UNC Basketball: Breakdown of Coby White’s Summer League rookie debut

Highlights: P&R Playmaking, Transition Speed, Shot Creation

Coby White started things off strong, flashing his unmatched end-to-end speed when pushing the offense in transition immediately off of both makes and misses, his crafty handle when creating separation on his step-back, and his solid one-read playmaking ability in the pick-and-roll.

On the first possession of the game, White delivered a beautifully-placed lob pass to fellow rookie Daniel Gafford out of a flawless pick-and-roll set (perhaps a pseudo double-drag), a play that got the Vegas crowd on their feet and viewers likely excited for what could be a promising debut.

On the next possession, White gets switched onto the 6-foot-8 Nick Perkins, and smoothly walks into his notorious step-back from just inside the arc, making his first NBA shot attempt.

Pushing in transition, White sells the screen action by decelerating, only to burst quickly and drive headstrong to the rack, where he finds contact and earns a friendly whistle.

White pushes immediately off of the inbound, hitting the streaking Gafford with a soft bounce pass, leading to a foul.

In another transition scenario, White makes a simple heads-up play by delivering the hit-ahead pass to Adam Mokoka, who slashes to the rim before drawing a foul.

Albeit a one-read play, White is able to hit the rolling Jonathan Holmes over the top of the defense out of the double-drag pick-and-roll.

White rarely delivered skip passes while at UNC, be it in a pick-and-roll set or transition run-out, but made one such play late in the fourth quarter. He manipulates the defense with his eyes before firing a no-look dart to Justin Simon in the corner. Simon misses the triple, as does White off the offensive rebound tip-out, but it’s somewhat encouraging to see him make that play, even if it wasn’t necessarily a difficult one to make.

At times, his patience in the pick-and-roll was promising, driving into the teeth of the defense here before delivering a kick-out to the open shooter.

Notoriously shifty with his handle, White flashed his space creation in an isolation set against the Lakers’ Marcus Allen, using a righty hesitation, left behind-the-back dribble and deft step-through to drive into the paint before delivering a kick to the corner shooter at the very last second.

White showed off some of his scoring package throughout the game, admittedly in inconsistent and intermittent fashion, with his crafty handle, burst, and pull-up ability popping up on a few occasions.

In another screen action, White sells the pick on Zach Norvell with a righty hang dribble before bursting to his left into a right-left cross and snaking his way to the basket (against some lackluster Laker defense) for the layup. The defense wasn’t stingy whatsoever, but his manipulation of screen defense is encouraging for his potential as a pick-and-roll ball-handler in the future, especially considering how little UNC relied on such plays this past season.

White showed his typical flashes as a pull-up shooter, both in regards to his forward-leaning jumpers and patented step-back.

White didn’t necessarily show much in terms of creating space when moving forward on his pull-up attempts, instead using screens to create enough advantageous space between himself and the defenders, with Los Angeles playing drop coverage for most of the night.

He goes around a Gafford screen on two occasions, each time noticing that the dropped big man isn’t switching onto him before settling into a mid-range pull-up with forward momentum.

He drilled another iconic step-back jumper in mid-range in the fourth, using his momentum to get Jaron Johnson backpedaling before sharply planting his right foot and thrusting himself backward, creating plenty of separation and lift on his jumper, a sight that many Tar Heel fans saw throughout the past college basketball season.

And, although he missed the jumper here, the space creation was nothing short of special. Coby White uses a righty hang dribble to manipulate the defender and force him to bite, sending him spinning off of the pick, only to go left and jut back into a step-back three-pointer. That is some nasty ball-handling and screen offense, both aspects of his game that should hopefully be utilized alongside two highly-skilled bigs in Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr.

Finally, while his defense wasn’t a big factor tonight, he did show flashes of competent off-ball and on-ball awareness. Here, he slides his feet to stick with the driver, cuts off the drive, and intelligently switches to contest the pull-up shooter. The actions are subtle, but the IQ and awareness stood out, if even for just one possession.

Coby White was not an abject disaster last night, and the above analysis shows this.

But…