Background

Last year there was nary a prognostication about this team, but that it was prefaced with “if Key gets his waiver.”  The NCAA worked with its usual sense of urgency and granted Key his waiver with a few days to go before the first game.  The Alabama transfer was immediately inserted into the starting lineup, although he eventually found a home coming off the bench as the lineup solidified.  This did not result in a major loss of minutes, though.  Despite scoring in double digits only four times, Key was a huge cog in the machine, giving Tony Bennett consistently good minutes.  He was rewarded with some truly memorable moments in the national championship game – a blocked shot as time expired to keep the game tied and headed to overtime.  Later, a thunderous exclamation point dunk off of an inbounds play that served as a signal to Hoo fans everywhere: now, you can unclench and start celebrating.

Strengths

Key is a really well-rounded and flexible player.  There’s very little he doesn’t do well.  He rebounds, chips in blocks and steals, he can score multiple ways, shoot a little three, play a little post game.  His defense is strong, and he’s got good size and length but isn’t limited to the areas close to the basket.  His athleticism and passable three point shooting means he can stretch the floor and guard a wide range of players.

Last year, he flourished at UVA in ways that he hadn’t done at Alabama.  He cut down on his turnovers tremendously, reducing his turnover rate by almost half.  He was more active and disruptive on defense, and all the glue aspects of a player’s game – rebounding, steals, blocks, and so on – took a big step forward as well.  Consider it the Tony Bennett effect.

Bottom line: there’s little Key can’t do, other than straight-up run the offense as a point guard.  His motor is always running and he can be plugged into a lot of situations to create mismatches.  He will do a ton of little things that make the team better but don’t necessarily result in points for his own box score.

Weaknesses

The phrase “jack of all trades and master of none” may have been invented for Key.  Yes, he can do almost everything solidly well – but he doesn’t dominate at anything.  His shooting is suspect – he’s not streaky, but he also isn’t going to light up a scoreboard.  He doesn’t have the upper-level athleticism of a De’Andre Hunter, so, unlike Hunter, his well-rounded game doesn’t translate to the ability to impose his will on the other team, or flat-out beat them at any game they choose the way Hunter could.

Key also struggles to create his own shot, especially against highly athletic teams like Duke.  He has very little mid-range game.  If he’s not posting up a smaller player or shooting an open three, he’s not going to generate much offense – and he can’t easily post up larger guys, nor is his three-point shooting much better than minimum acceptable for a floor-stretcher.

Role

It’s hard not to see Key moving back into the starting lineup again this year, this time more permanently.  All that he did last year, he’ll be asked to do more of, especially score.  If he doesn’t start, it’s probably because Justin McKoy is a revelation – and that might be the best thing for UVA.  But, starting or coming off the bench, he’ll be asked to do all the same things: guard threes and fours, play down low against smaller players and outside against bigger ones, and be one of the team’s leading rebounders.

Second, and perhaps more important, he’s got to provide leadership and institutional memory, following the slew of departures.  He and Mamadi Diakite will be the only seniors on the floor (Sam Hauser will also be an elder statesman, but not on the floor and not as a continuity thing).

Reasonable Expectations

At worst (and barring injury), there’s no reason Key shouldn’t be the exact same player he was last year.  More minutes are in the offing, so if he maintains his efficiency, he’d be due for a slight bump in his raw numbers.  That said, the most likely scenario – the one where he stays a starter most of the year – would probably result in a drop in efficiency.  Part of the reason he got such a boost – not the whole reason or even the main one, but undeniable all the same – is that he was a starter at Alabama and a bench player at UVA.  Playing against ACC starters would probably hurt his efficiency stats unless he takes a much larger leap forward than rising seniors usually do.

Optimistic Expectations

Weirdly, they involve a return to the bench.  In a perfect world, Braxton Key is the 6th man of the year.  He’s perfectly suited for the role, providing Tony with a way to counter quite a few different looks from opposing teams.  He can sub in for multiple players.  His Swiss Army knife skills are going to be useful anywhere, but most so as the first man off the bench.  There are other players that are more unknown quantities and that have greater variation in their expectations – which is to say, higher ceilings, albeit with less of a chance of reaching them.  It would take quite a surprise from a freshman or two, to bump a senior out of the starting lineup, but if they can, and Key can bring that flexibility off the bench, that’s probably the best case overall.

Final Analysis

There’s a note of damnation with faint praise in this article, and that’s unfair of me.  The new hotness in the NBA is position-less players.  If you find a guy who makes it hard to pigeonhole him into a single slot 1 through 5, and is comfortable at multiple ranges from the basket, that’s what the league wants to have these days.  That’s Braxton Key.  You wouldn’t be afraid to see him guarding anyone except for those guys at either far end of the spectrum (that is, Kihei Clark or Jack Salt.)  This is not to say he’s destined to follow in De’Andre Hunter’s footsteps.  But last year he played just under half the available minutes – this year, that’s going to change.  Take the old “glue guy” stereotype and pump it up to 11.