Kevin McCullar Scouting Report
What can we make of an improved senior year?
Name: Kevin McCullar
Birth date: March 15, 2001
Height/Weight: 6’5 ¼/206
Wingspan/ standing reach: 6’9/8’7
Hand size: 9 ½
Position: Wing
Pre-Draft team: Kansas
Tools: Defense
Background: A member of Big 12 All-Defense and 2x member of All-Big 12. Dad played in the NFL. Fractured his tibia in high school. Missed the end of the 2024 season with a knee injury.
Season stats: 18.3 PPG 6 RPG 4.1 APG 1.5 SPG 0.4 BPG 2.5 TOPG on 45/33/80.5
Pros:
Great cutter
One of the top on-ball defenders in all of college basketball for the last few years
Sees the floor well and can make off-ball players better
Defensive captain who is always instructing teammates where to be; has upside as a top glue defender
Fights for rebounds hard and doesn’t let easy defensive rebounds happen
Has good hands on defense to force turnovers
Cons:
Shot, particularly at the top, is not pretty (has a hitch) and career shooting numbers for his career are subpar
Has an injury history
Doesn’t explode to the rim, especially off of one foot; gets poor lift on drives
Body language was poor in inefficient games
Swing Skills:
How will his jump shot translate with an improved 5th year senior season? Is the improvement real or is it because he is older than most of his competition?
Needs to prove he can hit contested 3s with volume
How does he respond to adversity on court? Iowa State game was rough where he got in his own head
Still needs to get stronger to help finish at the rim more
Will his mediocre touch at the rim limit him?
Summary:
Offensively, McCullar has steadily improved over the final 3 seasons at college, raising both his FG% and FT%, while 3P% fluctuated, topping out at 33%. If the shot is real, that will open up his entire game and create an ability for him to become a true two-way wing that thrives off-ball. Often starting plays in the corner at college, even as the focal point of Kansas’ offense, replicates what his likely NBA role will be as a frequent corner threat and fifth option. This will give him flexibility to either make teams pay for likely sagging off of his jumper, or zip behind defenders to get to the rim, where he is about an average finisher. While there are some concerns about his touch and slashing angles, this should scale up just fine with NBA spacing and a much more reduced role.
With a long release that starts to the left and eventually pauses and makes its way to a high release, McCullar has improved his shot from where it once was, but still has a long way to go in order to improve his hitch and overall shooting ability. A big strength in his shot is that his footwork is mostly sound, and he quickly plants his feet on jumpers; how he fixes the upper portion of the shot will be what determines his NBA success as a shooter, and almost entirely as an offensive player. 55.5% of McCullar’s free throws in college came in the last two seasons, when he shot a respectable 78.6% on free throws on 266 attempts. This indicates his strong touch, which goes hand-in-hand with his consistently deep follow-through on both free throws and jumpers.
Even when his jumper isn’t falling, McCullar’s ability to impact the game is obvious: he is an elite defender (although his defense declined with an increased offensive role/usage), he looks for teammates and he can run offense out of screens. In the NBA, he will have bigger P&R partners that will dive harder than Hunter Dickinson, and he thrives in transition to take advantage of numbers. In a fast-paced NBA, McCullar will be able to beat defenses in advantageous situations because of this, and he turns his strong defense into offense. As I tweeted, there are real examples of his archetype and late career shooting improvements being sustainable, such as Quincy Pondexter and Garrett Temple. If McCullar ends up being a league average shooter, or even a little below average, that would be enough to be able to stay on the court in key moments of tight games. Having once held the title of best defensive player in the best defensive conference, McCullar has the elite skill (defense) to get him on an NBA court and find a secondary skill to latch onto from night to night.
Projected draft range: 18-45
Expected role: Fifth option and off-ball wing with elite defense.
Unplayable if: Jumper doesn’t improve enough to stay on an NBA court offensively, and his touch at the rim/finishing doesn’t translate well.
Exceeds expectations if: Jump shot develops enough to command closeouts, and he quickly and easily adapts to an NBA role as a defense + off-ball wing that isn’t asked to do heavy lifting as a scorer
Videos:
Shot chart:
