NY Knicks: Brandon Boston Jr. is a high-reward gamble in the NBA Draft
By Adam Kester
NY Knicks: Brandon Boston Jr. is an enticing prospect
From the highly-touted Sierra Canyon High School to the highly-touted University of Kentucky, we’ve known about Brandon Boston Jr. for a while now.
ESPN’s 7th ranked recruit in the country for 2019, Boston had big expectations for his freshman season at college.
Boston is a shooting guard/wing scorer who stands at 6’7 tall with a wingspan just under 6’11. From a physical standpoint, there aren’t many wings that stack up with him.
He may need to add weight to his skinny frame, but his blend of explosiveness and length is going to have a lot of NBA scouts enamored about his potential in the league.
Essentially, Boston came into college with mammoth expectations of being a go-to scorer for an elite program. The result was an inefficient scorer who was the central part of a disappointing Kentucky team. You can’t really boil down his struggles and the team’s struggle to any one thing, but he’s certainly not devoid of blame.
To see the high-level potential, you really have to go off of his physical tools, high school dominance, and high level of technique on offense. Boston has nice form and is comfortable with the ball in his hands.
The scoring and dribbling highlights are there. The consistency is not.
He has to figure out how to be a better contributor in other areas on offense. Someone like him should be able to become a better off-ball navigator and shooter off of screens.
The big point here I want to emphasize here is that I don’t see Boston’s tumultuous season as an “effort” issue or him being some sort of bad-shot-ball-hog.
He has shown good basketball IQ and effort in some important areas of defense and team basketball. I just think he needs some more time to realize his full potential.
New York could be a great place to do just that.