Craig Sword – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile

June 20th, 2019

Craig Sword

SG – 6’3, 196lbs – Born 16th January 1994

   Erie BayHawks   

Anytime a 6’3 guard records more than a block per game, you are going to remember it.

Sword has now completed his second consecutive season with the BayHawks, starting out as a local tryout player initially but now becoming a very important part of their rotation and their defence. Swords’s stocks totals were part of his game over his four-year Mississippi State career, yet they were drowned out more by his very inefficient outside shooting and an incredibly high number of turnovers for a non-primary ball-handling offensive player. Now, though, he is recording almost as many blocks as turnovers.

A good athlete with Bismack Biyombo’s arms, Sword has been in a much more off-ball focused offensive role here with Erie, allowing him to use his driving game more against close-outs and single sides of the court rather than having to create from up top. Never the best shooter, Sword can at least get to the basket in single coverage, invariably going to his right hand to do so, and although the handle is a bit loose and the propensity for committing charging fouls high, it is hard to check his good first step once he has gotten going. This is particularly the case in transition, where he simply loves to be.

Defensively, as the stocks suggest, Sword likes to get involved. He makes plays on the ball like a young Matisse Thybulle in his prime, and while gambling and overhelping is an inevitable sideeffect of this, it is a price worth paying considering the number of possessions he wins. Sword needs to be in line-ups with good guards, handlers and creators alongside him if he is to succeed, because he does not do those things himself at a crucial position for them. Yet if he can be paired with such, and with floor spacers to cover for his fairly average outside shot, he can be very effective, as the numbers to the right can attest to..

– 20th June, 2019

• This above is extracted from the following page in the The Basketball Manifesto, an entirely free 3,775 page, 1.2 million word-ish basketball reference book which contains reviews, strategies, ideas, opinions, and a whole lot of scouting on men’s world basketball.

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