Film Review: Travis Perry - Lyon County's 4-Star Kentucky Commit

Kentucky has a stacked incoming freshman recruiting class for the 2024-25 season. This class his headlined by the #9 overall recruit in the nation, Jayden Quaintance. It also includes #24 Billy Richmond (Hard Commit), #33 Boogie Fland, #68 Somto Cyril, and finally the #70 overall recruit in the nation, Travis Perry.

pc: via Lexington Herald Leader

(All stats are as of 1/12/24 and all clips are from Perry's senior season. Full games were not clipped up, only highlights, but they were watched. So, if I missed any clips from those games, trust me, I saw them)

Perry is the lone Kentucky recruit that's actually from Kentucky, a state that, funnily enough, doesn't tend to get much recruiting attention from the University of Kentucky. Not only is he from Kentucky, but he has redefined high-school basketball in the state over the course of his tenured varsity career. As of today, he is the state's all-time leading scorer, a mark that he conquered in only his junior season. It's this scoring prowess that has Perry ranked where he is nationally, and why he garnered attention from a very prestigious slate of division one programs. His commitment to Kentucky has brought about a decent amount of speculation on what his role will be in John Calipari's Kentucky system. Today I'm going to attempt to quell said speculation by breaking down his film and stats to give a decent answer on what his tenure at Kentucky may look like.

First things first, let's look at his physical metrics. Perry is listed as a 6'2" and 170lbs point guard. He does not have incredible length, size, or strength. He has the build of a high-level three-point shooter and a low to the ground ball handler. He is not incredibly athletic, but he is quick and agile. As far as physical appearances are concerned, he doesn't jump off the page. Luckily for Perry, his game is not centered around his athleticism or physical upside.

Now onto the fun stuff, stats. From what I can find, Perry is currently averaging 29.5 points per game and 5.1 rebounds per game. I cannot find his assist numbers for this year, but last year he finished the year averaging 5.8 assists (via Gatorade Player of the Year). Before I get into percentages I will go ahead and give you the rest of his final stat tally from last season. He finished the year averaging 32.2 points per game and 6.2 rebound per game (via Gatorade Player of the Year). This season his splits look very promising. He's shooting 54.6% from the field on 10.9 shots per game. He's shooting 43.3% from three on 4.6 threes per game. Finally, he's shooting 81.8% from the line on 3.2 attempts per game. These are very solid numbers for a smaller guard, and I think this is way more important than just looking at his scoring averages or totals. Why? Because his level of competition is significantly lower than his nationally ranked peers. Western Kentucky is not the strongest area for high-school basketball, resulting in Perry and Lyon County taking on a decent amount of cupcake teams. That's not his fault, but it is what it is. Luckily for him, not only do his splits carry over no matter who he is playing against, but also the Lyons have gone out of their way to play higher level competition as of late. Perry has not faltered in these trials, so I wouldn't be too concerned about his team's strength of schedule. All stats point to Perry being a high-level offensive contributor at the collegiate level. As far as defense is concerned, we will go over that later.

I want to look at some film to showcase Perry's offensive talents. We will go in order of most proficient areas of his game to the least proficient. As of today, I would say this order goes: Three-Point shooting, ball-handling and playmaking, mid-range shooting, and inside scoring.

Three-Point Shooting:

Forget offensive traits, Perry's three-point shooting is the primary strength of his game, and the strength that will best translate at the next level. Shooting above 40% from three at any level is incredible, but doing it when you have BY FAR the most defensive attention attached to you makes it all the more impressive. Perry gets his shots from beyond the arc in a multitude of different ways, including off the dribble, off-ball catch-and-shoot, and spot-up. Over four attempts per game is an impressive mark as well, one that I actually expect to increase in the future. With all of that being said, let's take a look at just how advanced his shooting from deep really is.

A positive trait of Perry's three-point shooting is that he's almost always on the move. I know I just said he takes spot-up threes, but he really doesn't. He definitely can, but I saw very little spot-up shooting from Perry while watching his film. This, especially at the high-school level, is a good thing. He generates the majority of his three-point attempts via off-ball movements, whether they be drawn up or on the fly. The clip you just watched is about as close to a spot-up three as you'll get with him, and even in that clip he back pedals to get to his spot, uses as pump-fake to send the defender flying, and puts the ball on the floor before putting his shot up.

Those were two clips of Perry demonstrating his catch-and-shoot acumen. However, the way he gets those shots is far more impressive than the shots themselves. Like I said, he is an off-ball operative who is constantly moving around the half-court to find the best possible place to relieve the ball handler. Dare I say a very Steph Curry-like playstyle? In the first clip he is receiving a ton of pressure from the defender, so instead of pushing the issue, he gives the ball up and drifts to the wing. The defender immediately relaxes, and as soon as that happens Perry circles back, gets the ball back with space, and let's it fly. This is incredibly smart basketball, and something you don't see very often even from top tier prospects. The second clip is in transition (a theme that is about to become very apparent). Here Perry is trailing the play before veering off his path to relieve the ball-handler. His defender is way too far behind Perry to get a decent contest, and the secondary defender has to shift from guarding a player to guarding the ball, and you simply can't give Perry that much space. At the end of the day, I could give you a hundred different ways Perry finds his shot, the one constant is that if he's given room, he's going to knock it down.

Like I said, you can't give him any space. Here he does a fantastic job relocating to the corner when the defender gets caught inching too far towards the perimeter. However, the defender does a decent enough job recovering when the pass is made. The everyday play here is to attack the baseline and take advantage of all of that space given to you, but instead Perry decided to go up for the three. He's almost behind the backboard as he goes up for the shot on the move, but it doesn't matter. Just wanted to showcase his tough shot-making abilities from beyond the arc.

The actual shot here is very similar to the shot in the first clip, but I wanted to include another transition three. A ton of Perry's points come in transition. Lyon County is a really good rebounding team, especially UT Martin commit Brady Shoulders, and Perry takes full advantage of that. He leaks out before everyone on almost every play, and he's fast enough that when he inevitably receives the outlet pass, he doesn't have too many defenders to beat if any. Here he's on the move as soon as the rebound is brought in, and when he receives it, he only has two defenders in his way and they're both out of sorts. A pump fake and dribble are once again all he needs to create the shot, and of course he makes it.

That clip shows a good example of Perry truly creating his own shot without moving off ball. He does receive a pass, but I would consider that shot to be self-created. The defender actually does a good job covering him at first, that's why he doesn't immediately go up for the shot. In order to get the defender to back off of him he fakes the drive to his right to throw the defender off balance before turning back. All of a sudden, he has about four feet of space, which is more than enough for him to get the shot up. It's an impressive showcase in creating space without really going anywhere.

Travis Perry is obviously a fantastic shooter, and when he gets in a rhythm you rarely see him miss from deep. However, the issues arise when he can't find this rhythm. It doesn't happen often, but I have seen a few instances of failed hero ball out of him. There have been games where he can't find his shot, and instead of shifting to one of his other skills he continues putting up shots. Pretty soon these shots not only don't go in, but they're also bad shots in the first place. You'll see when we cover his other strengths that he doesn't have to do this. He's much more than a one trick pony, so it's a little disheartening when he tries to turn himself into one.

With that being said, his three-point shooting will translate to the division one level. If you have questions about how he will perform in college the one thing you don't have to worry about is his ability in this department. Could that translation only result in spot-up shooting? There's a chance. However, I do hope he is given the freedom and opportunity to work off ball, which I do think would make him a much more impactful player.

Ball Handling and Playmaking:

Before we get into this section, I want to be 100% honest. Perry is a solid ball-handler. There is nothing wrong with his handle or his dribbling abilities. However, he's nothing to write home about in that department. He gets the job done, but he's not overly flashy and I'm not sure how much active on-ball responsibility he will have in college. What catapults his value as a playmaker are his basketball IQ and passing ability. Perry is an ELITE passer with fantastic decision-making abilities. This ability may have been his true X-factor throughout his recruitment. College coaches see high-level three-point shooting guards all of the time, but I doubt they see many players with the passing acumen of Perry. It's my favorite part of his game, and if I had no limit on how long this article can be I would talk about it all day.

Like I said, Perry is a great decision maker in these situations. He sees that the defenders fail to switch on the screen, leaving his teammate open. Instead of challenging the double-team he simply flips the ball over his head to the open shooter, who knocks down the shot. It's simple stuff, but it's stuff that most players totally miss.

Being able to adapt as a basketball player is such an important aspect of a player's profile. Perry has always been a very good player, but as he's progressed through his high school career he's gotten better and better and subsequently attracted more and more attention from the opponent. He is being guarded tougher this season than he was last season, and last season was tougher than the previous, and so on. So, what has he done? He's adapted. In these clips you see just how much pressure he receives from defenses, and instead of putting up bad shots or turning the ball over he finds the open teammate. He always finds the open teammate. This will translate to every single level and whatever playstyle he eventually adopts, and that's ridiculously valuable.

That's a next level lob. It doesn't pop off the screen because it isn't finished with a dunk, but in college it will be. Once again, this lob is generated by how much pressure he receives. The help comes, and a third defender slides into the paint to replace the help defender. Perry's teammate, who was being guarded by this defender who is now in the paint, has a ton of space along the baseline where he is able to go up for the lob. Perry sees this through two defenders and puts the ball in the perfect spot.

Now, because I'm about to lay out several clips at once, I'll do a little mini breakdown ahead of time. Perhaps Perry's most eye-catching passing comes on the fast break and in transition. As you saw earlier, he is a fantastic scorer in these situations, but he may be an even better passer. He generates a ton of points via assists in transition, a trait that will be elevated at the next level when he's playing with hyper athletic finishers and big men with legit size.

Like I said, his passing in transition is very impressive. He has his head up, he checks every option, and he seems to always make the right play. He's great at looking off defenders too, while maintaining his ability to put the ball in the perfect spot.

I'm not sure how much Perry will be used as a ball handler at the college level, but when he is used this way, you can be sure that good things will happen. He will have to get used to much better defenders than he has been playing against, but he has shown that he is a player willing to adapt. If he can strengthen his ball handling skills by adding more moves to his bag, he could easily be a primary ball handler. His IQ is simply too high to fail in this position, and if he continues shooting at the level he has in high school then he will likely still attract a lot of attention from defenders, allowing him to show off his passing skills.

Mid-Range Shooting:

Before I dug into watching all of Perry's film, I heard from several people that the most intriguing part of his game was his mid-range shooting. I'm not sure if it's just that his attempts are down this year relative to past seasons, but it didn't stand out as much as I expected it to. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and you'll see why in a minute, but I think there is definitely a sizeable gap between the last two strengths we talked about and hid mid-range shooting.

Firstly, all of the mechanics that benefit Perry from three also translate to his shooting inside the arc. The biggest difference between his shooting from these two areas is that his mid-range attempts come almost solely off-the-dribble. As we already discussed, Perry is at his weakest shooting the three when he's forced to put it on the floor. This is probably why his shooting from the mid-range isn't as effective. With that being said, he's still a great mid-range shooter and it's very valuable that he has this ability in his back pocket when he needs it.

I didn't clip up a ton of mid-range shots, so let's break this one down in two ways. Firstly, you have to talk about how smooth that shot was. The defender does a good job of putting up a solid contest, but it just doesn't matter. Perry's stutter-step before he accelerates throws the defender's rhythm off just enough to give him the space he needed to get the shot up. The thing is, Perry already had the space he needed to get the shot up. When he comes off of the screen he should have gone up for the three. His initial defender is still stuck to the screen, and the defender in front of him has his hands down and relaxed at his knees about four feet away. As good as Perry is at shooting the mid-range shot, he's better at shooting the three. That's not only the shot he should've taken, but it's also the easier shot to begin with.

Something I urge high-school players who love the mid-range to do, is to try and convert as many of your mid-range shots to threes as you can. There's nothing wrong with taking a mid-range shot when you are given one, but if you're choosing between the two the decision should almost always be to take the shot from deep. The difference in distance is so miniscule that the value of the three is far greater than the mid-range. So, in instances like this, Perry should have taken the three before he accelerated into the mid-range. With all of that being said, he made the shot, and that's what matters most.

The thing about Perry's mid-range shooting that interests me the most isn't even the shooting itself. Something that I noticed on a ton of his mid-range attempts was that he's fantastic at drawing fouls on these shots. I'm not sure if it's because he is able to decelerate at a rate that throws defenders into him, or even if he's just hamming it up, but either way he finds his way to the stripe way more often than most players do who take a similar number of attempts from here.

Like I said, he seems to have a great sense of how to draw these fouls. In this clip it doesn't look like he gets too much contact from the defender, and yet it's very clearly a foul. When he's able to get these calls it doesn't matter if he makes the shot or not, because he's a fantastic free-throw shooter. At that point it's basically a free two points plus a foul, effectively making this more valuable than if he were to just make the jumper. I didn't see this nearly as much on his three-point attempts, but if he can begin to work it in that would be huge for the evolution of his game.

All in all, Perry is always going to be a strong mid-range shooter simply due to his elite shooting mechanics and shot making abilities. However, if I were him, I would try to convert some of my attempts from here into three-point attempts. If he also converts his foul drawing acumen to the three that only makes him a more dangerous scorer.

Driving and Finishing

The reason why driving and finishing is Perry's weakest offensive weapon is based on something he can't control. He's just not a spectacular athlete. This segment of the game is dominated by hyper athletic players, something that is only going to become more apparent at the collegiate level. He's not a bad finisher perse, but it's definitely something he could struggle with when he heads to Kentucky. As far as high-school hoops are concerned, he has found ways to make up for any athletic short comings and is currently a good finisher around the rim.

Something I noticed when watching his missed attempts at the rim was that he's not the biggest fan of finishing through contact. This is normal for a smaller guard, and it's completely fine if you're a solid tough shot maker in the paint. However, Perry isn't the greatest at finishing tough buckets on the drive, and so he finds himself in situations like these more often than you would like to see:

In the first clip he does well to get out into the open court in transition, but doesn't do anything to beat the defender apart from putting his arm into him. This pushes him farther away from the basket and makes the shot harder.

In the second he really doesn't get too much contact from either defender, and he actually does a good job of leaving the first defender in the dust on his drive. However, he was moving too fast for his own good, and if you slow down the clip, he doesn't seem to be looking at the basket when he leaves the floor. He sort of just throws the ball up in hopes that it will go in, and totally overshoots the ball.

With those examples being shown, I will say that Perry has seemingly found the best way to remedy these issues. Acceleration and Deceleration: the best way for under the rim drivers to beat a defender.

Here he decelerates in the fast break before taking the ball into his right hand (because help defense is set on his left) and accelerating past his defender. Unlike the second missed finish clip that I showed, he doesn't maintain full pace once he beats the defender. He slows back down allowing the defender to throw his hand over Perry's head instead of at the ball, and Perry gets an uncontested layup because of it.

In these two clips he uses deceleration to send the defenders past him. When he sees that the defender is going to go for the ball instead of for the contest it's incredibly smart to decelerate and put the defender in front him. He's close enough to the basket that the defender being rim-side isn't going to matter if he goes up without a contest. This is a great way for a guy who's not an above the rim threat to create free layups, and I think Perry has figured this out and gotten very good at it.

I will say, all of these clips are in the fast break. Perry knows his strengths and weaknesses, so he rarely drives in the half-court. This is fine, because he likely won't be asked to do that at the collegiate level either. Using him that way instead of as a lethal shooter and playmaker would be incredibly moronic. Will he have to go in for a finish on the fast break in college? Obviously. But he's shown that he can handle himself in those situations. Now, division one defenders are better than the ones guarding Perry in those clips, but the science remains the same.

Defense

I had to talk about it at some point, it's 50% of the game. While watching his film, only one thing stood out to me as a legitimate weakness of Perry's game, his defense. He's not big or strong enough to be a usable interior defender, and he's not agile or athletic enough to be an above-average perimeter defender. Luckily, he's not going up against too many players who are going to expose these issues, but those players most certainly exist at the collegiate level. With that being said, he's also never going to be asked to be the primary defender on the better offensive options on opposing teams in college. That means that this isn't the biggest issue in the world, but it is worth mentioning.

The defensive traits that I think could work to his advantage at any level are his basketball IQ and quick hands. If these traits translate to defense like I assume they will then he can be a solid help defender. If he can disrupt passing lanes and deny the ball when he needs to that's all he'll need to do on that end of the court.

Nothing crazy about this clip, but he disrupts the passing lane, gets the steal, and it leads to a bucket. Nobody is asking him to be Gary Payton, but if he can stick with his man and play good help defense, he will be able to stay on the court.

Summary

Travis Perry is one of the best guards in the country, and as of right now he's the top player in the state of Kentucky. He plays like a seasoned college veteran, something that can likely be attributed to him playing varsity basketball for six seasons now. He's a modern guard who not only thrives as a playmaker with the ball in his hands, but also as a scorer without it. He's one of the best three-point shooting high-school prospects I've seen in a long time, something that I am positive will translate to higher level basketball. He is a division one basketball player, and he rightfully deserves to be playing at one of the most prestigious college basketball programs in the country.

The biggest question to me is how he will operate in a John Calipari system. I don't see Perry as a guy who will go to the NBA after even two years of college basketball, something incredibly uncommon throughout the Calipari era at Kentucky. He's not a hyper athletic player, another trait that Calipari values more than most college basketball coaches. When a player for Calipari isn't a great athlete, they have to be a great defender (see Reed Sheppard this year, who is still a more dynamic athlete than Perry) and Perry isn't going to be a great defender. He just doesn't fit in with the current Kentucky system in my opinion.

With that being said, this year Kentucky has gone back to it's roots, running a very fast transition-based offense. If you were paying attention throughout this article, you would have noticed that Perry thrives in the fast break. If this trend continues next year for Kentucky, then I could see Perry using his transition skills to make his way into the lineup. I still don't think he will be a major impact player his freshman year, but if he sticks around he will be considered a seasoned veteran by his sophomore season. This is something Kentucky isn't used to seeing, and if Perry can become a consistent contributor in his sophomore, junior, and senior seasons I think he could be considered a top guard in the country by the end of his college career.

Until then Perry will continue to battle for more high-school hardware like a state championship and Kentucky Mr.Basketball honors. No matter how he finishes his final season of high-school hoops he will go down not only as one of the top players western Kentucky has ever seen, but also as one of the all-time basketball greats in the state of Kentucky.

Clips via Kentucky Sports Radio, Deadstock Visuals, and Courtside