Liam McNeeley: How High Would you Draft Glen Rice?

Garbage Time Ghim makes his triumphant return to educate the masses on why Liam McNeeley may be the true diamond in the rough of the 2025 NBA Draft class.

In the latest episode of “SCOUT” on the Brooklyn Nets’s YouTube Channel, Assistant GM B.J. Johnson had a great quote when he was addressing his scouting department.

“If you leave here without speaking up, it does everybody a disservice. Just throw it out there at this point; if you look silly, it’s fine, we’re family by now. ”

If you’re reading this piece right now, we’re family, and every family has an uncle with controversial takes. I am that uncle. I’ve seen the YouTube comments, and I’ve seen people questioning my love for Jett Howard and Dalen Terry in the past. I’m okay with it all because I still believe in Jett Howard and Dalen Terry; I just wish they were on different teams.

Before we got to the end of the 2025 NBA draft cycle, I decided it was time for me to stand up and plant my flag on the next guy that I’m ridiculously high on, and some may see me as a weirdo for it. We are family; this is a safe space. I believe Liam McNeeley is a Top 10 talent in this draft class. Let’s dive into why I’m right and why you need to start believing with me.

Liam McNeeley is a 6’8” wing who just completed his first and only season for the UConn Huskies. I know some of you guys are going to come for me about his height and what he measured at the combine. Just remember this: they wear shoes on their feet when they play basketball. McNeeley averaged 14.5 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game. The numbers don’t jump off the page, and I get that, but as always, context is important.

For this piece, we’re going to switch the style up and go with the negatives first. Growing up as a Korean American, eating your vegetables was an essential part of life. Korean cuisine is heavy on the sides; we go all in on our side dishes. It could be a random Tuesday in May, and you can find Korean households filling their tables with food like a Stephen Gillaspie Big Board; our moms don’t play. The photo above is what a Korean dining table could look like. Due to that elite culture I grew up in, I’m not afraid of my veggies; I embrace them. We Koreans eat raw garlic and sit around a table and talk to each other, not even worried about our dragon breath. I’m sure a lot of y’all have heard of kimchi before, spicy fermented cabbage; we essentially live off of that stuff, and there’s some research out there that says the probiotics of the cabbage can even fight cancer. Don’t be afraid of your veggies, kids; that stuff can keep you breathing longer. In this piece, we’re going to embrace the warts of Liam McNeeley’s game and talk about why he struggled in his first and only season at UConn, and what he needs to do to hit his ultimate ceiling.

The main concerns that arise when reading scouting reports on McNeeley are rooted in his lack of athleticism, his loose handle, his inconsistency shooting from outside in his lone season at UConn, and his finishing at the rim. It’s essential to establish that I have no intention of arguing against these points. They’re all fair criticisms and show up both with the eye test and in the numbers. The best way for me to address these issues with you is to inform you that I don’t see Liam McNeeley being the number one option or offensive engine. I think Liam has the ability to one day become an awesome second or third option for a very good offensive team. With that in mind, the frame that I’m looking at him through is different from someone like Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper. It’s not that the standards are lower; the standards are just different.

Let’s start with some of his limitations on the offensive side of the ball. One of the big factors with him that impacts his whole offensive arsenal is his lack of athleticism and bend. If you just look at McNeeley’s shooting form, his stroke looks incredible. His jumper is so aesthetically pleasing; it’s really smooth, and the mechanics look both good and repeatable to me. He has a strong lower half that enables him to let it fly from Dame Lillard's range effortlessly. Considering how the jumper looks, it’s unfortunate that the numbers didn’t look good this past season.

You really see how his lack of elite athleticism can hurt him on drives to the rim as well. There are a lot of possessions where he’ll make a strong drive into the lane using good strength to get there, but then have very limited lift going up. McNeeley does a good job of flying off DHOs to get downhill and attack the rim, but sometimes he can get absolutely erased when he meets an athletic or disciplined big man at the rim. I’m not very worried about his touch around the rim. If you see some of his ugly misses at the rim, it’s not really a problem with touch, but with him not really being able to elevate very much. He even does a good job of embracing contact inside, but since he doesn't get very high off the ground, it can be difficult. Against Creighton in the Big East Tournament, McNeeley had some nice drives to the rim—only to get stonewalled by Ryan Kalkbrenner, embracing McNeeley’s strength and staying vertical.

When it comes down to his shooting at UConn, there were a couple of factors that I want to bring up, but will not be using to excuse his low percentages. The first thing we need to talk about is his off-the-dribble game. Although his shooting stroke is as beautiful as it gets off the catch and off movement, he has struggled to shoot the ball effectively off the dribble at the high school and college levels. In his senior season at Montverde, according to Synergy, he only shot 20% on dribble jumpers, going 4/20. It’s not a huge sample size, but it’s important to note because in college, he shot 15.2% on dribble jumpers, going 5/28. Once again, not a giant sample size, but slightly bigger than high school. What can we learn from the tape?

As I mentioned earlier, McNeeley lacks a lot of bend and wiggle. There are many times when you turn on the film, he can be really upright and not low to the ground when he’s handling the ball, making him way more vulnerable with his ball security. As much as the bend and wiggle may be factors, I also don’t think they’re major issues. If you watch the compilation of dribble jumpers above, you’ll see there isn’t ton wrong with what he’s doing. Recently, Corey Tulaba and I conducted a film breakdown with Yale’s John Poulakidas, and something he emphasized repeatedly during our interview with him was the importance of reps. When breaking down shooting mechanics and shooting in general, Poulakidas discussed practice, visualization, and balance extensively.

There are some possessions where it looks like McNeeley’s balance was a little off shooting off the dribble, but overall, I think the major issue is sample size. It seems like it’s something he just needs to continue to work on and take more of to get it right. Considering the stacked squad he played with in high school, he really didn’t have the opportunities to do much more beyond catching and shooting from the second side. The one area that I do think his balance became a bit of an issue was with his movement shooting. On a good chunk of his jumpers off movement, you’d see him sprint through screens; when taking the shot, it felt like he had trouble at times finding his balance, and his body would move or shift, especially when he was moving away from the basket. Getting a little bit more comfortable with his movement shooting, and making some adjustments to improve his balance, I think, could do him wonders.

Another encouraging thing for me is that there is a lot to work with. The foundational handle with him is good, and he's confident handling the ball with both hands. Yes, there are moments where he can be loose with the ball, but I still think it’s early stages with him and his ball-handling era. With more reps and more work on his flexibility and athleticism, I don’t see why he can’t improve this area of his game. I can almost promise you that he won’t ever be Rod Strickland, but he could get to a level where he’s running ball screens pretty confidently when you need him to do that. That may not sound like much, but for teams that have an alpha in place, having a secondary ball-handler like that may be the difference between you flaming out in the second round of the playoffs versus making it to the Finals and competing for a ring.

Another factor that contributed to his low percentages from outside is where he was taking his shots. I don’t have access to the average distance he was taking his threes from last season, but I did put together a compilation above of some of the really long ones he took last season. I feel ambivalent about these shots from him. One part of me wishes he just came in a little to shoot them from a more comfortable range. However, the other side of me loves that he was confident enough to take as many as he did from that deep and makes me wonder if he was just being forward-thinking and getting accustomed to the deeper range of the NBA. Ultimately, as a McNeeley optimist, I’m obviously leaning towards the latter as I just like the fact that he was consistently letting them fly from that deep. In his lone season at Storrs, McNeeley decided to let it rip and pushed the limits of his range.

Throughout his high school career, he was a very good jump shooter. More specifically, in his senior season, he shot 45.6% on all jumpers and 50% on his catch-and-shoot jumpers. It’s important to note that he played on a star-studded roster with guys like Cooper Flagg, Derik Queen, Robert Wright III, and Asa Newell. He played his role efficiently and effectively, staying within the flow of their offense. That’s not the highest praise in the world, but finding good shooters with size who have a track record of playing with great players and succeeding in that role seems like a quality that NBA teams will be interested in—especially the top teams.

The last thing we need to address when it comes to his struggles is the injury to his ankle. Back in December, McNeeley suffered a high ankle sprain that knocked him out for five weeks in the middle of the season. The thing we know about high ankle sprains is that they’re the worst. It takes a good amount of time to come back from those sprains and feel comfortable again, especially in the middle of the season. After five weeks of being out with an injury like that, it’s not just about trusting the ankle again and feeling whole again; you also lose a ton of your rhythm, your cardio, and your feel for game speed. For a shooter, so much of your balance and rhythm is going to come from your lower half. As much as I didn’t want to use his injury as an excuse for his poor shooting numbers, none of us can really know how much of an impact it had on him throughout the second half of the season.

Throughout this piece, I’ve wanted to set the expectation that a player like McNeeley can be pretty dependent on his context. Playing at Montverde with the star-studded cast was a big advantage for him. He was able to play off the playmaking ability of Robert Wright III and Cooper Flagg. Unfortunately for McNeeley, he didn’t have a creator of that ilk during his lone season in Storrs. The Aidan Mahaney experiment did not go the way that UConn thought it would, and it ended up creating a play-making void where guys like Hassan Diarra, Alex Karaban, and even McNeeley himself had to step up and take on more of the ball-handling duties. Considering the fact that McNeeley came into college known as an elite off-ball shooter, it’s jarring when you pull up his Synergy page and see that his most common play-type this past season was as a pick-and-roll ball handler, which he did 18.4% of the time. Spot-up shooting was a close second at 18.2%, but it’s still shocking to think that an off-ball shooter who was reliant on strong playmakers in high school had to step up and take on a good chunk of the ball-handling duties in his freshman season.

Really quickly, let’s take a look at some of his high school stats to add more color to why he was considered such an elite shooter in high school.

McNeeley graded out in the 93rd percentile on all jumpers, the 92nd percentile on catch-and-shoot jumpers, the 91st percentile on guarded catch-and-shoot jumpers, the 94th percentile on unguarded jumpers, and once again in the 25th percentile on dribble jumpers. Weakside, off-ball shooting was an elite skill for him in high school, and the numbers clearly back that up.

I know we just spent an eternity talking about his shooting, but it’s important. On a recent No Ceilings podcast from the elite pair of Tyler Metcalf and Tyler Rucker, they did a breakdown of Cedric Coward and Liam McNeeley. While breaking down McNeeley’s game, Rucker mentioned how you can’t help but wonder: if McNeeley is such a good shooter, why didn’t he shoot the ball well? To that, my response would be that McNeeley came into a situation being known as an elite catch-and-shoot shooter, the context around him didn’t break the way that the team had hoped, and a lower body injury knocked him out of game action for five weeks and probably had an effect on his shooting and game for even longer than that. I also think that the dribble jumpers need a ton more work. In time, though, due to his strong handle and foundation as a shooter, there is a very real possibility he can become a solid dribble jumper shooter.

McNeeley’s shooting at his size isn’t the only thing that intrigues me, and is why I think he’s much more than just a one-dimensional shooter. First off, the kid is tough as nails; forget about him fighting to come back from injury and playing with the aftereffects in the second half of the season. When you turn on the game film, you'll see a gamer. McNeeley is a tough competitor who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. This isn’t a Jason Kapono or Steve Novak-type shooter. McNeeley likes to bang inside amongst the trees to fight for rebounds; he’ll sacrifice his body for loose balls, and he'll compete on the defensive side of the ball. McNeeley averaged six rebounds per game this season and had a defensive rebounding percentage of 18.7%. It’s nothing elite like a Nique Clifford, but it’s notable because he’s bringing another layer of value when he’s on the court.

The keyword when it comes to his defense is that he will compete. McNeeley, although testing beautifully in the shuttle drill at the Combine, is not known for being an elite lateral mover, nor did we see a ton of that on film. I thought McNeeley really struggled to stay in front of quicker guards at times, and also, I didn’t love a good chunk of his closeouts to perimeter shooters. Of course, you have to consider the ankle injury, but I still think it’s something worth talking about and something he should continue to work on. What he does have going for him is his feel, intellect, and work rate. McNeeley has not yet shown signs of being an elite or even above-average defender, but he has demonstrated a desire to compete.

Another layer of McNeeley’s game that I think deserves more shine is his passing. In recent years, when people talk about passing, it feels like everyone automatically assumes that a good passer is dotting perfect live dribble, off-hand skip passes to the weakside corner for an open three. When you watch McNeeley, he may not be making crazy, advanced reads and constantly manipulating defenses with no-look passes and flair, but he can really move the ball. One of the hidden benefits of playing on a UConn squad without a primary playmaker was that he was given the freedom and opportunity to create for others, which he may not have had in other contexts. As mentioned before, he was called on to be a pick-and-roll ball handler 18.4% of the time, and he took those opportunities to try a bunch of stuff. To be completely clear, not all of it was poetry in motion. He had some gnarly drives where he would lose the ball, get stripped, see the ball poked from behind, or he got sped up and just completely lost control of the ball, or tossed a crazy pass out of bounds.

As rough as some of his turnovers were, it gave him a unique opportunity to get in the lab and learn from his mistakes. Mixed in with some of his turnovers were some really nice interior passes. He had some nice possessions where he’d come off a ball screen and put his defender in jail from behind and then either make a play for himself or a teammate. Guys like Tarris Reed Jr. and Samson Johnson got some easy looks at the rim because of plays like that. He, at times, would do a good job of coming off screens with real power and speed to get paint touches. Even amid his errors, McNeeley showed good processing skills and a feel for how defences were reacting to his drives into the paint. On the perimeter, he did a great job of passing the ball with real energy and pace.

There were numerous instances where he would catch the ball on the second side and throw laser-beam passes to the strong-side corner for wide-open corner threes from Solo Ball or Alex Karaban. It was a very familiar position for him from his years at Montverde that really showed in those moments. You can really see McNeeley being comfortable and making quick and instinctive decisions. The one last area of his passing that isn’t something incredibly important but could be underrated is his ability to throw a good quality entry pass. We don’t live in the ’90s, and teams aren’t throwing the ball down into the block all that much, but for a team that does have a big man who likes to play from the free-throw line down, McNeeley could help with getting the ball down there.

Here’s my ultimate sell to you guys on why I like Liam McNeeley so much. Ultimately, you’re taking the bet on what he could be. As I have it in the title of this piece, I think it could be some sort of modern-day variant of Glen Rice. I’m not old enough to vividly remember the Miami Heat version of Glen Rice, but I do remember the Charlotte Hornets and beyond versions of him. Growing up, he was such an interesting player to me. I always loved watching him shoot the ball, and it was always impressive to see how he was constantly in motion, fighting to get open. If he got even a sliver of space, he was going to get his shot off. Rice would have been such a different player if he played now with all the spacing and emphasis on outside shooting. He definitely would have turned all of his catch-and-shoot midrange jumpers into threes. However, the main reason I compared McNeeley to Rice is the type of role Rice played for some successful teams.

Although there were seasons where Rice led his team in scoring, like he did in his first season with the Hornets, Rice was always a player who was best utilized as a complementary scorer—a guy who could support the alpha on the squad and hold his own enough to have a serious impact on winning. In his prime, Rice was a deadly shooter from outside and the midrange. The area of his game that you’d like to see McNeeley adopt is his ability to face up and do real damage in the midrange. McNeleely won’t be given the ball in the mid-post to operate like Rice did back in the day, but as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, he could have some opportunities to attack a team in a heavy drop with some sweet pull-up jumpers in the midrange after he snakes a ball screen. Rice, like McNeeley, was never known for being an excellent athlete or having the deepest bag. He was deadly because of the threat of his jumper and his movement off the ball. It was later on in his career and at the very end of his prime, but the couple of seasons he spent with the Lakers, playing with Shaq and Kobe, he was a really important cog of their success—especially on the offensive side of the ball as an extra outlet. His being a reliable third option was huge for them because he could go and get a bucket when Shaq and Kobe needed a break, and he was also a very valuable outlet on the perimeter for when defenses collapsed on or double-teamed Shaq.

The funny thing for me is when you watch McNeeley move around the court, he oddly moves like Glen Rice did; there’s something about the two guys that’s very similar in their movement patterns. It’s also funny to see how they both wore the ankle braces with the high socks, so they really look similar in that way as well.

Glen Rice wasn’t an automatic star in his first season at Michigan. He ended up spending all four years in Ann Arbor playing for the Wolverines and became a deadly offensive weapon over time, before being drafted with the fourth overall pick in the 1989 NBA draft. All I’m trying to say is, don’t freak out if McNeeley doesn’t have the wildest first couple of years in the league. Even with all of his strengths, the areas of improvement are glaring, and it is going to take him some time. He’s going to be going through some learning curves at the highest level of basketball on the planet.

As I was writing this piece, I thought a lot about my love for Jett Howard a couple of seasons ago, when I had him fifth on my big board. Hilariously, Tyler Metcalf compared Liam McNeeley to Jett Howard on their podcast, which I mentioned earlier. Ultimately, I’m just looking at myself in the mirror, wondering if I’m just committed to a really bad take. Am I being stubborn about being wrong, and do I need to look introspectively and reevaluate my entire scouting process? The definitive answer to that is there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I’m backing down. I will gladly take any and all Jett Howard stock off your hands, and I am ready to invest in Liam McNeeley's future heavily.

At the end of the day, if I end up looking silly, it is what it is. We’re family now. Thanks, B.J. Johnson.