Having watched a handful of games last season of both Hunter and Culver, and now having studied their stats a bit, I'm trying to convince myself that I'd be happy with either. But Hunter just seems superior.
Could someone with a preference for Culver please convince me? I'm not even looking to debate. I just want to understand why Culver is an elite shooting guard, when he's such a poor long-range shooter.
In regards to the shooting part, Culver completely overhauled his shot form between his freshman season and this past season.
IMO his new form looks significantly better than the old form, but the results didn’t match the better process. Culver struggled with inconsistency in his new mechanics at times. Some of the new changes (release point, follow through etc.) would simply break down and lack consistency under duress which is somewhat understandable because it’s hard to completely master a whole new shooting form in six months.
I think the more he’s able to muscle memory his current shot form, the fewer issues he’ll have moving forward.
The reason why Culver is so highly regarded otherwise is basically because he’s solid/good at everything else beyond shooting.
He’s has good vision as a passer. He’s a good rebounding wing. He’s already a very good and versatile defender. He’s a good cutter that has a lot of experience moving without the ball. He’s not overly explosive or have a great first step, but that hasn’t stopped him too much from getting to the spots he wants to get to using craftiness. I really like his basketball IQ.
The only thing IMO that Hunter does better than Cuvler right now is shoot the basketball. And don’t get me wrong, that’s a big deal because shooting is always at a premium in the NBA, but I think Culver outclasses Hunter at pretty much everything else.
If I thought Culver’s shot was Michael Kidd-Gilchrist level broken, I wouldn’t be interested in him. If he was a totally unwilling shooter, I wouldn’t be interested in him.
I just think he needs more time to really dial in the significant changes he made to his shot form.