Torrey Craig
Chicago Bulls

Player Facts

Height: 6'7"
Weight: 221lbs.

Wingspan: N/A

Date of Birth: Dec. 19, 1990
College Experience: USC Upstate (4 years)

Selections

All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0

Player Grades

Speed/Explosiveness: 7
Physical Strength: 7
Positional Size: 6
Positional Wingspan: 7
Paint Scoring: 8
Midrange Scoring: 3
Three-Point Scoring: 8
Dribbling: 5
Passing: 5
Perimeter Defense: 7
Interior Defense: 7
Rebounding: 7

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JUMP TO SECTION

> Intro

> Off-Ball Rover

> Finishing + O-Rebounding

> Additive Passing + Shooting Growth

> Stout Wing Defense

> Calculated Closeouts

> Wing Shot-Blocking

> No Creation Juice

> Smidge Small

> Beacon Bacon

>Link to Player Contract & Salary Info

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*All statistical data courtesy of NBA Advanced Stats

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STRENGTHS

Intro

Torrey Craig is a defensive-first wing with solid physical dimensions for his position. He's gritty, hard-nosed, and makes winning plays. On the scoring side, he's limited to mostly cutting, spot-up shooting, and sneakily great offensive rebounding.

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Off-Ball Rover

Starting with the first offensive component mentioned in the intro, Torrey is a good cutter. His 1.3 points per cutting chance in 2021-2022 was ahead of strong wing cutters Klay Thompson and Jae'Sean Tate.

Part of his cutting efficaciousness is the timing and vigor of the cuts themselves, but the other part is his ability to convert around the rim. Here and in other situations, the USC Upstate product finishes with his nice size/length combo.

Finishing + O-Rebounding

From 2019-2020 to 2022-2023 combined, he's been up over 67% at the rim. He continues to convert interior looks on his great offensive rebounding instincts. He keeps his finishes simple but effective in half-court and when serving as an attacker in transition.

Truly, Craig is one of the best offensive rebounding wings in the Association. He goes in super hard to help breathe new life into the possession for his squad. Torrey's 2022-2023 O-REB's average mimicked those of bigs like Dwight Powell, Zion Williamson, and Wendell Carter Jr.

Additive Passing + Shooting Growth

Craig tacks on some selfless connective passing and flashes some on-ball juice on occasion. Year after year, his end-of-season assists totals comfortably outpace his turnover ones.

Finally, Craig has worked himself into a good shooter from deep. The sample size remains small though – he just became head-and-shoulders above-average on decent volume in 2022-2023. That year though, he hit close to 40% on catch-and-shoots while being able to bang both corner and above-the-break threes.

Stout Wing Defense

Craig is a helpful defensive player, albeit perhaps slightly overrated. Regardless, he has given you positive defensive box plus-minus figures at most of his tops over the last few years. Torrey is the type of defender you can appreciate more with the eye test rather than being a steals-collecting analytics darling.

His man defense is a nice value-add as someone who can guard about 3.5 positions competently. 2021-2022 saw him spend 72% of his time up at power forward himself. However, he guarded many positions that year.

2021-2022 saw him slide his feet to contain guards for around 45.3% of his defensive possessions. He held them to a nice 42.1% from the field. 2022-2023 saw him be very effective on his overall isolation defended.

Calculated Closeouts

Craig is impactful yet remains under control on his closeouts. He knows his personnel, which dictates when to run out hard versus using choppy steps short. Torrey contested 402 total shots in 2021-2022. 169 of these were three-balls. That overall shot total sandwiched him between solid wing defenders Jae Crowder and Tobias Harris.

Wing Shot-Blocking

As a team defender, the swingman can provide plus help-side shot-blocking at his position. He's actually averaged more blocks than steals in multiple seasons – a rare sight for forwards. He rounds out his defense by being a hustling, helpful transition defender.

WEAKNESSES

No Creation Juice

Torrey lacks creation offensively. He is not even much of a catch-and-go guy. Instead, he arrives at the rim almost solely when off-ball through cuts and crashes.

Craig isolations are typically very inefficient. He does not have the privilege of being given ball screen initiation possessions. Torrey is wholly a complementary offensive player. That strict role works in many lineups but does limit his ceiling.

Even within the things he does do well, there are some nits to pick. As a shooter, he has only finally become truly dependable in 2022-2023. Just the year before, he was merely a below-average 32.9% three-point shooter.

Smidge Small

At 6'5.5" barefoot, he's a touch smaller than you'd like as a hybrid wing. He plays bigger than he is and has long arms, but being closer to the size of Dorian Finney-Smith for example would give him greater versatility.

Continuing with some mild physical-tools-based limitations, he is not quite burly enough to check the thickest forwards in the league. Statistically, he was a horrid post-up defender in 2021-2022 with Phoenix – the 2nd percentile.

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Players Appearing Here – Check Out Their Profiles
bacon
Beacon Bacon

Craig paid his dues in the NBL for multiple years before cracking the NBA in his age-27 season