2020 NBA draft profile: Iowa State guard Tyrese Haliburton
By Matthew Way
Tyrese Haliburton is an intriguing prospect in the 2020 NBA Draft. We take a closer look at how he projects at the next level.
Perhaps the most difficult of determining how a college player will translate to the NBA is figuring out how to value skill vs. athleticism. There is no better test case in this year’s NBA draft than Iowa State guard Tyrese Haliburton.
Annually there are players who underperformed in college but due to their size, explosiveness, and high school reputation, end up being drafted at the very top of the lottery. Some of these prospects put it together at the next level but often the poorer than expected play in college is emblematic of issues with decision making and skillset.
Tyrese Haliburton has taken a much different route. He entered Iowa State ranking 196th in the consensus high school lists and developed from a low-usage freshman to a standout sophomore.
Haliburton is a supremely skilled guard who has the length and basketball intelligence to be very productive on both ends but lacks the superior athleticism one may desire in a lottery pick.
Parsing through how to value Haliburton has become difficult, but the general consensus of quality mock drafts seems to be that he’s a likely lottery pick.
That may come as a surprise given the abundance of point guards in the lottery and Haliburton’s potential athleticism deficits, but perhaps it speaks to the shift in how NBA prospects are evaluated. So let’s take a look at what makes him such an intriguing prospect in this year’s wide-open draft class.
2020 NBA Draft Profile
Name: Tyrese Haliburton
Height: 6’5” (6’8” wingspan)
Position: Guard
College: Iowa State
NBA Comparison: Lonzo Ball
2019-20 Statistics
15.2 PPG
5.9 RPG
6.5 APG
50.4 FG%
41.9 3P%
82.2 FT%