Even though Cormac Ryan has been ranked 18th, projecting the role he plays this season is harder than you assume it would be. After bouncing around the league for a while, Ryan began last year playing for the Herd. I highly doubt that, at 27 years old, he was on the Bucks’ radar at all to begin the year, but credit to him: the man kept knocking on the door until he got his shot… and man, did he take advantage. In the 11 NBA games Ryan played to end the season, he averaged 14.3 PPG on .52/.45/.92 splits! Like, it was shocking how natural the NYC native looked on an NBA floor; he did everything you would want from a fourth or fifth starter and even showed some advanced shotmaking in the lane.
Now, we should pump the brakes just a tad and consider that 1) there wasn’t exactly serious basketball being played in a lot of these games, and 2) there was no scouting report to go off. For the most part, Ryan got to play consequence-free hoops against guys who had no clue who he was. That said, dropping 25 points on 9/14 shooting against what was a mostly healthy Rockets team isn’t nothing; many NBA players could never come close to that. At this point, I am comfortable in my assessment that there’s clearly something to continue exploring with this guy… the issue, of course, is that the minutes aren’t there for the Bucks to do that exploring.
And not to be a downer, but another assessment I feel confident in is that Ryan’s ceiling as a player does not exceed the aforementioned role as a fourth or fifth starter/tertiary creator. Like 80% of basketball players, he is not a primary option, and he never will be. We saw evidence of this at Summer League, where Ryan was often entrusted to be the team’s lead guard and command a high usage—it was not pretty. He averaged 11.0 PPG, 1.5 APG, and 3.5 TPG on .35/.35/.40 splits.
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So at once, you have this duality: Ryan killed it in a relatively siloed role at the NBA level, then stunk it up at a much lower level in a significantly bigger role. To me, that really seals the deal on what he is and, crucially, what he is not. Regardless, I hope the coaching staff can find pockets this season to get Ryan into the rotation and keep gathering data on him. Maybe last season’s flurry was a flash in the pan; maybe it was more—only one way to find out.
And onto 17 we go…
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