Thomas Haugh Scouting Report
A great feel for the game, combined with strength and quick execution, gives Haugh a feasible NBA role. But there's more untapped potential. Here are 3K+ words on the next ten years of his career:
Thomas Haugh (#10, Florida): Sophomore, 6'9"
Power Forward — Date of Birth: July 7, 2003 (21 years old)
Introduction
Haugh’s draft stock has risen rapidly throughout the last few months. Florida stands in the Final Four, and in the deciding moments, Haugh is all about making the winning play. Having a great feel for the game is often used as a buzzword. However, Haugh’s decision-making and positional awareness scream that he’s a soon-to-be pro.
His game is built on making teammates around him better. Therefore, taking the production at face value is the wrong approach. He’s the ultimate four who can grow and play as a combo power four and skill five in the NBA. Details on his game, areas of growth, and the fit to his ultimate role are the emphasis of this scouting report.
Physical Profile
At 6-foot-9, Haugh has broad shoulders with a decently filled frame. He has enough room to continue to bulk up and add muscle. The differentiator in why he’s impacting winning as a sophomore is his great core strength. He has fluid hips and great footwork. This fuels his good decision-making. He’s a good athlete who stands out from a physical standpoint with substance rather than flash.
He has decent length but very fluid hips. This fuels his mobility and potentially leads to him guarding multiple positions in the NBA. He has good lateral quickness, adding more comfort to his ability to operate on both sides of the ball in a five-out setting. There is no official wingspan measurement, but he should have a wingspan over seven feet.
Defense
Catch-and-shoot
Haugh’s natural feel in rotations makes him a switchable and reliable team defender in the NBA. He’s never caught ball-watching and barely bites on jab steps and pump fakes. As an active communicator, he’s looking to fill gaps and close angles when there’s motion around him. That’s the style of defense NBA teams look for. In the first play below, he’s following the ball movement with a relocation to the weak side elbow. Hereafter, he seamlessly fits into his rotation, which ended with him decently contesting the above-the-break three.
Despite the three in the second play, Haugh did great at checking his assignment as he tried to close the angles on the strong side. Those are habits that’ll help him to defend properly on better-spaced NBA floors. The substance and fundamentals make sense, as Haugh is improving his positioning while keeping one foot inside the paint. With more reps, he’ll have to check his positioning less and less in the next few years. The positive in Haugh’s closeouts is him not waiting out when he’s too late to contest a shot. He’s immediately turning it into a defensive boxout, with the third play below being an example. This helped him to average over six rebounds per game despite coming off the bench throughout most of his sophomore season.
Another positive is that he’s always looking to use his size and length in closeouts. Attacking his assignment at 180 degrees is a must, especially for less-gifted vertical athletes. Throughout the season, Haugh has shown consistency on that end, with the fourth possession below being an example.
Pick-and-pop
One of Haugh’s niche skills is his excellent positioning and defensive footwork when operating in the pick-and-roll. In a three-point-shooting heavy NBA game, the pick-and-pop is the most vital area where Haugh can earn himself a reputation. The beauty in his game is that he doesn’t rely on drop coverage and can slide his feet well enough to keep himself in striking distance whenever he faces a popping screener or handoff option on the perimeter.
Despite the lack of true upper body strength, Haugh’s footwork and reverse pivot on his last step help him to gain a cushion to absorb contact much better. In the first play below we see an example of the driving forward who focuses on attacking Haugh’s chest. Despite the perimeter-heavy game, Haugh shows the skill to stay in front of closeout attackers. In the second play, he again uses his positioning and footwork to force the opponent into the shot. Despite the lack of true length, Haugh’s feet are set quickly which elevates his ability to dive out to contest the shot.
Haugh’s game is also built on details. It’s easy to see Haugh taking the time to study the scouting reports. In the third play, Haugh decided to drop and force the ball handler to make the play. He was okay with the pull-up three, but the lack of respect on his part derailed the offense of its opponent. Hereafter, Haugh played the passing lanes and generated the steal. NBA franchises buy the value of his decision-making with enough potential left to continue to improve his body at the next level.
Hand-offs
For the NBA, anticipating making winning plays out of handoffs is a vital role for Haugh. He’ll likely switch between the three, four, and five positions and thus has to respond to handoff actions on the perimeter as both the interior defender, while also has to navigate through screens. His toughness is a good base for him to fight through screens. However, he’s banking on his feet in positioning to gain an advantage over his assignment. He’s closing the angle of the handoff in the paint with his activity in the first play below. It gets better in the second possession, where Haugh anticipates dribble penetration by stepping out with one foot. Hereafter, he immediately rotated back when recognizing the post-entry pass.
His positioning is Haugh’s way of gaining advantages as a defender. That’s feasible to translate when considering the amount of handoff actions being run in the NBA. In the third play, he’s playing a good set of drop coverage after the ICE on the elbow, where Haugh’s perimeter-oriented game shows how well he’s recognizing the shot after the handoff. However, at times, Haugh has to be more comfortable playing drop, as his stepping out too far is a risky acquisition, leading to the defense collapsing in the fourth play.
Catch-and-drive
Against closeout attackers, Haugh’s using his physicality and upper body strength to immediately set the tone. He’s good at initiating contact, forcing ball handlers to beat him off the dribble. That’s a good sign, as he’s focusing on getting scorers out of balance rather than being reactive to what the ball handler tries to dictate. However, he looks overwhelmed at times when facing stronger athletes. In the first play below, Haugh decently keeps his balance after absorbing contact around his chest. However, he falls back too far to stop the face-up scorer from getting the separation needed to finish the lay-in after the spin move.
In the second possession, the defense collapses after the trap using high pressure. Hereafter, Haugh had to gamble to either focus on the scorer or try to cover the angle of the possible kickout pass. Despite not being able to match the intensity against much stronger forwards, Haugh’s toughness and fearless style of play is a positive for his draft profile. That’s considering he’ll continue to get stronger in the next few years.
Fundamentally, Haugh’s footwork is beyond his years. He uses quick pivots to keep his balance and slides his feet well when scorers try to gain advantages using jab steps or shot-fakes. In the third play below, Haugh shows good balance, leading him to keep driving lanes decently closed, whereafter he switched to playing more physically upon the scorer getting two feet inside the paint.
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Offense
Catch-and-shoot
At 35.1% on over 2.5 attempts per game, Haugh shows good returns on his downtown shotmaking. To support a team’s offensive rating, he must be consistent as a catch-and-shoot option on the perimeter. When looking at his shot mechanics, Haugh’s quick pivot is a great weapon to leverage his slashing. He immediately sets his feet. Hereafter, he keeps the ball high, making him less predictable using a shot fake and attacking the lane or continuing to attempt the outside shot. In the first play below, he pivots strongly with his left before the three. That continues in the second possession below, where Haugh again pivots strongly with his left and uses the jab step to create more space for his shot from the elbow.
He’s fluid in his elevation on his jumper. Haugh keeps the ball high. This allows him to use his size and decently high-arcing shot to take away possible shot-blocking. His release is quick enough, as Haugh saves himself time in his shot process by keeping the ball high. The process is consistent, with good footwork as preparation. That makes it feasible his jumper will translate to a faster-paced NBA game. An area of development for Haugh is trying to take away lowering the ball, with the fourth play as an example. That’s not happening often, but his jumper looks much different when facing a closeout, and has to power up for his shot while having the ball around his waist.
Cuts
While finishing over 65% of his rim attempts, Haugh shows good returns, especially considering this number excludes his dunks. For the NBA, Haugh won’t have to self-create often. That makes it essential to recognize cutting angles to get himself in action as an off-ball screener and an interior play-finisher. What immediately stands out in Haugh’s game is his thriving on playing on the weak side. He allocates actively and uses backdoor cuts whenever he sees help defenders move around him. That ensures him to be in the best position when he’s the beneficiary of dropoff passes inside the paint.
In the first play, Haugh shows good hands on the bad dropoff pass. He uses his body movement to immediately go for the finish even with that unbalanced pass, which made it easier for him to draw the foul. The details are vital in the second possession. He’s cutting with two feet inside the paint but pivots strongly with his left before he catches the dropoff pass. This helped him to elevate for his attempt to power the play home, rather than having to set his feet while he’s in a finish-now-or-get-fouled situation.
However, Haugh has some tunnel vision at times. The third play below ends in a sudden cut where Haugh draws three defenders. No matter how good of an angle he has, that’s an automatic kickout pass. Situational reads like these fuel his short-roll playmaking for the NBA, but he has to play with more composure on these sequences.
Pick-and-pop
Considering Haugh’s excellent screening, NBA coaches will likely use him as a pick-and-pop shooter. With more teams moving toward four, or even five-out play types, it’s vital to be a good screening forward, nowadays more than ever. With his good footwork, Haugh shows that’s half of the effort in his screens. He puts up walls rather than forcing ball handlers to make a decision. He’s making it feasible for the teammate to utilize his ball screen force switches and rotations among other opponent defenders.
Despite the drawn foul after the closeout attack in the first play, Haugh has to turn himself into a volume shooter. He declined the wide-open NBA-ranged three and took his defender off the dribble. Regardless of the outcome, Haugh has to focus on his three-point shooting volume to support a team’s offensive rating. The second possession shows a better decision, despite the weakside driving lane being completely empty.
In the third play, Haugh shows his willingness to shoot. He’s pivoting strongly with his left before he immediately pulls the trigger. For the NBA, the long-term potential is him attacking the closeout here when not feeling totally comfortable with the degree of openness on the three. With similar footwork, the fourth play shows an example of his creativity out of his screening actions resulting in on-ball plays.
Passing, ball-moving and playmaking
With his 105 assists to 55 turnovers, Haugh’s high feel for the game and good decision-making are visible in his passing numbers. That’s his role in the NBA as well. He can emerge as an elite ball-mover with decent playmaking skills, considering the fewer ball touches related to his NBA role. Despite his tunnel vision in the heat of the moment, Haugh keeps decent composure but has good court vision making it feasible he will improve as a playmaker in the next few years. In his role, he’s often used as a connective passer rather than a supporting playmaker, which he embraced later in his season at Florida.
His threat to make plays from the inside out is a large portion of his assists. He has a great habit of keeping the ball high to lure in potential help while his assignment cannot survey the floor. In the first play, he does so after the offensive rebound, while he fakes the handoff and backdoor cut with the side pass near the elbow in the second possession.
His court vision is on display in the fifth play below, resulting in the bounce pass to the corner. He doesn’t make high-level reads, but quick and sufficient execution makes Haugh’s connective passing a large part of Florida’s late-season success. With his 12 assists to 4 turnovers in four NCAA Tournament games, Haugh continues to deliver at the highest level.
NBA Draft Projection
Based on the strengths and areas of development mentioned in this scouting report, I project Thomas Haugh to be a potential first-rounder in the 2025 NBA Draft. He’s one of the hottest names in the draft space as of April 2025, and despite the readiness for his NBA role, the lucrative route of returning to college basketball is still an option. He’ll be a 22-year-old at the 2026 NBA Draft, giving his profile more body considering the extra season of reps.
Regardless, Haugh will test the waters and I eventually expect him to return to Florida to work on his body and add more to his offensive game, especially his playmaking.
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