2025 NBA Draft: Will Riley Scouting Report
Evaluating the Canada and Illinois prospect ahead of the 2025 NBA Draft.
DRAFT EVALUATION: Lottery pick with potential top 10 value
LAST BIG BOARD: No. 20
NBA ROLE: Dribble/pass/shoot wing
REMINDS ME OF: Brandon Ingram, Bryce McGowens, playmaking Emoni Bates
RAW STATS: 12.6 PTS, 4.1 REB (1.2o/2.9d), 2.2 AST to 1.2 TOV, 0.3 STL, 0.3 BLK, 1.2 PF in 25.7 MINS over 35 GAMES
ADVANCED STATS: 5.2 BPM, 23 USG%, 53.3 TS%, 5.2 OREB%, 11.5 DREB%, 16 AST%, 11.3 TOV%, 1.9 A/TO, 0.6 STL”%, 1 BLK%
Background:
Birthday: September 8, 2005
Height: 6-foot-8¼ with no shoes
Wingspan: 6-foot-8¾
Standing reach: 8-foot-8
Weight: 186 pounds
Reclassified into the 2024 high school class. Originally would’ve been in the 2026 draft.
Big growth spurt around COVID. Was 5-foot-9, then grew six inches in one summer.
His dad Ray said: “The way I trained him was not strength and weights, it was all skill based. So he had all those [point guard] skills.”
Played AAU for UPlay Canada. Averaged 21.9 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 2.5 assists. Had a 42-point performance against Team Durant. Mentored by Dwayne Washington.
Born in Cambridge, Ontario in Canada but raised in Kitchener. Father is Ray Riley, a track-and-field coach. Mother is Tracy Hooks-Riley. Grandfather is a physical education teacher. Family roots come from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, then England.
Has been dropping buckets since he was 12. Had 29 points in a Grade 6 championship game. In Canada, attended Preston High School, Southwest Academy Prep, and Grand River Collegiate. Then transferred to The Phelps Academy (PA) in the United States on scholarship as a junior.
MVP of the 2024 Basketball Without Borders Global Camp. The event featured Noa Essengue, Kasparas Jakucionis, Khaman Maluach, Nolan Traoré...
Studies Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Kevin Durant. Was inspired by Jamal Murray (from Kitchener). Was coached by Roger Murray, Jamal’s father, when he was 10.
Background in high jump, soccer, karate, track and field. Probably has untapped athleticism as he fills out his frame (if this happens).
Represented by Klutch Sports. His post-high school top 10 featured: Alabama, Arizona, Duke, the G League Ignite, Kentucky, the London Lions, Michigan, the Australian NBL, UCLA, and Villanova.
Takeaway:
Will Riley will probably go between Nos. 15-25, but I believe that he can end up returning top 10 value.
The Illinois freshman has very few flaws on offense, although he doesn’t specialize in anything either. Riley is tall and creative. He can score on/off-ball, he can pass, he’s aggressive attacking the rim, and capable off the bounce. The 19-year-old has produced across contexts while displaying encouraging toughness and feel as a playmaker. I think that he can play the 2 and the 3; in a best case outcome, I could see him getting spot minutes at the 1 and the 4. The only thing that Riley really lacks on offense is strength, but in a massively significant way that I’m admittedly grappling with.
Relatedly, Riley is a non-defender by NBA standards. The Canadian wing cannot guard any position or create defensive events. It’s not even that he makes bad reads or can’t stop fouling, it’s that he’s effectively a total bystander. That is certainly worrying, and it raises some tough questions. NBA defense is coachable, although there has to be a physical baseline that Riley might always lack.
If you’re buying the upside, then you’re focusing on Riley as a wing-sized ballhandler who can dribble, pass, and shoot, while slotting across different positions and learning how to defend. That would resemble Brandon Ingram.
A lower-end outcome would mean Riley’s body and athleticism struggling in the NBA, while he also fails to piece together his three-level tools. That would be closer to a Bryce McGowens type.
Strengths:
Stop-and-go handle. Herky-jerky.
Keeps his defender guessing. Offsets his lack of strength and burst.
Understands how to use a ballscreen. Doesn’t get rushed. Can chain together some dribble moves.
Decent body control. Can play off two feet.
Functional passing.
1.9 A/TO is very encouraging on fairly high 23 USG%.
16 AST% to 11.3 TOV%. In total, 78 assists to 42 turnovers.
Passes on the drive. Leverages his relentlessness as a slasher. Makes strong-side reads and drop-off passes.
Likes to wrap his pass behind the defense whenever he gets a deep paint touch.
Can use his size to see over the defense. Flashes skip passes.
Safe and accurate facilitator in the pick-and-roll.
Makes the correct read when two defenders go on the ball.
Keeps things ticking. Doesn’t look for the home run.
Flashes some manipulation when he reads the nail help or leaves his feet for jump passes.
Aggressive slashing on high volume. 61.3% (76/124) at the rim. Only dips to 60% (60/100) in the half-court.
72.4 FT% (84/116) … 32.3 FTr … 3.3 FTA per game.
Untapped athleticism as he gets stronger. Probably a slightly better athlete than he’s given credit for, especially when he has a runway.
Pull-up flashes.
30.6 3P% (15/49) on off-dribble threes.
32 FG% (16/50) on off-dribble twos.
Deep, confident range. Uses screens. Calls for isos. Drills threes from a standstill. Or after a hang dribble. Also flashes a crossover and a stepback.
Self-creates and scores off the dribble despite lacking strength and twitch right now.
Uses his off-arm to create a sliver of space. Does so without fouling.
Intriguing deceleration skills. Flexible limbs.
From the midrange, works around the elbows. Doesn’t need more than three dribbles to get into his move.
Scoring track record checks out.
Can toggle on/off-ball.
33.3 3P% (31/93) on catch-and-shoot threes.
36.5 3P% (19/52) on ‘Guarded’ … 29.3 3P% (12/41) on ‘Unguarded’.
40.1% of his total shots were threes.
Not an awesome spot-up shooter, but decent. Engaged overall off-ball.
Developed nice chemistry with Tomislav Ivisic as a cutter. Assertive give-and-gos.
Improvements:
Strength. Weighed in at 186 pounds at the draft combine. Didn’t strength-train until relatively recently.
Can his finishing translate? Just 9 dunks in 35 games.
Lacks balance. Gets bumped off his line too often when attempting to get to his preferred spots.
Can find it tough to even turn the corner.
Forced into spinning on a lot of his takes once defenders cut him off. Spin could be more violent in order to create more space.
Can only fill out so much. Narrow frame/shoulders. Lower body and core is probably more important than getting jacked.
Defense. Complete non-factor on- and off-the-ball.
Gets moved on drives. Offers little-to-no resistance.
Lacks positional length. Doesn’t have tools to recover. Can’t leverage whatever size he does have.
19 stocks in 35 games (899 minutes). 0.6 ‘stocks’ per game.
1.0 BLK% and 0.6 STL% are super low. Not a disruptor.
Doesn’t add much as a rebounder either despite being about 6-foot-9.
Shooting consistency. Linked to lack of strength.
Shot diet can be tough because he can’t get past defenders. Takes fallaways from tricky angles.
Adding muscle will help him manufacture space more often.
Not efficient right now. Not to a worrying extent, in my opinion.
Lower body is inconsistent pulling up and spotting up.
Can he make tougher catch-and-shoots? Meaning movement threes, off hand-offs, pindowns, etc.
Space creation. Linked to lack of strength and shooting consistency.
Still gets stumped by defenders. Dealing with contact isn’t easy.
If this happens, can take too long without an end result.
Most of his turnovers come when he’s on the ball handling/driving, rather than trying to move it on.
Ballhandling and passing might not be maximized.