NBA Draft Analysis: Jarace Walker

Contextualizing whether Houston's power wing addresses the glaring needs of the Pacers at the four position 

By Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

With team workouts in full swing, it's officially draft season, which means the time has come to bring back Stock Up, Stock Down as a general format for analyzing and assessing various prospects. For those who may be unfamiliar with this series, the idea is for me to cram study a player and then breakdown my findings, identifying reasons to be both bearish and bullish, with frame of reference from a few specific games as well as for the Pacers. 

For this profile, Houston's Jarace Walker stars as the subject, with the following games being selected as a representation of various forms of defense, along with both ends of the spectrum as to his production. 

• Virginia: 17 PTS, 6-11 FG, 2-3 3PT, 7 REB, 4 AST, 1 BLK, 1 STL
• Cincinnati: 25 PTS, 10-14 FG, 2-4 3PT, 7 REB, 2 AST, 2 BLK
• Memphis: 4 PTS, 2-6 FG, 0-2 3PT, 8 REB, 3 AST, 1 BLK, 2 STL
• Miami (FL): 16 PTS, 4-16 FG, 2-6 3PT, 9 REB, 5 AST, 4 BLK, 1 STL

Without any further ado, let's deep dive. 

Stock Up: Defensive Impact

Jarace Walker, a mountain of a man whose sturdy, chiseled frame could easily be mistaken for a statue made of marble, boasts a 7-foot-2 wingspan. Here's the full list of players who can say the same from the Pacers last season:

• Jalen Smith, 7-foot-2
• Isaiah Jackson, 7-foot-2
• Myles Turner, 7-foot-4

That's it. That's the list. And, here's the thing: All three of those players ended up logging the majority of their minutes at center -- including Smith, who started the year masquerading as the team's starting power forward before ultimately revealing himself to be a back-up five. If the Pacers draft Walker, they presumably would be doing so with full confidence in his ability to be a power wing, alleviating some of the team's very literal "short" comings without incurring much risk with regard to added bulk. At least on the defensive end of the floor, where the Pacers have the most holes to patch, perhaps matching the size, shape, and quickness of Walker.

For example, think back to what happened against the Clippers on New Year's Eve. With Paul George racking up 27 points by the end of the third quarter, the Pacers dialed up the pressure, going as far as half-court to force the ball out of the slinky scorer's hands. Of course, half-court trapping was only half the battle. From there, with Myles Turner showing hard and then peeling off to the perimeter at the same time as Bennedict Mathurin switched onto the screener, the rest of the team had to adjust while attempting to protect the rim without a rim protector.

Granted, part of the problem on that possession stems from the fact that Haliburton ended up recovering to a ghost in the corner because he didn't keep his head on a swivel as the action developed, but there also was just a certain degree of squishiness inherent to their ability to guard on the back-side of traps.

This, for example, is basically the equivalent of getting overwhelmed by a tidal wave.

Again, it's probably valid to ask why Haliburton is helping from the single-side of the floor, which leads to some hesitancy on his part. But, even if Mathurin had slid over from the full-side, where Nembhard would still be available to zone up against the two shooters, the Pacers still don't exactly have the length to keep the crashing tide of the roll-man at bay, aside from *maybe* taking a charge. In that regard, while it may seem like nothing more than basic defensive fundamentals, that's where Walker, as a 6-foot-8, 240-pound chunk of muscle, has potential to calm the waters.

When defending from the corners, he's adept at playing the cat-and-mouse game between tagging the roll-man and reading kick-outs. At times, even managing to do both on the same possession, springing out from the block to steal a skip pass after making contact in the paint. Here, in weaponizing his wingspan, what appears like an open shot soon turns into a block, as he closes in a hurry despite bluffing to buy time for the screener's man to recover.

Meanwhile, that same ability to teleport along the baseline with the benefit of added reach also comes in handy with the feel he has for providing smart help over the top of post mismatches.

For the most part, those types of plays, wherein he showcases both his ground coverage as well as his deterrence as a weak-side help defender, weren't replicable by anyone who logged significant minutes at the four-spot last season for the Pacers. To be fair, there might be a latent case for Isaiah Jackson, seeing as how he only played 13 minutes next to Myles Turner in Year 2, but he isn't as principled with his event creation as Walker, who shows more restraint with regard to hunting home-run outcomes. Plus, Jackson probably isn't a strong candidate to do all of these things in a single game, let alone in a span of only 20 seconds.  Maybe more than any other sequence, this is arguably the most idyllic view of what Walker would bring to the Pacers, as he can be seen blocking a pull-up attempt through help to create a fast-break opportunity, in which he fans out to the three-point line and pump fakes to make an extra pass before ultimately converting a tip layup.

For a Pacers team that finished fourth in transition frequency, Walker won't lag behind and might even provide an extra jolt of energy as far as manufacturing more opportunities to run off misses in addition to makes. That said, although he moves his feet well when hedging on ball-screens and sliding in-and-out from the three-point line, there might be some reason for pause in projecting him to switch out against quicker guards. Tellingly, there were some possessions where Houston pre-switched him out of actions that would potentially result in him defending on-ball.

That was also a tactic the Pacers deployed last season with their bigs, which poses an intriguing question as to what the vision would be on that end of the floor with a Walker-Turner frontcourt. Here, for instance, in order to keep Turner low and around the basket, Buddy Hield can be seen pre-switching on the screen approach from Evan Mobley, with the intention being to switch the subsequent ball screen action.

Of course, Donovan Mitchell ended up slicing through the coverage with similar ease to that of a knife sliding through softened butter; however, the point remains, that it was oftentimes the preference of the Pacers to switch at the four position with Turner operating as a back-stop. Remember, after Mathurin struggled with his screen navigation at the point of attack during the first half against Toronto, the Pacers made the adjustment in the fourth quarter to defend Jakob Poeltl with Aaron Nesmith so they could switch ball screens, with Turner scramming out mismatches.

As such, while playing small with four-guard lineups was certainly some of the motivation for why Turner was more often assigned to low usage wings than by comparison to seasons past, there were also instances where what was lacking from the on-ball defender's side of the bargain made the strategy of roaming with passive size more appealing than playing drop coverage. Ideally, if neither Turner nor Walker is going to be switchable 1 through 5, then the former would revert to his prior role swallowing up pick-and-rolls, as a five defending fives, with the latter tapping into his off-ball instincts and high-motor to operate as the low-man.

Nevertheless, just because switching out against quicker guards may not be viable , in every circumstance doesn't mean switching is completely off the table or that Walker is unable to defend on-ball. After all, he has shown he can spar with wings, such as Miami's Jordan Miller, while defending in space and relying on his feet instead of his hands.

To that point, if he can stay in front of the ball against bigger wings (gasp! what a novelty!), those aforementioned traps where the Pacers were undersized on the back-side may not be as necessary. Additionally, depending upon who else is in the starting lineup and how the other defensive match-ups shake out, they also might improve organically somewhat on the glass --  just by virtue of the fact that they wouldn't be sacrificing an extra defender to send two to the ball as often.

Overall, Walker isn't a finished product on that end of the floor. Even within this potential role as a portable free safety, he would need to clean up his occasionally choppy footwork on closeouts to prioritize running opponents off the line without picking up fouls. That said, from his keen sense for sending timely help to his lateral size and ability to hang on-ball, it's tough to imagine a scenario where his defensive impact, reinforced by his ability to spread his lengthy wings, wouldn't make an impact on a roster that has largely been devoid of wings who are wing-sized. Or, maybe, with the ability to play even larger.

Stock Down: Cross-matching

Don't watch the ball on this possession. Instead, look at the random wing exchange on the weak-side, with Walker relocating to the corner, and consider what is implied by that tiny detail. When the ball-handler drives middle off the screen out of two-man game, Virginia's pack-line defense is schemed to plug the gap. This means the offensive player stationed above the break at the wing needs to be able to take advantage of nail help as a shooter. On the one hand, Walker makes a smart, heads up play here to clear space. On the other hand, however, it's notable that the smart, heads up play involved removing himself from the situation in order to clear space.

For the season, Walker shot 37.8 percent on catch-and-shoot looks and 34.7 percent  from beyond the arc overall on 2.8 attempts per game. In this game, he knocked down two of his three tries, canning the in-flow shots that came to him when he is open. When he wasn't shooting, however, those makes didn't move the needle with regard to Virginia's coverage, which is why he could be seen moving his body.

And yet, even when he was one-pass away, standing in the ball-side corner, Virginia still stuck with their script of prioritizing the ball over sticking to him. 

If he continues to be used predominantly as a floor spacer, as he was with the Cougars, it seems reasonable to ask whether he might end up getting defended by fives, especially on a team with Myles Turner. Remember, that's what happened during the team's seven-game west coast road trip. Before Aaron Nesmith was inserted into the starting lineup against the Miami Heat on December 12, teams started disrupting the flow of the offense by hiding their center on Jalen Smith and sagging off. For example, although this may look like zone, this isn't actually zone. Ivica Zubac is just cluttering the paint, symbolizing the willingness of the Clippers to live with whatever damage they might incur from Smith in order to switch on ball screens involving Turner.  

Like Smith, Walker will be pressed to prove that he can give opposing teams more than they bargain for when they leave him open, because he doesn't so much attack the rim when he attacks the rim. Per Synergy, Walker attempted 50 runners in the half-court, compared to 53 shots at the rim. Meanwhile, he turned the ball over on 19.6 percent of his usage involving drives. For frame of reference, that turnover rate would rank as the worst among the players who logged minutes at the four or five last season for the Pacers while averaging at least one driving possession per game.

To be fair, with Marcus Sasser being the only player for the Cougars who shot above 35 percent from deep, the play context around Walker wasn't always conducive for playing with force. Here, for example, with the dunker's spot occupied and the next nearest defender collapsing on the drive, Walker stops and pops to avoid the crowd.

With the Pacers, he would be playing in what is typically a five-out scheme while being inserted into a roster that had six players shoot 35 percent or better from three. He'll have more elbow room to finagle around the basket. Still, even when not needed as a counter, a lot of his takes to the basket result in floaters or falling away, and some of the slick passes he makes on the move are dependent on his defender biting on a pump-fake out of spot-up opportunities.  

When deployed within actions, there might be some redundancy with Turner. On occasion, Houston set back-screens for Walker to slide to the block, just like the Pacers started doing for Turner last season. Of course, there's some separation in how they create separation. Whereas Turner faces-up deliberately and finishes with a step-through, Walker never gains advantage and then ends up getting stranded.

But, watch what happened next. After prematurely aborting his dribble, Walker keeps playing, slipping into space to deliver a shovel pass under the basket.

Walker didn't finish many plays as the screener for Houston last season, and he only attempted 13 shots after slipping the pick or rolling to the basket, but he's a savvy distributor out of the short-roll who can find back-side shooters without being robotic. 

Here, rather than just turning and making a predetermined read to the opposite corner, as some bigs will do in anticipation of help coming from the low-man, he recognizes that Virginia is sinking the high defender in from the two-player side to bother the pocket pass, so he forces the defense to commit and finds the open man. 

Walker doesn't always make the right read, but he makes quick reads. From popping out to three and fading to the corner to crashing behind the flare screen for a lob, just consider how fast he had to map the floor here in order to turn silver into gold.

It's that type of processing that will mesh within the flow-game the Pacers aim to play out of simple actions, while also lubricating the offense out of slipped picks when teams blitz or send traps at Haliburton. And yet, if Walker is unlocking more of his potential as the roll-man, it seems as though that might turn back the clock on some of what Turner accomplished this season -- especially in the event of cross-matching. When the Pacers played the Nuggets way back in November, Denver assigned Nikola Jokic to Jalen Smith. In order to force the two-time MVP to defend within the action, the Pacers countered by replacing Smith with Jackson. 

This was the effect. Before Jokic got himself into foul trouble, Turner shot 1-of-4 from the field in the first quarter, while attempting three of his shots as threes. 

In this case, Jackson's roll-gravity drew the tag on the back-side, leaving the corner naked; however, over the last two seasons, Turner has shot 32 percent from three when defended by forwards, compared to 40 percent when checked by centers. 

If Walker can improve as a spot-up shooter on higher volume, then there might be a reality where Turner continues to be a five defended by fives alongside a four who can add variability as to which frontcourt will roll or pop in double-screening actions. Turner, of course, shouldn't be the only, let alone main, concern for the Pacers in making the pick, but Walker's shots will need to fall -- not only to avoid the types of cross-matches that gummed up the works for the Pacers last season, but also in order for him to get rolling downhill (hopefully, with more space and verve to get to the rim), when he isn't the roll-man. 

Still, the Pacers posted a defensive rating of 117.9 when Tyrese Haliburton was on the floor last season, and they only got outscored by one point per 100 possessions during those minutes. That's the end of the floor in most need, and that's where Walker, independent of whether his physique matches the style of his offense, will find his way on the floor, helping here, there, and everywhere in a size and shape they lack with very little chance of lowering what has been a very low bar.