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Kentucky Basketball: Is Brandon Boston’s NBA Draft stock in jeopardy?

By Karl Heiser

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - JANUARY 04: Brandon Boston, Jr. #3 of Sierra Canyon Trailblazers warms up before the game against the Minnehaha Academy Red Hawks at Target Center on January 04, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - JANUARY 04: Brandon Boston, Jr. #3 of Sierra Canyon Trailblazers warms up before the game against the Minnehaha Academy Red Hawks at Target Center on January 04, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images) /
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After a rough start to the season, is Kentucky freshman guard Brandon Boston Jr.’s NBA Draft stock in jeopardy?

Kentucky Basketball entered the 2020-21 season with the nation’s top-rated 2020 recruiting class via 247Sports. The Wildcats were largely expected to compete for their fourth SEC regular-season championship in six years and were given a top-10 preseason ranking by both the AP and Coaches Polls.

It was all downhill for the Wildcats after that. They are currently 2-6, with three losses coming by three points or fewer. Kentucky Basketball is 49th in KenPom and 144th in the NCAA NET Rankings. You would be lucky to find a Bracketology projection that has the Wildcats making the 2021 NCAA Tournament field.

Kentucky’s top-ranked recruiting class was headlined by Brandon Boston Jr., the No. 7 overall prospect in the 2020 ESPN 100. The 6’6″ Sierra Canyon product received offers from many other major programs, including Duke, UNC, and Kansas.

However, Boston has not performed well this season, contributing to Kentucky Basketball’s landslide of losses. While he is the team’s leading scorer at 13.6 points per game, his efficiency has been abysmally poor. He is shooting 36% from the field and 15% from three-point range. His True Shooting Percentage is .433, the lowest of any player projected as a 2021 first-rounder by Tankathon. His Box Plus-Minus is 2.2, the second-lowest of the same group.

Since a 20-point performance against Richmond on Nov. 29, Brandon Boston has one game with 15 points and zero games shooting 40% from the field. He has not hit a three-pointer in a game since going 2-for-8 from deep against Notre Dame on Dec. 12.

As the go-to player on the Kentucky roster, some of Boston’s inefficiency may stem from the larger load he is asked to bear on offense. Similar conclusions were reached about the 2020 NBA Draft’s first overall pick, Anthony Edwards. However, Edwards had a higher usage rate and much better shooting numbers than Boston does.

Any negative bump from usage rate fails to explain why Boston is last on his own team in Effective Field Goal Percentage and True Shooting Percentage, sixth in Win Shares Per 40 Minutes, and fifth in Box Plus-Minus. High usage or otherwise, he hasn’t played well.

Boston hasn’t been completely terrible. He’s proven to be a capable rebounder at the guard position, averaging 6.7 per contest. He also turns the ball over at a lower rate than anyone else on his team. If he can break out of this awful shooting slump, we could see his draft stock start to rise again. However, as things currently stand, Boston is not playing like a first-round draft pick.

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Brandon Boston and Kentucky Basketball have their next chance to right the ship on January 5 when they host Vanderbilt.

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