Washington Wizards: Rui Hachimura is getting buckets and silencing haters
Rui Hachimura is proving the Washington Wizards right, and silencing critics that didn’t see him as a lottery pick in the 2019 NBA Draft
Rui Hachimura has been one of the brightest bright spots in a season that has been surprisingly bright for the Washington Wizards. As a Wizards fan, my expectations for this season were bleak at best, can you blame me?
The shocking player turnover that the team experienced made me feel like I was transferring schools. It was a sea of faces that I had seen before, but I didn’t really know the first thing about. But just like when you change schools, you have to pick out the kids you want to be friends with. I desperately wanted to be friends with Rui Hachimura.
Analogies aside, something struck me about Rui; I just had a really good feeling about him. I knew a bit about Hachimura coming into the season and when the Wizards fell from sixth-best odds to the 9th pick, which was very upsetting, he was the player I hoped Washington would take.
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The Wizards needed a lot on our roster, but the things that we needed most were rebounders, hustlers, toughness, locker room steadiness, and just real winners. You know, nothing that’s too hard to come by.
Asking a 21-year-old player to bring all of that to our organization is a little unfair, but Rui Hachimura has done a pretty great job providing a lot of that for us this year. He is a rookie, he is raw, and he has a lot of growing to do in the next couple years. With that being said, he is already averaging 14.4 points and six rebounds per game while shooting a very impressive 48.1 percent from the field.
In comparison to his peers, Rui Hachimura is excelling and even dominating. His points per game rank fourth among rookies this year, his rebounding is best in class, and among players who have taken more than 50 shots, his shooting percentage is seventh-best. This is not a weak rookie class, by any means, and Rui is the best first-year big man taking the floor.
There has been a lot of criticism because of Rui’s tendency to get rejected on his shots. It is true, the young man takes more than his fair share of blocks, but I don’t have a problem with this at all. I actually expected him to get blocked a lot this season. He is a 6-foot-8 rookie that is used to bullying players in the paint. Now he has to get used to matching up against guys that are three, four, even five inches taller than him.
I expect Porzingis to block his shots, I expect Anthony Davis to throw it back at him, Giannis, and Lauri Markkanen, and Sabonis. Rui is going to keep taking his shots and he’s going to keep getting blocked by these giants. He is already adapting and I am not worried in the slightest about this.
Rui Hachimura has a very balanced game, he does a lot of things at a great level, while not quite being elite in anything. He really stumped NBA scouts and analysts when it came time to give him a player comparison. People were comparing him to a young Kawhi, Antwan Jamison, and Wilson Chandler. I don’t dislike these comparisons, but with a much larger sample size of play I really think Rui plays a lot like Bam Adebayo.
Bam is more athletic and not the shooter that Rui is, but both players are used in a very similar way, being extremely versatile forwards who are quick and crafty. They both score a large portion of their points through on ball and off-ball pick and rolls, running in transition, and offensive rebound cleanups.
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Rui Hachimura is a really great young player and the Wizards are lucky to have him on their roster. He is getting better by the day and has incredible potential in this league.