Florida head coach Todd Golden went on the College Hoops Today Podcast with CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein this past week and the big takeaway was Golden confirming what many people expected–that returning guard Walter Clayton would be starting at point guard.
When Clayton committed to the Gators before the 2023-24 season there was discussion about how much point guard he would play after getting some reps as the lead ball handler at Iona. Though he was a capable ball handler at that level he was much better away from the ball which foreshadowed how things went at Florida. When playing off the ball Clayton was a threat as a lethal catch and shoot player and someone that could catch and rip, getting to the rim and finishing with power or finesse. With the ball–things were a bit of a different story. Clayton had some well-publicized turnover issues, many of which consisted of him simply dribbling the ball off his foot or throwing routine passes out of bounds, leading many to believe he was always going to be best as an off-guard despite not having prototypical size at the position.
Florida’s staff attempted to get a veteran point guard in the transfer portal, but these players are few and far between in college basketball and the players good enough to come into an SEC program and give quality point guard play don’t come cheap. The Gators did bring in guard Alijah Martin from Florida Atlantic, a 6’2” guard that hardly handled the ball whatsoever for the Owls, but is someone that wants to be a ball handler in order to improve his professional stock. Then, late in the cycle the Gators brought in “freshman” Urban Klavzar–with “freshman” being somewhat relative considering he has been playing professional basketball in Europe for three years now. This left the Gators with four choices.
First, you could play Walter Clayton at point guard, hoping another offseason will help him get over the turnover issues that plagued him when he was a ball handler.
Second, you could put Alijah Martin in at point guard which would be extremely unnatural for him, but it would allow Clayton to continue to star in the role that he excelled in last year.
Thirdly, you could start Urban Klavzar–a player who has been playing point guard in Europe against competition better than the SEC.
Or, lastly–you could give the ball to Denzel Aberdeen who started to really earn the trust of the coaching staff in the final month of the season.
The Gators took the option that most people assumed they would, and that’s starting Walter Clayton at point guard. So, just how did he play when he was at point guard last year, and what can we expect from him this upcoming season.
To start, we should look at how Florida’s minutes went with Clayton playing the point. He did get a considerable amount of minutes at point guard early in the season during the suspension of Zyon Pullin and the time that he was getting acclimated, but those were largely against buy game competition. Instead of looking at those games, let’s look at all the SEC games plus the NCAA Tournament game against Colorado.
In the minutes Clayton was at point guard–the Gators actually had decent results. According to analytics tool Pivot Analysis, with Clayton as the lead guard the Gators had the +5 net rating which isn’t outstanding by any means–but it’s likely better than you would have expected given some of the high-profile poor stretches the Gators had with Clayton handling the ball. More specifically, the Gators were at 1.23 points per possession offensively, and 1.18 points per possession defensively. If you don’t follow analytics–usually the goal in college basketball is to be above about 1.05 points per possession offensively, and below that number defensively. Now that you know that–you can see that the Gators were absolutely explosive offensively with Clayton at the “one.” Looking deeper into the numbers, it’s interesting to note that the Gators shot just 30% from three with Clayton at point guard, but they got the rim a ton and shot 59%. The low three-point percentage numbers could have something to do with Clayton not being able to find open shooters as well as, say, Zyon Pullin–but he was able to put a lot more downhill pressure at the rim.
Of course, now that you know 1.05 points per possession is also somewhat of a benchmark defensively–you’ll see that the Gators were quite poor defensively with Clayton at point guard. When talking about Clayton at point guard a lot of the discussion goes to the offensive side of the ball, but it’s important to remember that Clayton at point guard also means that he’s going to get much more difficult defensive assignments now having to chase around ball handlers as opposed to what he did as a shooting guard where he largely got to stay at home against catch and shoot players. Not only will full time point guard work challenge Clayton offensively–but it might be just as big of a challenge defensively as he will now be put in infinitely more pick and roll actions defensively than he did a year ago.
Speaking of pick and rolls, this is an area Clayton now will get a lot more touches offensively. Let’s take a look at how his pick and rolls went for the Gators last year.
Overall the numbers were decent with Clayton’s pick and rolls netting the Gators 0.94 points per possession. However–the breakdown is where things get much more interesting. When Clayton took a shot out of pick and roll, the Gators were at 0.97 points per possession with Clayton coming in the 86th percentile nationally in pick and roll scoring efficiency.
Unfortunately, passing the ball was a different story.
When Clayton passed out of the pick and roll, the Gators were only at 0.74 points per possession. A big reason why was Clayton’s turnovers and he coughed the ball up 25% of the time when he tried to make a pass out of the pick and roll.
This reinforces a lot of what we know about Clayton’s game–he is someone who is wired to score and can go and get a bucket on his own, but when it comes to reading a defense and making plays for his teammates, things do not go very well. This is where it will be very interesting to see how Florida chooses to play offensively with Clayton at the helm–do they allow him to be a scorer at the expense of getting some of his teammates involved, or do they try and develop him into a more traditional point guard who can distribute–at the expense of his scoring, and some possible growing pains as he fights through the decision making and turnover issues.
Hearing Golden say Clayton is going to be the starting point guard means the staff has already put a lot of thought into how they’ll play, and it will be interesting to see what stylistic changes the Gators make going from a more traditional point guard in Zyon Pullin to a purer scorer in Walter Clayton.