NBA Draft: The Impressive Offensive Statistical Profile of Isaiah Collier

Among the players who saw their stock fall throughout the 2024 NBA draft cycle, Isaiah Collier's name is atop that list. Although he picked back up steam towards the end of the college basketball season, he's still only projected to go in the late teens and early twenties in most mock drafts after coming into the season as the number one ranked RCSI recruit.

Despite that fact, Collier has one of the more impressive offensive statistical profiles in this class and is one of the few real creator bets in this class, along with Nikola Topic. The engine that powers his creation upside is his rim pressure.

According to Barttorvik, Collier attempted a ridiculous 49% of his field-goals at the rim at USC, and converted 61.7% of his 154 attempts. While he's a below-the-rim finisher at 6-foot-4 with a non-explosive vertical — he recorded zero dunks in the halfcourt — he displayed great touch shooting 59.6% on all layups, according to Synergy.

Something that may help offset his lack of above-the-rim finishing is his physicality that helped him get to the line very often, as Collier finished the season with an absurd 49.7 free throw rate. Getting to the free throw line is the most efficient play in basketball and very few in the 2024 draft do it better than Collier.

With his burst and pace that allow him to get to the rim and the touch and physicality he uses to finish, his rim pressure is bound to translate to the NBA. Collier knows how to leverage this rim pressure as a playmaker too. He finished with a 31.1 assist percentage and a 1.3 assist-turnover rate, both marks of a good decision maker.

The USC guard also flashed some counters in the midrange, decelerating, stopping, and popping for midrange jumpers on drives. He shot 39.4% on 33 midrange jumpers.

Isaiah Collier creates an absurd amount of space with his strength + deceleration. Compensates for his iffy outside shooting by getting him easy midrange looks, pairs well with his burst to the rim. Incredibly dynamic athlete pic.twitter.com/HiNCiyI7KE
— Matt Powers (@DraftPow) November 8, 2023

Freshman-aged guards who get to the rim on self-creation (73.7% of his rim attempts were unassisted) so often and are efficient there, while posting a high free throw rate, and possessing great passing skills all on a high usage are not common. The only high major freshman with 120+ rim attempts, 40+ free throw rate, and 25+ assist percentage that were drafted since 2008: Trae Young, Collin Sexton, Dennis Smith Jr., Ben Simmons, De'Aaron Fox, John Wall, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyler Ennis.

There are questions about Collier's jumpshot, as he shot 33.8% from three and and 67.3% from the line, and those questions are valid. But, in a weak class like 2024 where there's little star upside to be found, Collier should be valued much more.

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