Scoot Henderson is one of the few players from the 2023 NBA Draft who has all the tools to reach NBA superstardom.
"When it comes to playmaking, there isn’t anyone better in the 2023 NBA Draft class than Henderson. This year, Henderson averaged 6.8 assists and 3.4 turnovers. Henderson has been regularly ridiculed for his turnovers, and some have gone as far to say he hasn’t improved as a playmaker at all, which makes me question what games I was watching.
This season, Henderson had an assist rate of 29.8 and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.98. Obviously, it isn’t a one-to-one comparison, but looking at the league can give us a decent benchmark of who those numbers compare to. His assist rate was higher than that of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, De’Aaron Fox, and Jalen Brunson, while his assist-to-turnover ratio was higher than that of Gilgeous-Alexander, Bradley Beal, and Steph Curry. Even among his peers in the G-League, Henderson had the seventh-best assist rate among players with a usage rate of at least 20 who had played at least 15 games. Oh, and he’s a teenager going against pros. Are we really going to underestimate what these Ignite prospects have done against grown men again?
Even ignoring the numbers, Henderson’s playmaking tape is absurd, which again makes me question where the disconnect comes in those who view it as a skill that hasn’t progressed. My hypothesis is that it is due to Henderson reining back the flashy, out-of-control assists we saw in year one in favor of further developing the more nuanced aspects of his playmaking.
In year one, Henderson’s overall possessions and assists generated 1.134 points per possession (PPP), which ranked in the 28th percentile, per Synergy. In the halfcourt, this number was 1.090 PPP (23rd percentile. In year two, though, Henderson overall generated 1.178 PPP (60th percentile) and 1.123 PPP (55th percentile) in the halfcourt. Year one’s assists may have been more prone to the highlight mix, but year two’s assists were much more effective."