Jabari Smith Against Texas A&M: A Case Study of His Strengths and Weaknesses

Written by Asher Levey

Jabari Smith Jr is one of the top prospects in the 2022 NBA Draft, and rightfully so. He’s going to be a one-and-done 19 year old on draft night. With that youth and his nuclear shooting, it’s no wonder why people are falling in love with the 6’10” forward out of Auburn. His skill set at that height is a rare sight. So rare that, according to barttorvik.com, he is only one of 8 players that are 6’10” or taller shooting 40% or better from beyond the arc with a usage rate of 25% or higher. However, just like all prospects, there are drawbacks to his game.

His vertical athleticism leaves a lot to be desired. So far on the season he only has 13 dunks. For comparison of a prospect around his size, Chet Holmgren has 51 dunks on the season. Another example is Kennedy Chandler, who has just over half that at 7 dunks on the season. Smith Jr has struggled around the rim at times this season and doesn’t create most of his shots. According to hoop-math.com, over 70% of his 3-pointers are assisted and 40.5% of his shots at the rim are assisted. He does shoot 63.8% at the rim, but struggles to get there. In the recent Texas A&M game that Auburn played in the SEC tournament, some of these flaws were illustrated, as well as some of his strengths. So kick back, turn on some music, and let’s break down some ball.

This possession is textbook for Jabari. This sort of possession is something you’ll see from him a couple of times per game. In transition, Auburn runs a sort of pistol action which sets Jabari up so that he has time to set his feet and let an open 3 fly. His mechanics are some of the best in the game and he hits nothing but net here. If he gets looks like this consistently at the next level, he’ll be knocking them in nearly every time.

Here we see Jabari take a contested midrange shot, which he takes a lot. He tends to be fine shooting over contests, and he shoots well enough on contested jumpers to justify that. However, he’s also shown flashes of passing out of the post throughout the season and he tends to overlook the fact that he is being doubled. He could have easily kicked this out to the corner and set his man up for either an open 3 or the man on the wing for another open 3. Either shot would have been a better look than what he generated by immediately putting up a contested shot.

This is a pretty straight forward rotation that Jabari makes. The cutter’s man doubles the ball handler which leads to what should be an open look for Henry Coleman, but Jabari is able to make use of his physical tools and covers enough ground to block him from behind. It was a good rotation and subsequently led to a good result.

Jabari Smith is a triple threat scorer. He doesn’t take more than one or two dribbles that often, but that’s usually all he needs to get to his spots. He sees he’s got a smaller guy on him, calls for the ball, gets it at the top of the key and from there it’s pretty easy for him to get where he wants. He takes one dribble and he’s already at the right elbow. According to the shot chart above from cbbanalytics.com, he shoots 53.3% from that spot. You could call that pretty good and you’d be understating it. Once he gets there, he’s too big for a guard to have any effect on that shot and it is nothing but net.

Okay, so here’s the thing about Jabari’s game. Sometimes, he makes these sorts of shots; other times, he doesn’t. That is typically how basketball works, but it can be frustrating to watch if his shots aren’t falling. He sometimes becomes a bit of a ball stopper, much like on this possession. He holds the ball for 3 seconds, decides that this contested midrange shot early in the shot clock is the best shot Auburn is going to get and puts it up.. If it had gone in, there might be a different spin on this from me, but a lot of my frustration as a scout watching him comes from these sorts of possessions as they’re not exactly an uncommon occurrence with him.

The reason I bring up Jabari’s ball stopping tendencies as an annoyance to me is because every now and then he makes a pass like this. So I know he could make those passes, but he doesn’t do it with a ton of regularity. Once they bring the double to him, he waits for Kessler to cut and bring his man down. As soon as that happens, he puts the ball right into the shooter’s pocket. He gives the shooter a wide open look right off the catch and shoot. It was right where the shooter wanted it and he made the shot with ease thanks to it.

Another gripe with Jabari is that his hips are pretty stiff. He covers this up with good footwork and lateral quickness, but his hips are still an issue. Here it’s on full display. He steps out a little further than he should have, and goes for a steal on top of that. Then his man gets a step on him and from there he might as well be some baby back ribs cause baby, that’s some barbeque.

Yet another example of his rough perimeter defense after people get a step on him. If he can stay in front of his man it’s not really an issue, but against quicker guys he tends to struggle. Here he just gets blown by, no bad gamble or anything; just bad perimeter containment.

As said earlier, Jabari’s finishing is a concern to me and that includes his floaters. They don’t ever look natural to me. They always look somewhat forced and the ball doesn’t look good coming off of his hands most of the time around the floater area to me. The stats back the eye test up on that one too. The shot chart from earlier ranges mainly in the lukewarm to arctic in the floater range, with a few hot spots here and there.

Here is another open Jabari Smith catch and shoot 3 where we can get a good look at his shooting mechanics. With this we can break down some of the things that make his shot so good. Every shot’s foundation starts with the feet and legs. If you look at his feet, you can see they’re tilted to give his shooting hand better alignment with the hoop. Then move your attention to the knees and legs. They are right in line with each other and in sync in every movement they make. Then moving up to the arms and it is just a pretty, textbook jumper. His elbow is near 90 degrees, he has good placement of his guide hand, and good velocity on the release. This results in a near perfect arc and another make for Jabari.

Sometimes Jabari does have good perimeter defense and this is one of those times. The ball handler isn’t fast enough to make Jabari’s stiff hips an issue, so he is able to move his feet well and stay in front of him. When his man picks up the dribble, he’s able to use his length to prevent any shot from being attempted and forces a kick out.

Here is another three that Jabari drills off of a dribble hand-off, but this time he takes a couple of dribbles and pulls up. He gets to one of his spots in two dribbles. Pay attention to his feet and you’ll see that they are in sync as he jumps, just like they are on catch-and-shoot attempts of his. However, they are not aligned to the hoop. To fix this, he shifts and rotates his body on his ascension and by the time he reaches the release point of his jumper he is facing the rim like he would be otherwise. 

Jabari Smith is certainly a top prospect in this draft, but he has his drawbacks, although his shooting makes it easy to overlook his flaws. He could easily fill a shooter role right away and has some star upside to him.