Aaron Scott Scouting Report
Consistent three-point shooting combined with winning plays on defense brought Scott success at North Texas. With his usage increasing in year three, what's his NBA appeal? Find out more below.
Being a reliable shooter alone won’t warrant a long-term career. Therefore, as an NBA wing, you must offer plus defense and some scalability of your offensive game to keep being able to separate yourself from your peers fighting for the same scarce NBA roster spot.
As North Texas’ leader in minutes played per game, Scott tripled the threes per game—from 1.3 to 3.4—compared to last season while being the motor of the Mean Green’s defense. There’s a need for these types of players in the NBA.
Physical Profile
At 6’7”, and 200 pounds, Scott has a lanky frame, but plays with a lot of toughness and doesn’t shy away from contact. He has great length with a plus wingspan, which should be at 7’0” or 7’1” by the eye test. This opens the door for Scott to be able to guard multiple positions.
He plays as a quick-twitch athlete, which is his primary weapon to create separation when attacking closeouts. In the long run, he has to get stronger as Scott struggles to finish at the rim against opposing forwards and big men.
At the NBA level, Scott has the foot speed to be able to guard the perimeter effectively. His excellent lateral quickness and the defensive footwork to match are a solid base to become a plus-defender further down his career.
Offense
To be able to at worst be a neutral factor to a team’s offensive rating, Scott has to show he can drain jumpers off the catch consistently. He is showing continuity on that end, with 38.6% on 3.4 attempts on the season, where he shot 40.8% on 1.3 attempts last year.
Despite taking a tad too long to set his feet, Scott shows a high enough release to limit the risk of being blocked. However, an area of development is that Scott has to focus more on moving toward where the pass needs to land, instead of waiting for the ball, which is the case more often than not.
What stood out is that he’s getting to his spots in both the halfcourt and transition, as shown in the three plays below.
Playing within the flow of the offense is what makes Scott a valuable low-usage wing in the early stages of his career. Whenever the three-point opportunity doesn’t look good enough, he shows his quick-twitch movement to be able to attack closeouts effectively.
What stood out is that he’s light off his feet in both directions. With a good first step after aggressively placing his pivot foot before the launch. Scott shows he has tight enough handles to create his offense in this play type, opening a pathway to some more ball touches at the next level of his career.
Another positive is that Scott doesn’t prefer to attack in one direction, making him harder to predict for opposing defenses, as shown in the two plays below.
An area that needs work is the ability to make the extra pass in these sets. There have been several occasions during the film study where he has shown to prefer finishing the play off himself. That’s a combination of the bigger role Coach Hodge has given him in his first season as the Mean Green’s head coach.
With 0.9 assists against 1.0 turnovers in his college career so far, Scott isn’t known as a playmaker. At the next level, it’s feasible that he’ll be a good ball-mover as he has shown enough flashes of being able to make the right passes and execute basic reads.
With a faster-paced NBA game, Scott has to continue to show he can keep the ball moving, make skip passes, or complete ball reversals. The untapped potential in his profile is his ability to make plays by posting up; a trend we see more often in the last few seasons, causing NBA decision-makers to add more value to that aspect.
To be able to take his game to the next level in the NBA, Scott needs to show that he can be a self-creating wing scorer. What stood out is that his game in the post is advanced, considering his role.
After he gains more strength, he’ll be able to play more effectively as an interior scorer by utilizing the post. The two plays below show that he can serve as a pick-and-pop threat that attacks closeouts on the regular. His footwork combined with his length creates several advantages to where he’s able to keep getting shots up from the spots he’s comfortable with.
Despite it won’t be asked of him early on, Scott is good at drawing help defense in isolation plays, as he does in the second play. Despite the impressive turnaround fadeaway, his hitting the deck is a sign of the need to get stronger to handle contact better. However, if the passing develops, Scott gives enough confidence to say that he’ll be able to find open shooters with ease like the second play could have gone for him.
It’s more likely than not that Scott will barely get meaningful touches at the early stages of his career. Therefore, his off-ball game needs to continue to impress NBA decision-makers as it already should when evaluating his first 2.5 seasons at North Texas.
As per ShotQuality, his team ranks outside the top 300 in rim-finishing frequency and cuts, which makes the context for Scott harder to make his off-ball game known. However, when evaluating his film, I saw Scott actively cutting on each play where it was clear that he wasn’t going to be able to collect the ball in the corner.
Despite being a 61 %-finisher at the rim, Scott continues to look for high-quality looks inside, where his active cutting helps him a ton. At the next level, being able to break down defenses on the perimeter is a key element to the game. Chasing multiple paint touches is what Scott is doing when he doesn’t have the ball in his hands and is being used as the play-finisher.
At the NBA level, Scott shows he has an offensive game that’ll translate early. The ability to handle contact against stronger players should be his main area of development on the offensive end. However, in the long run, his untapped potential as a passer combined with him being able to play as a ball-mover who gets his offense via spot-up shooting or slashing gives him a solid base to be plugged into any team’s rotation in an end-of-the-bench type of role.
Defense
On the defensive end is where things get more interesting for Scott. With his great length, he shows he’s already guarding multiple positions at North Texas, which is likely going to continue at the next level.
His awareness stood out the most. Scott shows flashes of being able to play as a reliable help defender who is good against opposing off-ball cutters. He recognizes rotations seamlessly and knows when it’s time to offer help defense.
The maturity of his game was visible early on, as he minimalizes plays where he overhelps. The ability to rotate actively is a clear sign of being able to handle a switch-heavy NBA scheme early on in his career.
The two plays give an example of how he’s able to defend by making the right decisions. In the first one, he ends up as the weakside rim protector and immediately responds by locking the opponent’s big man in his back and pushing his prior assignment out of the paint, where preventing the kick out via the post-up was the main assignment in the second play.
After recognizing the opponent going to face-up mode, the help defense comes with a minimal chance of a kick-out being the outcome.
Where Scott struggled to finish at the rim against stronger players, he shows the contrary on the defensive end. Despite the 200 pounds, the toughness that he shows helps him to be able to serve as a weakside helper or rim protector.
Especially in smaller line-ups, North Texas utilizes Scott as a defender inside the arc. To be able to grade the versatility of his defense, this opportunity is a good one for him. The combination of reading a team’s offense and being able to recognize rotations, make him a reliable building block in Coach Hodge’s defensive schemes.
The second play is a good summary of the things he can add to his team at the next level. What stood out is that he’s always aware of his surroundings, and he doesn’t get caught ball-watching. A spit-second turn of his head toward the top of the key shows that his assignment isn’t getting the support he needs, which gives Scott all the room to contest hard, instead of still having to decide what to do after the opponent utilized the weakside and found their man below the rim.
At the NBA level, the primary focus for Scott will be to guard the perimeter, which he can do effectively. The primary thing that stood out was the level of intensity where Scott is flying all over the place, while still being able to rotate timely and closeout hard on each defensive possession.
In general, his defensive footwork is solid. In combination with his great burst, Scott has a valuable weapon in his closeouts where his length allows him to contest three-point shooters at all times.
As per ShotQuality, North Texas ranks 33rd in points-per-play allowed in catch-and-shoot situations and 16th against off-the-dribble shooters. Scott knowing how to use his athleticism to add value on defense, is one of the main reasons behind the Mean Green’s success on this end.
In a switch-heavy NBA game, Scott will be asked to defend in the point-of-attack, therefore this aspect of his game was valued when evaluating his profile. What stood out is that he slides his feet very well on defense, and the long wingspan helps Scott to contest shots with ease.
He has shown consistency in keeping players in front of him on drives, where his ability to defend at the rim—as also shown earlier in the report—gives Scott the possibility to be a versatile defender at the next level.
The area of development is his screen navigation. In the pick-and-roll sets where he switched onto ball handlers, Scott got stuck in screens more often than not. The limited sample size makes it harder to project if improvement is likely. However, at the NBA level this could be something opposing scouting reports will mention, which is something NBA decision-makers have to consider.
NBA Draft Projection
Drafting an NBA-ready shooter is a good starting point to determine what teams want to see from Scott. On the offensive end, he has to improve in handling contact much better when finishing at the rim. His solid foot speed and great burst can put him into a position where he’s an effective slasher.
There is untapped potential in his profile as a passer, which makes Scott a solid low-usage wing who’ll immediately fit in an end-of-the-bench rotational role at the next level.
As a defender, it gets interesting for Scott. His great length helps him to guard multiple positions, and despite the struggles to handle contact at rim finishes on the offensive end, he’s reliable at the rim on the defensive end.
He’s solid at defending against cutters and recognizes rotations very well. Reading the defense is what gives him advantages and the ability to combine that with the ability to guard the perimeter is what makes him one of the team’s best defenders. The ability to slide his feet and use his burst to keep up with ball handlers is what will translate at the NBA level. However, in the pick-and-roll, Scott gets stuck in screens more often than not, which is something he has to work on at the next level.
Scott will be able to play on day one at the NBA level, which gives extra value to his profile. When considering the total profile, Scott has a chance to be selected in the latter stages of the second round, if he continues to impress on both ends on a North Texas team that is currently en route to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.