Six-foot-nine Kansas native Johnny Furphy appears to be one of the more gifted three-point shooters available in the 2024 NBA Draft. Scouts and pundits have been impressed by Furphy’s season because of his stature on the wing and reliable catch-and-shoot ability to make baskets beyond the arc.
Johnny Furphy’s college career and 2024 NBA Draft profile
Furphy, an Australian-born winger who started 19 of 33 games during his one and only season at Kansas, averaged 9.0 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 1.0 assists per game. He made 76.5% of his free throws, 35.2% of his three-pointers, and 46.6% of his field goals. Furphy showed excellent ability to stretch the floor even though he only played one season with the Jayhawks. As a result, he ended up starting for Kansas in the second part of their season.
Furphy’s season-long achievements at Kansas University earned him a spot on the Big 12 All-Freshman Team. An All-Big 12 Honourable Mention was also given to him.
Advantages
Due to his excellent positional size on the wing, Furphy is a challenging player to stop. His ability to threaten from three-point range, especially in catch-and-shoot scenarios, is his biggest asset. Furphy has also demonstrated multiple flashes of hitting threes off screens and dribbling hand-offs. In relation to that, the guard has demonstrated some ability to shoot from mid-range, especially when it comes to the free-throw line. In addition, he has good off-ball movement skills, understanding when to cut to the basket or open up for simple threes.
Furphy can also finish with either hand and is a good finisher around the hoop. Especially in transition, he makes excellent use of his size and athleticism to convert baskets near the rim. In addition, he can rebound well, smashing the glass and battling for every ball that gets loose. Furphy’s hustle, perseverance, and excellent basketball IQ will undoubtedly help him adjust to the NBA.
Limitations
Furphy’s greatest vulnerability is on the court when it comes to defence, particularly when it comes to defending the point of attack. Furphy plays with a lot of intensity and is a smart rotational defenseman off the ball, but he has trouble covering the point of attack. Due to his lack of lateral agility, Furphy is often moved off his ideal defensive position by smaller, shiftier guards. Another thing he does wrong is to let too many drives that are direct to the basket. Furphy needs to get better in order to advance as a basketball player. In order to handle NBA-level aggressiveness, he will need to add weight to his frame because he is also quite slender and can be outmuscled.
In terms of creating shots for himself, Furphy isn’t very good on the offensive end of the court. With just one assist per game on average, he is also not a particularly good playmaker. Furphy didn’t contribute much to the Kansas offence because he wasn’t a highly effective playmaker or isolation scorer. Furphy’s greatest ability is shooting, but he still needs to work on improving it so that he can take more creative shots in addition to catch-and-shoot ones. In particular, he needs to shoot more pull-up threes in order to get defences to respect him as a shooter.
NBA Comparative
Furphy is similar to a number of NBA players because of his stature, athleticism, and ability to shoot the ball well beyond the arc. Given that both players have comparable playstyles and are tall three-point shooters, one name is Mike Dunleavy Jr. Gradey Dick, a former Jayhawk, and Cameron Johnson have been compared more recently. They are all of average size for their positions and have solid off-ball spacing skills, but they are not very adept at playmaking or defence. Furphy might eventually reach the higher and more diverse shooting skills of either Dick or Johnson as he develops.