Duke’s Harry Giles declares for NBA Draft

After one injury-riddled season at Duke, Harry Giles is one-and-done.

Coming into college, Harry Giles was widely considered the number one overall recruit of the 2016 class. However, after tearing his ACL in his senior year and undergoing another knee procedure earlier this season while at Duke, Giles has struggled just to stay on the court.

Because of this, many mock drafts have him being selected in the mid to late first round. Not quite as high as many scouts saw him going after his outstanding high school career.

His 2016-17 stats with Duke are about as pedestrian as it gets. He played in 26 games total, but many of them only for a few short minutes. For the season he averaged 11 minutes a game, 3.9 points and 3.8 rebounds, and shot around 57 percent from the field. Starting the season on the bench with that previously mentioned knee injury, it seemed as though he was never able to get comfortable adapting to the college game and learning how to play alongside his new teammates.

It would be unfair to sit here and say that he is doing the wrong thing for pursuing his dream and going professional, but with so much more to prove and his draft stock being low, another year at Duke could have been huge for his development as a player.

In my opinion, one fully healthy season in college to show off his true potential could make him a potential top five pick in the 2018 draft. No one doubts that he has NBA level talent, the only question is if he’s going to be able to stay healthy. Nevertheless, if Giles is able to get past those injury woes and return to the player he once showed us he could be, one lucky NBA team could swipe up the steal of the 2017 draft.