Meet Preston Edmead

NC State's backcourt continues to take shape with the addition of Hofstra guard Preston Edmead. Edmead is a lightning bolt, standing at 6'0 tall on a good day and boasting one of the more entertaining highlight reels in college basketball. He figures to be State's primary creator, and the things he did as a just a freshman combined with the remaining room for growth makes him an exciting addition.

Edmead’s most outstanding trait is his shooting. He shot 39% from three as a freshman, which is a very good but not elite number. The context of this number is pretty crazy, though. The freshman guard shot 237 three pointers, a little over seven per game, and of the 92 he made, 55 were off the dribble. If you assume that ratio holds, he's shooting about 60% of his three-point shots off the dribble. To shoot almost 40% with this volume of off-the-dribble shooting is pretty dang impressive. Edmead has natural touch. He can get these off cleanly while off-balance, and you actually feel comfortable with that shot.

These are the things he can do. 

Alabama tries to ice the screen. They miscommunicate the coverage and the big is out of position. Embead comes over the screen and pulls up.

Hofstra holds the screen and it creates a big advantage for Edmead. The big cannot recover here until the guard gets there, lest Edmead just shoots the ball, which is exactly what happens.

Similar thing here. Screener holds the screen, the defender goes under the ram screen which forces him into drop coverage, and the shot is there.

Edmead was a killer of drop coverage and at-the-level ball screen coverages with the above shots. Hofstra would stick the screens longer to force the advantage, and it made it hard for the big to drop or recover. He had to maintain contact with the ball until the defensive guard could recover to the ball or Edmead would fire up a quick, high-percentage shot.

He's not just a three-point shooter. This is just the thing that jumps off the screen at you immediately. The shot-making ability is tremendous. My hope for him in Raleigh is that he can diversify his portfolio. Edmead shot a sub-par 41.5% from two last year.

He’ll never be an elite rim finisher. He’s just too small. Edmead is listed at six feet exactly, but I suspect he’s not even that tall. Naturally, he’ll have a hard time trying to finish through ACC-level rim protectors. The shot selection during his freshman season aligns with this. Edmead shot just 54 shots at the rim despite being a ball-dominant guard who averaged about 34 minutes per game. He shot 347 shots away from the rim. 

Edmead gets a switch off the handoff, which gives him a positive matchup and pulls the shot blocking away from the rim. He beats him off the dribble but still gets blocked at the rim.

When he can’t pull up from the perimeter, he becomes reliant on the floater as a scoring tool, and that’s okay in theory. Smaller, explosive guards have to have these “giant killer” shots in their arsenal, but you’ll want to see him make them at a higher clip than the 37% he managed as a freshman. He takes a lot of these, but just didn’t make enough of them to justify it as a good shot. It would help if it was a good shot, though.

Teams need to run Edmead off the perimeter. If he can make that a less appealing proposition with some reliable inside-the-arc scoring, he'd only up his productivity.

Edmead is a good passer who averaged 4.4 assists per game. He's good at breaking things down off the dribble and he creates defensive compression that allows him to find shooters. Despite his numbers, I think there's plenty of room to improve as a facilitator. He's a pretty relentless shot hunter, sometimes too relentless, and he can dribble himself into proverbial corners or take floaters when he could boot the ball to the corner. He could become faster and cleaner making decisions off dribble penetration.

Edmead has a chance to hit the pocket pass to his roller here, but instead he dribbles right into the baseline and gets trapped.

This type of critique has a pretty different connotation for a freshman than it would for a senior. Edmead had the sixth-best assist rate in the CAA, and he can definitely still get better.

There will be obvious questions about Edmead as a defender given his size. I think these might be overblown, as I actually thought he guarded the ball at a pretty high level. He moves his feet really well, and he can get knocked around by bigger players, but he’s quick and able to get ahead of the ball on drives, and he ends up taking a decent amount of charges when ball handlers try to get physical. You won’t be able to switch him much, but I think it’s noteworthy that Gainey’s resume includes coaching Zakai Zeigler, who won SEC DPOY at 5’9. 

Here's Edmead guarding a late-shot clock iso against him.

Overall, this is a quality pickup and an extremely exciting player. He has some areas for growth and some deficiencies that he'll live with, but this is after just a freshman season. The ceiling is pretty high. I'm a pretty big fan of this move, especially if Edmead can add a little diversity to his shot diet and continue to be the fearless scorer he was this past season. There aren't that many players out there who shoot like this.