{"id":598619,"date":"2026-02-12T09:53:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/598619\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T09:53:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:53:41","slug":"thomas-haugh-is-called-the-biggest-steal-of-the-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/598619\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Haugh is called the biggest steal of the NBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida<\/a>\u00a0Gators small-forward\u00a0Thomas Haugh<\/a> is having a junior season to remember. He\u2019s averaging 17.8 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.0 assists a game \u2014 and recently earned a spot on the Julius Erving Award Midseason Top 10. That honor goes annually to the nation\u2019s best player at the three position.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, many 2026 NBA Draft projections label him a first-round talent<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Among those high on Haugh is TheKidsHere<\/a>, a YouTube show with 31,000-plus subscribers. In a video released this week with the headline \u201cWhy Thomas Haugh will be the biggest steal of the draft\u201d the show broke down Haugh\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally, you wouldn\u2019t want him in a rebuild situation, but I think he has all the tools right now to have an immediate impact on a championship contender,\u201d narrator Bryan Donovan said. \u201cAt 6-9 and over 220, Thomas already has an NBA-ready build \u2026. he\u2019s also a very good vertical athlete. That blend of height, strength and explosiveness makes him a mosh in the open court. \u2026 His game right now isn\u2019t super dynamic or crafty but if he gets any kind of breathing room in front of the rim he\u2019s got enough ball control to use it as a runway to lift up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haugh has progressed during each season at UF. <\/p>\n

As a freshman, he played in 36 games with two starts while averaging 3.9 points and 3.7 rebounds. During Florida\u2019s national championship season last year, his scoring average rose to 9.8 and rebounding to 6.1. Meanwhile, he started five games and was one of the nation\u2019s best players off the bench. In the Gators\u2019 memorable come-from-behind Elite Eight win over Texas Tech, Haugh hit several clutch shots in the second half and finished with 20 points. Florida doesn\u2019t win that game without his effort.<\/p>\n

Now, he has taken his game up another notch after transitioning from power-forward to small-forward.<\/p>\n

TheKidsHere highlighted many of Haugh\u2019s best traits, from his outside shooting to rebounding to half-court offensive moves to his defense to his motor. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll that juice on defense combined with him having NBA-ready tools on offense I think will make Haugh the biggest steal of the draft,\u201d Donovan said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida\u00a0Gators small-forward\u00a0Thomas Haugh is having a junior season to remember. He\u2019s averaging 17.8 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,950,6,12,1074],"class_list":{"0":"post-598619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-florida-gators","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-draft","12":"tag-thomas-haugh-23-perkiomen-school"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116057055714589961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}