Grizzlies prospect profile and fits: Cedric Coward
Cedric Coward fits the mold of the coveted 3-and-D wing. How far can his game go? How can he impact winning with the Memphis Grizzlies?
Cedric Coward’s rise to becoming an NBA lottery pick has been quite the journey.
After receiving no Division-I offers out of high school, Coward attended Willamette University, a Division-III school in Oregon. Then, he transferred to Eastern Washington for two years before following his head coach, David Riley, to Washington State for a year. However, his run at Washington State was cut short to just six games after suffering a partial tear in his labrum.
Before staying in the NBA Draft, Coward had transferred to Duke for the 2025-26 season. After a strong NBA Draft Combine, he opted to remain in the draft, on his way to being selected with the 11th overall pick.
Quite the rise, right?
While Coward’s emergence comes out of nowhere, he had been on the radar of other draft analysts. The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie wrote in his draft guide that he had Coward in this top-35 for the majority of the cycle. NBA Big Board’s Rafael Barlowe had Coward in his top-20 as early as February.
From a personal evaluation standpoint, Cedric Coward was one of the coolest players to scout this cycle. He’s remarkably efficient at the rim and from three. He has a smooth mid-range jumper. His defensive tools allow him to make plays and do things that not many wings can do. Is he the perfect prospect? No, it’s hard to find those players. Coward has room to grow as a 3-and-D wing, and he also has to prove he can scale up to stronger competition.
However, Coward falls in line with an archetype that’s rarely failed. Among non big men, the following players were drafted in the first round and had 7’2+ wingspans: Bilal Coulibaly, Jarace Walker, Jalen Williams, Tari Eason, Scottie Barnes, Rui Hachimura, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, and Pascal Siakam… and now Cedric Coward.
Let’s run through the credentials of the archetype. While Coulibaly and Walker are still early in their NBA careers, it’s rather fail proof. Three players are NBA champions. Three players became All-Stars, and two of them were All-NBA. Three players have been named to All-Defensive teams. At the very least, almost all of them are playoff rotation players.
Even if “playoff rotation player” is the bar, that’s a win with the 11th pick. From there, the question becomes… How far can Cedric Coward’s game go?
Skillset
Cedric Coward has the framework of a 3-and-D wing that can get to his spots and finish plays effectively.
Coward’s calling card offensively will be his outside shooting. His mechanics are smooth and repeatable, absent of any sort of hitches or awkward motion. He made 40% of his catch-and-shoot threes in all three of his Division I seasons.
Coward has tantalizing potential defensively. With his length and size, he can fully bother opponents at the point of attack. He still needs to add more to his frame, and he has to show a bit more with his intensity. As he levels up there, he can become a terrifying presence on the ball for positions 1-4.
Coward’s ball pressure wasn’t super inspiring at times. Given his size and length, it felt like he could impose his will more defensively — offering more physicality and looking to deter his opponents from clean shots or easier driving lanes. It’s an area I’m monitoring and not too worried about. With his offensive responsibilities decreasing, and without a defined role as the lead guy, Coward’s defensive prowess should amplify, but it’s definitely an area of improvement that could help determine his NBA outcome and upside.
Coward has a gear defensively that allows him to stifle people. On the ball, he keeps his arms long, which could allow him to shut off potential passing lanes. He has good footwork to stay in front of shifty ball-handlers. As he builds more strength, his ability to stonewall opponents should pop off the page. In addition, it should allow him to cover some NBA 4’s — at least when there’s a more traditional power forward on the floor, rather than the two-big lineups.
Coward should be a good team defender, as he speeds up his defensive processing speed. In ground coverage, he has pretty long strides in rotation, and his length offers a formidable contest.
As an off-ball and on-ball defender, Coward should improve his screen navigation. He feels the contact of screens pretty often. It’s not totally detrimental to his upside defensively, but the great perimeter defenders are usually not fazed by screens.
Coward has the tools to be an electric stocks generator. His length makes him a threat in passing lanes, as he’s likely coming away with a steal with even pretty good anticipation. He was on track to have great block numbers for a wing (5.2 block percentage, up from 3.2 and 3.7), but it’s fair to ask if it was just small-sample theater. Anyways, his length will always form a formidable contest. In addition, he pairs it with vertical athleticism that can shine in weak-side rim protection.
Back to his offense. With passing, I’ve stressed more about the process behind decision-making rather than the end result. With Coward, the assist numbers don’t pop off the page, but it underrates his feel. He’s a sound decision-maker capable of making solid skip passes, while leading his teammates to high-value shots. At the NBA level, this skill could formulate into a connector role rather than a full-on primary or secondary playmaker — generating hockey assists, making the extra pass when attacking closeouts, or mapping the floor with the right read against a tilted defense.
Though I like his wiggle and flexibility when getting downhill, his handle needs to tighten up a little bit. It’s not a glaring flaw, but it should at least make the process of him getting to his spots a lot smoother.
These last three skills I want to piece together: finishing (core skill), post game (branched skill), and mid-range game (swing skill).
Coward is a good athlete that’s also savvy when getting to his spots downhill. He can identify clear driving lanes off the catch. His length gives him a radius that allows him to place the ball at an advantageous apex as a finisher (as seen in some of these clips, it doesn’t take a lot of lift to dunk!). He leverages fakes to open up finishing windows. As a reputable outside shooter, he should be able to create advantages off closeout attacks. He’s honestly just an outrageous finisher for a wing — for context, Coward shot 75.8% at the rim in his sophomore year at Eastern Washington… Zach Edey shot 75.6% at the rim in his senior season at Purdue.
Coward was a unique scout because of his heavy post usage for a wing prospect. He sought out size mismatches and aggressively generated good post positioning — in a league that’s predicated on creating advantages, this is a simple, old-school one. He uses his lower body to knock his defender off balance to solidify the advantage. From there, he can rise and fire quickly for a bucket, but at the same time, he’s patient and methodical with his spots. Finally, the most captivating element of his post game is his mid-range game. His touch and elevation are just absolutely divine.
While I’m drawn to Coward’s floor as a 3-and-D wing that can operate as a play-finisher, the mid-range game is what led me to having a top-10 ranking on him. It goes hand in hand with his post game. Tuomas Iisalo likely isn’t designing post-ups for him. However, can he trade it off with other ways to get to his mid-range game? One of the biggest advantages a player could create is putting their opponent in jail — aka a “hostage dribble,” where the defender is at the discretion of the driver downhill… often after ball-screens. He creates space with extraordinary balance and flexibility in his lower body off drives -- see clips 3, 5, 6, 8. His mechanics rarely change. It could be advantageous when attacking closeouts. The Grizzlies should find a way to tap into his mid-range game, as he shot 58.6 percent on his non-rim two’s in college.
Cedric Coward has a good floor as a 3-and-D wing. I’m optimistic about his ability to play high-leverage basketball because of his outside jumper, defensive versatility, and effective forms of offense. Coward does possess real upside as a three-level scorer. If the defense matches his frame, the number of 3-and-D wings that can really score at three levels is super slim — the outcomes range from “elite role player” to “star.” Again, the upside. Ultimately, Coward has too many good tools — with a great demeanor — to fail.
Fit with the Grizzlies
Cedric Coward fits the mold of the type of player the Grizzlies have been searching for in this era — wing with positional size that has a 3-and-D foundation, with the upside to have a bit more creation.
The Grizzlies don’t entirely have to rush him. When accounting for a healthier rotation — knock on every piece of wood near you — Coward projects as the 10th man. He should be competing with GG Jackson, Vince Williams, and John Konchar for the fourth “wing” (2-3) spot behind Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Jaylen Wells, and Ty Jerome.
In this pecking order, Coward’s ticket to playing time is the 3-and-D elements. Offensively, it’s more about being a play finisher — knocking down catch-and-shoot 3’s, filling lanes in transition, cutting to the basket, and attacking closeouts. The real pathway to playing time is defensively. Coward provides a unique opportunity to add role depth as a defensive stopper. With his length, he can be an absolute disruptor out of the gates, as his responsibilities shift from heavier creation to a lighter offensive load. He can become a nice secondary stopper on perimeter players, while leveraging his length to create defensive events and ignite transition offense.
Over time, Coward’s mid-range game should become more of a fixture to his game. It’d be nice to have somebody else that can get to their spots in the “in-between” besides Morant and Jackson. While he won’t have actions run for him to get to these spots early in his career, he can weaponize his mid-range jumper when attacking closeouts when the pathway to the rim.
Early in his career, these are the questions and observations I’ll be making in regards to his impact:
Is he knocking down shots?
How’s his defensive activity on and off the ball?
When he’s run off the line, what are the next steps?
Can he be a connective passer?
The answers to these questions and the level at which he performs in this area could make him a valuable piece in the Grizzlies’ rotation now and going forward.
The Grizzlies have sought the big wings of Coward’s archetype. Look at the popular query of non-big men with a 7’2” wingspan that were drafted in the first round. The Grizzlies reportedly tried to trade more than three first-round picks for two of those wings (Anunoby and Bridges) — and that doesn’t include unknown pursuits. Other names in the list have been NBA Champions and All-NBA/All-Star talent. Heck, the Grizzlies even traded one of the Magic 1sts and two second-round picks to trade up and draft him — after all, the 2028 Magic 1st was their least valuable 1st at disposal, and they already recouped their value in second-round picks in the 56-59 trade-down and the Jay Huff trade.
If you can’t trade for them, or sign them, draft them.
Cedric Coward is an upside bet with a track record of remarkable efficiency at all three levels, and the potential to be a game-breaker defensively. Or, if he hits anywhere between a 45-75 percentile outcome, he’s a playoff-rotation wing that can hit shots and defend — we’ve seen their impact time and time again in the playoffs in the 2020s.
Just from watching his tape, and getting a glimpse into his mentality through introductory press conferences and other interviews, it wouldn’t shock me if Cedric Coward is an impactful NBA wing — one of the prototype the Grizzlies have longed for.
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