OK, I will admit it, sometimes I have been wrong about how good or bad NBA players would become. Nobody really knows on draft day who will pan out as a good player and who won't. Everybody tries to get the best players they can, but even the professionals are wrong a lot of the time. I specifically am talking about Tyler Hansbrough, the 2nd year forward for the Indiana Pacers.
Last Sunday, in New York to face the Knicks, he scored a career high 29 points. Last night, also against the Knicks but in Indianapolis, he topped that by setting a new career high of 30 points. He has scored at least 20 points in 5 straight games, the most by any Pacers player this year.
I'm not saying that he is the new star of the team, but what I am saying is that I, like most analysts, thought he would never be anything more than a role player off the bench. I thought his game would not translate to the pro game from college because he relied so much on his physicality at the University of North Carolina and he is smaller than most NBA power forwards. I figured he would have a career much like Jeff Foster, a descent player for 11 years with the Pacers. He does the dirty work down low getting rebounds and putbacks for his points, but doesn't create his own shot very often. Yes, I knew Hansbrough had more offense, but I did not think it was that much better than Foster. But Hansbrough has proved to everyone that his mid-range jump shot is above-average and when he gets the ball he is usually looking to score. He looks for contact down low so he can get to the free-throw line. In fact, he is 3rd on the team in free-throws attempted and free-throw percentage despite being 7th on the team in minutes played this year. He is also 3rd on the team in field-goal percentage, hitting about 46% of his shots. He is also 3rd on the team in offensive rebounds, which allows him to get a lot of put-backs, which is what I thought most of his game would consist of.
So yes, I am wrong about some players (I also thought Roy Hibbert was a bad pick for the Pacers, and that Emeka Okafor would be better than Dwight Howard), but so is everybody else. All I can do is continue to watch, and see what happens, but that will not keep me from trying to figure out the draft.
