What appears to be a glowing 2016 class for Tony Bennett shines a little brighter after last night with the commitment of Durham forward Jay Huff. Huff chose us over Duke (yes, that Duke — he even got a visit from K), East Carolina, and Wofford, and joins a class that already features two guards and a 6’10” high riser all ranked in the top 107 via 247 Sports.
Huff lacks the potential for immediate impact that his classmates bring — it seems that he’s a 6’10,” 180 pound canvas for Mike Curtis to work on during the 2016-2017 season. He’s a classic case of a guy growing too fast for his physical development to keep up with, which is often good news down the road: you don’t lose the small man skills you started with. Huff’s a shooter — not a big guy that can shoot some, but a guy that can shoot who happens to be 6’10″ — and I expect that to be his focus, like someone like Ryan Kelly, Dino Mitoglou, or even Ryan Anderson with the NBA’s Pelicans or late-career Robert Horry. He’ll take ’17 to add strength (though his narrow frame is cause for a little concern about how much he can add) and will either develop into someone who can take opposing bigs outside and beat them with skill and wiles or, at worst, he’ll be a 6’10” guy that can drop threes on you, which is becoming increasingly important these days.
I like this clip because it’s raw — it’s not a sloppily edited collection of dunks set to a pirated beat — and you can get an idea of Huff’s strengths and weaknesses during a normal game. I like his stroke, how he keeps his dribble low and instinctively turns his hip to protect it, and how he keeps the ball high on rebounds. I’m not sure I love how late he is to challenge shots on defense (and it’s impossible to gauge his athleticism when he’s basically Gulliver in Lilliput here), but we’ll figure that out later.
Overall, considering the makeup of the rest of the class and the potential to still add another, I’m happy to land a guy with Jay Huff’s potential and skill set. Jason Williford and the staff as a whole have a history of developing bigs (look at what became of Jerome Meyinsse, Akil, and Darion), and I think Huff could end up surprising people.
