I think he’s shown that he can do a few things pretty well for the Blazers. I’m a firm believer that there’s still some promise in Giles. It’s a lot tougher for a big man - or truthfully any young player - to make a controlled pass out of this situation than in the previous one. This time, Giles is barreling to the hoop with a little more force. He also made almost 35% of his threes this year, albeit on a very small sample size (only 23 threes taken in total). He made an incredible 67% of his mid-range shots around 14 feet from the hoop, a number that ranks in the 96th percentile among all bigs. Regarding his jumpshot, Giles still showed some promise. That puts him in the fifth percentile among all bigs this past year. After making his at-the-rim looks at a rate of 73% (good for the 79th percentile) last season, he only made a measly 54% of his shots at the rim this year. Let’s start with the last thing, because truthfully, he didn’t deliver on his inside scoring. He possesses (in theory) three things that make him promising on this end: a nimble passing touch, a projectable jump shot, and solid finishing inside. Theoretically, this was the calling card for Harry Giles. That’s not a high-percentage shot for anyone, and the result is a miss.īecause we like to radiate positivity here, let’s end the defensive portion on that note. He doesn’t let Embiid bully him down in the post and makes it so the only option is a difficult running hook shot almost at the free-throw line. This is pretty good defense on this shot. I’ve been a little harsh on his defensive prowess so far, so let’s give Harry a break. He got caught fouling way too much for a player who only posted a block percentage of 0.9% (which ranks in the 21st percentile among bigs). It’s an improvement upon the rates of 7.1 % and 7.2% he posted in the past two seasons respectively in Sacramento, but that’s not saying much. His foul percentage of 5.9% puts him in the ninth percentile among bigs per Cleaning the Glass. The defensive struggles in particular made it so his impact on the court was more negative than positive.Įver since joining the league, Giles has been plagued by a very high foul rate. He continued to be a liability defensively. He didn’t always put on display his impressive passing ability like many fans (including myself) had hoped. There’s a third reason that unfortunately can’t be skirted around: Harry Giles wasn’t particularly great this season. The second is that Enes Kanter was a solid option as the secondary five all year long, just continuing to grab boards and get buckets whenever needed. The first was that now-former Blazers head coach Terry Stotts notoriously does not entrust young players with too much playing time. He played only 215 minutes this year, much less than the 758 minutes and 634 minutes he played with the Kings in the 2018-20 seasons respectively. That’s partially because he didn’t get quite the same opportunity to do so as he did in Sacramento, playing five minutes less per game than in his prior two seasons with the Kings. As noted above, Giles didn’t exactly break the box score. Let’s start by looking into why Giles didn’t put up very gaudy stats. Is the young Giles worth another look for Portland or is it time to move on after one short year? The 23-year-old big man played in 38 games this season for Portland and didn’t particularly impress, putting up a measly 2.8 points and 3.5 rebounds in just 9.2 minutes per game.ĭespite an impressive preseason, Giles didn’t exactly wow Blazers fans like they had hoped, but he’s still a young center who clearly has some skill. Harry Giles falls firmly into that category. There’s Norman Powell, who played a key role with the Blazers late in the season after being traded here from Toronto, and there are key bench players like Enes Kanter and Carmelo Anthony, guys coming off one-year contracts who have their pluses but are admittedly flawed.Īfter that group, there are some guys that didn’t get a ton of extended run. The Portland Trail Blazers have a series of decisions to make about a wide variety of players on the roster last year.
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