What David Roddy brings to the Memphis Grizzlies: He is just such a unique player

June 30, 2024

David Roddy was a great high school football player, and he wanted to play quarterback in college. Most of the power-conference schools recruiting him, however, saw him as a defensive lineman. They couldn’t envision a 6-foot-6 big-bodied dude playing the position.

That’s what ultimately led Roddy to Colorado State to just play basketball, because CSU coach Niko Medved wasn’t going to put him in a box. The Rams played Roddy all over the court, matching him up with centers in small-ball lineups and also allowing him to bring the ball up on occasion. He played out of ball screens, in isolation, he posted up, he pick-and-popped and he came off screens. In his final season, no matter the scenario, he got buckets and also always had a high assist rate for a man his stature.

“He has a funky game, but very, very efficient,” Medved said. “And his IQ’s really high. He’s smart enough to know whatever a team needs from me, I’m going to figure out how to do it.”

That’s what the Memphis Grizzlies will be hoping. It’s safe to say they just landed one of the most unique prospects in the draft. The comparisons thrown out during the pre-draft process were to Grant Williams and P.J. Tucker. Like those two, he is a tank who has developed a 3-point shot. After making only 35 3s his first two seasons at Colorado State, he buried 46 at a 43.8 percent clip this past season.

Roddy is not on their level defensively yet — more on this later — but offensively, his ceiling is higher. He’s just got so much more in his bag. He has guard skills in a defensive lineman’s body. He can punish smaller defenders by backing them down, and then finish with remarkable skill.

Not many guys built like that are throwing in Dirk Nowitzki one-foot fallaways, a shot Roddy has mastered.

The jump shot looks legitimate too. The mechanics are perfect. He’s always on balance, he gets it off quickly and can shoot off the move as well. He made 9 of 14 shots coming off a screen in 2021-22, per Synergy.

Being a switchable defender who can knock down spot-up jumpers makes him playable alone. Tucker has built his career on those traits. But again, there’s a lot more to Roddy. He scored 1.12 points per possession coming off a ball screen, per Synergy, the sixth-highest efficiency in the country among players who finished at least 50 pick-and-roll plays as the handler. Most of the players in that category are guards.

“He is just such a unique player, the most unique player I’ve ever been around,” Medved said. “He’s always had a tremendous amount of belief in himself. He believes he belongs, and he believes in himself and he’s a high-level competitor. The one thing you could see very early on in his career was that he was never afraid of the big moment and the big stage. He was like, ‘I belong here.’ He wanted all that smoke.

“And then as his skill set just continued to improve — his IQ has always been really, really high — but as he just continued to improve his skill set, the game kept slowing down for him. Man, he just kept taking off, and the level of improvement every year was just was just unreal.”

Medved attributes part of that to giving up football and concentrating on basketball year-round for the first time. Combined with his work ethic, that’s why he believed his shooting improved so much.

Roddy is really good off the catch but he can also get his shot off the dribble, and if opponents try to take away his shot, he’s got the burst and handle to make defenders pay for a hard closeout.

That was a game where Roddy hit seven 3s, making Creighton pay for trying to defend him with 7-1 center Ryan Kalkbrenner.

Roddy still has some work to do defensively. He’s not going to get bullied at all, because you cannot move him, which will allow him to guard up a position or two. Where he needs to get better is defending on the perimeter. He’s capable, but he’s not great at closing out on shooters and susceptible to getting beat off the bounce when he tries.

Medved said the next step for Roddy is working on his body and slimming down. That should help him guard better in space, which he said is an area he needs to get better.

“The margins are so small,” Medved said. “He’s gotten in really good shape here. He’s able to play a lot of minutes and do a lot of things. But that’s the next level. The demands are higher. He’s got to take it from good to great. Eventually he has the kind of feet that can switch out onto quicker guys and be able to contain. I think he could do that. But guarding wings and forwards are what he’s going to have be able to do consistently to play.”

If Roddy can get there, it’s a good bet he has the skill offensively to thrive. Maybe early on he’s just a spot-up shooter, but as Medved knows, the smart thing to do is not put limitations on what he can be.

“A coach who loves his versatility and isn’t afraid to try him doing different things is going to be successful,” Medved said. “I love the fact that he really truly is kind of positionless and is so versatile, because to me that’s where the game is trending. So a coach and an organization that really values that is going to get a gem.”

(Photo: Troy Babbitt / USA Today)

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