After three straight years, it\u2019s finally become the norm for a UConn player to get drafted in the first round of the NBA draft. The only other schools with that distinction, the last three years? Purported NBA daycares Duke and Baylor.<\/p>\n
I still remember the delight of hearing James Bouknight\u2019s name called.<\/p>\n
But for the Huskies to take that streak another year, they\u2019ll need teams to fall in love with Tarris Reed Jr and\/or Alex Karaban. Both are projected fringe first rounders, and as we saw with Liam McNeeley last year, draft night brings a whole lot of variance and uncertainty.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to pretend NBA front offices read TheUConnBlog and put on my best sales pitch for Tarris and Alex. First up is Captain America.<\/p>\n
Initially this was a tough task, because UConn listed him at 6-foot-8, and the comparisons were lacking. There were tons of 6-foot-8 floor spacers in the NBA, but not many in Karaban\u2019s mold. Then the combine measurements came out, and he checked in at basically 6 -7, and the answer was clear.<\/p>\n
Height (Barefoot): 6\u20196.75\u201d<\/p>\n
Standing Reach: 8\u20196.0\u201d<\/p>\n
Height (w\/o shoes): 6\u2019 6.75\u201d<\/p>\n
Standing Reach: 8\u2019 8.50\u201d<\/p>\n
Alex is actually a little longer and heavier. Hauser went undrafted in 2021 after four years in college, but he broke through with the Celtics in 2022-23, and was a key figure in their 2024 title run, averaging nine points per game and shooting 42% from three.He averaged 25 minutes per game last year, a career high.<\/p>\n
Hauser might be the better pure shooter, but Alex has more intangibles, physicality, and playmaking chops. Finding an organization that can imbue those traits — not make him just a \u2018stand in the corner and stretch the floor\u2019 guy — will be the key.<\/p>\n
Hauser\u2019s shooting shows that doing one thing at an elite level can make you stick in the NBA. But Alex has a chance to be a wholly unique player, one with Hauser\u2019s shooting but with a little more to offer.<\/p>\n
But heading into draft day, it\u2019s nice to know there\u2019s a blueprint out there for Alex, a path forward where he can break out with the right team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After three straight years, it\u2019s finally become the norm for a UConn player to get drafted in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,6,2681],"class_list":["post-765038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-uconn-mens-basketball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116776725587224861","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765038","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=765038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}