{"id":78200,"date":"2024-05-24T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=78200"},"modified":"2024-05-23T19:24:41","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T23:24:41","slug":"tyler-smith-2024-nba-draft-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/24\/tyler-smith-2024-nba-draft-profile\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyler Smith 2024 NBA Draft Profile"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tyler Smith<\/a> is another NBA draft<\/a>\u00a0prospect representing the G-league Ignite program. Smith was arguably the most consistent prospect throughout the year and hopes to hear his name in the first round.<\/p>\n

Tyler Smith 2024 NBA Draft Profile<\/h2>\n

Early Career<\/h3>\n

Smith began in high school as a top 10 overall recruit<\/a> for the class of 2023. He then decided to sign his first professional contract with the Overtime Elite program based in Atlanta. For the 2022-2023 season, Smith averaged 15.7 points per game and shared the court with some other top NBA talent. He played alongside currently projected top-10 pick Rob Dillingham<\/a>, and Amen<\/a> and Ausar Thompson<\/a> (4th and 5th overall picks in the 2023 NBA draft) were in the league at the same time as well. For the 2023-2024 season and his final year before becoming draft eligible, Smith chose the G-league Ignite program alongside other NBA draft prospects<\/a>. While the program experienced a turbulent season leading to its permanent cancellation, Smith was considered a consistent presence. He averaged 13.7 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game.<\/p>\n

Strengths<\/h3>\n

Smith\u2019s greatest strengths are his perimeter shooting ability and physical profile. He stands at six-foot-ten with a seven-foot-one wingspan while still being a very fluid athlete for his size. Smith also shot 36.4 percent from beyond the arc with great volume at four attempts per game. These measurements combined with good perimeter shooting should give teams more confidence in Smith\u2019s lineup versatility. Athletically and offensively, he could possibly play the three through five positions consistently as he develops.<\/p>\n

Smith also showed good use of his length and athleticism as a rim-protector, specifically coming from weak-side help. He isn\u2019t the traditional physical presence in the paint, but he has good timing and length to disrupt interior shots.<\/p>\n

Weaknesses<\/h3>\n

Smith\u2019s major swing factor for NBA effectiveness will mostly come on the defensive side of the ball. He isn\u2019t physically imposing enough to guard bigger centers, but he hasn\u2019t flashed enough \u2018switchability\u2019 on the perimeter either. Currently, he doesn\u2019t move fast enough laterally or in his hips to consistently stick with the quicker perimeter players. Also playing into his defensive effectiveness, Smith was just an average rebounder at best when on the floor. He\u2019s a more perimeter-focused player, but to unlock his versatility value for NBA teams, he will need to become a more aggressive and productive rebounder.<\/p>\n

Lastly, Smith doesn\u2019t show much in the way of playmaking for others. While this isn\u2019t usually a huge talking point for big men, Smith\u2019s upside could take him to the perimeter. It would be nice to see better assists numbers than 1.3 even if he\u2019s playing the four or five positions. However, it\u2019s very possible the team that drafts Smith may not ask him to carry much of a playmaking load.<\/p>\n

NBA Comparison<\/h3>\n

A lefty forward at six-foot-ten, Smith moves like an NBA wing and has a smooth release on his shooting stroke. His game has shades of Jabari Smith<\/a> as a more perimeter-focused power forward with plus athleticism. He still needs to show better overall defense, specifically on the perimeter, to reach that ceiling however. If Smith proves the shooting stroke in pre-draft workouts, he could become one of the higher-upside power forwards in this NBA draft class.<\/p>\n

2024 NBA Draft Projection<\/h3>\n

Mid to Late First-Round Pick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tyler Smith is another NBA draft\u00a0prospect representing the G-league Ignite program. Smith was arguably the most consistent prospect throughout the year and hopes to hear his name in the first round. Tyler Smith 2024 NBA Draft Profile Early Career Smith began in high school as a top 10 overall recruit for the class of 2023. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4972,"featured_media":78662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[556,1608,62],"tags":[49040,1566,3116],"class_list":["post-78200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba-draft","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-2024-nba-draft","tag-draft-profile","tag-nba-draft-prospect"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4972"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}