Looking at Atlanta Hawks draft prospect RJ Hampton.
The Atlanta Hawks are in a nice position heading into the 2020 NBA Draft, having the luxury of taking a chance on a player rather than needing a slam-dunk pick. Their roster already stacked with young talent.
One of the boom-or-bust prospects they could take a chance on is RJ Hampton, the 19-year-old who decided to forgo NCAA basketball to play professionally overseas. He did so for the NZ Breakers of the NBL in Australia.
A hip injury limited his Breakers career to just 15 games, which produced mediocre results. The combo guard struggled with efficiency, making 40 percent from the field and just 29 percent from deep on nearly three attempts per game.
The former 5-star prospect did hurt his draft stock while playing down under, but teams should take his short stint into account while scouting him. He’s just a year removed from being one of the most explosive players in all of high school. He averaged 32 points and 9.7 rebounds per game in his final season at Little Elm High School in Texas.
Hampton’s upside is as a do-it-all guard who can stuff nearly every category of the stat sheet. He has the size of a two-guard but has the handle of a point, and could easily play both backcourt positions in the league.
Getting to the rim is no problem for the 6’5 Hampton, and uses both explosive hops and acrobatic stretches to finish. In a draft that’s chock-full of guards who struggle with shooting the three-ball, Hampton is probably the best slasher.
Speaking of the three-ball, however, that’ll be the big question mark for Hampton coming into the league. Modern NBA teams are hesitant to play guards who can’t shoot from deep, and especially if he gets drafted by the Hawks, who attempted the eighth-most team threes last season, he would need to work on that.
Hampton has the defensive tools to be a good defender in the NBA but needs to combine those tools with his raw athleticism to be truly elite on that side of the court. He’s likely never to rack up big steal numbers but could be a tough matchup for opposing guards. With a 6’7 wingspan, he has nice switchability on D.
Fit with the Hawks:
Hampton would easily become Trae Young or Kevin Huerter‘s back up and could fill that position for quite some time. As mentioned, his fit in the offense would rely on him improving his deep shoot, but his potential as a slasher makes him an interesting antithesis to their current backcourt.
His athletic, upstart brand of ball should fit in Atlanta’s fast-paced offense, and his upside defensively would be a needed addition.
Hampton has a wide range of suitors on draft night, and could just as easily fall out of the lottery or into the top-five. Right now, he’s projected to go somewhere in the 8-12 range, where the Hawks could very well fall if things don’t go their way on lottery night.
Even if they do get the top-four pick their currently in line for, Hampton is worth thinking about for Atlanta, and he checks a lot of boxes for them both now and in the future.
Currently, the NBA Draft is scheduled for June 25th, and the Atlanta Hawks have the fourth-best lottery odds.