Micah Peavy Scouting Report
Wing-sized plus defenders find their way to every NBA roster. For Micah Peavy, it's nothing different. But the senior has more to offer. Here's why he'll make it to an NBA roster after the summer:
Micah Peavy (#5, Georgetown): Senior, 6'8"
Small Forward — Born: Jul 16, 2001 (23 years old)
Introduction
Another Duncanville HS alum finds their way to the league. The Texas-born Peavy finishes the season with All-Big East honors, and his defensive impact made that possible. He led the Big East in minutes while putting up an efficient seventeen-plus points per game. He played a complementary role during his three years at TCU, whereas Georgetown was willing to hand him the keys to the offense. Production and durability are two vital aspects upperclassmen must check, and Peavy mastered both.
The reason why the league shifts toward more wings is role versatility. Peavy has shown he can play winning basketball without many touches. That has been his M.O. This gains value when considering his defensive impact. This will be no different in the NBA. Showcasing a feasible NBA role he can grow into is the emphasis of this scouting report.
Physical Profile
At 6-foot-8, Peavy is a strongly built wing with broad shoulders and a well-filled frame. He bulked up to 220 pounds throughout the years and plays a physical brand of basketball. He has good core strength with developing footwork. His strength advantage helps him maintain balance at all times.
Despite the thick frame, Peavy shows good verticality because of his solid upper-leg strength, helping him elevate. There is no official measurement available, but his wingspan should be around 6-foot-11, which continues to add to his physical profile.
Offense
Handoffs
Peavy is creative. That’s his path to show his scoring prowess out of handoffs. The other side of the coin is that Peavy lacks true speed and thus has to rely on his footwork and craft to generate paint touches. Therefore, the midrange shooting is his counter method as he’s showing good separation-creation off handoffs, which can be utilized in his passing game as well. Regardless, NBA teams prioritize skill at all positions, and thus, Peavy’s midrange shots will be acceptable.
The first play is shown twice to put extra detail into his footwork. The strong pivot with his right on both occasions, combined with his ball placement, shows how creative a scorer he is. Peavy sells dribble penetration and makes defenders adjust accordingly before he quickly pivots his right foot for the last step and pulls up for the midrange shot. This makes it NBA translatable, especially considering the high-arcing point of his shot.
Hunting angles with jab steps and fakes are easier to counter when a prospect lacks rim pressure. That’s the case with Peavy. In the second and third plays below, his creativity and handles led to two good angles to immediately execute with his jumpers, but on an NBA floor, he’ll struggle to repeat this. Regardless, NBA scouts must focus on the ease with which he finds angles with his tight handles. To support his scoring methods, we see efficient finishing from Peavy in the shot chart above.
Closeouts
The lack of blow-by speed hurts Peavy’s self-creation at the next level. Despite his productivity, there’s always a reliance on his strength advantage. In college, you can get away with it, but in the NBA, he’ll often face equal physicality. That puts more emphasis on his creativity and craft. That’s where Peavy stands out, but the other side of the coin is that he falls in love with the midrange jumper more often than not. When taking away dunks, Peavy finishes at 60% at the rim on high volume. That’s a positive, but at the same time, the number is inflated because of his physicality, helping him get the right angles.
Therefore, NBA scouts must focus on his creation out of closeouts. That’s an essential part of his evaluation. The most appealing part is his body control. Peavy’s tight handles and strong offensive footwork give him enough weapons to beat his man off the dribble. He’s not the quickest in the first play below, but stands out with body control before almost getting the and-one. However, at close to three attempts from the foul line, the biggest context to note here is Peavy simply falling in love with shots from the midrange, which takes away the partial value of his foul drawing.
In the second play, Peavy shows tunnel vision. His wide reverse pivot and spin moves didn’t give him the angles he sought. In the end, Peavy had the wide-open cutter at the free-throw line in sight but continued to execute his midrange shot. For NBA scouts, that’s simply a red flag. In today’s era, offensive rating is everything, and all players must know how to pass up good shots for even better ones. In the third possession, it’s understandable Peavy finished the play himself before not getting the goaltending call his way, considering the lack of dropoff pass options around him.
Regardless, his presence and creation require help defenders to show up, and that’s the advantage that NBA scouts seek. But Peavy proves himself and his team a disservice if he continues to prioritize his shots.
Catch-and-shoot
At over four attempts per game, Peavy shot 40.0% from three. That’s a good number to work with, especially considering the growth from under 30% to slightly over 30% in the last three years. Continuous improvement is the part that’ll intrigue NBA scouts. However, there are some issues Peavy needs to sort out before he can grow his volume to the next level. One of the issues is his positioning. He’s often caught not processing the game as fast as he should.
In the first play below, Peavy has to immediately relocate to the elbow after the entry pass that puts the forward to work. Instead, he figured it out too late, while help had already arrived. The NBA is all about motion and ball movement, and thus, prospects have to immediately be ready for their next potential move. With his strength advantage, Peavy can develop a lower or no-dip three. His lack of speed and burst makes it easier for closeout defenders to focus on taking away his three-point shot. Therefore, losing time by lowering the ball has to be compensated for with a low or even no dip before his shots. The second play shows how quickly Peavy got his jumper off the catch, but it could be even quicker. Considering his constant improvement as a shooter in college, improvement looks more feasible once he enters the league.
Another area of development is lessening the number of shots, where he can also decide to pass or dribble. In the third play, the turnaround jumper from the midrange isn’t a feasible one for containing a team’s offensive rating. He can use his strength advantage as leverage to pull help defenders in and create room on the perimeter, whereas the unbalanced shot in the fourth play was him simply forcing the issue. Instead, keeping the ball moving or attacking the wide-open weak side with a straight-line drive would have been a better decision.
Passing, ball-moving, and playmaking
With a positive assist-to-turnover ratio in four of his five college seasons, Peavy shows a good first sign. On top of that, he surpassed 100 assists for the first time this season. That’s mostly due to a higher number of ball touches in his bigger role at Georgetown compared to what he had at TCU and Texas Tech. Regardless, Peavy makes the right reads consistently while becoming better at executing them. That’s an ideal spot when projected to play as a ball-mover and secondary creating wing for the NBA.
Peavy plays a simple passing game and prioritizes open teammates when he’s not looking to score. Despite his tunnel vision, there’s playmaking potential to prioritize for the NBA coaching staff. One of his primary traits is his defensive playmaking. He’s banking on his transition passing at over two steals per game. Despite the need to make quick decisions, Peavy shows a good combination of keeping his composure, prioritizing the late arrival in the middle in the first play below.
In the second possession, there’s a good decision not to pursue entry to the lane after coming off the pindown but to keep the ball moving instead. In the third play, Peavy uses his strength to create out of the post-up, where he’s using his eye manipulation by selling the off-ball defender the kick-out pass, where the cutter has already backdoored him through the middle. Great execution by Peavy. He’s finding angles so easily, with the fourth play showing another good decision in transition to hit the weak-side scorer who had a wide-open lane available. Peavy fits into a ball-mover’s role immediately when entering the NBA.
Like this scouting report? Subscribe to Ersin’s NBA Draft Newsletter for regular updates on lesser-known prospects! It’s $6/month—less than a coffee—for detailed analyses and insights. Support the project and join now!
Defense
Pick-and-roll
Despite reliable defense away from the ball, Peavy’s stops in the pick-and-roll are underwhelming. He’s a below-average screen navigator and constantly gives up separation when fighting through ball screens. That’s partially due to the more physical Big East style of play. However, Peavy’s physical tools should have countered that much more. At times, it looked like teams hunted Peavy in pick-and-roll, knowing he’d give up separation to opposing ball handlers. The potential red flag in his profile was visible in how reactive he was. That’s not a good look for NBA teams trying to find pieces that can, at worst, sustain their franchise’s defensive rating.
In the first play below, Peavy didn’t slide his feet well as he was too busy coordinating where he had to dive between the screen and the ball handler. As a result, the ball handler rejected the screen and utilized the wide-open driving lane on the weak side after crossing Peavy over. In the second possession, Peavy got caught with another issue. He was too focused on the screen rather than keeping the ball handler in front of him. As a result, he ran right into the screen at the top of the key. The lack of toughness is a result of Peavy processing the game, as his awareness of locating incoming screens is not good enough.
Regardless, when he’s dodging screens, the physicality takes over, and that’s where Peavy adds value. His strength and tagging make a difference after he bumps the screen well in the third play below. Hereafter, he has the ball handler decently in front of him, where he can unbalance the eventual lay-in at the rim. But the lack of screen awareness makes his pick-and-roll defense not sustainable for the NBA. The drag screen in the fourth play is the easiest to dodge as Peavy has to recognize he has to drop a lot more when facing transition play rather than taking on the screen by going over so far away from the basket, especially with his lack of speed and burst.
Closeouts
As a closeout defender, Peavy suffers from a lack of composure. He’s so much more effective when he doesn’t rush any of his decisions. As a result, he’s more vulnerable to biting on the ball or pump-fakes while he’s always responding to jab steps, which gets him shaken out of balance much more easily. The feasible part for improvement is that he’s consistently closing out at 180 degrees, but often still gambles on allowing the ball handler to choose a position to attack instead of forcing the ball handler to beat him.
Plays like the first one below aren’t acceptable at the NBA level. Peavy rushes his closeout, and instead of pivoting early and betting on his length to contest a potential three, Peavy fully closes out on the corner option and fully takes the gamble on the shot. That’s asking a scorer to pump-fake him for complete clearance. The positive part is that he pivoted strongly when landing to elevate his burst and keep the scorer in front of him. But the main issue here is that Peavy should not have gambled on the corner option shooting.
The second play led to a good contest at the rim. But Peavy was easily taken away by a pass fake to the right. Hereafter, the ball handler attacked the wide-open weak side before meeting Peavy at the rim. The third play shows another gamble on the closeout, but a positive is how quick his second jump is. That’s a positive trait he’ll bring to the NBA. Regardless, the closeouts are underwhelming, and NBA decision-makers must add improving those to their developmental plan for him.
Catch-and-shoot
When evaluating Peavy’s defense against spot-up shooters, there was a combination of a non-consistent motor and a lack of effort at times. That’s worrying, considering the level of defender he is. NBA scouts don’t seek any fake hustle, but Peavy is in a tough position as he’s not replacing the lack of a hand in a face with something else. Let’s say he’s relocating or immediately forming a box out to grab a rebound, there’s important context to add. But that’s not always the case.
However, when looking at his stops, he’s often using good footwork as a base to contest shooters. In the first play below, Peavy does well to close out at 180 degrees as he’s keeping a level of distance to take away the corner shooter beating him off the dribble. That’s a good play on his part, especially considering the good habit of already moving in transition as he saw his corner side had two opponents for the box out. That’s the level of pace-chasing NBA teams appreciate, as fastbreak points boost a team’s offensive rating.
In the second possession, Peavy’s too close to the basket, as he had no chance of closing out on the kickout pass. The positioning was an issue, and his not closing any angles on the weak side bailed the dribble penetration ball handler out with the easy kick-out pass. Regardless, his following that play-up with no shot contest or defensive box out is an area of attention.
That’s a lack of effort NBA scouts don’t want to see. In the third play, Peavy is caught overhelping on the elbow. That made it easy for the ball handler to immediately execute the side pass, as Peavy yet again bailed him out. The positioning issues aren’t feasible to sustain a team’s defensive rating when considering the level of motion and ball movement that NBA teams have compared to college basketball. Therefore, closing out remains an issue NBA scouts must address in their evaluation.
Cuts and defense away from the ball
While making the right reads, Peavy often struggles to deal with ball-watching and shows a lack of effort. That’s inexcusable. Unfortunately, a good defender like him doesn’t show a consistent motor. The lack of consistency in his level of toughness won’t do him good when evaluated by NBA scouts. In the first play, Peavy does well to try and poke the ball away as a help-side defender. However, he was caught watching the outcome for too long before getting a backdoor cut by his assignment. That’s two points given away due to a lack of focus.
The second play is a good one. Peavy immediately relocates after seeing his opponent take advantage of the wide-open driving lane on the weak side. Peavy did well by closing any passing angles, aiming to block a kickout pass to the corner. However, due to a lack of movement around him, the cutter in the middle bailed the ball handler out. Regardless of the outcome, Peavy showed a good combination of awareness while executing his defensive read.
The third play shows a similar outcome, but a lack of effort in both the shot contest and the defensive box out to grab the rebound. That’s inexcusable. The same applies to the decently quick turnaround after the dropoff pass in the fourth play below, with no form of shot contest. Peavy has to compensate for the lack of effort shown during the season by doubling his efforts during team workouts. When taking away that part of the evaluation, Peavy is a good defender with enough role versatility to grow into a stabilizer for a team’s defensive rating. However, the motor is one of the concerns NBA scouts must address in their evaluation.
NBA Draft Projection
Based on the strengths and areas of development mentioned in this scouting report, I project Micah Peavy to be an undrafted free agent. However, that’s not taking away anything from his two-way potential as a stout defender with shooting and passing potential. His role fits what every team looks to add to their depth chart. The development shown during each year during his five-season collegiate career is another positive. I expect Peavy to convince teams during workouts, as the team context at Georgetown and the lack of winning in the Big East didn’t do that team much good.