NBA Comparison: Goran Dragic

Strengths: There’s a lot to like about this shifty lead guard with great size. Proctor passes the eye test as a guy who can excel in the modern NBA … Precision passer … Has some similarities to recent high draft picks such as Anthony Black and Jalen Hood-Schifino (though Proctor is slightly smaller than both) in the big point guard mold … Has a lot of creativity and a bit of flash to his passing … Loves to throw the lob pass… Great court vision. Advanced feel and real time analysis of the game … Proctor does not blow you away with his athleticism, though his athletic ability is quite good … Has a slight frame but has some wiry strength … Should be “strong enough” at the NBA level … Has offensive maturity and patience … Understands how to put the defender “in jail”, gets a half-step in front and then “boxes him out” on offense the rest of the play. From here he likes to take it all the way to the hoop or throw a lob … A disproportionate amount of his highlights from his freshman season at Duke were lobs to Dereck Lively …. Describes himself as a passer first, and this shows in his game … Has decent, but not very good, touch around the hoop … Surprising strength and control given his slight frame … Future “chess master’. Seems to have the ball on a string and be a sort of puppeteer type, reading the defense, a step ahead, and controlling the game around him and picking his spots carefully on the floor … His assist to turnover ratio at Duke was a fairly impressive 2 to 1 … Was an 87% free throw shooter in his freshman season at Duke … Has good potential on defense given his length, foot speed, and control … Rarely throws down highlight dunks but has a decent layup package and touch around the hoop … Decent rebounder at the guard position, again, aided by his size …

Weaknesses: Proctor shot a terrible field-goal percentage 38% his freshman season at Duke, and only 32% from three point range … There’s no other way to say it, he will need to improve considerably. There is a glimmer of hope here noting his 87% free throws, this can translate to soft touch shooting elsewhere … Overall, his shot mechanics look decent but could use a bit of work … Along with improving accuracy, he could stand to speed up his outside shot release. He holds the ball in place a bit longer than ideal before releasing … Proctor is not yet known to have a stand out defensive impact, both looking at the advanced stats and noting his reputation. But he has solid potential here given his length … Does the “pass first” style go too far? Will he take pride in his ability to put points up himself and become an assertive scorer? The modern NBA loves guards who can get their own 15-20 points or more … Those who know Proctor from his pre-college days will tell you about his natural scoring ability. However there are questions about whether his scoring in his pre-Duke days was accentuated due to playing against lesser competition …

Overall:  Has alluded to studying Chris Paul and Steve mash in past interviews. It’s hard to miss noticing Jason Kidd influences as well, especially due to his size and athleticism … The key for Proctor will be how far he’s able to bring his scoring along. By the eye test, and considering his physical tools and his smarts, he may figure out to pull it all together, just yet. He is an excellent, creative, and careful floor general who has a long ways to go before he can be a dangerous scoring threat himself in college, let alone at the NBA level. On the downside, you can see some overlap with fellow Canadian Dante Exum who, due to lack of development and unfortunate injury luck had an underwhelming NBA career … Exum was a tremendous prospect, and it’s fair to say that injuries derailed his career more than other factors … But lack of ability to develop his shooting and overall scoring ability greatly limited his upside, despite having great tools in all other facets of the game …  As a 6’5″ guard you need to be able to put the ball in the bucket …

Notes: Originally from Sydney, Australia … Named to ACC All-Freshman Team after playing in all 36 games as a freshman for Duke. A five-star guard who was originally committed to Duke for the 2023 class before reclassifying to play for the Blue Devils for the 2022-23 season… Attended the NBA Global Academy branch in Canberra, Australia… Also played soccer in high school… Son of Roderick Proctor, who played basketball at Mississippi College.

Drew Wolin 8/3/23