Cody couldn’t dribble past GLeague guys where defense isn’t even played in the first place. Guys like Dort and Caruso would never be wasted being assigned to him. Those elite guys aren’t his issue, the worst of the worst defenders give him issues. His only attribute offensively is his length and long strides. He can get to the hoop in a small amount of steps, but his handle and overall athleticism are both poor. I’d go as far as to say his handle is awful for an NBA standard. He has the handle of a guy who should never dribble.
This guy was not a shooter in college. Any non shooter can improve, of course, but there are want any real indication he could shoot. His percentage was high, but at the rate he shot at that’s like a fart in the wind. His volume, mediocre FT shooting, and slow release would have told you he was likely to be a bad shooter. On top of that, Cody Williams was very much a do nothing player. He had extremely low peripheral stats in college. Didn’t rebound, didn’t get stocks, didn’t playmake. He has a very low motor. Really what he did was play next to really good college players and that allowed him to be in the background and score efficiently. His finishing at the rim was great in college, but he os the most frail guy in the league so his problems there could have also been anticipated.
A lot of this will get better as he gains weight. But he’s also 15 lbs away from being 15 lbs away. The guys who are 15-30 lbs heavier than him are the guys who still need to gain weight. I think his very obvious issue with his frailness distracted people from the fact that he had big concerns elsewhere in his game. They see one big issue that should reasonably get better….but what about the other stuff? It’s kind of the opposite with Collier. He had one bad flaw and it is kind of difficult to see him becoming a good shooter. But his actual game besides his shooting was really good where Cody’s game outside of him being frail was questionable on many areas.
Maybe this is too much to take from just a couple of cases, but I do think it’s a trap to focus too much on one thing when one thing is so apparent. I don’t know who the “major flaw” guys are this year, but I’m keeping Cody and Collier in mind and remembering to consider the whole case.