Jaelen House Scouting Report

Despite being undersized, House finds ways to make an impact defensively

Rich Stayman

Mar 27, 2024

Name: Jaelen House

Birth date: May 2, 2001

Height/Weight: 5’11/168

Wingspan/ standing reach: 6’2.25/7’11

Hand size: 9.25

Position: PG

Pre-Draft team: New Mexico

Tools: Defense, motor, playmaking

Background: Son of former NBA’er Eddie House and nephew of Mike Bibby

Season Stats: 15.9 PPG 3.5 RPG 3.5 APG 2.3 SPG 0.2 BPG 1.8 TOPG on 37/33/88.5

Pros:

Good vision
Thrives in quick offense, especially as a passer
High motor
Long arms
Equally comfortable and quick with both hands as a ball-handler
Quick change of direction as a ball handler
Quick first step with NBA level burst
Finishes well through contact
Can’t take him out of the P&R because he will go for steals and read the P&R roll after being screened off the ball
Capable offensively in the P&R as both a scorer and passer, and can both direct offense through screens and after rejecting screens
Comfortable picking guys up for the entire 94 feet on D

Cons:

Awkwardly compact shooting release
Must reduce turnovers
Undersized
Strictly a below-the-rim finisher; sub 50% finisher at the rim
Needs to become more efficient as a mid range shooter
Has an awkward shooting motion that doesn’t always line him up on jumpers
Can put himself out of position defensively with his chaotic defensive style
Doesn’t play hard every single time, despite a good overall motor, and can coast into closeouts
Finds himself in foul trouble too often (3 FPG as a senior)

Swing Skills:

How will his jump shot translate?
Will he be able to make up for being undersized?
Can he survive as an on-ball defender? Unlikely to play same defensive role as free safety in the nba as he did in college
Is he a point guard?

Summary:

Jaelen House is a pesky guard with NBA DNA, being the son of former NBA champion Eddie House and nephew of Mike Bibby. Jaelen clearly grew up around the game, because his anticipation of the next play and overall feel for the game are outstanding.

The best ways to see House’s feel for the game are through his defensive playmaking and ability to force steals, as well as his passing. While his turnover rate is higher than what NBA teams may want, some of these turnovers come from trying advanced passes that miss the mark by just a hair. He still is a clever, creative passer that should be reliable in a more limited role.

Another element to Jaelen House’s offense that makes me and other scouts confident in his game translating up is how he uses screeners and navigates the pick & roll. House is dynamic in the pick & roll, using his quickness in a variety of ways. Beyond the strong first step out of a straight line pick & roll, House can split the P&R easily, as well as use screen rejects with great footwork out of the triple threat. These traits are what I envision elevating his game to easily translate offensively to the NBA.

While his playmaking numbers don’t pop, it is important to consider the jump that Donovan Dent as New Mexico’s primary playmaker in House’s senior year, which led to his assist drop. This can be seen as a clear overlap of skill due to both assists and turnovers dropping, which hurt his stock as a point guard. House still sees the floor well, but needs to continue improving his decision-making to become more consistent. Too often, House chooses himself instead of teammates, showing a sign of him not trusting his teammates to get him the ball back. In the NBA, with the amount of possessions per game and the speed of these possessions, House will need to adjust his point guard skills to survive in the NBA.

The worry for House’s offense is how real his jump shot can be. Normally, someone who shoots almost 90% from the line in his career at one school, like House has at New Mexico, is someone that can be a lock to be a successful shooter in the NBA. With House, his jump shot has never found that consistent success, and a large part of that is the need to rework his shot. He can lose his balance against hard closeouts with a jump shot that has a clear favoring of his right side to give his base strength. At the top of his shot, his elbow doesn’t go straight up from the hip, but rather he starts with his elbow severely out to the right. If he can improve the form to simply have his elbow poke out less and become a straight up and straight down release, that could be the key to unlocking his strong shooting touch by turning the indicator into a successful skill.

Defensively, Jaelen House forces turnovers and pressures ball-handlers and pass-receivers to go to uncomfortable spots to create havoc on the offense. As a free safety on the defensive end, House can bait ball-handlers into mistakes often. One of the questions about House’s game translating is about how loosely he plays off of inferior players; will this translate up when he has to play tight and cannot afford to leave many players open for more than a couple of seconds? Ideally, House comes in and is the sneaky, creative off-ball defender, but that has limitations in terms of risk/reward balance.

On-ball, House starts the possession by tracking his man by accurately seeing both man and ball, reading exactly when the play starts and what the goal is. Watching his defense against off-ball screen sets, those possessions capture the dichotomy of his defense: he can read the play, but can be prone to cuts after overcommitting to the first movement and his lack of strength is apparent when getting put through a screen, but his ability to read plays as they start with great reaction times show how his intelligence could translate well to the NBA. The big concern for House is the lack of size, since many of his shot contests are less impactful than the average contest because of his lack of size. On top of a lack of size, House has taken a rare negative turn in the foul department, being one of the top foul committers in the Mountain West as a senior. If House can combine his intelligent defense with less mistake-making, whether it be by gambling less or committing less fouls, his defensive upside will be fully unlocked in the NBA as a pesky defender that makes his teammates’ job easier on that end.

While he may struggle as an on-ball defender in stopping scoring, he makes ball-handlers and offenses as a whole think much harder than if an average defender was on-ball defensively. This poses a positive threat as a 10-15 minutes per game backup guard, especially if his shooting translates.

The dilemma with House comes down to how his archetype is not very valuable. Since 2011, only 4 players 6’2 and under with House’s standout advanced stats (steal percentage over 4, free throw percentage above 80 percent) have been drafted, and only three players (TJ McConnell, who was undrafted, Jose Alvarado, and Jevon Carter) have truly stuck in the league with one (Jacob Gilyard) with the verdict still out. With the league continuing to go bigger each year, House’s value diminishes unless he can grow into a great shooter and into a true point guard that becomes more pass-first to find the true balance of scoring and playmaking, while maintaining pesky defense. Look for House to get run in the G League in order to get a chance in the NBA.

Similar to: Jose Alvarado, Ashton Hagans

Projected draft range: 50-undrafted

Expected role: Pesky backup guard that makes his teammates better on both ends.

Unplayable if: Jump shot doesn’t translate and size limits his game scaling up.

Exceeds expectations if: Jump shot cleanly translates and his point guard skills blossom in the NBA.