Is Mark Sears the Real Deal?
Mark Sears has had a phenomenal season for Alabama but still is rarely mentioned in the 2024 NBA Draft conversation. Let's fix that.
The conversation around small guards in the 2024 NBA Draft has been exhausting as it is flush with them throughout every range. Unfortunately, not all of them will make it, but there are promising signs for plenty of them. One of these prospects is Alabama’s senior point guard, Mark Sears.
When we look at NBA guards who at 6’2” or shorter in the league and have actually played meaningful minutes this season, there are a handful of similarities across the board. There are always outliers, but for the most part, these small guards are tremendous shooters, very strong, intelligent passers, or some combination of those. While there are good defenders amongst that group, very few of them are relied on as exclusively defensive stoppers. At that size, defense is already hard enough, so prospects have to bring so much more to the table than just their defense. Being strong, physical, and able to hold your own helps tremendously, but the primary path to minutes for small guards is their offensive output.
Before we dive into Sears’s offensive prowess, we have to talk quickly about his defense. By no means is Sears a good defender, but that isn’t to say there aren’t redeeming aspects. The first is that Sears has a really good work rate on defense. There are some technical and awareness issues, but you never really come away worried about his effort. Second, Sears is really strong and has bouts of excellent footwork. These strengths shine the most when he’s defending on ball, primarily in isolation. Sears is capable of staying in front of ball handlers and using his strength to disrupt them. His footwork isn’t always pristine, and he comes out of his stance which makes him a bit unbalanced, but there’s enough there to improve on. Third, Sears has phenomenal hands both on and off ball, which helped him earn a solid steal rate of 2.7. Finally, Sears is already used to executing a myriad of switches to stay as the low man and hide within a system. When he’s asked to do this in the NBA, it shouldn’t be an uncommon practice.
Unfortunately, there are also plenty of holes in Sears’s defense. The most glaring part is his screen navigation. When Sears is faced with a screen, he either goes way over the top, essentially taking himself out of the play, or runs directly into it, highlighted when he just decided to truck stick Elliot Cadeau in their tournament matchup. Even though Sears’s isolation defense is typically good enough, once a screen enters the equation his effectiveness plummets. Additionally, Sears is incredibly erratic away from the ball. He will impromptu switch, really struggle to chase guys through screens, ball watch, and randomly roam doing his own thing.
Thankfully, Sears is strong enough that he can mask some of these defensive inefficiencies, and more importantly, he’s an offensive supernova which is all that really tends to matter with small guard’s translation to the NBA. This season, Sears averaged 21.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 4.1 assists with shooting splits of 50/43/86. Sears also ranked in the 96th percentile in overall points per possession (PPP), per Synergy. Sears is exclusively a point guard, but we now have multiple years of him proving to be an effective off-ball player as well. Sears’s ability to score off ball, get to the rim, run the pick-and-roll, and create for others makes him incredibly malleable.
There were few players in the country who were as effective as Sears was as an on-ball creator. Sears’s primary play type was the pick-and-roll where he scored 0.962 PPP (85th percentile). Out of the pick-and-roll, Sears consistently showed his craft, versatility, and effectiveness. Here, Sears dribbles off the screen and the defender chases him over it. Sears feels the defender on his hip, so he knows that the defender’s momentum is carrying him toward the baseline and that he is vulnerable. Sears slams on the brakes, the defender goes flying, and Sears knocks down the stepback three.
Sears isn’t exclusively limited to scoring on the perimeter, though. Here, Sears immediately recognizes the drop coverage and space afforded to him as the defense tries to pre-switch to keep the center out of the action. Once Sears gets to the elbow, he hesitates, which allows the roller to get deeper in the lane and disrupts his defender’s recovery. Now that the roller is deeper in the lane, Sears snakes behind him and reuses his roll as a second screen. Now that the help defender is being sealed off, the center is the lone help defender. Sears further displays his craft, dispatching the rim protector with a quick shot fake and finishing with an uncontested layup.
What’s so encouraging about Sears’s offensive creation, and what sets him apart from a lot of small guards, is that he doesn’t need a screen to create quality looks. On the season, Sears scored 1.014 PPP in isolation (82nd percentile). He also scored 1.095 PPP on drives and 1.00 PPP on pull-up jumpers (86th percentile). Sears has a very quick first step and a shifty handle that allows him to get to a myriad of spots on the floor.
While Sears has some really fun perimeter shot creation in his game, the real value of his quick first step is his rim pressure. Sears ranked in the 62nd percentile in at-rim shot frequency, the 56th percentile in PPP, and shot 58.4% on layups, which ranks around the middle of the pack when we look at the other small guards in this class. Sears consistently beats his initial defender with his first step, but it’s everything that comes after that that is encouraging about his NBA translation. What too frequently gets underappreciated with players is their strength, and Sears is very strong. That initial burst to beat his defender is crucial, but Sears’s strength allows him to take more direct lines to the rim, hold off defenders on his drives, and consistently finish through contact or draw fouls.
Sears doesn’t exclusively use his rim pressure to score either. His ability to regularly pressure the rim and collapse the defense creates plenty of kick-out opportunities. He has terrific vision, knows exactly where his teammates are on the perimeter, and is an accurate passer who can deliver a pass from a myriad of angles. Arm angles are constantly talked about in football with quarterbacks, and Sears has a lot of those similarities with his ability to execute live dribble skip passes with either hand, overhead kickbacks, or wraparound kick-outs.
Off-ball scorers and play finishers thrive playing with Sears. Shooters who are willing to relocate and fire off the catch will constantly be rewarded. Sears’s vision and generosity aren’t solely limited to perimeter shooters, though, as big men who roam the dunker spot and cutters are also rewarded. Whether he’s kicking out for a three or dumping off for an uncontested dunk, Sears was one of the best guards in the country at generating quality looks for his teammates out of his own drives.
On the season, Sears had an assist rate that was 21.3, which is a good but not great number. Don’t let that underwhelm your impression of his playmaking, though. You may have noticed that a lot of those playmaking opportunities stemmed from an off-ball action. While Sears will be a point guard, he also operated off-ball a lot this season, just like last season. This year, Sears split time with Aaron Estrada at the point, while last season Sears split on ball reps with Brandon Miller, Jahvon Quinerly, and Jaden Bradley. As more of a pure point guard in his two seasons at Ohio, though, Sears posted an assist rate of at least 25 in both his freshman and sophomore seasons.
It would be great if Sears had astronomical assist numbers, but given the context and playstyle of Alabama, that was never going to happen. Instead, Sears posted impressive assist numbers while also proving that he is a highly effective off-ball player as well. That versatility will be crucial for him.
So many guards end up struggling in the NBA because they are no longer allowed to dominate the ball. It can be a tough transition for a lot of players at any position, but those who figure it out quickly tend to stick. Sears showed that he’s more than capable of playing in an off-ball complementary role.
Aside from using his off-ball possessions to generate playmaking opportunities, Sears was also a lethal off-ball scorer. This season, Sears scored 1.474 PPP (100th percentile) spotting up, 0.978 PPP (69th percentile) on handoffs, 1.435 PPP (96th percentile) running off screens, and 1.38 PPP (97th percentile) shooting off the catch. Sears has deep range, even for NBA standards, leverages the threat of his shot to generate interior looks, and is shrewd with his change of pace to lose defenders.
With an archetype that we see so regularly struggle to translate to the NBA (small guards), having proof of concept can be huge in terms of just getting an opportunity. Statistical queries never tell the full story, but they do help with quick comparisons to see who has done it before and if they’ve translated to the next level. When we look at Sears’s season, there aren’t many who produced the volume, playmaking, physicality, versatility, and efficiency that Sears did.
If we bump up the effective field goal threshold to 60, Sears is left with just Jalen Brunson, Landry Shamet, and Kevin Huerter. If we leave everything as is but remove the “true high major conference” qualification, names like Brandin Podziemski, Sam Merrill, and Shake Milton join the list. A common theme between all of those names is that they have, albeit not a tremendous difference, more size than Sears who measured just under 5’11” barefoot at last year’s G League Elite Camp. What Sears lacks in height, he more than makes up for in craft, strength, and speed.
Mark Sears has quietly put together one of the most impressive offensive performances in the country this season. While he won’t be a defensive stopper, Sears’s quick hands and strength should allow him to at least survive his minutes. Offensively, Sears has the profile of a guard who can fill in anywhere that’s needed. He’s a lethal shooter from anywhere on the floor, a highly adept playmaker, and a devastating slasher. Whether he’s playing backup point guard or slotting in a rotation as a complementary piece alongside a jumbo creator, Sears has the numbers and the tape that suggest he can thrive in his role. Sears’s name has been absent from most mock drafts and big boards, and that feels like a mistake.