Is Jordan Hawkins the next Elite NBA Shooter?
With most of the top teams in the NCAA tournament falling early, UConn has been the one true juggernaut with wins by 24, 15, 23, and 28 en route to the final 4. In spite of being a 4 seed, they are now #1 kenpom, and the natural reaction is to assume they must be driven by future NBA talent.
The main beneficiary of this run has been sharpshooter Jordan Hawkins, who is knocking on the door of the lottery at #15 overall on ESPN’s latest board. He has shown elite shooting upside, making 38.5% 3P and 88.6% FT on a whopping 15.3 3PA per 100 possessions.
Hawkins offers little outside of shooting, but given the importance of shooting in the modern NBA, it is easy to see why he is coveted. Let’s take a look at past shooters to see how he compares.
Let’s start by being super optimistic and see how he compares to a couple of hall of fame SG’s in Klay Thompson and Ray Allen. Numbers pace adjusted per 40 (with a bit of guestimation on Allen’s UConn team pace):
This is their final season of college. Even though Hawkins is a sophomore and Allen and Klay were juniors, he splits the difference of their ages because he is fairly old for his class.
At a glance it doesn’t look too bad for Hawkins because he is right behind them as a scorer, but that is largely because of his high 3PA rate. He has barely half of the 2PA of Klay and Ray and makes a lower %, as well as less than half the assist rate. His creation ability is essentially non-existent, as he has a loose handle for an older guard prospect.
Both of these guys also have nearly double the steal rate, as well as a higher rebound rate. Klay measured 6’7.25 at the combine and is 2” taller and Hawkins is essentially drawing dead to match Klay defensively in the NBA. Ray is likely the best 6’5 pure SG in NBA history, and he played bigger than his size as he had a good college rebound rate that was even higher his prior two years (career avg ~7.2 rebounds pace adjusted per 40).
And this doesn’t even touch on Allen and Klay both having two quality seasons prior to this, where Hawkins had one poor season as an old freshman playing poorly off the bench for 15 minutes per game.
Hawkins’s shooting compares favorably given his excellent 3PA rate and FT%. While Allen and Thompson were very good shooting prospects, it was not clear they were going to become top 5 shooters in NBA history. But they did, so Hawkins has close to no chance of becoming a better shooter, and is far more likely to be worse.
Nobody is expecting him to become an elite stud like Ray Allen or Klay Thompson, but it is important to be aware that these guys were elite because they provided value outside of their shooting. Now that we have established that Hawkins is not on their level, let’s see if he can become a super role player like Danny Green or Kyle Korver. Career NCAA stats pace adjusted per 40:
Green and Korver were 4 year players, but it works out well because their average age over their career is nearly identical to Hawkins. Again, it is no contest. They are bigger, better rebounding, better passing, better defending, and more efficient inside the arc. Crazy they both slid deep into round 2.
The major flaw with Hawkins outside of being inept at any sort of creation is that he is a small SG at 6’5 with a thin frame and is bad defensively. Now let’s focus on this archetype and look at his true comparisons (career pace adjusted per 40):
Anthony Morrow is a near perfect doppelgänger for Hawkins. He went on to have a career as a passable rotation player due to his 41.7% career 3P. Wayne Ellington also was able to hang around as a rotation guy for a while, largely due to having more non-shooting offense than the rest of the bunch. He also shot 38.2% 3P and got off a huge 3PA rate later in his career.
CJ Wilcox and John Jenkins were a couple of late first round elite shooters who were not particularly worse than Hawkins and busted completely.
The pinnacle of optimism for Hawkins is likely Buddy Hield. Hield started school 4 months older than Hawkins did, and their first two seasons are similar. Hield continued to make major improvements, and by his senior season was an elite shooter who was also a good self creator at the rim against set defenses.
Hield went 6th overall because coaches were universally smitten by his elite intangibles and work ethic. I was critical of the pick but it worked out OK enough (passing on Jamal Murray notwithstanding) as Hield has made 40.1% 3P at a monster 12.7 3PA per 100 possessions over the course of his career.
Hield has a stronger frame than Hawkins and is slightly more athletic, so it’s not likely Hawkins becomes this good. But if his shooting becomes elite enough, it is somewhere in his range of outcomes.
Given that Hield was treated as salary fodder in the Haliburton for Sabonis trade, he is not exciting as the most optimistic upside comp for a prospect.
Overall his range of outcomes is not super exciting since Hawkins can easily bust like Jenkins or Wilcox, and when he hits it is mostly as an OK-ish bench player like Ellington or Morrow.
Volatility of Shooting
Isaiah Joe is an odd case. He looked like a bust his first two seasons in Philly, but is now everybody’s favorite sleeper shooter in OKC. The main difference is that his shots are now going in, as he made 34.9% 3P in Philly and 40.9% 3P thus far in OKC. He has also seen a big spike in his mid-range shooting, as he has made 54% of 2PA from 10+ feet this season. He currently looks like an exciting scrap heap pickup, but his longterm value remains to be seen, because it hinges heavily on his ability to continue to make shots. With minimal regression he can be a useful role player, and if he makes a large regression it will be a mistake to make any longterm commitment to him.
We have already seen this happen with Duncan Robinson and Davis Bertans. Both earned big contracts after “proving” that they are quality rotation players due to elite shooting: 5/90 for Robinson and 5/80 for Bertans. Then their shooting cooled off and they became albatross contracts as soon as their new deals kicked in. Since both have fallen out of the rotation on teams starved for useful role players. Bertans is only in the third season of his deal and has played 443 minutes, and Robinson is only in his second season and has played a mere 593 minutes.
This is the problem with one dimensional shooters— it is a constant game of roulette from season to season to depend on them to make 40%+ from 3 with huge volume. A downtick in 3P% can swing them from a quality role player to out of the rotation in a hurry, because they are massively leveraged on being elite at the least predictable and least stable skill in basketball.
Miami is now in a similar position with Max Strus. Last season he shot 41% from 3 on huge volume and was good, this season he is making 34% on huge volume and is not so good. Now this offseason they likely will need to pay him to retain his services, and who knows what to expect from him going forward. Same for Isaiah Joe.
This is the downside of this mold. They can fluctuate between solidly useful to not playable from season to season.
Shooting is the Most Overrated Draft Trait
Even though shooting is immensely important in the NBA, it is incredibly difficult to identify in the draft. Most picks that get the best return in the draft are well rounded guys who make huge shooting leaps in the NBA.
Kawhi Leonard only shot 25% 3P over his two NCAA seasons and then immediately was a good shooter as a rookie that eventually developed into a great shooter.
Trevor Ariza shot 23.7% 3P 50.4% FT as a freshman and then went on to an excellent career for a 2nd rounder when he developed into a solid NBA 3 point shooter.
Channing Frye shot 6/23 3P and 75.9% FT over 4 college seasons, shot 20/70 from 3 over his first 4 NBA seasons, and then randomly became a 39% 3P shooter on good volume when he joined Mike D’Antoni’s Suns.
Shooting is an extremely important NBA trait, but it is an incredibly volatile and random trait to predict over the long term. It is easy to fall into the trap of looking for the best shooter to draft, but the more efficient method is to look for players who provide the most outside of shooting.
If you want to draft a one dimensional shooter he should at least be tall like Cam Johnson or Trey Murphy.
For a skinny 6’5 guy like Hawkins, you are committing to nearly guaranteed bad defense with limited offensive upside without any dimensions beyond shooting.
Bottom Line
Hawkins is massively leveraged on his shooting ability, has low upside, and plenty of bust risk. Even if he becomes useful for a full season or more, he will never be a safe longterm commitment as he is not rotation caliber if his shooting ever cools off to a non-elite level.
If you want to take a shooter, you are better off taking a younger guy who has more dimensions to his game and is bigger. Gradey Dick (#11) is only rated a few slots above than Hawkins (#15) on ESPN’s latest big board, and Jett Howard (#17) and Brice Sensabaugh (#19) are rated slightly lower. All of these guys have their share of warts and none of them are sure things, but they are certainly better prospects since they are bigger and better at non-shooting skills. Hawkins may be a slightly better shooter, but if so it is by a trivial margin given the volatility of shooting and his lack of other strengths.
While he has a chance of becoming a useful NBA player, Hawkins is a high risk low reward player that is not worth a first round selection. Perhaps he is fine in round 2, but even then there will be better value propositions on the board.
Targeting one dimensional shooters is the opposite of optimal draft strategy. It is far more efficient to target well rounded prospects with stable goodness like Jaime Jaquez, and hope that the wide error bars of longterm shooting variance works in his favor.
Even on his own team, Andre Jackson brings a ton of value outside of fringey shooting and should be valued higher. The other three starters all have some small chance of sticking in the NBA, and the best prospect on the roster who comes off the bench in Donovan Clingan.
Some team is going to buy the Hawkins hype from this tournament run, and it likely will not result in a favorable payoff.