Two Michigan Hoopers Could Leave School Early After This Season
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Michigan is just 13-10 overall this season and is not currently considered a tournament team, but two players have done enough to find themselves squarely on the radar of NBA scouts.
Freshman Jett Howard and sophomore Kobe Bufkin are both intriguing players because of their size, length and skill set for the positions they play. Sports Illustrated's in-house NBA expert and draft insider recently penned an article outlining why both Howard and Bufkin might be playing in the association next year.
After getting stuck in Texas for a couple of days due to icy weather, I got back to Chicago and caught Michigan against Northwestern on Thursday night, which was my initial viewing of this season’s Wolverines, headlined by Howard, a freshman who, yes, is the son of Michigan coach Juwan Howard. It wasn’t quite clear among scouts (even the optimistic ones) entering the season whether Howard was going to wind up as a one-and-done-caliber prospect. It didn’t take him long to answer that question, though: Michigan is 13–10 and isn’t a spectacular team by any means, but Howard has been quite impressive, including in a 34-point performance on Jan. 12 at Iowa in which he made seven threes and punctuated his case as a potential lottery candidate. He’s regarded as one of the best shooters in the draft.
Howard was just O.K. against Northwestern, scoring eight points and attempting just one shot inside the arc, but I didn’t walk away overly concerned: He’s been dealing with an ankle injury in recent weeks, and his profile as a big, sweet-shooting wing who is athletic enough to hold his own defensively is pretty easy to assess. Howard’s mechanics are compact and quick, his makes are always sweet and it seems like he’s been challenging himself to take tougher shots this season and showing some growth in the process. Coming from an NBA gene pool never hurts, and while he plays nothing like his father did, Howard looks like a clean fit for the modern league.
The question of how high Howard should be drafted is going to hang on how strongly teams buy him as having star upside, which I’d argue is present and lies in his potential to get hot shooting the ball and sustain it. That Iowa game was particularly enlightening as a result, as Howard proved he could take over a contest with the threat of his jumper and had to be accounted for no matter where he was on the floor. Those types of shooters are rare, and if Howard can be that type of menace to defenses every night, it’ll matter less whether he makes or misses and more that opponents won’t want to take that chance. Considering his positional size as a two-guard, the generally level-headed approach he’s shown in games, and the untapped upside as he gets more comfortable playing off the dribble, I think Howard has started to cross the threshold from shooting prospect to scoring prospect. If he can really maximize his gift as a shooter, those lines can get blurry in a good way.
On the flip side, Howard is not a very explosive athlete and doesn’t get great elevation around the basket. I don’t know that he’s ever going to live at the rim, but he will need to get more skillful and poised attacking defenses that over-rotate, because he’s probably going to command a lot of hard closeouts if all goes well. He’s also probably not going to be a defensive stopper, but he’s big and attentive enough to hold his own on that end. Howard isn’t a bad athlete, and I don’t think those areas will make or break him, but for better or worse, what he’ll become in the NBA will depend on his shot-making skills. I think there’s enough there that it’s worth getting excited about, and it wouldn’t totally shock me if the shooting profile vaults him closer to pick No. 10 than pick No. 20 in the end.
And on Bufkin:
Lastly, keep a close eye on the Michigan sophomore guard, who is freshman-aged and appears to be turning a bit of a corner in conference play. Scouts were a bit skeptical after a very iffy freshman season in which Bufkin played sparingly, but he’s clearly earned minutes and Juwan Howard’s trust, playing a high-energy, competitive style that shone last week against Northwestern. Bufkin had 15 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists, two steals and a block and was clearly the best player on the floor, pouring in effort defensively and showing a real nose for making big and small plays. This is light-years from where he was a year ago, and while there will be some questions as to whether he can play point guard full time and whether he’ll shoot well (he’s at only 30% on the year from three), I do think there’s some credence to what Bufkin is doing and value in what he can be moving forward. If he stays on this type of track, I think he’s draftable, and it wouldn’t shock me if he gathers some momentum with teams going into the spring.
