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Hassan Adams

Hassan Adams profile
Drafted #54 in the 2006 NBA Draft by the Nets
RCSI: 22 (2002)
Height: 6'4" (193 cm)
Weight: 220 lbs (100 kg)
Position: SF
High School: Westchester High School (California)
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
College: Arizona
Current Team: Arizona
Win - Loss: 27 - 8

Articles

NCAA Tournament: NBA Draft Stock Watch (round of 32, Sunday games)

Jonathan Givony
Jonathan Givony
Mike Schmidt
Mike Schmidt
Joseph Treutlein
Joseph Treutlein
Jonathan Watters
Jonathan Watters
Mar 20, 2006, 02:55 am
The statline may not indicate it, but this was not a very good game for Adams. As he has shown the tendency to do in the past, Adams played most of this game out of his element, hoisting up ill-advised jumpers rather than taking the ball to the hole. He pulled up for mid-range jumpers on repeated occasions, missing the majority of them. Some of them were off-balanced, others early in the shot clock, others at the expense of giving the ball to the open man. He even took three three-pointers despite the fact he should know by now that he’s a horrible three-point shooter at 27% on the year. When he was actually taking the ball into the lane, he did pretty well, as he usually does. But Adams spent most of the game fooling around with his shot, hurting his team because of it.

Defensively, Adams had a pretty solid game, not gambling as much as he often does. He did lose Villanova guard Randy Foye on a few occasions, but he’s a tough cover for anyone. He spent most of the game playing smart, solid defense while still playing the passing lanes, getting three steals as a result. Some of these led to transition opportunities, where Adams did well as always.

Adams neither hurt nor helped his draft stock in the tournament this year. He still has a questionable perimeter game and questionable ball-handling, to go along with a tendency to play too aggressively on the defensive end. He is a fringe first-rounder at this point, though he could still improve his stock at the pre-draft camp and workouts.

Hassan Adams NBA Draft Scouting Report

Mar 14, 2006, 12:10 am
Strengths
Adams is a pure physical specimen. He has tremendous athleticism, highlighted by his outstanding leaping ability, to go along with a very strong frame, which he knows how to use. He also possesses excellent length. He has a very explosive first step and has that same explosiveness on his leap. He runs the floor very well, is pretty coordinated, and plays with a good level of fluidity.

Slashing is definitely Adams’ best weapon, where he makes great use of his strength and quickness to create high-percentage shots in the lane. He is very creative with the ball and is certainly not afraid of contact. When Adams wants to, he can usually get to the hole with one or two short, but powerful dribbles. He uses his explosive first step to blow past his man, then with his combination of strength, creativity, and leaping ability, finishes very well at the rim. His strength allows him to maintain good balance even after contact, helping to ensure a high-percentage shot attempt. He utilizes a hop-step move especially well to make use of his explosiveness once in the lane.

Adams also has a pretty decent mid-range game when spotting up with his feet set. He hits these mid-range shots with a pretty good frequency, which in turn helps open up his slashing opportunities. He also moves pretty well without the ball, putting himself in good position for either a mid-range shot or a drive to the basket once he gets the ball.

Adams is at his best in the open floor, where he can really make use of his athleticism for some tenacious finishes. He frequently gets out in transition to put himself in position for easy baskets.

Defensively, Adams has all the tools a swingman could ever need. He has good lateral quickness, length, reflexes, and strength. He can lockdown an opponent when he really wants to. He plays very aggressively on defense, especially when picking at the ball using his great hands. He gets a lot of steals this way, as well as by anticipating and reacting in the passing lanes.

Adams is also a very good rebounder for his position. He makes it a priority to attack the boards on both ends of the court, especially offensively. His strength and athleticism benefit him here greatly.

Weaknesses
While Adams is very high on athleticism and strength, he is a bit lacking in height. Measuring in at only 6’4 and stuck between SG and SF, Adams will be undersized in that regard no matter what position he plays. As a player that played a lot of power forward both in high school and college, his perimeter game is not up to par with his tremendous athletic tools.

Adams could use some work on his ball-handling, especially if he plans on playing guard in the NBA. While he can make use of some fancy spin moves and behind the back dribbles to get to the basket, he’s not a very smart ball-handler overall. He’s fairly turnover prone, in part due to some bad decision-making. Also, while he does have the ability to be a pretty good passer, he often lets his decision-making cloud that aspect of his game. He has been known to pass up open teammates to take an ill-advised shot himself.

Adams lacks a consistent outside shot, shooting only .274 from three-point range on the year. His three-point shot is infrequently used, and when it is used, it’s very streaky. He can’t rely on this shot at all, which forces him to play most of the game inside the arc. At 6-4, this makes him that much harder to project as an already undersized shooting guard.

Adams has become too reliant on his mid-range game this season, not going to the hole as often as he should. While he is very efficient in the lane, he doesn’t have that same effectiveness on his jumper. He doesn’t get nearly as many free-throw attempts as someone with his slashing ability should. And even if he did, shooting an abysmal .604 from the line this year, he wouldn’t be able to make much use of it. Adams also is not very consistent when shooting off the dribble, often settling for ill-advised, off-balanced jumpers.

Defensively, he is frequently too over-aggressive, gambling in both the passing lanes and on his own man. Rather than using his strong defensive attributes to play smart, lockdown defense, he usually chooses to gamble for a steal, often leading to his man blowing by him when the steal is unsuccessful.

At this point in his career, one certainly has to question the coachability of Adams. After four years under a reputable coach such as Lute Olson, Adams still has many of the problems that plagued him in his freshman year. He can’t seem to consistently put things together on defense and he doesn’t consistently play smart on the offensive end. He has many strengths at the college level, but getting him to stick to them consistently is another matter altogether.

While Adams has some questionable decision-making on the court, it pales in comparison to his decision-making off the court. Unfathomably, in his senior season, on the verge of being picked in the first round of the NBA draft, which would subsequently entitle him to millions of dollars in guaranteed money, Adams has had two run-ins with the law between December and March. Adams was first arrested in December for disorderly conduct in the line of refusing to leave the scene of a fight at the request of police officers. Adams was once again arrested in March, this time for an alleged DUI, which led to him being suspended for the entire Pac-10 Tournament.

Competition
Adams plays in the Pacific 10 Conference for the University of Arizona under renowned coach Lute Olson. The Pac-10 is one of the six major conferences in the NCAA, and while it may not be what it used to be, it’s still highly competitive. Arizona also routinely plays very tough out of conference schedules. Adams plays against many NBA-caliber athletes at the swingmen positions, usually being matched up with them on both ends of the floor.

Outlook
Adams projects as a late first round or early second round pick at this point, probably leaning towards the latter in light of his recent off-court problems. Because of his size and other issues in multiple areas of his game, Adams will likely be a bench player for much of his career. If someone could ever get through to him on how to most effectively use his skillset defensively, he could be a very noteworthy contributor for some team, possibly even overcoming his size to break into a starting lineup. Even despite his height, he will primarily play SF in the pros because of his strength and lack of certain SG skills. He is not much unlike Ruben Patterson, another 6’4 SF who has had success off the bench for much of his career, using his length and strength to make up for his height. The key difference is their style of defense, something Adams needs to work on to experience prolonged success in the pros.

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In Case You Missed It...the Top Weekly Performers, 12/26-1/03

Rodger Bohn
Rodger Bohn
Jonathan Givony
Jonathan Givony
Jan 03, 2006, 04:41 am
It has been an up and down career for Hassan Adams at Arizona so far. The ultra-athletic wing broke out as a sophomore, only to see his numbers and effectiveness fall off significantly as a junior. Not surprisingly, Adams' draft stock has fluctuated accordingly. He has experienced ups and downs already in this season, after an ugly Maui performance in which he was heavily criticized for relying too heavily on his jumper and not moving the ball.

However, Adams has returned to his attack the basket, above the rim strengths in recent weeks. Adams' resurgence was capped off this past weekend with a dominant 32 point performance in Arizona's win at Pac-10 rival Washington. Just a month removed from being scoffed at by pundits around the nation, Adams is now one of the country's most productive players, with averages of nearly 21 ppg, 7 rpg, and 3 spg.

So where does all of this leave Adams' draft stock? That is in the hands of the GM's making the decisions. It is hard to argue against the idea that a player with Adams' immense athletic gifts will thrive in the more wide open NBA. However, questions of height and outside shooting ability will continue to dog Adams until he grows or starts hitting jumpers. He was 5-7 from beyond the arc against the Huskies, but also threw up quite a few shaky looking jumpers along the way. Nonetheless, after a game like this, it is hard not see Adams having some success in the NBA, breaking down opponents off the dribble, wreaking havoc with his athleticism and long arms and playing rock-solid defense.

NBA Draft Stock Watch: Maui Invitational

Rodger Bohn
Rodger Bohn
Jonathan Givony
Jonathan Givony
Landry Fields
Landry Fields
Nov 28, 2005, 03:48 am
Hassan Adams helped his overall stat-line considerably by putting up 21 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 6 steals in Arizona's overtime loss in the final game against Michigan State, but the damage he did himself in the first two games at Maui would be a little bit too much to overcome that quickly. Adams, like Arizona's entire group of street-ballers, was forcing terrible shots left and right showing absolutely no conscience ignoring open teammates or the fact that there is a man right in his face and 25 seconds left on the shot clock. This is precisely the kind of foolish play that we were hoping to see Adams overcome as a senior, as he appeared to have turned the corner last March in the NCAA tournament.

The most concerning part about what Adams showed at Maui is that's yet to realize what his strengths and weaknesses are on the basketball floor. Instead of using his lethal combination of strength and explosiveness as a weapon against his opponents, he falls right into their hands by shooting fade-away three pointers time after time off the dribble from 22 feet out. This never has and never will be his game. While he probably still doesn't have good enough ball-handling skills to beat strong defenders off the dribble consistently in half-court sets, that is still a much better option for him than forcing up long-range shots.

Even if scouts didn't necessarily come to see him posting up his man, crashing the offensive glass and hitting shorter mid-range jumpers; as a player that is projected as a shooting guard at the next level, he'll be in much better shape scoring this way than exposing his weaknesses time after time and hurting his team in the process.

Not many NBA front office types are planning on building their team's future offense off of Hassan Adams' ability to create scoring opportunities for himself in half-court sets. If he is drafted in the top 20 it will be because they think he can be a valuable contributor as a tough and defensive oriented spark-plug role player who can wreak havoc on the floor with his freakish athleticism and swing the momentum in his team's favor coming off the bench. Lute Olson is doing him no favors with the way he appears to be just throwing his players out on the floor with little to no guidance, direction or any resemblance of a game plan on the offensive end, but Adams needs to be smarter and play more under control in the Pac-10.