most indispensable players on a Finals team. That is pretty freaking valuable.
Mathurin won’t go as high as Wiggins did in his draft, but he may be best suited for a similar role Wiggins found with the Warriors. Mathurin is a much better shooter off movement than Wiggins but has similar on-ball limitations. If he is put in a position to succeed it will look a lot like that, albeit with a lot more versatility from the perimeter. Hopefully he will be able to hone in defensively like Wiggins and become a positive on-ball defender, even if the team defense impact does not greatly exceed a neutral level.
Fits: New Orleans, New York, Oklahoma City
New Orleans is an easy one and a place Mathurin has been mocked consistently throughout the season and it makes a ton of sense. They already have plenty of on-ball creators in CJ, Ingram and Zion while needing to keep stockpiling wings to play alongside their stars. Mathurin would fit in offensively from the jump, using his off-ball gravity to make life easier on his surrounding talent.
I am not sure New Orleans has the defensive environment I would prefer for Mathurin to be drafted into but all of the other pieces are there. Jose Alvarado and Herb Jones are fun pieces but I am not sure that is quite enough. Regardless, the fit offensively would be stellar and in the chance Zion isn’t long for New Orleans Mathurin would be a nice piece to have with the hope of using his departure to provide some defensive reinforcements.
New York is another fun one where it is easy to imagine Mathurin thriving. Being able to play off RJ and Randle would help on the offensive end and he would make for an interesting pairing with Immanuel Quickley (whispers) or Deuce McBride in the back-court. What excites me most here is the potential defensive development from working with a Thibs staff.
One would assume if he hopes to get minutes for the Knicks next season the necessity of defensive effort would be preached incessantly. Mathurin is one of the guys in this class I think could benefit most from this kind of approach and while I don’t think he will ever be an off-ball menace there is considerable on-ball growth defensively that feels fairly attainable.
Oklahoma City, in my eyes, is a match made in heaven. Playing with two creative guards in Shai and Giddey would open up a ton for Mathurin off-ball and the highlights in transition would be remarkable. Man I’m getting excited just typing this out. It probably won’t come to fruition as I would imagine he will be off the board by 12, but crazier things have happened. Again the defensive environment is far from ideal but OKC has such a long way to go there is no telling what their roster will look like 18 months from now. I’m buying in for the transition dunks alone.
Wits: How much handle development is reasonable to assume for any prospect? What defensive skills are most likely to improve? How can you explain the difference between his upper and lower body coordination? What general lineup construction maximizes his potential value?
Alright so let’s get weird.
It is pretty common knowledge that Mathurin’s handle is far from ideal. It feels loose and unrefined in a way that has troubled me throughout his tape despite the incredible self-organization as an off-ball shooter. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, admittedly too much, and have come up with a general conclusion that at the very least has helped contextualize the issue in my head.
In my estimation, there is a pretty large disconnect between his upper body and lower body. Some of this is almost certainly the fault of inflexibility somewhere in his core or back but it is hard to pinpoint exactly where. The thing I kept coming back to is his lack of precision when executing dribble moves or as he picks up his dribble to get into his pull-up.
To me, this screams hand/eye coordination, but the issue feels more prevalent than just his hands. He isn’t exact in his movements and there is very little shake to his game off the bounce.
The term proprioception comes to mind here, the perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body. Boom, a big word that kinda makes sense. This feels like the best way to describe what I kept coming back to and why I have been left with such a negative perception of his potential development as a ball handler.
It just doesn’t seem like he has the confidence in the improvisational movement of his upper body. He is able to attack closeouts in a straight line or make one dribble move and drive hard to the hoop but as soon as he is asked to provide a counter or operate in the grey area of a broken possession he really struggles to not only effectively attack defenses but simply maintain control of the ball.
The path to becoming a prolific on-ball scorer is a difficult one and Mathurin’s feels more difficult than most wing prospects who get top 10 buzz. The hill here is just so steep and the outcome so murky I am particularly hesitant to buy stock in this occurring.
Once I came to that conclusion I began thinking a lot more about why and how things could be this way. Mathurin’s lower body is incredibly coordinated and his footwork running around screens is great. He does a great job getting his center of gravity over his feet and almost always goes up with a balance and evenness that is truly impressive.
How can his lower body be operating in such a different realm than his upper body? Are both of these things not a product of proprioception? This led me to one final question.
Did Bennedict Mathurin grow up playing soccer? Because that would help to explain a lot of the upper body/lower body disconnect and why it feels like he is so much more comfortable adjusting his lower half instinctively while lacking that same ability with his upper half. Well, upon further research (s/o @DraftPow) he actually grew up playing hockey. Close enough.
Now this all feels like I am grasping for straws and it is incredibly important to remember that is exactly what I am doing. It’s a hard thing to comprehend or explain and it has driven me a little crazy over the last two weeks.
The most important thing of all this would be how improvable is this quirk? Will he ever get the kind of wiggle and confidence in his handle to have him take on a larger role? That is something I am incredibly hesitant to assume in any prospect. I need to find things that encourage me out of projecting against significant handle development and those positive signs just weren’t really there in my viewings.
Now the even bigger question, how much does it matter? I think it effects more of his potential high end outcomes rather than the low end. He may not have All-NBA upside like a Paul George but I still believe him to be an incredibly safe bet to be a rotational piece with real impact starter/fringe All-Star upside. I just think the question of how best to maximize Mathurin is a little more nuanced than some other prospects of his ilk.
It all depends on what he is able to improve on at the next level. The “tell me what you see” portion of this evaluation is pretty straight forward with most evaluators coming away with a similar conclusion. He has great talent as a movement shooter and open floor athlete with the tools to be an impactful defensive player. The “tell me what you know” part is where opinions begin to diverge.
What skills do you know can be improved upon with time and repetition? What do you know drives good offense? What do you know makes a good defensive player? With Mathurin it is all about perception, leading to a vast array of value judgements with what will ultimately be only one right answer. For me, I fall on the slightly less optimistic end of things.
Handle development is really difficult and I haven’t seen the flashes from Mathurin that would make me excited to bet on it. Defensive impact is an area I think he could, and will, improve on but there is only so much I feel comfortable projecting. He should be able to improve on-ball but doesn’t have the instinctual awareness found in most great off-ball defensive wings. The shot-making is probably the safest bet for continued growth but that game is a slippery slope.
Betting on anyone to be an outlier shooter is a dangerous game and Mathurin has most of the signs I look for, but not quite all of them. I think he will be a good shooter but a great one is a high bar to reach, though it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the ulitmate outcome. He’s really good.
This leads me to my final question of value maximization when it comes to Mathurin. How is he going to be best utilized at the next level, and what lineup constructions is going to make that possible?
He will need to play next to a true initiator, but his size should help with some amount of versatility on the wing. In reality, for him to reach his ceiling as an off-ball menace he will need to be a large part of the offensive gameplan for whatever team drafts him. If he is able to lock in more defensively the upside is there for a uniquely valuable piece that has gravity as a movement shooter while not being a target defensively. That is a rare breed and one worth drafting in the lottery in most drafts, even if the on-ball upside isn’t quite there.
Bennedict Mathurin is an incredibly safe prospect in the sense that transition athleticism and off-ball shot-making tend to translate. He should see the court off those two things alone. How high can his ceiling go? Now that is entirely dependent on how you use him and every team will have a slightly different plan.
Upside is all about perception and when it comes to Mathurin that will change with nearly every point of view. Only time will tell which perspective is the correct one and that may just depend on the perception of the team that drafts him.
All Box Score Stats provided by tankathon.com
Shot Distribution and Advanced Stats provided by barttorvik.com
Points Per Possession Stats and Percentiles provided by synergysportstech.com