Film breakdown: Neemias Queta’s team-leading passing
When Utah State head coach Craig Smith traveled to Portugal to watch his star center, Neemias Queta, compete in a U20 FIBA tournament back in 2019, he happened to chat with a few NBA scouts. The then-20 year old 7-footer had just gone through the pre-draft process, including participating in the NBA Combine, before withdrawing his name to rejoin Smith in Cache Valley.
These scouts had spent a lot of time analyzing the strengths of the young Portuguese man in the spring and throughout the conference campaign, during which he was name the Mountain West’s Freshman and Defensive Player of the Year. But in talking with Smith they brought up something that hadn’t been making all the headlines. They were impressed that this 20-year old prospect, who largely projected to be a rim-runner and dominant paint-protector, had learned to pass the ball at a level that defied the traditional skillset of an interior big.
It’s a common thing for bigs to be criticized for lack of skill and vision in passing, though they often get a bit of a free pass in this regard. They aren’t asked to handle the ball much so they don’t work on those skills. But Queta had developed a passing skillset in the one year he’d played at USU up to that point. As a freshman, he was eighth among NCAA centers in assists per game with 1.6 (only one other freshman center was even in the top 15). And during an injury-affected sophomore campaign, Queta improved his assists average to 1.9 per game despite a slight dip in minutes per game.
Cut to the 2020-21 season, and Queta is doing an almost unthinkable thing for a center: he’s leading his team in assists. At 3.2 dimes per game, USU’s starting center and premiere post player is also its top passer. According to Basketball Reference’s database, which has game logs going back to 2009-10, Queta is currently one of just 10 centers to post an assist percentage above 24 percent. And of those 10 players, Queta’s turnover percentage of 14.2 is the lowest.
“He’s got great feel for the game,” Smith said of Queta. “He really understands basketball. He’s one of the smartest players I’ve coached on both sides of the ball.”
Queta’s assists aren’t generally the result of him initiating offense (Smith isn’t trying to make him the collegiate version of Nikola Jokic), rather, there’s an opportunistic aspect to his passing where he combines vision and raw ability to take advantage of opponent’s mistakes. Basically, Queta passes out of the post a lot to punish defenders he catches being overeager to defend post-ups.
You can gather from this small sample of clips that Justin Bean is Queta’s favorite target out of post-ups. Nine of his assists this season have gone to Bean and seven of those nine began as Queta post-ups.
Across three seasons, just over 42 percent of Queta’s possessions, per Synergy Sports, have come in the post. But rather than put his head down and go mano y mano on the block, Queta checks all of his options and is willing to kick the ball to an open shooter if the help-man gets too far away from his man. For instance, of his 38 assists so far this season, 18 of them have come while Queta is posting up. In years past, it’s been the same story. Here’s Queta hitting Abel Porter last year out of a post double-team by UNLV.
The level of difficulty of these passes out of the post can be hard to see as Queta makes it look easy at times, but Smith explained well just how tricky the job of a passer can be at full speed during a game.
“We always tell our guys, on the offensive end the hardest job is the guy with the ball — the passer — because you have to fend off the defender and then you’ve got to be able to deliver the ball on target,” he said. “And for Neemi, he has to do that against doubles, even triple teams at times. So it’s one thing to see the guy, your teammate open, but you’ve got to be able to deliver the ball at the right place and right time and he does that at a high level. Whether it’s in the post, one-on-one in the post, on a double-team, off of a screen-and-roll and we have some sets designed where he can get those catches in areas on the perimeter where he can hit people and set them up in a great way.”
An excellent example of a decision made at full speed can be found in Utah State’s game at Air Force on New Year’s Day. Here, Queta cuts to the basket, gets the ball and looks to finish taking the one big dribble to set up his move. However, mid-move, Queta reads the defense and notices Bean open again under the basket and audibles seamlessly from a shot attempt to a quick dump-off to his frontcourt partner.
A big help for Queta to be able to possess the vision and ability to make many of these passes brings us back to his great length (again, 7 feet tall and with a near 7-foot-5 wingspan) which makes seeing over anyone and being able to release a pass cleanly over or around anyone a not-so-difficult task. The clip below shows Queta against Northern Colorado being backed into the sideline by a double-team, but he’s not only able to see a wide-open Anthony under the basket, but sling a pass to him and the defenders can hardly challenge the release.
The wingspan is good for more than just passing overhead. In this play, Queta is facing up the BYU’s center Matt Haarms (who’s actually a taller 7-foot-3 coincidently enough) and he’s able to spot the help defense creeping a little too close and those long arms help him angle a one-handed pass right to — guess who — Justin Bean.
As mentioned previously, Queta’s passing has largely been opportunistic, reading defenses and taking advantage of their momentary weakness. But that’s beginning to change. Smith said in one of his press conferences that plays have been drawn up and practiced where Queta is used as the primary distributor, and these plays have already made appearances in games.
The ability of Queta to pass from anywhere inside the arc, finding cutters like Bean or Anthony, is something that will open up an offense that lacks great outside shooting. His gravity inside the key creates space in an alternative way. And while his defensive skill is his greatest contribution to the Aggies, Queta’s passing is something that makes him a weapon and capable of leading an offense in an era where centers are often an afterthought on that end of the court.
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—sports@usustatesman.com