Isaiah Collier Scouting Report

Strength and explosiveness are a rare combination for today's NBA leading guard. But what else is there to like with Collier? What will be his long-term role? Find out more below.

As the McDonald's All-American Game MVP and one of the top recruits of the 2023 class, Collier chose Southern California over staying home in Georgia. This was a wise decision because most attention went to his teammate Bronny James, Jr.

This allowed Collier to stay away from the hype, while still showing his worth at a high-ranked school in the PAC-12 Conference. During his freshman campaign, Collier showed many flashes of being able to play as an NBA point guard.

He finished the year with 16.3 points and 4.3 assists per game on 49% shooting, which got him selected to the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team.

Physical Profile

At 6’3”, Collier is built like an NFL linebacker while maintaining his great burst and explosiveness. While at 210 pounds, there’s room for him to grow and continue to fill his frame to be a multi-positional defender in the future.

Despite his strength, he’s fluid in his movement, especially as a defender. An area of development for Collier is despite his physical advantages against most guards he’ll face, he lacks aggressiveness when he has to absorb contact.

Collier has a decent wingspan, but with several measurements available, it’s best to wait for the NBA Draft Combine to confirm. A plus four-inch wingspan would be the safest bet by the eye test.

Defense

At the NBA level, Collier will have to show he can close out timely to contest shooters off the catch. What stood out was his consistency in roaming the floor while keeping track of his assignment and the play run by his opponents. An advantage that made it easier for Collier to contest shots is his great burst which he uses well in launching toward the shooter.

Another plus value is his awareness to stay close enough to his assignment to still rotate to others when he needs to, but not get too close, with the second and third plays being examples.

While we see fewer zone defenses in the NBA, that’s another area where Collier looked good with his decision-making. In the first play below, he keeps track of the play and does well in his read to not rotate with the relocating player but still cover his area between the arc and the free-throw line.

As a pick-and-roll defender, Collier has things to clean up to be able to contribute to a neutral defensive rating. The most important ones are his screen navigation and the intensity with which he defends.

In the second and last play below, Collier struggles to play out of the incoming ball screens, within the last play he gets totally out of position by allowing the screener to force him to the outside. In terms of long-term potential, he does show the ability to recognize incoming screens, as shown in the first play below, but his processing in these situations has to improve in the next few years.

While he’s at 2.4 personal fouls in 30 minutes per game, Collier can afford to defend with more aggressiveness to utilize his strength advantage. In the first play below, Collier does well to stay in front of Lewis and shows decent decision-making by not going up for the fake, but in the end, he did bail his opponent out by not fully contesting the shot; another area of development in his profile.

In hand-off situations, Collier looks more vulnerable while he’s fighting through screens. In the first play below, he hits the deck after trying to slide between the screener and ball handler while he was positioned at the sideline, trying to avoid the screener and use his hips to use the interior to avoid him was a better decision to take.

In the last two plays, we again see Collier being forced out of position to the outside by the screener, which makes it easy for opposing ball handlers to create separation against him and force a defense to commit help and thus collapse. At the NBA level, these types of errors will lead to teams hunting him in screening actions, making Collier a threat to maintain the team’s defensive rating in the early stages of his career.

An NBA decision-maker should make screen navigation their top priority in Collier’s developmental plan as a defender.

As an off-ball defender, Collier is caught ball-watching at times, as shown in the first play below. He contests the shot at the rim but is a tad too late to stop the easy two down low. Overall, Collier shows consistency in executing his defensive reads, especially when he has to rotate on defense. This makes it more feasible that he’ll improve as an off-ball defender in the future.

In the second play below, Colorado collapsed the USC defense and Collier showed great use of his athleticism by serving as the help-side defender, blocking the big man from behind. In the last play, Collier sees the off-ball cutter through the middle and does well in rotating to meet him inside the arc. However, the size disadvantage costs his team two points here.

Offense

At 33.8% on 3.0 attempts per game, Collier doesn’t show he is a consistent shooter yet. In seven of his twenty-seven games, Collier didn’t make a three, while attempting 17 of them in the process. He has eleven games where he shot above 40% from downtown, showing he lacks consistency in his three-point jumping.

With a good sample size, shooting is an early area of development in his profile that’ll open up the rest of his game upon improvement. As of now, an NBA team will likely drop into the interior and allow him to shoot to mitigate the effects of his burst and explosive drives to generate paint touches.

His shooting release looks decent, but has a low release point which makes him more vulnerable against taller defenders. A positive is that Collier was shooting many NBA-ranged threes in college, with the three plays below being an example. This makes it more feasible that he has no issues adjusting from the NCAA three-point-line to the NBA three-point-line.

Since his high school career, Collier has shown that he needs the ball in his hands to succeed. With ball touches and usage being scarce in the NBA to young point guards, Collier has to show that he can differentiate his game and get buckets in a variety of ways.

Playing out of closeouts is a crucial element for him to succeed. His explosiveness and burst will lead to him generating paint touches at will, opening up his passing game and at-the-rim finishing: 61.7% on 154 attempts this season.

Collier blows by his opponent in the first two plays below, but goes for the tough up-and-under finishes at the rim. In his defense, the paint gets packed by the opponents to stop him down low. Despite the misses, it’s clear that on a better-spaced NBA floor, Collier will be able to hit wide-open shooters on the perimeter with kick-out passes.

For that to happen, his decision-making with the ball in his hands has to improve in the future. In the last play below, instead of hitting the backdoor cutter with the dropoff pass, Collier goes for the contested floater finish.

With the ball in his hands, Collier shows that he can generate paint touches at ease. He gets downhill with and without a ball screen. In the last two plays below, we see his solid touch at the rim, where he shows that he can nail tough finishes against heavily contesting defenders.

However, at times, Collier wants to finish the play by himself no matter what. In the first play, overdribbling the ball against multiple defenders under the rim should have led to a kickout pass to the outside. Instead, he chases to create an angle to finish at the rim. It’s not a concern in the long run, but something an NBA decision-maker must take in mind when evaluating his profile to determine short-term quick-win improvements.

As the leading ball handler for USC, Collier put up 4.3 assists and 3.3 turnovers per game. What stood out is that he has no issue in executing basic reads, while being able to show creativity off the dribble.

The second play below is an excellent example of how Collier leverages the threat of generating paint touches to force defenders to commit. Collier hitting the roll man after the hesitation moves is an example of how he can manipulate a defense and execute.

Another advantage is that Collier’s strength allows him to play with his back to the basket creating advantages for others. In the first play, he flirted with it but ended up choosing another route. During his time at USC, that was a missed opportunity for him to show to NBA scouts. Therefore, that’s something decision-makers have to add to their summer workout drills when Collier visited them.

NBA Draft Projection

Collier stands out among his peers due to his combination of strength and explosiveness. His size might put a cap on his defensive potential due to the limited amount of positions he can guard. But his ability to rotate consistently and being an above-average help defender for a freshman, give him a solid base for NBA teams to work with.

Screen navigation has to improve. That’s a crucial element in his profile. On the offensive end, overdribbling the ball and chasing his offense is another area of development Collier has to clean up in the short run.

He has all the tools to be a starting point guard in the future. With an inconsistent jumper, it’s easier for teams to mitigate the effects of his ability to generate paint touches. Therefore, it’s likely that Collier will play many G League minutes as a freshman to give him enough reps to improve his shooting.

Overall, his frame, strength, and explosiveness combined with the intangibles in his executing reads as a playmaker make him one of the top guards in this class. Based on the above-mentioned pros and cons and details in the scouting report, I project Collier to be a lottery pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, with it being likely he’ll be picked between 11 and 14.