Signal Calling: Jeremiah Fears has red flags but I might be colorblind

I tried to walk back my hype for Jeremiah Fears, but I couldn't bring myself to hold on to it for too long.

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Two months ago, in the fourth edition of my 2025 NBA Draft Big Board, I fully bought into the Jeremiah Fears hype, ranking him eighth despite a few major red flags. For a variety of factors, I dropped Fears massively once again in the fifth edition, dropping him out of my first round. Now, I’m back on the carousel and looking past the weaknesses again, focusing on the things I really like about Fears’ game.

It helps that he’s in the midst of his best stretch, averaging 22.2 points per game on 61.3% true shooting, along with 5.4 rebounds and 6.0 assists over his last five games, stealing wins over Missouri and Mississippi State in massive individual performances.

Before we go into why I’m starting to become a fan of Fears again, let’s run through his red flags that have turned a lot of people away from the 18-year-old point guard.

For one, he’s a bit turnover-prone. Certainly, it’s down from his early season struggles, but with just a 1.34 assist-to-turnover ratio on a 31.4% usage rate, it’s clear there is still much room to grow. Where he continues to struggle is in scoring efficiency. While he gets to the rim with excellent burst, he’s a sub-50 percent finisher at the rim in the half-court and below 30 percent from 3-point range.

Age is something that has kept his biggest supporters in his corner — had Fears not reclassed, he’d be in high school at the moment, and he doesn’t turn 19 until October — but it’s not something I, personally, tend to factor in unless the prospect is an outlier. So, what is off-setting those red flags if it isn’t he arbitrary, intangible correlation between age and the equally arbitrary and intangible idea of potential?

Overall, Fears exemplifies comfortability, confidence and versatility in the areas where he is allegedly lacking. Let’s start with his shot-creation around the rim.

The one major drawback is footwork. Fears has incredible speed and a devastating first step that gets him in the paint whenever he wants, but choosing his steps purposefully is often where he lacks. Take this drive against a switch against Missouri. He gets by the first level and perhaps panics a little bit as the rim protector stands up, taking off from far away off his left foot, and doesn’t have the touch on the same hand finish.

This is almost an identical angle on the drive, against the same opponent with the same devastating first step, but Fears takes the contact first, going off the inside foot and can finish the and-one.

Fears is young, but he’s 6-foot-4 and probably just a shade under 190 pounds with wiry strength. When he wants, he can finish through contact.

Like most below-the-rim guards, though, Fears is at his best when he’s maintaining his handle, weaving through the paint and playing off two feet, using the rim as a deterrent for would-be shot-blockers.

This is a veteran-style paint touch, changing pace and height while using his dribble to evade defenders, pushing and pocketing the ball. He maintains his dribble until he is directly under the rim with the rim protector on the back of his hip, going off two and flipping the ball off the backboard.

Fears’ ability to get two feet into the paint will translate to the league. I’m beyond confident in saying that. He’s one of those guys where if you didn’t know he was 6-foot-4, you’d think he was no taller than 6-foot-flat because he plays low to the ground.

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BIG BOARD

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His shooting is another thing. On one hand, he’s a 37.5% catch-and-shoot shooter from three, 48 percent on pull-up twos and nearly 85 percent on his free throws, which he draws at a really solid rate. On the other hand, he’s 19.3% on pull-up threes and 26.8% on all 3-point attempts, with a pretty underwhelming 3-point attempt rate.

The blanket statement on his shot would go something like, “Well, the indicators are all there; he just hasn’t put it together from beyond the arc yet,” and there are many cases to support that being a possibility.

Isolating his mechanics, the first thing you might notice is the lack of arc. On a deep shot such as the one below, the ball barely eclipses the height of the backboard, causing it to hit the back of the rim pretty hard and making the circumference of the rim appear more oval-esque on the ball’s trajectory. If we were to look through Fears’ eyes, I doubt his follow-through sees him holding his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

Additionally, there’s a slight slump in his shoulders and not much bend in the knee. Ultimately, energy transfer is more important than any one mechanical element, but there might be some tweaks Fears has yet to make.

Despite the lack of proficiency in his 3-point shot so far, Fears shows clear comfortability as an off-the-dribble scorer in the in-between game. The difficulty of these shots tends to range from “very difficult” to “what the hell?” but when it goes in, it’s hard to say it doesn’t look great.

Here is one of those “what the hell?” kind of shots. Fears gets the switch and violently turns his defender’s hips with the fake spin, maintaining his balance on his pivot, resetting and rising for the one-legged free-throw line fadeaway.

Just for fun, here’s another one. At this point, you might have noticed that Oklahoma is totally fine letting Fears get into early offense, hunting his shot and clearing the floor for him to do just that. Here’s an example of that, amid an absolute heater. He gets the early screen, waits for the defender to commit, and steps back on the hedging big defender, firing a quick-trigger deep shot that swishes in.

Much of this column discussed his half-court scoring capabilities, but Fears is dynamite in transition and beyond capable of throwing some really impressive passes.

Despite the clear red flags, Fears just has a certain star-like dynamicism to the way he operates, that, at the minimum, sees him as a spark plug, come-in-and-shoot shot-maker who can navigate a ball screen and make a pass.

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SIGNAL CALLING

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Quick hits!

One of my goals for Prospects & Concepts is to provide my complete thoughts on the draft landscape. I can’t write my complete opinions on the countless prospects deserving of writing, so, these quick hits will be an opportunity to lay out my thoughts on a handful of prospects who are hot names.

• Jase Richardson has been on a heater. The Michigan State guard is at least unique in the sense of how he’s earned minutes in a Tom Izzo system that doesn’t prioritize freshmen, but his shot-making has made the difference. He’s an electric downhill scorer who’s made his impact as a movement shooter.

• Rasheer Fleming’s three-point shot is clearly here to stay, and the free-throw touch indicators are simply not as damning to his upside as a shooter. Fleming’s been getting lottery buzz as of late, and it’s well deserved, as his high-flying two-way play, length and shooting have made him one of this class’s most exciting prospects.

• JT Toppin went from one of the best freshmen in the country with New Mexico to one of its best players and a Big 12 Player of the Year front-runner with his play as of late. High flying and impactful in all aspects, Toppin continues to show new facets to his game while being incredibly impactful.

• Collin Murray-Boyles is cut from a different cloth, simply. Over his last three games, Murray-Boyles is shooting 71.1% from the field to a rate of 28.7 points per game, grabbing 6.3 rebounds and dishing 3.0 assists per game along with it. He’s small-but-mighty in the middle, drawing over 12 free throws a game in the stretch.

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