Sean Singletary

After a strong four year career at Virginia—likely establishing himself as one of the best players in the history of the program—Singletary was drafted in the mid-2nd round by the Sacramento Kings. He was quickly traded to the Houston Rockets and then moved onto Phoenix before again being traded, this time to Charlotte, where he saw limited playing time as the team’s third point guard. Needless to say, his initial NBA experience didn’t work out all that great.

Therefore it wasn’t a surprise to see Singletary jump on the opportunity to sign with one of the top teams in European basketball, Caja Laboral Baskonia, formerly known as Tau Vitoria. He’s mostly been coming off the bench here too, seeing 16 minutes per game in the ACB and 18 minutes in the Euroleague. So far he’s struggled badly on the offensive end, putting up paltry scoring numbers on poor percentages and having all kinds of issues taking care of the ball. None of this is really a surprise considering the learning curve involved for an extremely young and very dominant ball-handling American point guard like Singletary.

Regardless, Singletary’s talent is not in question, and it’s safe to say that he’s learning quite a bit this season under one of the strictest coaches around in Serbian Dusko Ivanovic. That should make him a popular summer league target and potentially get him back in the NBA eventually if the cards fall the right way.

Sean Singletary also had a nice showing, displaying excellent creativity and court-vision distributing the ball, and also being very aggressive as a scorer, finishing the game with an impressive 15 points and 8 assists. He may have over-dribbled at times and is likely kicking himself for missing all three of his attempts from beyond the arc, but it was good for him to break out of his shell here finally.

After testing the draft waters last year, and finding them extremely cold after a poor showing at the NBA pre-draft camp, Sean Singletary decided on returning to Virginia for his senior year. His team has suffered after J.R. Reynolds’ graduation, going 14-13 so far this season, including just 4-10 in conference play, down from 21-11 and 11-5 last year, winning the ACC. Singletary’s numbers look very much like those he posted as a sophomore and junior, and in watching the tape, there really isn’t much new to be said about him this year.

With Reynolds now gone, Singletary has taken over more responsibility of the ball in the offense, and his assist and turnover numbers have gone up accordingly. While he ranks 13th in our database in assists per 40 minutes pace adjusted, he also ranks 10th in turnovers, illuminating one of the major problems with his game.

As a point guard, Singletary does much of his creating through drive-and-kick situations, where he does a very good job of penetrating with his head up, and then finding the open man on the perimeter with the ball. He also does a solid job running the pick-and-roll and feeding the post, making all the passes a point guard needs to in the half-court. He is prone to over-dribbling and dominating the ball, though, along with trying to force the issue with his drives, trying to penetrate into too tight a space, which leads to many of his turnovers through either losing the ball, committing an offensive foul, or traveling. Despite his good court vision, he’s also prone to questionable passes at times, showing errors in judgment, which also cause many turnovers. Singletary's dominating style will likely be a problem for him at the next level, as he's not a good enough player to dominate the ball like a Stephon Marbury or Steve Francis. How he adjusts to spending less time with the ball in his hands will be important to his success.

As a scorer, Singletary is immensely talented, having an excellent jump shot, with great form and a high, quick, and consistent release. With his excellent ball-handling skills and quickness, he creates separation very well to get his jump shot off, either from behind the arc or from the mid-range. Singletary is at his best using crossovers and stepbacks to get open shots from the perimeter, which he does very well with when he gets his feet beneath him.

Singletary’s decision-making problems come into play here as well, though, as he’s prone to forcing up contested and/or off-balanced shots unnecessarily, and his effectiveness falls off considerably with these higher difficulty shots, as to be expected. Singletary also will pull up from NBA three-point range early in the shot clock at times, or pull up for a contested three-pointer in transition without teammates under the basket, not showing the best judgment in using his offensive abilities the best he could. To his credit, he is able to hit on some of these high difficulty shots at times, and when he does show the patience to get separation and get his feet beneath him, he’s a very good shooter from both mid and long-range.

In terms of attacking the basket, Singletary uses his quickness and ball-handling well here also, mixing in changes of speeds to get deep into the lane, using screens when necessary as well. He’s not the greatest finisher at the basket due to his size, but he’s very good with a right-handed floater in the lane, and is fearless in terms of taking contact to get to the free-throw line when going to the hoop. Singletary looks best attacking the basket in up-tempo situations, when the defense isn’t set and he doesn’t necessarily have to worry about a help-side big man on defense, where he uses his exceptional speed and ball-handling to weave through the defense and get to the basket.

Looking at his offense as a whole, while Singletary’s field-goal percentage is up from 40% to 43% on the year, it’s slightly misleading, as all things considered, he’s not a more efficient scorer this season, with his TS% being down from 58% to 56%. These changes are primarily because he’s taking only one third of his field goal attempts from behind the arc this year, as opposed to nearly half of them last year. He’s also getting to the free-throw line slightly less, and these two things combined point to more of his offense coming from the mid-range.

On the defensive end, Singletary is a mixed bag, as he shows great hands and the ability to make some stellar plays, picking off steals in man-to-man defense or from the weakside, but he often overplays, leading to blow-bys. He also sags off his man when he doesn’t have the ball, leading to open shots, and doesn’t fight very hard through screens, leading to more open shots. Despite his quickness, he also gets beat laterally more than he should.

As a senior, Singletary will automatically be in the draft this year, and he’ll have another chance to go to the NBA pre-draft camp in Orlando, where he can attempt to do a better job than he did last year, where he had a very underwhelming performance, mostly due to the same poor shot selection, dominant ball-handling and poor decision-making that hurts him at times at Virginia. Singletary will also have the option of going to the Portsmouth pre-draft camp that is in Virginia, and he should strongly consider doing that, as putting all his eggs in one basket at Orlando could spell trouble for him, especially if he repeats last year’s performance. With his outstanding talent, Singletary will be in second round discussions, and he has a chance at becoming a solid backup point guard in the league if he can improve on his decision-making and defense.

With the graduation of fellow guard J.R. Reynolds to professional basketball, Singletary will have the spotlight all to himself this season. The last three years have shown us that the diminutive guard can score on anyone in the country; His senior season will show us whether he can continue to do that, while handling full time duties as playmaker.

In terms of creating his own shot, there are only a handful of guards who can say they are on the same level as the UVA product. His hesitation dribble and crossover are downright lethal, routinely leaving opposing guards in the dust. Singletary confidently shoots the ball from beyond the arc with a quick trigger and NBA range. In fact, he actually shoots a better percentage from the three point line than he does on his midrange jump-shot.

Not only able to create his shot with ease from beyond the arc, he is able to stop on a dime and pull-up from midrange, or lob a feathery soft floater over an opposing big man. The senior's ability to collapse a defense benefits his teammates as well, evident by his nearly 5 assists per game last season.

Now you may be asking yourself "how is a player who seems to be such an offensive nightmare only considered a second round draft pick?" Well, there are quite a few reasons. Because of his ability to create his own shot whenever he wants, he seems to feel that he can take any shot he wants. It is not uncommon to see the Philly native jack up contested jumper after contested jumper, while dominating the ball (a la Philly legend Allen Iverson) and leaving his teammates standing around scratching their heads. Secondly, Sean has not yet exhibited the ability to put his teammates before himself yet on the college ranks. Whether it be through his role in the offense or his personal preference, it is clear that he is looking to score first and pass second. He will have the opportunity to disprove that notion this season, where he will be the full time quarterback for the Cavaliers.

Defensive inconsistencies have proved to plague Singletary as well. In one game he will look like an absolute shutdown defender, keeping his man in front of him at all times and wreaking havoc in the passing lanes with his explosive quickness. Then in the next game you will see a player who is getting beat off of the dribble (due to out of control closeouts, not lack of quickness) and giving half effort getting through screens. With improved fundamentals and effort, Sean certainly has shown the potential to emerge as a top defensive point guard by the time the 2008 draft rolls around.

Measured at 6 feet tall at the Orlando pre-draft camp, Sean is definitely smaller than most NBA execs would prefer for a point guard. Although only 180 pounds, he owns a muscular frame that allows him to absorb contact when taking the gall to the rim. While not an explosive leaper, Singletary is resoundingly quick and explosive, using his quickness on both ends of the floor. Keeping up with the speed of the NBA does not appear to be a problem for this jettison guard. The problem is he was not able to show that at this year’s pre-draft camp, looking lost for the most part and coming up with a real lackluster performance. This proved to be a real set-back, and Singletary was clearly at risk of going undrafted had he decided to keep his name in the draft.

This season will be imperative in terms of Singletary’s draft stock. With the abundance of potential point guard prospects in this year’s draft, it is not out of the question that he could find himself on the outside looking in by the time it is all said and done if he proves unable to run his Virginia squad. However, if Sean continues to build upon the improving playmaking skills that we’ve seen in his first three seasons, this electric guard certainly has an opportunity to earn himself a good spot in the draft at the conclusion of his collegiate career.

While Sean Singletary continues to drop indications that he’s strongly considering keeping his name in this year’s draft, his play on the court simply isn’t backing him up so far. He looked small and a little bit on the wild side with his inconsistent play, dominating the ball, making some very risky decisions, and being outplayed by Team 2’s excellent point guard duo of Jared Jordan and Taurean Green. He did do a good job creating offense for himself through pulling up off the dribble from 17-18 feet, hitting a number of these shots, including a 3-pointer.

Sean Singletary had a very up-and-down game, making questionable decisions and taking some ill-advised shots, but also showing his excellent ability to create by gaining separation and occasionally hitting some shots with a high degree of difficulty. Singletary also made some really nice assists in transition, using misdirection and keeping his head up to find teammates ahead of the defense. In the halfcourt, he made a few nice drive-and-dish, dump-off plays, though overdribbled a bit at times, stalling the flow of his team’s offense.

In terms of scoring the ball, Singletary couldn’t consistently put the ball in the basket, taking a lot of off-balanced, pull-up type shots off crossovers that got him excellent separation, but not high-percentage shot attempts, though he did manage to hit some of them, including two from the 18-20 feet range. He air balled a right-handed floater on one occasion, and missed on a few more floaters and pull-up shots from various ranges inside the arc throughout the game.

Defensively, Singletary had trouble when matched with Ramon Sessions, letting him get past him into the lane, even when he was trying pretty hard to guard him.

Singletary is one of the more well-known players here, but he needs to do a better job with his shot selection, decision-making, and overall management of his team’s offense. He has a lot of intriguing tools, but he probably isn’t an NBA point guard at this stage of his development.

The stat line says Sean Singletary played poorly in what could be his final game as a member of the Virginia basketball program. And going up against a run and gun oriented team like Tennessee, one would expect a speedster like Singletary to have a field day flying up and down the court. But even though the junior finished the game shooting a sub-par percentage and committed more turnovers than assists, his impact on the game was undeniably positive on the whole.

While Singletary started the game out quietly, his fellow backcourt assassin J.R. Reynolds did not. Reynolds went absolutely ballistic midway through the first half, quickly turning an early deficit into a significant Cavalier lead. And behind a large number of Reynolds’ conversions was a timely lead pass from Singletary. Singletary took Bruce Pearl’s run and gun style and shoved it back in his face, navigating through backpedaling defenses like they were standing still. And while Singletary didn’t get his offense going until the second half, it was impressive to see the numerous opportunities he created for his teammates in the half-court once the game had slowed down a bit. This is something that Singletary has struggled with at times, but Tennessee never found a way to slow him down today.

As for the offense, Singletary’s 19 points probably reflects his impact on this game more than the 4-14 shooting. He got around defenders at will, and did a good job of deciding when to shoot and when to pass once he did get into the lane. He got to the line 12 times over the court of the game, and these came almost exclusively on penetrations into a lane that was largely unprotected thanks to Bruce Pearl’s lack of a shot blocker. He really came alive late in the game, drawing fouls down the stretch and nailing a deep 3-pointer with under a minute to play that kept Virginia within striking distance.

It was his potential game-tying 3-pointer that rimmed out at the buzzer and thus ended Virginia’s season, but one can’t help but come away from this game with the impression that Singletary has significantly improved as a floor general throughout the year. Singletary is far from assured a guaranteed contract should he decide to bypass his senior year, but is certainly in the first round mix pending his performance in the pre-draft camp and workout settings.

By far the fastest player on the court Friday against Albany, Sean Singletary put together two very different halves, which added up to one absolutely dominant performance.

The talented junior put on a point guard clinic in the first half, dishing out 6 assists and weaving his way in and out of the Great Dane defense. Singletary is phenomenal at drawing extra defenders and then finding open teammates for uncontested shots thanks to his unbelievable first step and uncanny ability to change direction. With teammate J.R. Reynolds red hot early on, Singletary was more than happy to feed his senior teammate the basketball as Virginia jumped out to a big lead early.

In the second half, Singletary showed why he led the Cavaliers in scoring this season at over 18 points per game. With a barrage of drives to the basket, pull up jumpers, and a few shots from the outside, he picked up the scoring as Virginia kept Albany at bay. He is so tough to stay in front of defensively, and once he gets into the lane defenders can never be sure if he is going to dish off to a teammate or finish the play himself with an acrobatic move.

Singletary really helped himself in this game in that he protected the basketball, only turning it over once. Turnovers and wild passes have been an issue for him all season, making more mistakes than an elite point guard should. With teams always in need of talented point guards Singletary will draw plenty of interest from scouts. His height will be an issue (he is only 5-11 at best), but his quickness, athleticism, and great court vision will help him tremendously at the professional level.

For Virginia, the star of the game was their dynamic point guard Sean Singletary. He was absolutely electric at times, beating everyone else down the floor at a hundred miles an hour, shredding apart Arizona’s lazy transition defense, and finishing with utmost creativity around the basket, to the tune of 25 points. His perimeter shot still isn’t as consistent as you’d like it to be, finishing 5-14 from the field, but he did hit a couple of deep 3’s on his way to shooting 2-5 from behind the arc on the night. He got into the paint whenever he pleased and looked spectacular at times hanging in the air and using his terrific body control to finish or draw contact, getting to the free throw line 14 times and converting on 13 of them. Singletary was quite flashy with the ball in his hands, a little too much at times even, but he finished the night with 6 assists compared to just one lone turnover. He looked much steadier when his partner in crime J.R. Reynolds was on the floor to help with the ball-handling. Singletary lived up to his billing as one of the best lead guards in America and then some, and will carve out a spot for himself as a terrific backup NBA point guard with a few more performances like this.

Widely considered the top returning point guard in the ACC, as well as one of the top lead guards in the entire country, there is plenty to like about Sean Singletary.

We’re talking about an extremely instinctive basketball player, a guy that was definitely born to play the game. Starting with his physical attributes; he’s an outstanding athlete, particularly in the open floor, where he is nearly impossible to stay in front of. He’s lightning quick and changes directions in the blink of an eye, possessing superb body control to maneuver his way around the paint with pretty spin-moves and nifty floaters. His crossover is deadly, as is his footwork, and he loves to use this combination to explode into the paint coming from the left or right, create contact, hang in the air and either draw the foul and/or finish with the utmost creativity. The thing that might be the most distinctive about his style of play is the fact that he’s constantly looking to attack defenses and make things happen.

On the other end of the ball, Singletary is quite solid, taking pride in staying in front of his man and displaying pesky hands in the passing lanes and extremely quick feet on man to man. His size will be an issue at the next level, but at the ACC level, it doesn’t seem to bother him that much.
From the perimeter, Singletary is very solid pulling up off the dribble for mid-range jumpers. He gets his shot off in the toughest of situations, elevating high off the floor, and has the touch and instincts to just throw the ball in the bottom of the net at end-of-shot-clock situations. Once he is pulled farther away from the basket, though, his consistency wavers, as he has average shooting mechanics; including a deliberate release and a tendency to flail his body around and kill any chance of having a consistent release point. As an outside shooter, he has plenty of room to continue to improve, although he will knock down shots at a nice clip when he starts heating up.

As a point guard, Singletary’s decision making is often lacking and he is definitely too turnover prone for his position. Virginia’s offense forces him to go one on one almost every other possession, and we often see Singletary over-dribbling, running into brick walls, and taking tough, contested off-balance shots. It’s not that he lacks playmaking skills, he actually has excellent court vision and is superb at creating shots for others, but he just doesn’t always seem to use it, particularly in tough, grind it out half-court sets.

Part of this has to do with the quality of his teammates, but part of it might have to do with how banged up he’s been over the past two years. He had plenty of nagging little injuries last season and this summer went in to have hip surgery. For someone who is already on the small side at a skinny 5-11 at best, that’s a bit of a concern.

If Singletary can help his team make the NCAA tournament (an absolute must), he should be in an interesting predicament next May. Early on this draft has the making of yet another weak class of point guards, so it’s not out of the question that he works himself solidly into the first round or possibly the top-20. His potential is a bit limited by his lack of size, though.