Xaivian Lee: Pizzazz, Peril, and Promise

For Rowan Kent, there are few guards more exciting to watch in the 2025 NBA Draft class than Princeton's Xaivian Lee. What about his game inspires excitement and fear in the same breath?

What I love most about basketball is the artistry that tells multiple stories throughout each game. As an obsessive fan, no matter what level of play I’m watching, I revel in seeing all of the different intertwining fates and performances—a hot streak painted by a maestro, a new player shaking off a cold month. There’s always something interesting to observe with each player I watch.

The artistry part of basketball can’t be ignored what I said before, either. A lot has been made in current media about the “boring” nature of the NBA or college basketball. At the NCAA level, much ado is made about how the skill level is too low to watch or enjoy outside of March Madness. For the NBA, the discussions over three-point shooting and its ubiquity have led people to claim that all teams play the same.

Neither hypothesis could be further from the truth. College basketball players paint marvelous portraits of skill with their play, with the understandable fact that they’re still developing their games. Also, anyone who has watched a handful of games of different NBA teams will see how wrong the idea of sameness is for offenses and defenses.

Indeed, with so much variance and uniqueness at every level, it’s worth referring to the myriad ways players can play the game. Some will say that a flashy bucket is worth just as much as a workman-like approach, which is logically true but ignores the emotions of a human game. While I love focused, traditional, or “boring” players who get the job done, the types of players that captivate my imagination as a scout often have a flair to their games.

That leads us to Xaivian Lee. Lee has come a long way from Princeton’s bench for their Sweet Sixteen run to where he is now. As a sophomore and junior, Lee has stepped up into a starring role for the Tigers and put himself firmly on the periphery of NBA draft conversations. He’s made himself into a true star college guard with a pension for dramatic, marvelous, and wild plays on both ends.

I’ve broken down Lee’s game into three distinct sections that represent who he is as a player: pizzazz for his positives, perils for his negatives, and promise for his ceiling. Based upon what I’ve seen, even understanding my bias for aesthetic play, I think Lee deserves to be in 2025 NBA Draft conversations firmly; he could even deserve some first-round looks if it shakes and shimmies out in his way.

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Pizzazz

Xaivian Lee has worked his way up Princeton’s depth chart since he joined the team in 2022. After a decorated Canadian high school basketball career, Lee played a smaller role for the Tigers on a veteran team that, behind Tosan Evbuowman, upset Arizona and Missouri to make it to the Sweet Sixteen.

Unlike Nick Martini and Matt Alloco, each of whom transferred last year, Xaivian Lee has stuck with the Tigers and seen his loyalty and talent rewarded. Lee broke out for Princeton last year, giving the team an electric ball-handler who led them in scoring and assists per game, which he’s repeated this season. Lee’s taken advantage of his lanky wingspan, positive size for a lead guard, and lightning-quick first step to build upon his skills as a scorer and passer for the team.

In his third season, Xaivian Lee has put it mostly together on the offensive end. He’s a nightmare to stop, whether on the open floor or halfcourt, puts pressure on the defense with his driving and shooting, and is unafraid to give the ball up. Mitch Henderson’s offense at Princeton heavily relies on off-ball screening, cutting, and movement, which has helped Lee step from being a good passer last year to a great one this year.

If you look purely at the numbers, it may not seem like Lee has taken much of a jump. His assist-to-turnover ratio last year was 2.57, while it’s slipped a tad to 2.29. In that way, although his counting stats for his assists have gone up, so have his turnovers, on virtually the same usage percentage.

However, when you look at those numbers alongside the tape, there’s much to be awed by and love. Lee’s assist percentage has ballooned to 34.9%, a massive number that represents his skill and willingness to pass. He’s still turning the ball over at a minuscule rate for his usage, as he only has a 12.4% turnover percentage as a point guard.

There isn’t a pass that Xaivian Lee can’t uncork, which wasn’t definitively true last year. He’s shown a keen eye dishing on the move to the player in transition…

Whipping passes out to waiting shooters while going top speed into the paint….

Or dropping off precise dimes to his teammates at the rim for an easy score.

Xaivian Lee’s full-speed passing is some of the best in the class, as he can still put touch onto his dimes while bursting down the lane. There may not be a quicker player in the Ivy League than Lee, and his first step is up there with the best guards in the country. With Lee zipping around the court like a blur, there’s little the defense can do to recover when he puts his head down before whirring a pass to a teammate.

Lee also excels at manipulating and torturing defenders with his pick-and-roll ball-handling. He’s been the clearcut conductor for Princeton’s offense for the past two years, which has borne fruit for the Tigers. As a ball-handler, Lee’s a tough cover, as his first step and creativity with his dribble make it hard to stay in front of him. Lee also tends to set up his defender into screens before his sudden bursts, even when he only has a brush screen to use.

Although Princeton’s offense is geared toward cutting, you’d be remiss if you didn’t gawk at what Xaivian Lee does in screening actions. He’s as adept at drawing both defenders and dishing a pristine pass to his rolling big man as he finds a waiting shooter popping out to the perimeter. He and Caden Pierce, a severely talented player in his own right, have developed some devilishly good chemistry on their pick-and-pop possessions, forcing teams to pick their poison.

Lee’s supreme skill as an open floor passer and pick-and-roll dimer make him an easy fit for most NBA offenses. He’s capable of making the right pass and carrying the load to do so, which gives him a clear role at the next level. Sure, Lee needs more than just positional size and passing for his NBA case, but he’s one of the better passers in this class, which can’t be ignored.

That same skill for passing extends into how he handles cuts, whether dishing to teammates or cutting himself. Mitch Henderson starts four other players under 6’9”, all of whom are comfortable making reads on the perimeter as passers. None are as good as Lee, but due to the amorphous nature of the offense, Lee has become an adept passer to cutters and is even a skilled cutter in his own right. Though limited by his time on the ball, per Synergy, Lee is shooting 66.7% on his basket cuts, using his length, quickness, and decisiveness to make the same off-ball moves that he often opens up with his passing.

Lee’s dual ability to hit cutters in stride and serve the same role as said cutters shows that he can play an off-ball role despite his current one. It would be a major shift for him and dampen a lot of the magic and flair he brings on offense, but that will happen at the NBA level, whether Lee likes it or not. Instead, this facet of his playmaking gives him a compelling piece of evidence to convince NBA teams that he can succeed without the ball in his hands.

Akin to his cutting, Xaivian Lee is also a stronger driver to the rim. I mentioned it with his passing, but he’s hard to keep out of the paint when he wants to score, too. His combination of size, slippery frame, and dynamic first step are hard for any defender to stop. Lee is solid when attacking the rim as the pick-and-roll ball-handler, but he’s best suited to attack closeouts from a spot-up position. Per Synergy, Lee’s spot-up possessions grade out as “Good,” even though he’s only taken 23 three-pointers and hit just eight.

It benefits Lee to get a head of steam on both his cuts and spot-up drives, as he can work in one-on-one situations. He has just enough burst and shake to get by defenders in isolations and screening actions, but he will have to improve that further at the next level. The times when Lee takes your (or at least my) breath away as a scorer is when he’s jetting toward the rim and finishing over outstretched arms with his long reach.

While it isn’t as consistent as his spot-up striking, Lee is also an adept finisher out of the pick and roll. It helps that teams have to commit so much defensive attention to his passing, but he’s also able to use his first step and long reach to get to the cup off of screens. Per Synergy, Xaivian Lee grades out as “Good” as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, speaking to his skill in making these types of plays consistently at the rim.

When discussing the pizzazz of Xaivian Lee’s game, you can’t ignore the clutch factor he brings to the Tigers. He’s hit two game-winning threes this season, which isn’t an official metric that impacts his draft stock but builds upon his intangibles. Lee’s able to create shots for himself in high-pressure situations while also showing the capacity to hit said shots in a dramatic fashion. That’s fun and important to show NBA teams with a limited perspective of Lee before formal interviews.

Aside from the draft angle, those are just plain exhilarating shots. Xaivian Lee is one of the more exciting guards in a class with several, making him worthy of discussion on style of play alone. When you factor in his spectacular passing and ease of getting into the paint, alongside the shooting touch I’ll mention later, it’s easy to see why Lee has drawn NBA buzz this and last year.

By playing the same role and making some marginal improvements, Lee has helped his case in the eyes of NBA scouts. He’s certainly dazzled them with the aesthetics of his play but has also shown enough tangible growth to be considered a better player than last year's breakout star. His pizzazz on offense, while enticing, does come with caveats, however, and when paired with his perils, makes his evaluation far from cut and dry.

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Peril

As exciting as Xaivian Lee is as a prospect, he also has some troubling trends to monitor. The 2025 NBA draft class has received its fair flowers at the top but is decidedly less certain once you scout in the twenties to forties range with prospects. In some ways, it’s a cause for concern that Lee hasn’t been able to batten down the hatches on his game and establish himself as a marquee guard prospect in a tumultuous draft class.

So, what’s holding Lee back? First and foremost is his finishing. As a 6’4” guard with long arms and boatloads of burst, you’d think that Lee would be a more potent finisher than he is now. When you watch Lee explode to the rim and contort his body to hit a tough lay-up, you’d think he’d be a more potent finisher than he is now. Instead, it’s one of the weaker areas for his game, which is a problem for his draft stock.

Compared to last year, when, per Synergy, Xaivian Lee shot a “Very Good” rated 62.2% at the rim, Lee is down to 51.0% this season. Given that he’s in virtually the same role as last year and operating with virtually the same usage, Lee’s finishing issues are concerning. In watching Lee this season, there wasn’t a common cause for his finishing flaws; instead, he more often flubbed lay-ups or drove wildly at a taller player and was stonewalled.

Despite his length, Lee’s weakest point as an offensive player is finishing through contact. Sure, when you have rocket boosters for feet to help your first step, that’s mitigated, but the NBA is full of fast and tall players. If Lee is already struggling to hit shots over Ivy League defenders, why should we believe he can do so over some of the strongest vertical athletes in the world?

It’s also concerning, though not uncommon amongst guards, for Lee to get his shot swatted often. Getting one’s shot blocked isn’t alone an issue, as it’s a natural byproduct of steady rim attempts, but for someone with Xaivian Lee’s wingspan, it happens too often for my taste. Sure, it’s likely a matter of variance that Lee’s already been blocked six more times this year than last year, but I’m more concerned by the lack of craft and finesse on his finishes that are leading to those swats.

When you add in the fact that Lee’s only had three career dunks across his three seasons at Princeton, there’s more evidence that Lee has issues as a finisher than there are positives. While he can draw some free throw attempts at the rim, Lee doesn’t do so enough to outweigh his issues as play finisher. It doesn’t completely remove Xaivian Lee from first round consideration to have these issues. Still, it does mean his offense is a more shaky evaluation than at first glance and his defense is farther under the microscope.

Whether you’re peering with a magnifying glass or casually watching, it’s clear that Xaivian Lee’s defense isn’t his strong suit. It’s understandable, as he’s tasked with doing so much for Princeton on the offensive end, but Lee has some positive defensive traits to work with. He has a career 2.1% steals percentage, which speaks to his long reach and timing, and he can occasionally get up for a massive recovery block on drives.

The problems, then, stem from consistency or rather lack thereof. When watching Xaivian Lee’s defense, there was rarely a time that he could string together a spree of solid defensive possessions with his positioning, instincts, or fundamentals. For every possession where Lee rotated correctly, he’d have one where he was late to switch. While he could stay in front of his man occasionally, he also served as a sieve for the Tigers too often.

Part of it stems from Lee’s slightly higher center of gravity, but he compounds his errors with a lack of discipline. Lee’s quick to jump at a pump fake and rely on his long reach to make up for errors in judgment. That works now and then, but it is the sort of process that will get him benched in the NBA. Not every missed rotation is Lee’s fault, and to his credit, he does show effort on off-ball rotations, but he’s flying around too much to be a positive cog in a defensive machine.

It’s not much better when Lee is on the ball in isolations or screening actions. Lee is a poor screen navigator, which puts immediate pressure on the rest of the roster. He also lacks the upper body strength to absorb contact on drives, which leads to him being pushed around by most guards, whether they’re bigger or not, due to their ability to use his frame against him.

There’s a foundation to work with in assembling a defensive future for Xaivian Lee, but it’s a narrow path. Lee isn’t being asked to develop his defense at Princeton as much due to his major offensive role, but that won’t matter to an NBA coach. Instead, like so many offensively-skewed guard prospects before him, Lee will have to quickly prove that he can at least tread water on defense, lest his offense not bring enough value for his future team to stay on the floor.

On a separate note, as a minor nitpick of his playmaking, Xaivian Lee could stand to clean up some of his sillier turnovers. That sounds ludicrous to say about a player who, per BartTorvik, is one of three players this season alongside Marquette’s Kam Jones and Drake’s Bennett Stirtz to have within a percentage point of a 35.0% assist percentage and sub-15.0% turnover percentage, but it’s true on tape. For as good of a playmaker as Xaivian Lee is, he’s leaving value on the table.

The main ways that Lee turns the ball are on drives where he’s too deep into the paint and when he drives right into a stationary defender. The deep paint drives are acceptable losses, as he’s such a dangerous passer from the same position that those can be allowed. Still, the other section simply comes from Lee putting his head down, falling over due to poor balance, and missing obstacles right in front of him. If Lee was a slightly more judicious driver, he’d have an even more impressive playmaking profile that would likely put him in elite company.

It’s a nitpick that highlights how Lee is still growing in his game. That’s the same story with his defense and finishing, as neither of those facets of his game is done growing, but that doesn’t mean that neither should be noted. As he stands right now, Xaivian Lee is a capable ball-handler who could run an NBA team’s bench offense but may take away just as many points on missed lay-ins and defensive miscues as he generates on offense with his passing wizardry and dangerous driving.

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Promise

It’s not all doom and gloom for Xaivian Lee, however! If it was, I would’ve come down harder on Lee’s flaws. Instead, I remain bullish on Lee not just as a draft prospect but as a borderline first-round draft prospect. He’s got enough on offense already to justify a selection, and although his defense still issues, Lee has a factor to his game that could mitigate that concern: his shooting.

Evaluating Xaivian Lee’s shooting is a complicated exercise. Going purely by his career three-point percentage is a flawed approach, as it skews too heavily based on his poor freshman season from deep. Instead, it’s worth looking at what Lee’s done as a shooter in the past two seasons, given he’s been under more defensive pressure and has grown as a sniper across those two campaigns.

Just because he’s grown doesn’t mean evaluating his jumper is easy. Form-wise, it’s not great, as Lee has a lightning-quick release that is a bit low for my liking. It hasn’t led to his jumper getting blocked consistently, but it does mean that Lee has to fire off-balance or at a moment’s notice more than other guards his size. That shows up even on his spot-up shots where he’s wide open, as Lee’s rhythm as a jump shooter has been unilaterally sped up.

I’ll start with Lee’s long-range shooting, as it’s the more critical evaluation for his professional future. Even if Lee can’t hit a mid-range jumper to save his life, which isn’t true, it matters much more if he can space an offense from distance. Whether that’s launching long bombs off the dribble or, more importantly, catching and shooting on above-league-average efficiency, Lee needs to shoot to be a successful NBA player.

So, how exactly is his three-point shooting? Hard to say. Lee’s shot 88/261, or 33.7%, on his three-pointers over his last two college seasons. He’s taking a healthy 5.10 threes per game across those seasons, which shows he’s willing and able to keep defenses honest. The difficulty with discerning how good of a shooter Xaivian Lee is comes from the fact that the two most important types of threes for him, pull-up threes and spot-up threes, have swung wildly over his time as the alpha for Princeton.

Last year, Xaivian Lee shot 26/67, or 38.8%, on his catch-and-shoot treys. That’s a great number and one he could build on as a shooter. This year, Lee has hit just 9/33, or 27.3%, of his catch-and-shoot three-pointers, which muddles the picture. Which number is worth believing? Can Lee’s poor shooting this year simply be attributed to the small sample size and variance? It’s hard to tell exactly which one to trust, given Lee’s taken some extra deep threes this year and had some garish misses.

Then again, how are we supposed to know how Lee is as a pull-up shooter? As a sophomore, Lee scored less-than-stellar 25/89, or 28.1%, per Synergy, on his off-the-dribble three-pointers. This year’s a different story, as Lee has hit 27/75, or 36.0%, of his pull-up threes on the year. It’s the same problem here for his standstill shooting: for as good as one year looks, which one holds more weight? Is either a strong enough sample to make an evaluation? It’s tempting to say that Lee’s grown as a pull-up shooter given the smoothness on tape, but some of his makes are on low-efficiency looks.

I’d lean somewhere in the middle of both if I was forced to make a call on Xaivian Lee’s shooting right now. With solid mechanics, a fast release, and some collected evidence that he can hit shots off the dribble, there’s enough there that even if Lee is done developing as a shooter, he’ll still have a high floor. That matters for his NBA future, as he’ll need to hit both types of shots to reach his eventual ceiling.

Lee can also work on his in-between game to beef up his offensive arsenal. He hasn’t had to do so at Princeton yet, as he’s simply faster as a driver and shooter than defenses can fully handle. That advantage will dissipate in the NBA, necessitating at least some changeup alongside his fastball.

Per Synergy, across his two years as Princeton’s offensive star, Xaivian Lee has shot just 18/64, or 28.1%, on two-point jumpers and 7/29, or 24.1%, on runners and floaters. That’s not cut it at the next level, as teams will force Lee into situations he doesn’t like more often. He has the ball-handling chops to create space for himself but needs to do a better job of staying balanced when he gets to his spots to succeed.

While his shooting is still a work in progress, I’m encouraged by how quickly Lee has improved as a player overall when considering how this skill might develop. Almost overnight, Lee became a lead ball-handler for the Tigers, then further refined his passing in an offseason to become a certified floor general. It’s not outlandish to see him buttress one of his skills this summer before his next season.

With NIL payments in full swing, it’s not a foregone conclusion that Lee will declare for this draft either. He considered some offers from other college teams before staying in a good situation, which speaks to his win-win decision for his future. Lee also could go through the draft process to get more feedback about his game, which could dictate if he leaves college this year or next.

Lee will have an exhilarating and mystifying case to scout for NBA teams whenever he does. He’s good enough offensively to play in most systems in the league, and with a competent jumper, he should factor into some rotations early in his career. With his defense and finishing issues, however, Lee’s margin for error is quite thin, especially with the increased need for perimeter players to be able to guard in today’s trigger-happy offensive climate.

Based on his statistical supremacy and productive pizzazz, I have faith that Xaivian Lee can dodge the perilous pitfalls in his game and become a solid NBA guard. He’s still young, athletic, and smart, all attributes that infuse his showman’s flair with real substance. Lee has shown how quickly he can grow into a new role, and in the right team context, he could keep growing into one of the better, and more underrated, guard stories in the 2025 draft class.