Trent Perry is ready to excel
After two seasons full of visible improvement, UCLA freshman Trent Perry is poised to rise up draft boards.
Every year, prospects who weren’t in mocks or on draft boards find their way into the mainstream. These prospects vary in size, position and skill set, but in retrospect, they all show signs of NBA skills early on. For whatever reason, in the previous year or years, they were just overlooked.
Trent Perry is on pace to be the next player vaulted into the list of mainstream draft prospects. The UCLA freshman rose nearly 50 spots in 247Sports’ rankings since he made his first appearance at 82 just under two years ago.
Consistently, Perry has found his way onto bigger and bigger stages, competing and playing alongside names bigger than his own and excelling. The 6’4” point guard made headlines after flipping his commitment from USC to UCLA, staying close to where he played high school at Harvard Westlake in Studio City, California.
UCLA coach Mick Cronin has consistently credited Perry’s work ethic through the Summer, and it’s shown anytime Perry takes the court; whether it be Rico Hines’ runs, UCLA practices, or a variety of camps. While Cronin has stated that Perry might not start for the Bruins immediately, his sentiments before the 2024 NBA Draft exude positivity.
“It’s just a fallacy that you have to come in and play 35 minutes with the ball in your hands to make it in the NBA,” Cronin said. “I mean, all you’ve got to do is look at Reed Sheppard, who didn’t start at Kentucky this year and he’s going to go third or fourth according to every mock draft.”
Sheppard presents a good model for Perry. Like Perry, he came into his freshman year at a Blue Blood program as an underrated prospect, lost in the sea of headlining talents around him. Perry will be joined by a highly touted group of transfers featuring the likes of Kobe Johnson, William Kyle III, Dominick Harris, Eric Dailey and Skyy Clark. Additionally, the Bruins will return a major contributor from last year, Dylan Andrews.
Amidst all this veteran talent, it’s understandable why Perry wouldn’t start immediately. However, as Cronin has stated, Perry will have ample opportunity to raise his draft stock while potentially helping raise a banner for the Bruins.
BIG BOARD
Perry brings a myriad of sought-after skills to the table. In terms of athletic profile, while not the fastest or most athletic guard prospect in this year’s freshman class, he brings respectable length to the position while seemingly adding strength throughout the off-season.
On the court, though, his loudest skill is as a ball-handler. Perry handles the ball on a string. He can get flashy occasionally but plays with a brand of poise and decisiveness that is rare for a teenager.
In the half court for Harvard-Westlake, Perry was primarily run as a pick-and-roll ball-handler and was incredibly efficient. In 141 recorded possessions as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, including passes, Perry contributed towards 141 points, grading out at exactly 1.000 points per possession. Eighty-five of those points came from Perry himself, who scored at a rate of 1.024 points per possession.
Perry is adept at weaving through defenses, changing heights and speeds to create an advantage and find a shot. All he needs is a slight shift to turn his hips and get downhill or stop on a dime, rising and firing.
Despite being 6’4” or 6’5” depending on where you find his height listed, Perry has a knack for getting low, especially around screens. This lowers his center of gravity, making him harder to move, while also making it easier for him to get to the spot of the floor he’s pursuing — something touched on extensively in my latest pieces on Kon Knueppel and Nolan Traore.
Perry has something to go to in every coverage.
If a team is playing deep in drop, betting on him not being able to win at the rim, he’s comfortable and competent getting to either a floater or a mid-range jumper. He’s excellent at keeping defenders on his hip, playing to his pace, and surveying the floor in the space drop coverage inherently allows him.
He’s not a liability playing downhill either, and if the low-defender isn’t low enough, he’s more than quick enough to get his hips right by him. Additionally, if Perry’s defender goes under the screen, he has the confidence to pull up from three, which he did at a 41.2% clip with Harvard-Westlake.
If the defense decides they’re better off applying as much pressure as possible to the ball, forcing Perry to beat them as a passer, he’s more than capable of doing just that. If nobody rotates into the paint, Perry has the size to find his roll man over the top.
If someone does rotate, he’ll find the open man, forcing a hard closeout to prevent a three and creating an easy driving lane. These reads aren’t one-offs that other guard prospects merely flash. For Traore, they’re all part of a series of practiced and repeated progressions that he does over and over again.
As a scorer, he’s also shown that he can deny a screen and get into his pull-up or get downhill, attacking the soft spot of the floor. If the defender goes over, he’ll hold for an extra second as his roll man slips, wait for the low-man to recover, and attack the rim while their momentum is going away.
One thing that Perry will benefit from at the NCAA level is having elite lob threats. He didn’t get many chances to throw lobs, despite them being a pass in his arsenal, mostly due to playing with a lot of undersized bigs. At UCLA, he’ll have William Kyle III, who recorded over 100 dunks with South Dakota State.
Perry’s a crafty and versatile ball-handler overall. He weaves through defenses, uses every dribble wisely, and knows how to utilize his body to get where he wants.
Against drop defense, he prefers to score, utilizing the advantage of a two-on-one at the point of attack to create an initial advantage. Against a higher defensive scheme, like a hedge, he showcases his ability to function as a true point guard, making multi-level progressions.
He’s capable of passing and scoring with a live dribble, meaning he’ll be able to play on the ball at the college level, but the bigger question is how he scales off the ball.
RECENT
Perry’s shot is something that has clear strengths and weaknesses. He shot 41.8% from three in his final high school season and 36.8% in EYBL for Vegas Elite, where he played alongside several high-level incoming freshmen and high school prospects like John “Juni” Mobley Jr., Aidan Sherrell and Tyran Stokes.
It is notable, however, that when Perry had to scale down alongside his high-caliber EYBL teammates, his efficiency dropped quite a bit. At Harvard-Westlake, he posted a scoring rate of 1.081 points per possession on 61.1% true shooting. With Vegas Elite, that dropped to 0.949 PPP on 56.2% TS.
Additionally, while Perry was widely used as a pick-and-roll ball-handler in high school play, in AAU competition, he saw his usage overall drop, playing more out of spot-ups.
Back to the shot itself, Perry’s form is smooth, but not perfect.
Despite the percentages he’s shot at, the volume has been relatively low. That doesn’t come from Perry being run off the line either; it’s just not a point of emphasis at his game, and in his higher usage roles, he’s only really taken threes as heat checks or on wide-open looks.
He’s got clean energy transfer up to the set point, which sits right above his brow. His footwork lacks clutter, both off the catch and the dribble, catching or gathering at a comfortably low point so there’s little need for a dip. This allows him to rise without much need for correction, giving Perry an extra split-second advantage over his defender.
At the set point, there is a bit of a pause, and his upper body looks a bit rigid, leading to extra tension in the arm and wrist flick that can hinder arc and accuracy.
It’s hard to doubt the confidence and production, as well as the fluidity of Perry’s shot, despite some slight mechanical concerns of mine. With his added strength this off-season, the reality could simply be that he no longer has the pause at the top, as well, but until UCLA’s season begins that’s only speculation.
He’s not much of a movement shooter, so a lot of his off-ball movement is just feeling out where he needs to be, and making himself available to catch and make something happen. Despite this, as a senior, his efficiency in making quick decisions off the catch was incredible, scoring a blistering 1.378 points per possession out of spot-ups.
The majority of those possessions were catch-and-shoot threes, on which Perry shot 56.5%. The other possessions, however, are the much more intriguing ones.
While the ball typically starts in Perry’s hands, it rarely sticks to it. He flows brilliantly from on-ball to off-ball and vice versa, keeping the defense moving and rarely pausing to figure out his next move. His decision-making is surgical and even unorthodox at times, attacking creases off a honed instinct.
Ultimately, Perry projects as a solid off-ball player, but it would limit him to use him as an off-ball weapon. He shines as an initiator, again flowing between having and not having the ball.
His volume as a shooter off the catch, and in turn, his efficiency, will look to go up throughout his collegiate season(s). Still, Perry has proven to be an efficient and versatile enough shot-maker with an incredible feel for space to function off the ball.
Defensively is one of the only clear points of weakness in Perry’s game. While possessing good size for a guard, he’ll always be the player on the floor teams are looking to be involved in actions because he’s just not wing-sized.
Philosophically, that’s why I don’t tend to get hung up on guards who are negative defenders, as long as they’re positive offensively. Unless its a key part of their game — projecting as All-Defensive caliber — like a Devin Carter or Derrick White, guard defense is merely a factor in the complex equation that is scouting, yet rarely is it positive enough to demand weighing heavily.
Perry, however, is solid on the ball. He has good hips and is active enough to remain competitive with ball handlers, making him a solid isolation and close-out defender.
However, there is an area where Perry is a true negative that scouts will pay attention to. He seemingly got killed on just about every screen that came at him.
Rumors are that Perry has added weight, which should hopefully help him in this regard. However, the technique and mindfulness of the presence of screeners is almost always what makes guards great navigators. Players like De’Aaron Fox, Jrue Holiday, Johnny Davis and others have great technique when it comes to getting skinny around screens, attaching themselves to a ball-handler, etc. and while all of them are strong, it’s their minds that make them effective defenders.
That being said, Perry is a smart enough offensive player to where he should be able to learn the polarized intricacies of defense. His knowledge for how to use screens could very well end up translating to navigating and reading them on defense.
Overall, though, Perry’s strengths come on the offensive end, and that is what matters for guard-sized players; even bigger ones like Perry. His ability to score or pass off a live dribble, navigate a pick-and-roll as a ball handler, make quick decisions on and off the ball and overall shooting upside makes him someone who will be effective at the NCAA level and, eventually, the NBA level.
He may not start early on, due to the immense talent that UCLA has brought in alongside him, but that talent will help him to thrive, regardless of what role he starts in or comes into throughout the year. Currently, I view Perry’s ceiling in this class as a top-ten value.