Offensive Player Profiles: Mason Gillis
- Sam Bourne
- Sep 18, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 7, 2023
This blog marks the beginning of my deep dive into each player for Purdue that I believe will play a significant role for the upcoming 2023-24 college basketball season. We start with the most experienced returning player on this Purdue roster, number zero, Mason Gillis. In this series, I will go over each player's offensive strengths and weaknesses, a player comparison, areas to develop, and how I think their strengths can be maximized in their role on this Purdue team.
To start off, when Gillis is playing at his best, one of the first things that pops of the screen is his physical strength and aggression. This aggression, combined with his ability to stretch defenses with his shooting ability, gives Gillis a very solid offensive role. With his quickness, he is able to play a majority of his time on the perimeter while still attacking the offensive glass consistently. His perimeter game is solid, he has a clean stroke with good balance and follow through. His three point shooting is best when stationary and he has shown the ability to drive into a pull up jumper or even to make a PnR read as the ball handler in a few instances. (Below are links to youtube clips from the past season).
Gillis attacking a closeout into a lob to Edey:
Gillis curling into a triple:
Gillis stampeding into the paint for free throws:
Next, it is important to talk about the limitations that Gillis has as a player to understand the best situation for Gillis and the team. He is an undersized power forward that does not possess elite measurable to completely erase these disadvantages. An area of improvement for Gillis is his decision making. If he is able to play faster and more aggressive with his shot selection, I think you will see his offensive impact grow as he stresses opposing teams with his shot.
This leads me to my player comparison for Gillis. His frame and play style reminds me of the production that Grant Williams brings to the Celtics. Williams has shown the ability to hit threes while bringing consistent production on defense because of how he uses his toughness to mitigate his size disadvantage.
For Gillis to continue to develop, he needs to get better in the paint. A key component to improvement for him is being a smarter and more efficient cutter, especially on the weakside. Additionally, his ball handling can be improved to increase the effectiveness of his drives off hard closeouts. A better control of the ball allows for Gillis to attack more angles with his frame. Grant Williams did a great job of using his frame to blunt players ability to block his shot inside, because he used angles and strength to gain an advantage at the rim.
Now comes the fun part: how to maximize Gillis' strengths while being realistic with his weaknesses. To start, Gillis is most impactful when he is hitting his 3 ball, just look at the single game explosion versus Penn State when he dropped 29 points in 25 minutes. This starts with him being more disciplined in his spacing on the strongside and limiting his movements to relocations or perimeter screening one pass away. Less strongside movements will allow for him to be set and ready to shoot or drive right off the catch. On the weakside, this is where Gillis can show some more creativity because of the wealth of options that his shooting brings. Here's a list of options for Gillis "Shadow cut" (Corner basket cut following the lowest help defender), 45 cut, closeout of the skip pass, flare screens, down screens, ghost cuts from the corner to create space for guards, flashing to the high post, stampeding, and many other slight alterations depending on the defense. In play-calling, Gillis works very well with Trey Kauffman-Renn in Chicago action, Bumper actions with Edey, and flowing from cutter to screener on pin-downs.
Chicago Actions with Gillis:
Ghost Screen Example:
Overall, Purdue can maximize Gillis' unique ability to knockdown shots by being more disciplined with their spacing. With better spacing, Gillis can be creative with his weakside movements to stress helpside defenses with shooting and cutting. Finally, Gillis is smaller, but his speed can make life difficult for teams in screening actions because of the matchup issues with bigger players chasing Gillis around the floor. These three areas will make Gillis an extremely impactful player because his shooting can improve the overall teams offensive.
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