Hawes v. Noah
The talk of the Berto Center these days is the battle between Joakim and Spence. With not much info leaking out, I thought I'd throw in my two cents if both these guys are around come pick nine.
Hawes has a lot of appealing attributes. Because he grew late, he played a lot of guard early on and can handle the rock more than adequately for a big man. He can run the floor. He's pretty smooth down on the block. He doesn't get into much foul trouble. And he's a decent shooter. But I think Hawes has a few big flaws. One is flat out inconsistency. Besides a string of eight great games in mid-December, his production was all over the place. And these weren't necessarily growing pains. He's a polished guy who made some contributions early but often disappeared, especially down the stretch. The other is his rebounding; the man barely averaged six rebounds a game. Although we need a big man primarily for scoring, he'll need to step in and battle down low. That's the way the NBA works. Some will argue that the Pac 10 was a tough conference for big men, and he certainly played against a few good glass men (The Lopez's and Gison come to mind). But Prince Luc's numbers were way down, Luenen, Ryan Anderson and Radenovic played better facing up, Hardin was hurt most of the year, Pendergraph is kind of a weenie, and Weaver is the only one worth a damn on the Cougs. I'd argue it wasn't all that physical down there, which brings up a red flag for me.
That's why Noah seems the better option. He's relentless on both ends of the floor (and in transition for that matter), he has crazy amounts of experience, he's probably a BETTER "guard" than Hawes, he can finish around the block, he's a great interior passer and he's a good free throw shooter. I think the main dig on Joakim is his lack of perimeter shooting, which needs to improve. But down low, he's just about as solid as anyone in the draft, which is where he will likely get most of his points. If he can perfect the 15-footer that PJ started hitting late in the year, I think he'll fill the cog better than Hawes would.
Hawes has a lot of appealing attributes. Because he grew late, he played a lot of guard early on and can handle the rock more than adequately for a big man. He can run the floor. He's pretty smooth down on the block. He doesn't get into much foul trouble. And he's a decent shooter. But I think Hawes has a few big flaws. One is flat out inconsistency. Besides a string of eight great games in mid-December, his production was all over the place. And these weren't necessarily growing pains. He's a polished guy who made some contributions early but often disappeared, especially down the stretch. The other is his rebounding; the man barely averaged six rebounds a game. Although we need a big man primarily for scoring, he'll need to step in and battle down low. That's the way the NBA works. Some will argue that the Pac 10 was a tough conference for big men, and he certainly played against a few good glass men (The Lopez's and Gison come to mind). But Prince Luc's numbers were way down, Luenen, Ryan Anderson and Radenovic played better facing up, Hardin was hurt most of the year, Pendergraph is kind of a weenie, and Weaver is the only one worth a damn on the Cougs. I'd argue it wasn't all that physical down there, which brings up a red flag for me.
That's why Noah seems the better option. He's relentless on both ends of the floor (and in transition for that matter), he has crazy amounts of experience, he's probably a BETTER "guard" than Hawes, he can finish around the block, he's a great interior passer and he's a good free throw shooter. I think the main dig on Joakim is his lack of perimeter shooting, which needs to improve. But down low, he's just about as solid as anyone in the draft, which is where he will likely get most of his points. If he can perfect the 15-footer that PJ started hitting late in the year, I think he'll fill the cog better than Hawes would.
posted by Big Sweet at 6:52 PM
4 Comments:
Great Pac10 analysis. I have been waiting months for the first Kyle Weaver appearance on TYI. I wouldn't mind hearing a lil Yannick at the UC come November.
I'm assuming you did your homework, but is Noah a good free throw shooter? I don't remember that being the case. (If I had to guess, I'd say mid-60s, tops.) The other thing about Hawes' rebounding is that apparently the power forward he played with was just a flatout monster rebounder, so that may have played into his low total.
All of that said, if the Bulls take over Hawes over Noah, I'm going to have a conniption. Neither of these guys is NBA-ready offensively, so why not take the guy who is NBA-ready in all other aspects? Oh, that's right: upside, one of the biggest crocks of shit in all of sports lingo. Marty A. has decent upside. I want someone who can step in right away and contribute something.
I checked Noah's FT%: 73 percent two years, only 66 percent last year. Yet another reason why he might be there at nine instead of gone by three.
Interestingly, I also did a total of his NCAA averages, because I think it's pretty widely assumed he had a bad tourney. It's true he had a bad game in the Final (although that was against Oden), but over the whole thing, he averaged 11.5 pts and 9.6 boards. That is very, very good, particularly on a team with Brewer and Horford and two guards who could just make it rain from outside, i.e. one where they didn't really need him to score a lot. I think Noah is a steal at nine.
You're right, Brockman averaged about nine a game, but Hawes logged heavy minutes down on the post and I think there are more than 15 to go around down there. And it always confused me why everyone was so down on Noah's scoring when Brewer took his game up a notch and they had 6 legit NCAA scoreres. It's not like he averaged 3 points a game.
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