Charlotte looks to jump start Harry Giles' career

Having a high pedigree certainly counts for something as forward Harry Giles III is getting another chance on an NBA roster. This time with the Charlotte Hornets, as they signed Giles to a 1-year deal on Sunday. One of the most decorated and sought-after high school recruits in the 2016 class, his career has been derailed by a series of injuries. Because of that Giles has become one of the bigger “What ifs?” in a draft class (2017) that is loaded with them.

The former Duke Blue Devil was drafted with the 20th overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers, and he was traded to the Sacramento Kings on draft night. After sitting out the entire 2017 NBA Summer League, Giles was set to make his NBA debut in January 2018. However, by mid-January it was announced that he would miss the remainder of the season.

Giles would officially make his NBA debut just slightly over a year later against the Atlanta Hawks, scoring 20 points and pulling down seven rebounds. Unfortunately, by mid-April Sacramento shut him down for the remainder of the season. Since that time, Giles has had stints with Portland, the LA Clippers (suffered another injury), Brooklyn Nets, the LA Lakers, and now with Charlotte. Given all of that, what could he possibly offer the Hornets this year?

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As the most recent sample is the most relevant one, let us look at how Giles performed in his debut with the Lakers. No, that is not a large sample. Especially, when you consider that he only logged a total of 4 minutes in that game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. That said, I will use this video to compare against Giles’ career highlights.

I am not going to linger here long. He looks comfortable setting screens and initiating dribble-handoffs. That is about it. We see Giles rebound outside his area at the :05 mark and at no point does he shy away from making contact – a good sign.

The good news for Charlotte is that the majority of this video contains highlights from last season when he played for Brooklyn. I really like the sequence that begins at the :22 mark as we again see Giles aggressively seek contact on the shot, outrebound his man, and then get off the floor quickly for the layup before help can arrive. For a guy that has torn both ACLs, demonstrating that there is still some explosiveness getting off the floor is encouraging. The alley-oop he throws down in the sequence that immediately follows further cements that, along with the two-handed stuff starting at the 1:09 mark.

There was a time when Giles was compared to Kevin Durant. So, the turnaround jumper working off the left block beginning at the :51 mark is not necessarily a stretch of his abilities. In that same vein, the back-to-back sequences that start at the 1:27 mark feature Giles putting the ball on the floor and getting all the way to the basket.

From an individual perspective, there is enough meat on the bone for teams to be intrigued. At the very least, he an aggressive player that holds a defensive rebounding percentage of 24% for his career, per Basketball-Reference. That is pretty on-par with current Hornets big Mark Williams (26.5%) and slightly ahead of Nick Richards (22.9%).

Presumably, Giles is not inline for a lot of minutes but is a desperate insurance policy should Williams (back) need to be brought along slowly, and Richards has never played more than 67 games in a year. On the plus side, at just 26-years-old, he is not quite in his physical prime and is not showing the signs of a player that has bad knees. How Giles will hold up over the course of a season remains to be seen.

He possesses a diverse and advanced skill set but has never had the floor time to polish them. I do not think Charlotte is offering Giles that chance. However, if he does see consistent minutes there is upside that the Hornets felt was worth looking at.