Malique Ewin Scouting Report
From JUCO to the NBA. Ewin has all the tools to be a rotational five on an NBA floor. His dominance inside the arc turned the Seminoles' season around and put him on NBA radars. Here's why:
Introduction
After a fantastic season with South Plains College in Texas, Ewin earned NJCAA All-American First-Team honors and was the number-one-ranked JUCO player of 2024. At 14.9 points and 9 rebounds per game, Ewin led his team to the Elite 8 of the NJCAA National Tournament while winning both Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year within his conference.
Hereafter, Ewin chose to commit to Coach Hamilton and the Florida State Seminoles after freshly graduating with his bachelors degree at South Plains. He kept his interior dominance going in the ACC, slowly putting him on more NBA radars. The emphasis of this scouting report is to pinpoint strong areas of his game and to define his NBA role.
Physical Profile
At 230 pounds, Ewin is a big, strong, and lengthy center. He has broad shoulders and a well-filled frame. On top of that, he’s mobile and a good athlete. He thrives on playing physical, with his verticality helping him to be a feared rim protector. Despite his big build, his quick feet and good hands help him to secure tough passes, while he can use his speed to be creative as a face-up or back-to-the-basket scorer.
He has decent length. There is no official measurement available, but I project it to be a plus-four-inch wingspan of 7’3”. More importantly, his mobility, quick feet, and verticality offer him enough weapons to eventually guard outside his position, a must-have for the NBA. His fluid hips are a positive for NBA scouts.
Defense
Pick-and-roll
Ewin is a good decision-maker in the pick-and-roll. That gives NBA scouts a level of comfort that he can step out and defend rather than playing solely the classical drop coverage. What immediately stood out was Ewin’s great footwork. He’s sliding his feet with ease, has good mobility for his size, and doesn’t shy away from hard-hedging or sometimes even blitzing his opponents, forcing ball handlers to make early decisions rather than being reactionary fuels a team’s defensive rating with him on the floor.
In the first play below, the opposing ball handler switches to Ewin after a high pick-and-roll. Hereafter, Ewin doesn’t get lured to step outside the interior until the ball handler doesn’t have the passing options he is looking for. Hereafter, Ewin stepped out hard and harassed the ball handler into the pull-up jumper, which he timely blocked. However, he was too aggressive, causing the personal foul at the end of the play.
In the second possession, Ewin’s footwork is on display. He’s dropping after the switch, but Ewin doesn’t fully fall back into the paint. Trusting his elevation and length, Ewin does well to force the ball handler to beat him off the dribble or to take the openness of the jumper. Hereafter, it’s heavily contested by Ewin. However, against dribble penetration via the pick-and-roll, Ewin looks heavy-footed in the third play below. However, he does well to recover with strong strides to impact the shot from behind. Regardless, for the NBA, it’s an area of attention for Ewin for the next few years.
For the short term, it’s a testimony to Ewin’s toughness and hard style of play. In the fourth and fifth plays below, he goes over the screen to chase the ball handler, where his aggressiveness leads to him stepping out too far in the fourth play, whilst the fifth possession shows long strides from behind to eventually get the block. At 0.8 blocks per game, the numbers look deflated as he’s a true rim deterrent around the basket, especially when he’s chasing ball handlers out of the pick-and-roll.
Catch-and-drive
Ewin plays with the same toughness and intensity when closing out to the perimeter. The golden rule with centers switching to the perimeter is that NBA teams are always double-guessing for the mismatch that potentially gives the opposing center that still roams around the basket. Regardless, for Ewin, it’s a good sign that he can defend on all three levels, with his closeouts being fast, hard, and often a good last step in maintaining his balance. In the first play below, his last step was one too far. However, his body control and balance were impressive and led to a heavily contested midrange jumper.
In the second play below, Ewin does well to initially pivot far out to cover the baseline but bites on the jab, which opens up the lane or his opponent. He does well by not fouling after the ball handler seeks contact before contesting the shot from the mid-post area. At 2.8 personal fouls per 25.6 minutes per game, Ewin can play within control despite the aggressive nature of his defense. Despite the make in the third play below, Ewin did well to recover from his last step being too far out. He’s often quick and aggressive in his closeouts, where the area of development is to settle for a shorter closeout rather than giving his opponent a direction to drive toward with dribble penetration. The fourth possession shows an example where Ewin catches the ball in the air after forcing his assignment to beat him off the dribble before it got called for goaltending.
Catch-and-shoot
He keeps the same intensity when he’s closing out against spot-up shooters. Ewin has a great habit of contesting his shots hard and, more importantly, immediately popping out on transition for a potential quick two points on the other end. Ewin’s toughness and good awareness are the results of playing as the opposing scouting report’s main target at South Plains. That trained him well to never take a play off and use the consistency of his motor to effectively defend against several assignments, not just solely centers.
In the first play below, Ewin does well to immediately stay physical after the entry pass, not leaving his opponent many other options than attempting the midrange jumper with the hand in his face. The plus value is Ewin’s understanding of rotations. In the second possession below, the opponent makes the extra pass to the wide-open elbow, and Ewin doesn’t give up on the play with his long strides and good elevation to pop out and contest the three heavily, leading it to hit the side of the backboard. In the third play below, Ewin keeps the gravity of his help defense alive as the weak side defender before using his fluid hips well to immediately react to the corner shooter.
However, he’s often correcting rotations for his teammates as well. In the fourth play, it looked like a bad play on Ewin’s part, but he coached his teammate to take the corner. But when that didn’t happen, Ewin had to last-second attempt and correct the transition corner three instead. An area of development is Ewin gets caught ball-watching at times. The fifth play below leads to the easy kick-out after dribble penetration, with a late closeout mainly caused by his ball-watching from a few seconds earlier.
Cuts
When Ewin’s defending away from the basket, his switchability often leads to a lack of positioning inside the arc. That’s an area of development for NBA scouts to monitor throughout the season. In the first play below, that leads to a late rotation and getting stuck behind the play-finisher’s back. His rotation had to be closer to the baseline than the perimeter. If Ewin always does it that way, it gives him a better positioning inside the arc when teams are trying to hit the play-finisher at the dunker’s spot.
Regardless, Ewin is good at recognizing rotations and executes them consistently. This gives him a better floor for defending on an NBA court with more motion and ball movement. The second possession shows a good example. He switches to the elbow, and before deflecting the pass after dribble penetration, he shows a good understanding of where the play-finisher would position itself.
This gives him more comfort by impacting passing lanes and gambling on steals. In the third play below, Ewin covers the weak side and ensures he doesn’t get the backdoor cut against him. After seeing the ball handler looking for the entry pass, Ewin steps toward the middle and intercepts the pass for a potential pick-six execution in transition. We see a similar outcome in the last play below. He keeps his rotations alive as the interior defender and follows the play well before diving between the recipient near the rim and the passer at the last second. That’s the type of defensive awareness that leads to a team improving its defensive rating with him on the floor.
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Offense
Pick-and-roll
One of the separators among Ewin’s peers is his ability to make plays with the ball in his hands. That makes his game suitable to play inverted pick-and-rolls. He’s a hard-screening center, but with enough creativity and good enough handles to be a scorer at the next level. In the first play below, Ewin recognizes the mismatch and immediately goes to work by attacking the rim, throwing his elbow into the defender’s chest, and fully taking away the shot contest after the smooth spin move. His footwork, body control, and soft touch around the rim make him a highly efficient finisher at the rim, as the chart above also shows.
In the second play, Ewin’s again looking for an opportunity to score, but his runner after the post-up was too short. Ewin’s best when he’s forcing his way into the paint and landing two feet close to the rim before finishing off plays. His soft touch hasn’t reached the midrange yet, which makes it an area of development for the upcoming years to develop. Regardless, a center with his level of handles, creativity, and footwork adds another dynamic to a team’s offensive arsenal and offensive rating.
As the roll man, Ewin has a good habit of rolling hard after a ball screen that forces defenders to make decisions. He has a good habit of keeping the ball high after the catch, similar to how the Gasol brothers used to play. His gravity of rim-finishing immediately lures help defenders to him, showing he can effectively collapse defenses to decide to pass or finish plays off himself. In the fourth play, the lack of passing angle to the corner forced the finish, which was a good decision, but perhaps Ewin elevated for the layin one step too early than he should have. Regardless, he’s an effective play-finisher out of the pick-and-roll, where the self-creation and ability to play inverted pick-and-roll gives more body to his NBA profile.
Putbacks
After averaging nine rebounds at South Plains, Ewin’s high-level rebounding continued to translate at the high-major level with his 7.9 per game. Fearing teams running out in transition, we see fewer NBA teams crashing the offensive glass hard, but for the center, it’s where teams look to improve margins for error and collect extra offensive rebounds and second-chance points with them on the floor. For Ewin, it won’t be anything different. With over three offensive boards per game, he’s already improving his team’s offensive rating as he’s finding multiple options per game to get opportunities for putback shots or dunks.
At 32 dunks on the season, he’s averaging over two per game. His ability to keep the ball high after collecting rebounds is yet again put on display. He misses the bunny in the first play but does well to recover and earn a trip to the charity stripe. As a 57.4% finisher on free throws, it adds to the need to improve that number, especially if he wants to be an option to close out games. Ewin has great awareness and positioning and makes himself the forgotten man after dribble penetration, as shown in the second and third plays below. His hard-nosed rebounding is fueled by his good offensive box-outs and good positioning, making it easier for him to grab second-chance points.
Ewin doesn’t shy away from being physical and using his toughness to maintain his advantages on the glass, as shown with the gentle push in the back before the fourth offensive rebound below.
Passing, ball-moving and playmaking
When further evaluating Ewin’s offense for the NBA, his will to play in post-up possessions opens up his passing game. He’s a good passer with a good feel for the game, but inconsistent in executing his passing reads. His 29 assists to 34 turnovers are a good first sign showing he’s in the right direction. However, his scoring-heavy duty on top of his play-finishing doesn’t require him to serve as a passer, contextualizing the low numbers of assists. But that doesn’t take away from Ewin’s natural passing skillset.
In the first play below, Ewin shows his good habit of passing the ball up front in transition before getting it back above the break. He immediately recognizes the backdoor cutter with an impressive bullet pass through the middle. He has a great feel for making plays after defensive rebounds. Instead of a ‘grab-and-go’ sequence, we often see Ewin play with ‘pass-and-go’ styled defensive rebounds. This is followed by a quarterback-esque pass in the second play below.
In the third and fourth possessions below, Ewin finds his teammates after collecting the offensive rebound. These were more bailout passes than him executing his playmaking reads. Regardless, that doesn’t take away the value he holds as a ball-mover, considering the quick execution on each of the plays so far. The playmaking value increases after looking at the last play below. Ewin brings the ball up the court in transition before dropping the flashy no-look pass to find the cutter with the bounce pass. That’s extra value to an NBA team’s offensive rating when a five can also serve as a point center.
NBA Draft Projection
Based on the strengths and areas of development mentioned in this scouting report, I project Malique Ewin to return to school after testing the NBA Draft waters this summer. With many top-tier college centers running out of eligibility, giving Ewin multiple roster spots he can fill after a summer full of transfer portal action.
Considering the rising NIL value of his profile, it’s feasible Ewin will return to school to continue to work on his game while playing at the top of the high-major level. Regardless, Ewin is an NBA-caliber center who will fill a rotational spot once he’s ready. This becomes more likely once he enters the association with a year of extra experience.