From second round pick to newcomer king! Wells counterattack!

The 2024 draft was regarded as a junior year of the draft by many scout experts. The overall rookie talent level is relatively dull and there is a lack of super potential newcomers who can become the core of the team building.

In such a small year, many teams will choose to trade their picks to strengthen their combat effectiveness, but some teams insist on seizing this annual opportunity and carefully selecting green leaf players who can contribute to the team. With this choice, the team's ability to develop, talent vision, and even luck have become a key link.

In other words, the talent gap between the players in this draft is not big, and those late-ranked rookies who use instant combat power as the selling point are also easily attracted attention earlier than lottery rookies because of their tactical positioning. But even so, few people should have expected that a second-round pick can once be at the top of the best rookie rankings.

This unexpectedly rising dark horse newcomer is Jaylen Wells from the Grizzlies.

"I took my brother as a role model, he was an excellent shooter, and he fought one-on-one against him every day, which benefited me a lot."

For Wells, the brothers and sisters were the enlighteners of his contact sports. His parents asked him to try a variety of sports since he was a child, but basketball has always been his most passionate sport. And this love was influenced by the big brother who played in college.

However, compared with the big brother who is 203 in height and good at shooting, Wells was only 173 in high school. Not only is he shorter than his big brother, he has no height advantage even in point guards. Therefore, in his first year of high school, he was only at the end of the team's rotation and rarely had any chance to play.

From the first to the second year of high school, Wells was only able to play in sporadic games. It was not until the senior year that he gradually gained the trust of the coach and became a fixed rotation of the team. In the senior year of high school, he finally became the main core of the team.

Wells's transformation to such a late-achieving end, in addition to hard work, his rapid growth of height also played a key role. In his first year of high school, he grew 172 to 180 to 180 in his second year, and in his third year, he even reached 188. Until he graduated from his senior year, Wells' height had reached 197. The height increase has caused Wells to adjust his position, but he has always been able to put the team first. In his senior year of high school, he chose to start from the bench lineup and serve as the team's sixth man. This not only requires adapting to the change in playing style brought by height, but also continuing to play the role of point guard according to the team's needs. But even so, Wells' success depends more than just on height. He had already experienced a qualitative change before his senior season. In the end, he averaged 26.3 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.2 assists in his senior year, and gradually became the core of the team.

Although he performed well in his senior year, Wells did not receive any scholarships from NCAA Level 1 universities because of the late outbreak. His basketball career can only start with Sonoma State University in the NCAA Division II. Judging from the results of the incident, this choice is undoubtedly a win-win choice for Wells and Sonoma University.

Due to the epidemic, the NCAA was suspended, and many college players have obtained an additional year of game qualification. Although this allows some players to perform best in another year, it has also indirectly led to a reduction in scholarship quotas, and the list of players in many schools has also been saturated due to the epidemic.

This situation is very unfavorable for players like Wells who only entered the field of scouting in the later stage, because many excellent players have already determined their whereabouts in their senior year. But joining Sonoma University in the second division is not a bad thing for Wells.

Although he shined in his senior year, due to his rapid height, his personal skills and team positioning must be readjusted. Schools who choose the second-tier league have received a lot of ball rights opportunities and are also regarded as key targets by the team, which has played a key role in promoting his subsequent career development.

After joining Sonoma State, Wells quickly became the main force in the team's offense. He averaged 12.6 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in his freshman season. Although it was already an important scoring point for the team, Wells was not satisfied with his three-point performance and his three-point shooting percentage was only 26%. He then began to train hard, and his sophomore season saw a comprehensive increase in his data, with averaging 22.4 points and 8.7 rebounds, his shooting percentage also increased to 52%, his three-point shooting percentage soared to 44%, and his free throw percentage was 86%.

After a 30-point game, Wells gradually began to know what he had next.

After showing amazing performance in her sophomore season, Wells was invited by Washington State University and finally had the opportunity to challenge the NCAA Division I. However, the increase in the intensity of the game once again made it difficult for him to adapt for a while, and his teammates were even better, so it was difficult for him to get enough ball rights and playing time like he did in the second division. In the opening game, Wells played for only two minutes, and in the second game, he only had four minutes, and then he soon missed the game due to injury. But Wells was not frustrated, but instead spent more time on the training ground, increasing physical confrontation, spending more time practicing shooting and polishing shooting skills.

The dedicated attitude began to make the coach notice him and also began to try to give him playing time. Wells also responded to the coach's trust smoothly, scoring a stable performance of 12.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and a three-point shooting percentage of 41.7%, successfully helping the team to enter the NCAA Top 64, and he also began to enter the NBA scouting field.

"About a week of training, I told others that I think he can be a professional player."

This is the affirmation of the young player by Washington State coach Kyle Smith in an interview.

However, even though he showed excellent outside ability and won praise from coaches with his professional attitude, if he looked at it from NBA standards, he still had a long way to enter the first round of the draft..

In terms of static talent, Wells' height is not a disadvantage for the wing players, but his dynamic talent is relatively mediocre. Due to insufficient explosive power, it is difficult for him to gain an advantage when facing more specific opponents. Even if he has the potential of 3D players, the overall upper limit is still not favored.

In addition, Wells' multi-position attributes make him look extremely diverse. In addition to his advantageous shooting, he also has certain passing ability, defensive concepts, and basic skills of holding and off-ball. But "everything is clear and everything is loose" is precisely his fatal injury. Many people question his stability in higher-level events. Considering his age as a 21-year-old rookie, there is not much time to adjust in the future, and the style of playing also makes it difficult for him to break through the upper limit.

Although it is a bit difficult to squeeze into the first round, Wells still has a great chance in the second round. If you can prove that you are stable in higher-intensity events and rely on the current spatial style of the game, the shooter role will be a pretty good opportunity for him.

From the perspective of imminent combat power, Wells has the opportunity to become the kind of bench puzzle with low ceilings but can provide stable contributions in the rotation lineup. In the Little Year when talent in the draft is generally insufficient, Wells is still worth a gamble. In the end, the Grizzlies decided to bet and recruited them in the ninth pick in the second round.

being selected by the Grizzlies is both a good thing for Wells, but also a bad thing.

The good side is that the Grizzlies were suffering from injuries in the 2023-24 season. Although their record was not good, under the development of the system, the team still developed an instant combat power such as GG-Jackson in their second round picks. Then they signed Pippen with a two-way contract, and successfully turned into a formal contract after playing an all-round performance.

From these examples, the Grizzlies do have a unique cultivation route in cultivating some puzzle players with slightly insufficient physical fitness and ball skills, which may be a good start for Wells' future development.

But at the same time, there is also an unfavorable side. The Grizzlies have extremely rich wing depth and the competition is extremely fierce. In addition to GG Jackson, there are also main players in the team, Bain, Kennard, Vince Williams, John Conchar, Laravia, etc. There are a total of seven players competing for playing time in both positions.

As a second round pick, Wells has no guaranteed contracts and is not in the team's main rotation. If he performs poorly, it is not ruled out that he will be cut before the season starts.

Even though it was not safe, Wells still played a brilliant moment in the summer league, scoring 27 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 steal in a game, and even made a final shot at the last moment. He played six games throughout the summer league, averaging 13.2 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1 assist, successfully allowing the Grizzlies to sign a guarantee contract with him.

Then at the start of the regular season, Wells seized the opportunity of many of the team being away due to injuries to win playing time. Although the shooting percentage of the first three games was not good, the offensive feel of the fourth and fifth games gradually recovered, and head coach Jenkins gradually began to put him in the starting position.

Such trust also greatly increased Wells' confidence. With enough playing time, he once topped the Best Rookie List. Although he was later overtaken by Kneckett, McCain and others, Wells was able to firmly rank in the top five on the list, and his stability and potential were constantly being shown.

In addition to the best rookie prediction, Wells' DWS value (defensive victory contribution) is also outstanding. Before exiting the game, he ranked in the top five levels of all rookies, which is enough to show that he is at least in the same class on the defensive end. Although the Grizzlies' joint defense system has provided some help to Wells, this is definitely a rare result for a second-round pick that was not favored at the time.

Looking back at this season, before the season is reimbursed due to injury, Wells has basically established himself in the Grizzlies' rotation position, but from a long-term development perspective, the young forward still has some problems.

First, his physical condition is destined to be too high in the future; secondly, although he has certain ability to hold the ball, he is essentially a shooter player, and his ball-holding skills need to be further improved. Once he is oppressed by the defender on the outside, the problem of single offensive means is easily exposed.

Another point is that although Wells served as the team's point guard in high school, by point guard standards, Wells' passing creativity is still slightly insufficient. He has limited reading ability for defensive positions and lacks creativity in transmission and connection. This part needs to be guided by the team's tactical system to help him make correct judgments and choices at a specific point in time, and gradually improve as the game experience accumulates.

Although this goal is still a bit far away, what is certain is that as long as we can maintain health, Wells has relied on defense to establish a rotation position in the team, and has continued to improve with a positive attitude, and will still get many opportunities in the future. Even if we cannot become the core ace of the team, as a stable role player, Wells' career prospects are still worth looking forward to.