Remember Marcus Banks?

I was recently approached by Jeff Wong at Pete Marasmitch to give some insight into the NBA player formerly known as a one “Marcus Banks.”  He compiled my thoughts along with a few others, to come up with the ULTIMATE MARCUS BANKS SCOUTING REPORT.  (Sorry, but I felt the need to capitalize something as intensive as that is.)

Here is what I contributed about our favorite ex-TWolf point guard:

“My first response would be to say, I remember him scoring a bunch of points in a handful of games, but other than that he was largely unspectacular. To be fair, I think the reason his best statistical season was with the Wolves can be attributed to playing alongside Kevin Garnett. If you take some time to look at the roster of playoff teams in the Wolves history, you’ll see that they are largely KG and filler. What I am getting at is that KG can (and does) make everyone around him better. So that would be my guess as to why it might look like Banks did well during his short time in Minnesota.

To go a bit more in-depth, his strengths were that he was strong and had great quickness, particularly when taking the ball to the hoop. If I remember correctly, he was somewhere between an “average at best” and “horrific” jump shooter. I remember cringing whenever he would shoot, and especially when he’d hoist up three-point bricks. However, myself and other fans did like the way that he would take the ball to the rack on occasion, resulting in a pretty lay-up, or more often, foul shots. So he did have that going for him. He was capable of making some great passes and setting up teammates, but he was largely inconsistent in that facet. Banks would be prone to turning the ball over with much more frequency than you’d see a spectacular pass.

I can’t say that he was a great point guard by any means, and I think his floor vision was probably average at best. I don’t remember him being a leader on the court by any means, so that doesn’t bode well either. Other weaknesses were that he was not a good defender, although he had the quickness and size. I just don’t think he “got it” on the defensive end. He was tantalizing in that regard, because he had all the tools to be a good defender, but just couldn’t put it together into a complete package. I already spoke of his poor shooting from anywhere that wasn’t a lay-up, and if I remember correctly there were a lot of issues regarding his attitude and character when he came on board with the Wolves. I don’t think his reputation served him well on our squad, nor has it probably since then. Thank God the Suns signed him away from us.”

Anyways, check out the ULTIMATE MARCUS BANKS SCOUTING REPORT for more info (it’s a good read) and a trip down memory lane.  If you dare.