After spurning the Dallas Mavericks to sign a two-year $6.2 million deal with the Sacramento Kings, Yogi Ferrell projects to add to an already strong bench unit from last season. But what specifically will he add to the team?
Scoring
Last season, Yogi Ferrell scored just over ten points per game. That would have been good enough for sixth on the Sacramento Kings last season and fifth if you remove George Hill from the list.
Ferrell’s scoring efficiency is not spectacular, shooting at 42.6% from the floor, but he does boast a strong 54 true-shooting percentage. He is also able to score in bunches, with five 20+ point games last season as well as seventeen games with over fifteen points scored.
He may not get as many opportunities to score in Sacramento, but he adds a solid scoring presence to a bench unit that was tops in the NBA last season averaging 44.4 points a night.
Three-Point Shooting
Ferrell is not just a one-trick pony either. He is more than capable of stepping out from behind the line and scoring from three. Last season he was 79th in the NBA in three-point shooting percentage (37.3%), ahead of stars like James Harden and John Wall.
He is also a better catch-and-shoot guy than he is creating for himself from three. His three-point scoring numbers coming off an assist are significantly higher than those that are unassisted. Coming off an assist, Ferrell’s three-point shooting percentage was a whopping 74.6%. When it is unassisted, however, that plummets to 25.4%.
Good news is that he will likely be playing alongside Harry Giles, Zach Randolph, Nemanja Bjelica, and potentially one of Iman Shumpert and Frank Mason III. Him running with a group that can space the floor adequately as well as collapse a defense will free him up to run the offense effectively and ideally get some uncontested looks.
And finally,
He Can Run the Offense
This is not to say Ferrell is going to be taking the ball out of De’Aaron Fox’s hands and become the starting point guard, but rather he is a great reserve for the bench unit and in case of injury.
Ferrell averaged a meager 2.5 assists per game in nearly twenty-eight minutes a game last season. That is not eye-popping, but he only averaged a single turnover per contest. He has got an assist/turnover ratio of 2.58 and an assist percentage of 13.5%.
His numbers are not spectacular, but they are more than solid as a reserve to what was, oddly enough, one of the best bench units in the NBA last season. Besides, it is almost never a bad idea to add productive players to a young rebuilding team.