Pay the Board Man! An Overview of Houston's Nate Hinton
General Info
Name: Nate Hinton
Height: 6’5”
Weight: 215
Wingspan: 6’9”
Team: Houston
Age: 21.2
Hometown: Gastonia, North Carolina
Stats
Nate Hinton is 6’5” and a limited vertical athlete. He was one of college basketball’s most talented rebounders this past year. Yes, you read that correctly.
While not gifted physically, Hinton has a keen understanding of where missed shots will land. Just look at this play. Hinton starts on the left side of the floor, and right when his teammate’s shot reaches its high point, he begins to make his move. Hinton tracks the ball as it descends, dashing to the opposite corner to secure the offensive rebound.
Here he starts in the left corner again, and ducks in behind his man to grab the air-balled pull-up to keep this possession alive. Again, he’s tracking the ball’s trajectory the whole time.
Before the ball is even close to hitting the rim, Hinton is making his move and knows exactly how it will bounce off the rim.
Hinton’s effort on the glass is nuts.
Flying in to snag an offensive board:
Defensive board and an offensive board in a span of nine seconds:
Successful box out:
Just plowing through everyone:
Chases this one down, tips the ball over a poor soul’s head, and finishes with a slam:
Even when he doesn’t get credit on the box score, Hinton still makes his presence felt on the glass.
He bats this one to his teammate, resulting in an easy layup…
…And one more where he taps the ball behind his head to create a transition opportunity.
Here’s a list of high-major college players since 2008 to stand between 6’4” and 6’6” with an offensive rebounding rate greater than 9.5% and a defensive rebounding rate greater than 22%.
*Per Barttovik
Colson weighed 230 lbs. and Murphy weighed 250 lbs. in college. Both were Power Forwards. Hinton is a 210 lbs. wing. In other words, he is an anomaly.
Let’s move on to the defensive side of the ball, where Hinton also stands out. Houston was statistically one of the best defenses in college basketball this year, finishing 29th in defensive rating and 21st in KenPom’s Adjusted Defensive Efficiency. Hinton led the Cougars in defensive win shares.
Hinton’s blend of instincts, effort, and IQ allow him to excel as an off-ball defender. He’s especially exceptional making plays from the backline.
On this play, Washington behemoth Isaiah Stewart has Houston’s big man sealed off. Hinton recognizes this and rotates to the interior. He intercepts the pass, ripping the ball away from Stewart.
This is a nearly identical situation. He shuffles towards the paint to bait his opponent into skipping the ball to the corner. Hinton, doing his best Ed Reed impersonation, ball hawks the pass and takes it to the house.
Hinton’s man is #5 in the corner, but he begins this play helping on projected first round pick Precious-Achiuwa. When Memphis’ Lester Quinones makes an ill-advised dish to the opposite corner, he swiftly moves back to his man and plucks the ball in mid-air. Notice how Hinton’s head swivels between man, ball, and Precious for the duration of this possession.
Google the word "Havoc" and this play will probably show up.
Hinton is a heady player in the passing lanes, and his career steal-rate of 2.9% is more than solid.
Here he takes advantage of a poorly executed hand-off play.
On this one, he’s defending another potential NBA player in Jaden McDaniels. Hinton fights through a Stewart screen and makes a play on the ball. The possession finishes with him getting in McDaniels’ grill and forcing a pass.
Although I believe he’s best served as an off-ball roamer, Hinton is still a solid on-ball defender. His footwork is generally fine, and his quick and active hands help him force turnovers.
He isn’t perfect. Here he gets caught flat-footed and is blown by.
All in all, Hinton seems like a safe bet to be a plus-impact defensive player in the NBA. His off-ball prowess will be valuable to any pro team. He can blow-up actions from the weak-side and be disruptive at the nail. Hinton may also be able to excel in chasing the NBA’s premier movement shooters like Duncan Robinson, Steph Curry, Joe Harris, Landry Shamet, JJ Redick, etc. Not every team has a guy who can do that effectively and given what Hinton has shown at the college level, there’s reason to believe he can fill that role moving forward.
I question whether or not he’s a true wing stopper. His height will limit him from being a guy who can man guard Wing/Forward-sized initiators like Luka, LeBron, Paul George, Tatum, etc. Even if he’s able to stick with those guys, they can just shoot over him. Nevertheless, Hinton should be able to defend most perimeter players. Furthermore, given his strength and how hard-nosed he is on the glass, he should be able to defend 4's for stretches of time.
Before we move over to the offensive side of the ball, I wanted to show two clips that illustrate Hinton’s defensive motor.
Look at where he’s standing when #22 catches the ball. Good lord.
Anyways, let’s shift to Hinton's offensive game. Hinton’s simple box score stats don’t pop off the page. He averaged 10.6 points and 2 assists per game on just 17.9% usage and 41-38.7-75.6 shooting splits. However, Hinton was still a pretty clear plus-impact offensive player for the Cougars. He led his team in offensive win shares and offensive BPM by a fairly wide margin. Houston scored 14 more points per 100 possessions with him on the floor than with him on the bench.
We’ve already established that he’s an absolutely bonkers offensive rebounder, but what else does he bring to the table?
Here’s a look at Hinton’s shot profile in both his Freshman year and his Sophomore year:
2018-19:
I’ll start by discussing his long-range scoring, and then move toward the rim from there.
Hinton’s long-range shooting profile is pretty appealing. As a freshman, Hinton only shot 33.7% from distance, but a very strong 85.7% from the foul line. This year, his percentage from charity stripe dipped to 75.6%, but his three-point percentage leaped all the way up to 38.7% on higher volume than the previous year. It’s worth noting that in his final 10 games, Hinton shot 42.1% (16/38) from three and 95.5% (21/22) from the line. The volume there is obviously low, but it’s always nice to see a player’s numbers increase as the season progresses. Hinton also endured a brutal stretch from December 23rd to January 29th, where he shot an ice-cold 23.5% (8/34) from three and only 61.9% (13/21) from the foul line.
When combining both of his collegiate seasons, Hinton shot 36.6% from three on 202 shots and 80% from the foul line on 160 attempts.
3PA/Game | Total 3PA | 3PA/100 possessions | 3PA/40 minutes | 3P% | FTA | FT% | |
2018-19 | 2.2 | 83 | 6.9 | 4.7 | 33.7 | 70 | 85.7 |
2019-20 | 3.8 | 119 | 7.6 | 5.1 | 38.7 | 90 | 75.6 |
Total | 3 | 202 | 7.3 | 4.9 | 36.6 | 160 | 80 |
Taking more threes and making more threes is always a good sign.
Essentially all of Hinton’s three-point attempts are just simple spot-ups. His mechanics off the catch are about as sound as they come. His form is consistent, and his quick release and high release-point allow him to get his shot off over close outs.
I love this play. In typical Nate Hinton fashion, he snags an offensive board and dishes it back out to the perimeter. Rather than standing in place, he relocates to the corner and drills a three off the catch.
Hinton’s main issue as a long-range scorer is his lack of versatility. He is currently unable to shoot off of heavy movement. He’s flashed some semi-movement shooting, as shown below.
100% of his made threes this year were assisted. It’s tough to expect him to hit pull-up threes at any point in his career. However, Hinton has the ability to hit pull-ups from inside the arc, and has some space creation chops.
Here’s a little hesitation move going to his left.
A step back from the baseline...
And a couple more.
Hinton knows how to dribble, and has just enough creativity to get to his spots off the bounce.
He isn’t a particularly efficient mid-range scorer, and his shooting percentage from mid-range dropped slightly from 35.8% to 34.5% this year. I don’t think that the slight dip in efficiency is anything to worry about, as more of his mid-range attempts were assisted last year (48.3%) than they were this year (34.5%). Still, shooting in the 30’s from mid-range isn’t ideal.
Two notes on the play above: 1) Not a lot of creativity here. Rather than utilizing his ball-handling capabilities, he just bounces it twice with his left and he's unable to create separation. 2) The lower body mechanics are not good. His legs flail out to the side.
Hinton has a hard time getting to the rim and needs to improve his finishing. He struggles to turn the corner, even when switched onto bigs.
There are times where he’s able to use his handle to get by defenders.
But for the most part, he’s just a straight-line driver. He only got to the rim 58 times this year, despite possessing above-average strength and length for a 2-guard. Hinton’s severe lack of vertical athleticism limits him as a finisher, not just in the half-court, but also in transition. His 0.345 FTr isn’t dreadful, but it should probably be higher given his physical measurements.
Every now and again he pulls out a smooth looking floater, which he can stick with either hand.
Aside from scoring, Hinton isn’t dynamic enough to create passing windows for others. However, he can make timely and appropriate reads against an already-tilted defense.
Check out this sweet live-dribble layup assist with his left hand.
He doesn’t get many pick-and-roll touches, but here are two solid reads while utilizing a ball screen.
The 2nd play ends in a kick-out pass to the perimeter while slipping.
Since his statistical profile is so strange, I was curious to see if any players put up even remotely similar numbers in college. Here’s a list of players 6’7” or shorter since 2008 with:
· Defensive BPM > 3
· OREB rate > 9
· DREB rate > 20
· STL% > 2.8
3PA/100>3
FT%>65%
Gary Clark being here doesn’t shock me, but adding Ben Simmons, Paul Reed, and Ethan Happ to Kawhi and Draymond? This is an odd group of players.
So, what does all this mean? I don’t know. I suppose my only real takeaway from all of these stat queries is that Nate Hinton is a bizarre prospect. A 6’5” wing with a fairly strong shooting projection and a 2.8 steal rate shouldn’t be that unique, but it’s his rebounding that isolates him from all others in his archetype.
And the craziest part of this story? Nate Hinton will likely go undrafted. ESPN has him at 62. Sports Illustrated and the Athletic rank him at 75 and 76. He doesn’t crack the Ringer or Bleacher Report’s top 50’s, nor Tankathon’s top 67.
He incomprehensibly isn’t even one of the 105 players on the NBA’s preliminary combine invite list. Excuse my overused draft jargon, but Hinton is a mega-sleeper. The unfortunate thing is, he shouldn’t be. He was a 4-star recruit in high school, one of the most impactful players in college basketball this year, and played at a top 25 school. He isn’t even that old. We’re in an age where transition dunks and raw scoring totals define players. Hinton’s skill set isn’t what the folks over at Ballislife crave, and as a result, he’s seemingly slipping through the cracks.
I don’t want to make it seem like Hinton is a perfect prospect. He’ll probably be able to hit open spot-ups, but is his 1-2 dribble pull-up consistent enough, and will he be able to finish at all against NBA athletes when he’s chased off the line? Those are reasonable questions to ask, but they aren’t things that should make Hinton an un-draftable prospect. There are players who will be drafted in the first round, and even the top ten (I may or may not be looking at you, Tyrese Haliburton) with identical flaws.
If an NBA team drafts or signs Hinton, it’s hard for me to imagine him failing in the NBA, even if he’s just a back-of-the-rotation cog. I wouldn’t rule out him developing into something more than a rotation player given his off-the-dribble scoring flashes, plus-handle, high-level instincts, and outlier motor. Hinton deserves to be drafted, and in my opinion, should garner first-round consideration.
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