Drake Powell Scouting Report
Physical tools and thriving in a clear NBA role go a long way, even when you're coming off a disappointing year. Is the hype behind Drake Powell's top-20 ranking legit? Here's why he must go higher:
Drake Powell (#9, North Carolina): Freshman, 6'6"
Shooting Guard/Small Forward — Born: Sep 8, 2005 (19 years old)
Introduction
The RSCI number-eleven-ranked Powell played close to 950 minutes as a freshman at North Carolina. His defensive performances confirmed his reputation out of high school while adjusting to playing alongside usage-dominant offensive weapons. The Tar Heels gave Powell a good opportunity to showcase his defensive potential. That was the main focus of the NBA front offices during his draft evaluation.
However, the consensus take about Powell was that he had an underwhelming season, as the draft media approached it from an offensive standpoint. When taking the time to measure and weigh the performances, it’s clear that there’s a potential NBA starter in Powell. This scouting report emphasizes why and what his long-term potential will be.
Physical Profile
At a confirmed 6’5.25” in socks, Powell is a long and strongly built athlete. He’s mobile and has close to elite length with his seven-foot wingspan. His verticality and footwork are other value adders to his draft profile. There’s room in his frame left to continue to add muscle and bulk up in the next few years.
Powell should play the two and the three as a versatile guard and wing defender. His length and strength gains in the next few years could lead to him expanding and defending against some fours. He’s a vertical athlete with good lateral quickness. With a decent burst, Powell’s physical tools allow him to exploit matchups with strength and speed. That’s the potential behind his physical tools.
At 200 pounds, Powell has big hands, which help him to thrive as a play-finisher who must play through physicality in the paint. Versatility in a reduced role—that’s what his role is built for.
Offense
Active cutting and play-finishing
The positive part of Powell’s game is the twitchy athleticism combined with his great movement and strength. This made it easy for him to find angles to duck inside the paint for play finishes. As the graph above shows, he’s a 69% rim-finisher, looking for the right angles with his active cutting. In the first play below, he’s reacting well to the motion around him with the handoff fakes above the break with his teammate coming off the curl. This helped Powell tag his screener and pop to the rim for the finish. His awareness as an active cutter opens up angles to benefit from.
The third play shows another example. Powell does well to actively move to the strong side. Hereafter, he’s reacting to motion around him, immediately cutting to stay in the recipient of the post-entry pass’ angle for the quick extra pass. It’s a simple execution, but essential to maintain motion and fast-paced offenses. In the fourth play, the opponent hedges the ball screen and pressures the ball handler. That’s where Powell again played the angles and ensured his cuts led to paint touches and him being in a good position as a dump-off option. The twitchiness and strength will continue to help him find good finishing looks, especially when he gets stronger in the next few years.
Making plays out of closeouts
Powell is an aggressive scorer. However, he struggled to get consistent paint touches when attacking closeouts. As the charts above show, the majority of his attempts come inside the lane. That’s a positive, as his game is not reliant on shooting threes, as he’s seeking to utilize his athleticism and generate paint touches. That gives the most consistency to a team’s offensive rating as he’ll bring additional advantage creation in a reduced role.
The issue with Powell was a combination of driving without a plan and not passing out of help defenders and pressure promptly. The first two plays below show an example. Contemplating moving the ball after he sees help defense is an area to work on in the next few years. The third play shows an example of Powell settling for an unbalanced midrange shot, while his teammate was screaming for the ball as the wide-open spot-up shooter from the elbow. However, the toughness and aggressiveness are positives for NBA scouts.
For the next level, Powell’s scoring is consistent and mature, as his process makes too much sense. The fourth play shows him pivoting out wide before attacking his defender’s feet, leading to the paint touch. He’s fluid and fast, and if the decision-making on drives improves, Powell’s touch around the rim and consistency of getting downhill will add gravity to his closeout scoring for his team’s offensive rating to benefit from.
Catch-and-shoot
Powell must grow as a volume shooter off the catch. His gravity as a slasher gives him comfort to leverage his paint touches with creating space as a shooter. Teams will be comfortable in taking away his dribble penetration, leaving room for Powell to benefit from his shooting. The process needs improvement in the release, as the rest of the form is consistent despite the lack of a reliable sample size.
At 37.9% on 2.6 attempts per game, the numbers look inflated as there’s enough room to improve. At times, Powell does not move actively toward the passer to stay or improve the angles. The first two plays below show an example. Despite the good pivot with his left, Powell doesn’t fully balance himself out in the first made shot below. He’s following through with his shot well, but it looks like he lacks fluidity when rising up for his shot. The second play shows a similar outcome, with more pressure on his shot.
The third and fourth plays below show that Powell needs too much time when he’s open for shots. He’s often not positioning himself at 180 degrees or must correct the ball after the catch. Those are the two areas of development for NBA coaches to invest in for the next few seasons.
Passing, ball-moving, and playmaking
An area to continue to develop in is the passing. Powell is an excellent ball-mover with a great feel for timing and quick execution. He’s averaging an assist-to-turnover ratio of over 1.5, showing good returns in the reduced ball touches. That’s the base for NBA scouts, as his role at the next level will start in a similar one he had at North Carolina. Patience is the key to his success. The first play shows Powell attacking the rim before drawing the rotations to him. He pivoted strongly and used his footwork to spin and create the angle to drop the ball off to the play-finisher underneath the basket.
In the second and third possessions, Powell shows his connective passing in the halfcourt and in transition. He’s not milking seconds away from the shot clock and executes quickly. With more teams trying to maximize their number of possessions in a game, those are the intangibles NBA scouts seek. The flashes to grow into a playmaker are shown in the fourth and fifth plays below. Powell does well to jab and force defenders to have their attention on him to see if he dribbles, passes, or takes the shot. That’s how he creates attention for himself to put a teammate in a better angle. The executions are basic, but that’s okay, as it’s all about quick execution. The numbers back up the consistency in his decision-making as a passer.
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Defense
Pick-and-roll
Defensively, Powell brings the most NBA value. His lateral quickness and quick-twitch athleticism form the base for him to guard multiple positions. That’s the true versatility behind his game. His confirmed seven-foot wingspan makes it easier to tag screeners and create cushions to throw himself between the ball handler and the screener.
However, Powell must improve at being less reactive to ball handlers while he’s looking to take over control more. When facing ball handlers, his screen navigation is not consistent, as he lacks the awareness to recognize incoming ball screens. Considering his young age, that’s no red flag, but more of a sign that he needs more developmental minutes guarding the primary ball handler. That’s a task NBA coaches will give him more compared to his time at North Carolina.
The first play shows an example of him focusing too much on the ball. That gave the ball handler the angle to pull up from the weak side elbow. The second possession shows a better outcome, but that’s where Powell didn’t check on his feet and almost hit the deck because he went over the screener’s knees. But tagging is a powerful weapon for Powell. He does well in the third play, forcing the ICE against the ball handler, who settled for the unbalanced shot as Powell tagged and stuck to him. The largest area of concern is the lack of keeping his man at 180 degrees. In the fourth play, that led to him being burned with the change of sides before he was forced to commit the foul.
Closeouts
The issue of closing out too far and not staying at 180 degrees gives Powell issues, despite the close-to-elite athleticism. His closeout technique must be the priority in his developmental plan at the next level. Regardless, the potential and skill to grow into an excellent defender are clear in his profile. In the first play below, Powell rotates well and pivots with his right to force the ball handler to the weaker side. However, his footwork doesn’t lead to him following up with his lateral quickness. That’s the concern.
In the second and third plays below, his pivot foot gives away the other angle. That’s the reason for him being blown by despite closing out at 180 degrees. The second play led to a strong contest, but in the third play, he gave up the paint touch and collapsed with the lack of keeping his balance after the last step. The fourth play shows that the primary area of development for him is to limit dribble penetration. The process makes sense, but the footwork and lack of 180 degrees make it difficult for Powell to show consistency.
Stops in hand-off sets
The combination of closing out and the pick-and-roll defense makes it feasible for Powell to be asked to stop gaps and angles in handoff situations. One of the areas teams tried to exploit the Tar Heels' defense was switching and forcing Powell to rotate to the ball handler, as the lack of size around Powell made North Carolina vulnerable in matching up with size. In the NBA he’ll have teammates with better positional size, but the additional skill for Powell to hang his hat on is to navigate through screens away from the ball and use his twitchy athleticism and quick feet to counter ball handlers trying to create driving lanes out of handoffs.
Powell shows improvement on that end. In the first play, they tried to lock him and close the perimeter. Powell did well to slide off his man and go around the screen via the interior. This led to him decently contesting the pull-up three from above the break. In the second play, Powell was blown by off the dribble but kept the tag alive and forced the ball handler to an unbalanced finish. The issue is that he’s putting his feet too far ahead of him. That leads to ball handlers attacking his feet. And when they come off handoffs, it’s immediately opening up the interior. The third play shows another example. That’s where he must improve upon to maintain and sustain a team’s defensive rating.
Catch-and-shoot
Regardless, Powell’s recognition of switches and rotations in space will help him to quickly improve as a team defender. His closeouts to spot-up shooters are good measures for that. He’s comfortable rotating when he’s defending on the weaker side. His twitchy athleticism and length made it easy for North Carolina to trust him. The positive is that in the latter stages of the season, he improved their defensive rating by allowing the other four to load up the strong side, as Powell kept his own against dribble penetration on the weak side, with the corner being his area to defend.
In the first play below, Powell does well to not overhelp on the dribble penetration while focusing on limiting the passing angle to the outside. His incredibly fluid hips are on display in how easily he moved and pinned to immediately stop and pop to contest the spot-up shooter on the elbow. In the second possession below, Powell was a step too late to contest the above-the-break three. Regardless, he did well to sustain his burst, showing his vertical jump to still contest the shot, regardless of the ground he had to make up for.
In the third play, he recognized the kickout opportunity early and closed the gap despite the entire defense being loaded up leaving the midrange empty. In the fourth play below, Powell rotates timely with his help defense, forcing the kick-out pass and immediately rotating back to take away the open three. It’s feasible for him to grow into an excellent overall defender in the NBA, with his rotations and quick movement being the base.
NBA Draft Projection
Based on the strengths and areas of development mentioned in this scouting report, I project Drake Powell to be a clear top-20 pick with his connective role, close-to-elite athleticism, and high floor as a defender. Teams need depth, and the best way to scale a role up is to flourish with fewer ball touches. That’s where he comes off a promising season at North Carolina.
To understand his potential, it’s essential to contextualize his role for the Tar Heels, as the lack of production is no reason to be lower on his long-term potential. I expect a team to make a promise to him with a clear path to rise until the lottery.