AP Honorable Mention All-American (2021)
First-team All-SEC (2021)
SEC Freshman of the Year (2021)
SEC All-Freshman Team (2021)

SCOUTING REPORTS/PROJECTIBILITY

https://nbadraft.theringer.com/moses-moody

Moses Moody, Wing Arkansas

Shades Of Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Morris Peterson

Height 6'4.5" Weight 211 Age 19 Year Freshman

Points PTS 17.4 .587 TS%
3-Point Percentage 3P% 37.9 145 3PA
Free-Throw Percentage FT% 81.7 164 FTA
Rebounds REB 5.9 9.4 REB%

PLUSES

Excellent physical dimensions. Uses his strong frame and long arms to alter shots as a help defender near the rim or harass opponents man-to-man on the perimeter.

Good stationary shooter, but needs to speed up his release on 3s off screens and handoffs.

Unselfish player who excelled in an off-ball role. Does a good job of reading the floor off the dribble to make simple passes using either hand. Has intriguing potential as a screener who can thrive on the short roll.

Capable of pulling up from midrange after one or two dribbles.

Anticipatory rebounder with a nose for the ball, especially on offense.

Versatile on-ball defender who invites contact from larger players and has the agility to contain smaller, quicker perimeter scorers.

Intelligent off-ball defender who always seems to be in the right position.

MINUSES

Struggled to generate open shots against better defenders. Doesn’t project as a primary scorer unless his handle dramatically improves, and lacks the fluidity of players who develop that skill.

Lacks a floater.

Draws a lot of fouls but doesn’t finish well inside. A below-the-rim finisher. Needs to add more touch on finishes.

Lives in the midrange off the dribble. Needs to extend his range to 3 to hit more one-dribble side-step shots like high-level role players can.

https://www.orlandopinstripedpost.com/2021/6/21/22541887/nba-draft-2021-moses-moody-scouting-report

https://hashtagbasketball.com/nba-draft/content/scouting-report--film-review-moses-moody

Film Study: Eye in the sky

-Sniper from long-range; lots of rhythm to his jump shot, high release
-Does work early during his pre-shot routine; body squared, active hands ready to catch and shoot
-Not just a spot-up shooter, comfortable shooting coming off screens
-Attacks hard close-outs with one or two dribble mid-range jumpers
-Doesn’t have a ton of shake off the dribble, not very elusive
-Not a lot of creativity off the dribble; one or two dribbles to get to his shot, or moves the ball
-His stats don’t reflect it, but can make the correct pass/read away from double-teams, to cutting teammates, and/or the open man
-Solid individual defender; good feet, moves well laterally, doesn’t shy away from a challenge
-Extremely long arms help him be a disruptor - close and contests, deflections, occasional blocks/steals
-Plus defensive awareness, helps with purpose; again, uses length to disrupt and help on the boards

According to Synergy Sports, Moody ranked in the upper 75th percentile in college basketball last season in spot-up shooting .... And Moody showed time and again his ability to attack hard closeouts with a one-dribble into a mid-range shot attempt. The SEC Rookie of the Year was a weapon for Arkansas beyond the arc last season, and he’s one of the youngest players in this draft class. But 35.8 percent on 162 attempts still leaves plenty of room for improvement and increased efficiency. He was more of a volume scorer than a floor-spacer last season for the Razorbacks - thriving in certain ancillary areas (very strong free throw rate: .482, 5.8 attempts per game; 2.0 offensive rebounds per game)

He was also able to find backdoor cutters and open bigs in the paint with sharp and on time passes; though his face-value secondary playmaking statistics still leave much to be desired (1.7 assists per/36 in 2020-21, 0.37 AST/USG).....He does value possessions and takes good care of the basketball. For a freshmen who averaged just under 34 minutes per game last season at Arkansas, Moody only committed 1.6 turnovers per contest (9.9 percent turnover rate).

This season, Moody ranked in the 85th percentile of defenders overall in points per possession (PPP) and the 89th percentile defending spot-ups, per Synergy. He closes out well, is almost always in the right place, and has tremendous footwork.

Moody's defensive positioning is impeccable, but he isn't much of a defensive playmaker. Moody posted a steal percentage of 1.6 and a block percentage of 2.0. For reference, the NCAA leaders in both were at 5.4 and 15.3, respectively. Once you account for inflation given college competition, these numbers will likely be even lower for Moody in the NBA.

A significant reason for these low numbers is likely due to Moody's lack of explosiveness and tendency to focus on positioning. We frequently see defensive playmakers are some of the more athletic players on the floor. They can gamble and recover better than most. Moody is not afforded this luxury, but that doesn't mean he can't wreak havoc with his length, positioning, and timing.....At Arkansas, Moody was tremendously inconsistent defending the pick-and-roll ball-handler as he ranked in the 50th percentile. Not an alarming number, but much worse than you'd expect for someone of his caliber. When the ball-handler dribbled off the pick, Moody's defense ranked in the 38th percentile. He excelled when the ball-handler attacked the rim in these situations (93rd percentile) because he used his length to recover and contest. However, when the ball-handler took a jumper, a decision requiring Moody to get through the screen quicker, Moody's defense ranked in the 6th percentile....The most exciting part, for me at least, about Moody's defense is his footwork. As far as elite skills in this draft go, Moody's defensive footwork is near the top of the list. When combined with his instincts, it creates a menacing defender.

Moses Moody doesn't project to be a volume scorer, but Moody was a highly efficient scorer in his lone season at Arkansas. Overall, Moody scored 1.004 PPP, which ranked in the 83rd percentile. The majority of Moody's scoring came in an off-ball role.

Moody spent 29 percent of his possessions spotting up, where he scored 1.06 PPP (78th percentile). Overall, Moody shot 36.1 percent off the catch and scored 1.075 PPP (63rd percentile). These numbers dropped when Moody was guarded as he shot 33 percent and scored 0.98 PPP (54th percentile). When defenses were foolish enough to leave Moody open, he shot 45.3 percent and scored 1.364 PPP (80th percentile).

Last season, Moody scored 0.823 PPP when shooting off the dribble (58th percentile). Moody recorded 62 possessions in this category and shot 38.7 percent. On the surface, these are ok numbers. However, given how good of a shooter Moody is, the hope would be for these to be higher. Moody struggling to create space against lesser athletes and defenders in college doesn't portend well for his on-ball creation in the NBA. Moody fails to bump defenders off their spots, picks up his dribble early, and doesn't have counter moves when defenders beat him to a spot.

INTERVIEWS/PERSONAL/CHARACTER

https://www.nwahomepage.com/sports/pig-trail-nation/exclusive-like-the-rest-of-us-moses-moody-navigates-a-pandemic-w-eye-on-future/

“Not being able to finish with the fairy tale ending, that’s hard but at the same time you’ve got to put it in perspective,” Moody said with a soft, genuine I’m-at-peace-with-it tone during a Saturday night interview. “There’s a lot of people losing out on a lot more than a national championship. Due to the virus, a lot of people are in a lot worse situations so you just have to put it in perspective.”

But his and his family’s decision to move on to Montverde — an independent school known lately for being the best nationally in high school basketball as well as having a large population of international students — was about growth and enlightenment beyond the lines on the court and the cheers in the gym. At 16, he was leaving home to explore opportunities that most teenagers don’t get. And with his older brother Miles attending college in a nearby Florida town it offered not only a quick path for big brother to be there for him, but it also offered getaways for Moody’s parents, Kareem and Rona, to visit him and his brother regularly to attend games among other family activities.

Front-and-center, though, were the basketball opportunities at a school that offered daily practices against elite-level players, a national game schedule, national TV exposure throughout the season, and an almost-guaranteed annual berth into the national-championship tournament.

Moody began that journey as a junior at Montverde in 2018-19, and following a season that ended just shy of reaching the GEICO national championship game Moody enjoyed a productive spring and summer playing with Brad Beal Elite 17U on the glam Nike EYBL circuit while also taking part in several prestigious national prospect camps, including Team USA training camp in Colorado Springs, Colo.

All of it was a ramp-up for Moody’s senior season in ’19-20. In early November he committed to play his college basketball at Arkansas during a community ceremony in his hometown of Little Rock, then it was full-steam ahead on a title-winning mission at Montverde in a season during which the Eagles were never really challenged.

“Being at Montverde and just having the senior season that we did, it was definitely a great experience being used to winning, and the stuff that goes into winning,” Moody said.

Look, being a star among stars is no ticket to easy street. Yes, Montverde usually blew out teams with a contingent of fans staying after games for autographs and selfies, but being the best team the Eagles could possibly be — as Moody artfully put it “the stuff that goes into winning” — meant individuals making sacrifices for the greater good.

Because getting better as a player is not just about growing and getting stronger physically while putting in the time to improve skill, study film, and learn offenses and defenses. Growth and improvement are also about adeptly navigating the mental and emotional challenges in sports, which include buying into a system, buying into a role, and accepting that role while making sacrifices for your team when temptation to shine as an individual is tapping you on the shoulder.

Moody beautifully managed those challenges and more on a team with a handful of players projected as future NBA Draft lottery picks and/or first-rounders. The eyeball test — that is, if you were fortunate to get to see Moody play regularly — offered more testimony to Moody’s value as a young star playing with a high basketball IQ than all of the recruiting rankings, prospect star-ratings, and all-star game invites combined.

But if you need more proof, the stats back up the notion that he was unselfish while arguably being the best two-way (offense and defense) player on his team:

* Moody was third on the team in scoring (11.6 points per game), but he led Montverde guards and was second on the team in effective field goal percentage (70.8%) and led the team in free throw percentage (82.6%)

* Known as a 3-point shooter, Moody delivered making 38-of-81 for 46.9% from distance (led all guards), which is elite-level shooting efficiency.

* With mid-range and around-the-cup scoring identified as a couple of areas that Moody needed to improve, the did just that shooting a blistering 71.1% from inside the arc, which was second-best on the team while leading all guards.

* Moody’s overall field-goal shooting of 60.1% was tops among guards and third on the team.

* Moody finished with a respectable 2.2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio while averaging less than a turnover per game backed up his improvement as a ball-handler.

* On a squad with a big, physical backcourt, Moody led the way with 30 offensive rebounds.

* Defensively — and this is a part of the game where Moody has been underrated and under-appreciated — he was a reliable stopper as he had 31 steals (second among the guards), 25 deflections (second among the guards), 16 blocks (second on the team and led all backcourt players), and 4 drawn charges (led the team).

Those were impressive numbers that reveal the maturation in Moody’s game, but when asked which specific things he worked on to improve and grow, Moody redirected the growth narrative with a poignant thought about an underlying cerebral aspect of his game that can’t be measured with stats or during drills.

“Some of the things that I really improved the most on this year were a lot of intangible things,” Moody said. “Just being on the team with the depth that we had, I found out how to play a role and how to be comfortable in that role. Having to sacrifice to win games, and I feel like it worked, everybody really bought into the system and we accomplished the most that we could have. That’s a big thing that a lot of people don’t really value as much.

“There’s great players in the NBA — you don’t make it in the NBA if you’re not a great basketball player — but everybody has different roles, and that’s how they make it work. So, I feel like that was something that was really testing me going into Montverde and going into the season that we had.”

That’s next-level, big-picture thinking. The kind of stuff that will serve Moody well as he climbs the career ladder with a high ceiling in basketball. But that perspective is also serving him well now, proving the long held idea that lessons in teamwork, adversity, and competition learned in sports do apply to tests in daily real-life scenarios.

Moody is a teenager verging on becoming a young man, he’s an athlete, a competitor — all things that are testing his patience and self-discipline at a time when citizens are being asked to stay at home and avoid contact with others.

“In life, there’s going to be obstacles,” Moody said. “I feel like this is just an obstacle, and you have to find ways to make it work. It definitely changes my routine, but I’m working out around the house, being creative doing whatever I can to stay on top. Push-ups, been doing pull-ups on my pull-up bar, running up and down the stairs, ball-handling in the garage, running around the neighborhood. All types of stuff just to stay in shape.

“The biggest difference I feel with working out at home and working out in the gym is discipline. You don’t have a trainer, you don’t have anyone to push you or compete against. It’s just you. You vs. yourself.”

Moody, though, is not one to think solely or even mostly about himself. Over the past year on multiple occasions during visits back home to Little Rock, Moody volunteered his time to read to children and participate in activities as part of an inititive to promote youth literacy and reading in central Arkansas. Understanding that a large community of young students and student-athletes are looking up and paying attention to him, Moody shared some words of wisdom.

“Just because you’re at home doesn’t mean you can’t be better, and this time being at home gives you an opportunity to be better at more than just basketball,” he said. “I feel like you should definitely be working on your body. There’s a lot of stuff you can do at home to get bigger, stronger, faster. But at the same time, you don’t have to think about basketball the whole time. There’s a lot of other stuff you can do to occupy your time. So you can take this time to get better at anything.”

https://www.nba.com/news/2021-consensus-mock-draft

MOCK DRAFTS
ESPN.com

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Jalen Green
3. Evan Mobley
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Scottie Barnes
6. Jonathan Kuminga
7. Davion Mitchell
8. James Bouknight
9. Keon Johnson
10. Josh Giddey
11. Franz Wagner
12. Jalen Johnson
13. Corey Kispert
14. Kai Jones

Last updated: June 29
The Ringer

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Jalen Green
3. Evan Mobley
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. Davion Mitchell
8. Franz Wagner
9. Keon Johnson
10. Corey Kispert
11. Jalen Johnson
12. Alperen Sengun
13. Josh Giddey
14. Usman Garuba

Last updated: June 25
The Athletic (Vecenie)

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Green
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. James Bouknight
8. Josh Giddey
9. Keon Johnson
10. Franz Wagner
11. Moses Moody
12. Alperen Sengun
13. Davion Mitchell
14. Usman Garuba

Last updated: June 23
SI.com

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Green
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. Davion Mitchell
8. James Bouknight
9. Franz Wagner
10. Keon Johnson
11. Corey Kispert
12. Alperen Sengun
13. Josh Giddey
14. Jalen Johnson

Last updated: June 23
Yahoo Sports

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Jalen Green
3. Evan Mobley
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. Davion Mitchell
8. Keon Johnson
9. Kai Jones
10. Josh Giddey
11. Corey Kispert
12. James Bouknight
13. Moses Moody
14. Jalen Johnson

Last updated: June 23
Bleacher Report

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Jalen Green
3. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Suggs
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. James Bouknight
8. Davion Mitchell
9. Kai Jones
10. Keon Johnson
11. Moses Moody
12. Josh Giddey
13. Franz Wagner
14. Corey Kispert

Last updated: July 7
NetScouts Basketball

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Green
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. Franz Wagner
8. Alperen Sengun
9. Keon Johnson
10. Davion Mitchell
11. Isaiah Jackson
12. Moses Moody
13. Josh Giddey
14. Usman Garuba

Last updated: June 26
CBS Sports (Gary Parrish)

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Jalen Suggs
3. Evan Mobley
4. Jalen Green
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. Davion Mitchell
8. Moses Moody
9. Keon Johnson
10. Tre Mann
11. Josh Giddey
12. Isaiah Jackson
13. Franz Wagner
14. Alperen Sengun

Last updated: June 23

CBS Sports (Kyle Boone)

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Green
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. Davion Mitchell
8. James Bouknight
9. Franz Wagner
10. Moses Moody
11. Josh Giddey
12. Jaden Springer
13. Keon Johnson
14. Chris Duarte

Last updated: July 6
SB Nation

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Green
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Scottie Barnes
6. Jonathan Kuminga
7. Jalen Johnson
8. Keon Johnson
9. Moses Moody
10. James Bouknight
11. Franz Wagner
12. Jaden Springer
13. Davion Mitchell
14. Josh Giddey

Last updated: June 22
USA Today (Kalbrosky)

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Green
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. James Bouknight
8. Jaden Springer
9. Jalen Johnson
10. Davion Mitchell
11. Usman Garuba
12. Josh Giddey
13. Moses Moody
14. Cameron Thomas

Last updated: June 22

Basketball News

1. Cade Cunningham
2. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Green
4. Jalen Suggs
5. Jonathan Kuminga
6. Scottie Barnes
7. James Bouknight
8. Franz Wagner
9. Jalen Johnson
10. Moses Moody
11. Kai Jones
12. Josh Giddey
13. Davion Mitchell
14. Corey Kispert

Last updated: July 6

* * *

ESPN Insider: Jonathan Givony

The Ringer: Kevin O’Connor

The Athletic: Sam Vecenie

SI.com: Jeremy Woo

Bleacher Report: Jonathan Wasserman

Yahoo Sports: Krysten Peek

NetScouts Basketball: Carl Berman

CBS Sports: Kyle Boone, Gary Parrish

SB Nation: Ricky O’Donnell

USA Today / FTW: Scott Gleeson, Bryan Kalbrosky

*****

Given the practical range where the Knicks will pick in this upcoming draft, Moody is the guy I want. Will he fall that far? I doubt it. Is it possible? Maybe. If he does, by some chance, New York should grab this guy and thank the Basketball Gods for their good fortune.

I rarely tout prospects. But I'll tout Moody here. This guy checks all the boxes and can help this team win basketball games.

EwingsGlass wrote:Wow. That’s a legit write up. I didn’t really think Moody would be available with our picks. But would welcome him with open arms.

Just doing an eyeball test on the draft slots it seems like he wouldn't fall past #11 Charlotte but who knows. I'd guess there is no way he makes it past GS twice at #14.