FILM STUDY: What could Boogie Fland bring to Indiana?
Boogie Fland is a five-star point guard and top-15 player in the class of 2024, and on Monday he announced his final eight schools for his college decision. Indiana and Mike Woodson made the cut for the star guard out of White Plains, N.Y., and are one of only three schools he's visited so far, according to 247 Sports.
Indiana is yet to sign anyone in the class of 2024, but is in hot pursuit for Fland, so here's a look at everything the five-star guard could bring to the court if he commits to Woodson and the Hoosiers:
Strengths
Playmaking and Passing
It should come as no surprise that a point guard as highly touted as Fland is more than capable of running pick and rolls and creating for his teammates out of them.
Fland has a kick to his step and can leave point of attack defenders in the dust attacking to his right or left. Once he's beaten his defender and reached the paint, Fland is a more than willing passer who does a great job spraying it out to teammates for open threes or closeouts they can attack with a drive.
Boogie Fland is the player making the pass right before each shot attempt in each the tweet below.
Fland doesn't overcomplicate his job as a point guard. He's not looking to make no-look dimes and throw fancy passes more than he is trying to string the defense out and draw an extra help defender, before throwing the ball to the teammate that help defender left.
He likes to use a quick change of direction to generate separation from his first defender, then drives with a north-south nature that results in a lot of paint touches and kickout passes.
Fland also keeps it nice and simple on pick and rolls, hitting his screener immediately on the short roll whenever he draws two defenders coming off the pick.
Those passes look incredibly basic on first glance, but it's a practical and efficient way to operate as a ball handler.
If you're enough of a threat as a driver and off the dribble shooter that defenses send both defenders at you, get off the ball early! Hit the big man in the short roll!
Those passes from Fland often led to good open looks for his teammates because his quick decision created an advantage for the offense. His willingness to pass early complements a skilled forward like Malik Reneau, allowing the big man to operate against a 4-on-3 in space.
Off Ball Movement
This is by far my favorite skill of Fland's, as it really displays what an intelligent basketball player he is.
I tweeted out a quick video where I talked through just how smart and cunning he is relocating off the ball on offense, and you can watch that right here.
Weaknesses
Finishing Through Contact
Fland comes in at a solid height for a point guard, standing 6-foot-3, but he's also rail thin, weighing only 165 pounds.
His lack of size and strength shows up in a myriad of ways on the court, perhaps no greater than in his struggles to finish through contact at the rim.
Watch in these clips here how just the slightest bump can throw him totally off course on his shot attempt, no matter how impressive he looked getting into it.
At-rim finishing is one of the most important sub-skills in all of basketball, and it's one Fland is going to have to improve at. Any chest-to-chest bump completely throws Fland off balance, causing him to adjust and alter his layups, and not in a way that seems planned or strategic.
Fland adding muscle is the most obvious fix to this issue, but another would be decelerating on his final steps before the layup. The best at-rim finishers in the NBA, most notably Luka Dončić, make a killing by slowing down their final steps and remaining on balance before releasing the basketball.
Fland would benefit greatly from not going 100 mph all the time on his forays to the rim, and instead learning how to put it at 50 on those last two steps.
Defensive Effort
Again, big surprise — the small high usage guard isn't the world's most admirable defender.
Fland can get bullied inside by any post threat that holds a significant weight advantage over him, and on shot contests he isn't the biggest deterrent in the world. A source with access to official USA basketball measurements had Fland's wingspan listed at just under 6-foot-6. That's still a plus wingspan, but it doesn't give Fland vines long enough to make up for the natural limitations that come with being a slender guard.
Now those plays you just saw were some terrible, terrible defense.
However, the good news is that this is probably just an effort question, especially when defending ball screens. Fland has loose hips and can easily dip and bend around ball screens when engaged, and the few times he was locked in, he displayed active and smart hands on defense.
Look at the difference here in late in a close game where Fland's team leads 58-57. Unlike earlier in the game where Fland stood by the screen with his hands at the side, hear he is anticipating the pass to the roller, and comes up with the clutch steal.
The Big Question
Is Boogie Fland a Good Shooter?
Fland's three-point shooting has been up-and-down the past few years. He made 63 of 203 three-point attempts during his last two EYBL circuits, good for 31.0% over the course of 35 games. However, he also made 108 of his 299 three-point attempts in his games for Archbishop Stepinac the past two seasons, which would put him at 36.1% from three as a high school, and at 34.1% from three when combining EYBL and high school play.
I'm inclined to believe Fland is a good shooter, mainly because his free throw numbers indicate good shooting touch. During his 22 EYBL games with PSA Cardinals in 2023, he shot 81.3% on 96 free throw attempts, and similarly during his high school games, he shot 80.3% on 203 attempts in his last two seasons.
Fland's jumper looks cleaner coming off the dribble than it does off the catch, where he takes a large dip into a two-motion jumper, and displays what is known as valgus collapse in his knees.
Valgus collapse refers to when one knee collapses in toward the other knee, instead of traveling in a straight line over the foot, according to Infinite Health Group.
In basketball terms, a player has a valgus collapse when they're shooting a jumper and you see their knees bending inward as they load up for the shot. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Kevin Durant is one of the greatest shooters of all-time and sports a pretty drastic valgus collapse himself.
There are listed medical reasons that I can't personally understand or explain as to why valgus collapse occurs, but it is not too uncommon thing to find in skinnier basketball players such as Fland.
It's not something to sound the alarm bell over unless Fland suffers a major injury in his lower body, as valgus collapse has been linked to ACL tears in the past. It's less of a sign that Fland needs to fix in his jumper than it is a sign that he needs to bulk up. He can't rest at the same weight as Trae Young while standing at least two inches taller.
Fland is a very talented basketball player, particularly on the offensive end of the floor where he excels at both creating openings for others, and filling in the gaps when others are creating. Most of his current limitations are driven by a need to add on a couple more pounds, and if he accomplishes that, we could be looking at an extremely successful college basketball player, either at IU, or somewhere else.
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