Immanuel Quickley has NBA scouts buzzing. Could another season at UK raise his stock?
From five-star recruit to starting point guard at Kentucky to an afterthought as a possible NBA Draft pick to arguably the Wildcats’ best player, Immanuel Quickley has run quite the gamut over the past two years.
His play over the past two months of this season — especially taking into account his underwhelming freshman year — has revitalized his NBA stock. Pro scouts are starting to buzz about UK’s sophomore guard, and there’s still plenty of room for Quickley to improve his standing.
He’ll soon be faced with a question that will shape his — and Kentucky’s — basketball future: enter the NBA Draft after two seasons in Lexington, or come back and try to raise his pro stock even more?
Coming off a career-high 26 points in UK’s win over Florida on Saturday — with 22 of those points coming in the second half — Quickley is the leading scorer for the No. 8-ranked Wildcats. He’s averaging 15.7 points per game, shooting 40.5 percent from three-point range, and making 91.5 percent of his free throws. He’s quickly emerging as an SEC player of the year candidate, and he’s been the Cats’ most consistent player over the past two months of the season.
ESPN NBA Draft analyst Jonathan Givony pointed to Kentucky’s victory over Louisville on Dec. 28 — when Quickley scored 18 points in 37 minutes off the bench — as the spark for this stellar season.
“Before that, he was very inconsistent,” he said. “And things have kind of clicked for him, and he’s a First Team All-SEC guy, if not a real candidate for SEC player of the year. He’s been amazing. He’s having an awesome year. And he’s been such a consistent guy for them with his shooting and his defense and his decision-making.
“It’s been really cool to see, because, again, this is another guy — (like Nick Richards) — that we’ve been watching for what seems like forever. It’s just a credit to him — how much better he’s gotten — and not sulking, not blaming anybody for the fact that he just wasn’t very good as a freshman, and turning into a very, very, very good college basketball player.”
Quickley’s NBA Draft stock
Despite Quickley’s recent run of success on the court — he’s scored in double figures in all 16 games since that victory over U of L; going for at least 20 points in seven of them — the UK sophomore remains absent from ESPN’s list of the Top 100 prospects for this year’s NBA Draft.
That could change soon.
“I think he’s starting to pique the interest of NBA guys,” Givony told the Herald-Leader. The draft analyst noted that he posted a video of Quickley highlights following UK’s victory over Louisiana State last week and immediately heard from some league decision-makers regarding the UK guard. That latest ESPN list of the Top 100 draft prospects for 2020 came out a day before Quickley scored 21 points in that win over LSU, and five days before he dropped 26 on Florida.
“Those flashes that he showed against LSU of being able to use hesitation moves and get guys off balance, and score in the lane, absorbing contact — I think that’s what he needs to do on a consistent basis,” Givony said. “So, if he can be that guy for the next four, six weeks, then yeah, he could very well work his way into this year’s draft.”
The concern among scouts is Quickley’s fit at the next level. At 6-3, 188 pounds and — relative to NBA standards — lacking tremendous athleticism, he’s not seen as an off-the-ball pro player.
Quickley signed with UK in the fall of 2017 as the presumed starting point guard, and he took over that role early in his freshman season. But his own uneven play and the presence of fellow five-star freshman Ashton Hagans — a late reclassification who signed with UK several months after Quickley’s commitment — pushed Quickley off the ball.
The arrival this season of five-star combo guard Tyrese Maxey has further limited Quickley’s opportunities to prove his point guard abilities. He’s thrived in his role on this Kentucky team, but those in a position to draft him would like to see more.
“For him, coming into Kentucky as a point guard — that’s the one thing we really haven’t seen yet: the playmaking ability, being able to create for others in the halfcourt, being a pick-and-roll guy and a one-on-one guy who can go get his own and find other people,” Givony said. “That’s going to be his role in the NBA, considering he’s 190 pounds. That build is probably not going to be a wing, like he plays more at Kentucky.”
UK’s point guard future
With Maxey and Hagans both expected to leave UK after this season — both are projected as NBA Draft picks — Givony said Quickley might look at the possibilities of next season’s roster and see an opening.
The only other point guard currently slated on that team is Devin Askew, a five-star recruit who reclassified from 2021 to get a head start on his college career. Askew, though talented, will be one of Calipari’s youngest freshmen ever at Kentucky — he doesn’t turn 18 years old until July — and expecting him to take over a team that’ll be projected as a Final Four contender is a tough ask.
“Askew is going to need time. He’s not this can’t-miss, one-and-done type guy,” said Givony, who has scouted the UK point guard recruit several times in the past.
While Quickley will probably continue to put up high-scoring games this season, Givony isn’t optimistic he’ll get many chances to show what he can do as far as creating for others in the halfcourt, and he said NBA teams would probably look at his low two-point percentage (41.1 percent) and question his athleticism and ability to finish closer to the basket — aspects of the game that will only prove to be more challenging at the next level.
If Quickley were to return to UK for a junior season, however, the results could be a major plus for him, Askew, and the Wildcats as a whole.
The construction of next season’s UK roster — as it looks now — would set up perfectly for Quickley to share point guard duties with Askew, another above-average shooter with good size and length who has previously stated that he’d be willing to play off the ball some in college.
That arrangement would allow Quickley to prove his abilities as a point guard — with super scorers like incoming freshmen Brandon Boston and Terrence Clarke flanking him — while also allowing Askew to progress without the added pressure of being the Cats’ only real option at the point.
“I think that would be huge for Askew to have another guy like that,” Givony said. “There are some things to like about him with his size and his feel for the game and his shooting ability, but it’s going to be a real transition for him. I don’t see him in that John Wall or even like Maxey role, where he just hits the ground running and he’s the guy from day one. I think there will be some ups and downs. And having someone like Quickley there to bring him along, I think would be huge. … It would be huge for Kentucky if they could get Quickley back.”
