NBA Draft 2020: What Cole Anthony’s return did for his draft stock

Playmaking flashes

One of the most important things for Anthony’s NBA prospects—perhaps the most important thing—is just how much he improves as a playmaker over his time at North Carolina. Now obviously, missing a ton of playing time didn’t help for evaluating that skill and overall on the season he has 34 assists and 35 turnovers. But Anthony has been almost the sole focus of opposing defenses.

The combination of a weaker than expected supporting cast and natural score-first tendencies always had the potential to make Anthony appear to be a worse passer than he is. Against Boston College, Anthony did not do anything spectacular passing-wise but he made the right decision (one turnover) in terms of shooting or passing almost every time down the floor.

The Eagles tried to slow down Cole Anthony with constant traps and double teams to get the ball out of his hands with mixed success. What made the strategy so tough for Boston College to execute was just how willing Anthony was to give up the ball.

Even when facing a decent amount of pressure, Anthony was able to fire off this two-handed crosscourt pass on the money for an assist to Brandon Robinson:

Anthony finished the night with three assists and with the way Boston College was playing him, a 3:1 assist-to-turnover ratio isn’t bad at all. We saw Anthony make a nice feed to Armando Bacot in the pick-and-roll:

And overall he delivered he passes with decent velocity and in within the flow of the North Carolina offense. Wherever Anthony plays (at any level) he is going to be asked to take a lot of shots, so a low assist total isn’t an issue for him. You simply need to see that Anthony is processing things quickly and making smart decisions. We didn’t get to see much of the former but just enough of the latter against Boston College.