The Charlotte Hornets' rookie out of Alabama has been playing at high level since January with 20+ points in 12 of his last 17 games.
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00:00 Welcome in to another edition of Bama Central's Just a Minute,
00:03 alongside Blake Beiler.
00:04 I'm Katie Windham.
00:06 And, Blake, Alabama basketball is in a great spot right now,
00:08 up top of the SEC standings,
00:09 all alone after Wednesday night, actually.
00:11 But it's not just in college basketball
00:13 that Alabama is doing well.
00:15 In the NBA, Brandon Miller, the number two overall pick
00:18 in last year's NBA draft,
00:20 has really been showing out lately.
00:21 Won rookie of the month in January.
00:25 He has scored double figures every game in February so far,
00:29 and almost every game in January he did.
00:31 He scored 20-plus points in 12 of his last 17 games.
00:35 Blake, what have you seen from Brandon Miller lately,
00:38 and kind of maybe how has he shown that, yeah,
00:40 he was deserving of that number two spot in the NBA draft?
00:44 Well, Brandon Miller's had kind of a roller coaster
00:47 of a journey so far in the NBA,
00:48 because remember when he first got drafted,
00:51 a lot of Charlotte Hornets fans thought it was the wrong pick.
00:54 They thought they should have gone with Scoot Henderson,
00:56 who went the next pick to the Trail Blazers.
00:58 There was the video of the mascot hanging his head
01:01 during the draft party and all of that.
01:03 Fans booing at bars watching the draft.
01:06 And then you get to the Summer League,
01:09 and he struggled a lot.
01:10 He struggled to get his feet under him.
01:12 He looked uncomfortable.
01:14 I always thought part of that had to do
01:16 with the supporting cast around him,
01:19 and the Hornets Summer League team was really bad,
01:21 and he didn't have much to work with.
01:24 But now he's gotten into the season,
01:26 he's gotten comfortable,
01:27 and over the last month, month and a half,
01:29 he's been one of the best rookies,
01:31 maybe the best rookie in the NBA.
01:32 Like you said, he's scored double figures
01:35 in 12 out of 17 games,
01:36 which are 20 points in 12 out of 17 games,
01:40 double figures in, I think,
01:42 all but one game in the past month.
01:43 And so he just looks really comfortable.
01:47 You see the skills that we saw at Alabama,
01:50 the three-point shooting,
01:51 his defensive abilities with his long wingspan,
01:56 his quickness, he's very intelligent.
01:58 He's an intelligent player.
02:00 Alabama tweeted, Alabama Men's Basketball,
02:02 the official account, tweeted the other day
02:05 a clip from J.J. Rattick, an ESPN NBA analyst,
02:09 and he was talking about how Miller has the skill set
02:13 and he has the physical tools,
02:14 but what's impressed him the most
02:16 about after talking with people around the league
02:19 is that he has it mentally.
02:20 He has it up here.
02:22 And the fact that he has that means
02:24 that he's going to be able to go a long way in this league.
02:27 And with the way that he has played over the past month,
02:31 month and a half,
02:33 there's no reason to think that he's not going to continue
02:35 to get comfortable.
02:36 The Charlotte Hornets just made some moves,
02:38 shipping out some older wings,
02:40 kind of handing the keys over to Miller in the offense
02:44 and with the team.
02:45 And so he's having a great rookie season.
02:47 He's certainly going to be first-team all-rookie,
02:50 might end up competing for rookie of the year,
02:52 and he's going to be a really good player in the NBA
02:55 for a really long time.
02:56 And I think we've seen, too, the respect he's started to get
02:59 from people like J.D. Rattick, from analysts,
03:01 from other NBA players.
03:02 Like, there was the clip after the Hornets and Lakers
03:06 played with LeBron with Brandon Miller.
03:08 Just one of the two best, if not the best NBA players
03:12 of all time showing his respect for Brandon Miller.
03:14 I think he kind of sees him as one of the future guys
03:17 in the sport.
03:18 And so, yeah, like you said,
03:20 he's just had a really strong last month and a half,
03:23 and it'll likely continue for the rest of this NBA season.
03:26 But that will wrap up today's "Just a Minute."
03:28 Thank you so much for watching.
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