Kingston Flemings, a 6’2” (barefoot) point guard out of the University of Houston, is yet another player to emerge into this draft’s top 10 who was relatively unknown coming into the year. Like Keaton Wagler, Flemings did not even make the McDonald’s All-American game, but pretty early on in the college season, you began to hear more and more about this uber-quick point guard who was leading a veteran Cougars squad; before long, Kingston Flemings was a name everyone knew, finishing the year averaging
16.1 PPG, 5.2 APG, 4.1 RPG, and an impressive 1.5 steals on 47.6% from the field and 38.7% from deep.
As I alluded to, the first thing that jumps out when watching Flemings is his speed. Sure, he is a terror in transition, attacking backpedaling defenders, but his ability to go from 0-100 in the halfcourt is impressive as well; he had some ridiculous dunks attacking from a standstill this year. Kingston also excelled at getting paint touches at the college level and creating shots for himself and others, though it’s fair to wonder how much harder this will get at the next level, given his size.
Additionally, Flemings was a more-than-solid shooter, despite his unorthodox mechanics; he was serviceable from deep and able to pull up off the dribble with ease. In fact, the dribble pull-up was one of the 19-year-old’s go-to shots throughout the season, with his preferred option going left, as it is for most right-handed shooters.
That said, Fleimings probably leaned a tad too much on this shot, and you would prefer he shot more from deep at the next level (just 2.9 three-point tries per game). In terms of scoring around the basket, Kingston does indeed have the finishes all small guards need—such as soft floaters high off the glass and same-leg, same-hand layups—but he needs to learn to draw contact and get to the line more, as he shot only 3.5 free throws per game.
Now, the defensive analysis on Kingston is super interesting. First and foremost, he is a good defender on the merits (both on-ball and off-ball); it’s about how limiting you think his size (6’2” with just a 6’3” wingspan) will be in the NBA. To be clear, this isn’t a Darius Acuff Jr. situation where the effort or awareness simply wasn’t there; Flemings was effective defensively at the college level.
I also think it’s worth mentioning that 6’2” is different from 5’11”. It’s manageable, though it certainly is not ideal. Will he get targeted in a playoff setting? Probably. That said, I also don’t think people should cut off their nose to spite their face with Flemings—he’s a damn good player who will help NBA teams immensely.
Vote for who should go at no. 8!
