The junior supplies plenty of rim finishing and deterrence in the lane, but he joins the Tigers with questions about his post-up game and defensive consistency.
Over the past three years, a familiar pattern has played out for Missouri during portal season.
It opens with aspirations to obtain a high-quality veteran with a track record of steady production as a starter. Yet that line of thought quickly gives way to practicality and affordability. The thin supply of big men with that background allows agents to keep NIL asks and pricing out MU, which has often faced pressing needs up and down its rotation.
Inevitably, the shelves empty quickly, and the Tigers find themselves shopping for a veteran with high-major experience – as a reserve.
Two years ago, it resulted in Connor Vanover. Last year, it produced Josh Gray. This go-around resulted in Arizona State transfer Shawn Phillips Jr., who committed on Sunday became the Tigers’ fourth addition this spring.
Landing Phillips comes after a week or so where MU’s staff canvassed its options exiting a recruiting dead period. The vetting included High Point’s Juslin Bodo Bodo, Oregon State’s Parsa Fallah, and Central Arkansas’ Nehemiah Turner. Ultimately, Phillips’ frame, athleticism and three seasons combined at LSU and in Tempe won out.
Importing Phillips, who averaged 5.4 points and 5.2 rebounds, gives coach Dennis seven players who are taller than 6-foot-9. However, he still lacks a post player who can tout experience as a top option. If nothing else, Phillips provides an element of cover for a trio of underclassmen: Peyton Marshall, Trent Burns, and Nicholas Randall. His presence might also allow Mark Mitchell to log extended stretches as a small-ball five.
Moving into the summer and player development, the question will be how much of Phillips’ potential remains untapped.
As we’ll see in a moment, the former top-150 talent looks cast in the mold of a five-man common on rosters across the SEC. However, he never carved out more than a supporting role for the Sun Devils, sometimes struggling with defensive reliability and expanding his game beyond play-finishing.
Yet MU will go in with eyes open and the hope that Phillips ultimately becomes a backstop for whichever young talent breaks out next winter.
Let’s Meet Shawn Phillips Jr.
- From: Dayton, Ohio
- Previous School: Arizona State
- Position: Post
- Ht/Wt: 7-0/245
- 247Composite Ranking: 0.900
- On3 Sports Ranking: 90
- EvanMiya Forecasted BPR: 0.77
Until knee surgery ended Jayden Quaintance’s campaign, Phillips spent most of his junior campaign as a reserve in coach Bobby Hurley’s rotation. And when he saw action, Phillips’ usage rate just inched into role-player territory.
You can look at that two ways. First, the optimist might see a player familiar with fortifying depth and accustomed to buying in as a specialist. Second, the pessimist might see a player who never expanded his skill set adequately enough to truly challenge for a starting role at a middling power-conference program.
The same is true if we look for answers in Phillips’ metrics.
Perusing Synergy Sports data only turns up an ironic result. Last season, Phillips averaged 0.914 points per possession. That ranks in the 50th percentile nationally. In other words, Phillips literally embodies the concept of average.
What works in his favor is diversity. Phillips spreads his touches evenly among cutting to the rim, rolling after setting a screen, posting up, and crashing the offensive glass. Isolating his most common sources of offense draws another line under the idea that he’s a stock option.
Now, I won’t wax poetic about Phillips’ abilities as a cutter. He possesses reliable hands to make catches on the move and in traffic. You rarely see him bobbling the ball in a congested lane, and when he reaches the rim, he prefers power over finesse.
Notably, about half of Phillips’ made buckets began with him on the perimeter to start a possession. He’s not inert in the dunker spot. He might wind up there, but it’s common to see him screening or doing some basic connecting via handoffs at the pinch post or top of the key. Reviewing his clips shows Phillips benefiting from big-to-big passes, high-low feeds, and delayed rolls.
At times, the line blurs between a basket cut and a roll to the rim. Typically, though, his opportunities as a roller unfolded during possessions where the Sun Devils quickly flowed into a pick-and-roll. Below, you’ll see that Hurley gussied some of those up with bluff actions like running a guard off floppy action or a weave, but ultimately, the goal was five-out spacing and Phillips as a screener.
Pretty rudimentary stuff, no? Well, Phillips’ efficiency as a roller (1.237 PPP) finished well ahead of Gray (1.059 PPP) last season. We don’t see much of Phillips taking the next step and establishing a deep post position. There were probably opportunities to bury a guard or use a post pin against a big to set up a lob entry. Those are modest tweaks but could help Phillips purchase more point-blank looks with MU.
When the portal opened, the hope was finding a post player who could allow MU to perform a basic punch: punch the ball into the block and score efficiently inside of three feet.
Currently, Phillips represents a compromise on that front.
He averaged 0. 789 points per touch on the block last season, efficiency that checks in among the 36th percentile in Division I. That barely qualified as average, and it wasn’t a dramatic improvement on Phillips’ work as a junior (0.786 PPP) under Hurley’s guidance.
When Phillips found modest success, it came by ducking into the lane, using a post pin, and putting a hand up for a lobbed entry. There were also a few moments where he played over his left shoulder on the left block or mustered up a drop step as a counter move.
Given where Phillips finds himself in his career, it’s unreasonable to expect that one offseason will turn him into a savvy technician on the box. Any gains would likely come at the margins.
The more pressing matter is whether Phillips can find consistency on the defensive end.
An expanded role last season saw Phillips’ efficiency suffer significant erosion. Per Synergy data, he allowed 0.990 PPP, which ranks in the 19th percentile nationally. And while the Sun Devils were middling at best as a group, Phillips’ presence on the floor meant Hurley’s crew allowed 10.5 more points per 100 possessions — the worst mark on the roster.
While Phillips’ length and timing off the floor ahelp detersome shots around the cup, skilled and patient bigs had an antidote: hook shots. If they could use a couple of dribbles to get balanced and square up their shoulders, an opposing big man could rely on a soft touch around the restricted area to finish over the top.
Going back through full games will be vital to contextualize some of these possessions. We must understand Hurley’s scheme and how it leveraged Phillips’ skill set. I say that because an underlying theme in many snippets — even ones where Phillips does good work — is a big man being pulled out of the paint.
That’s not uncommon in an era of switch-heavy defenses and pick-and-roll coverages that ask a big man to ward off dribblers at the point of attack aggressively.
Sometimes, a big man relies on their length as a buffer if they get switched onto a guard. That’s true for Phillips, too. For example, he relied on his wingspan to give him slightly more cushion to prevent getting dusted off the bounce. However, it also meant some 3-pointers considered “guarded” didn’t entail Phillips closing out all the way. Instead, he might trust his length to help contest a shot.
Similarly, there were instances where his recoveries to a stretch five were shorter than expected in pick-and-pop situations, particularly if Phillips had more ground to make up after playing drop coverage.
Whether those issues were a byproduct of Hurley’s schematic choices or Phillips’ decisions is vital, too.
Some of that might be explained by the fact that Phillips’ presence also creates a measure of disruption. He posted a 6.75 block percentage, which ranked ninth in the Big 12 conference. When you factor in his steal rate, Phillips’ 7.4 STOCK% is robust for his positional slot.
Those blocks aren’t simply the byproduct of Phillips lurking as a menacing presence on the back line. For example, he showed enough fluidity and agility in PNRs to slide with some ball-handlers and send their shots away.
Of course, Phillips’ size also proves handy when guarding post-ups. While some bigs can finish over him, there are just as many who can’t overcome him walling up.
And in a pinch, Phillips will rotate and provide back-up as a help defender along the back line. That assistance tends to manifest itself when there’s an incursion by a cutter or a drop-off around the dunker spot.
We’ve seen MU assemble the kind of talent required to power dynamic offenses. What’s been lacking is the defensive consistency genuine SEC contenders possess. MU’s brief ascension last season overlapped with a stretch where it made rim finishing difficult, closed out possessions with a rebound, and didn’t get put on tilt trying to create takeaways.
There’s no doubting Phillips’ rim deterrence, while his defensive rebound rate (22.2%) ranked eighth in the Big 12. That won’t matter if some of the issues spotlighted here persist.
Would it be a boon for Phillips’ time in Columbia to usher in a late-career renaissance? Sure. But we should also take him for what he is at this juncture in his career. Ultimately, the solution to Missouri’s search for stability at the post position entails the same task that’s persisted for several years: develop the solution in house.