Xavier Henry
SG – 6’6″ – Kansas
This is the first of what hopes to be many quality posts from our TWB Forum member “Pants.” His forum posts and further discussion can be found HERE. Feel free to join us, we’re always looking for more quality members. As a poor follower of the Wolves, Pants is always trying to talk himself into a light at the end of the tunnel. Usually that means talking himself into players we have, or could potentially have. How many guys will be stars from this draft, probabably a few? Will they be available to the Wolves? He’s going to do his best to convince himself that they will be.
Lets start with Mr. Xavier Henry.
He had a not great/not bad season with the Jayhawks this year. He shot up draft boards by shooting lights out for the first 10 games of his college career. His 13ppg isn’t amazing, but it was heavily skewed by the depth of the team. Only once did he take 10 shots and not get into double digits, while 8 times he got to double digits points with less than 10 shots. That is rock solid.
Did everyone know he had a brother on the team? It was news to me. Apparently C.J. Henry tried his hand at baseball (Yankees prospect) before joining Xavier at Kansas. Who doesn’t love the stud genetics?
How does he fit with what this team is doing? Xavier (69 of 165) is clearly a better 3 point shooter than Evan Turner (20 of 55), and a notch above Wes Johnson (51 of 123). You never know about how a guy will extend his range, but as a freshman it really doesn’t get much better than that. We all know we’ll need shooters at the 2/3 spots to put with Rubio the year after next, so that works. Xavier’s size is a major selling point. After the Foye era we are all ready to have a 6’6” SG. Hollinger has him at #6 behind (Favors, Monroe, Wall, Turner and Cousins).
Had Henry put up a monster game in the NCAA tourney my guess is the mocks would have tossed him right into the top 10. As it was, some of the older Jayhawk players where taking the fore-front in those games, and he did atleast make two of four 3’s in the game they lost. The other two guys in the backcourt went 0-11 from three during that game (Collins and Taylor). Lets put that loss on them, shall we?
Who knows how things will shake out with Evan Turner at the top; but maybe it is fate, maybe the basketball gods knew Henry was the guy the Wolves should be targeting. If the Wolves end up picking at either the #6 or #7 slot, Henry might just be the way to go.
Tomorrow I’ll be talking myself into James Anderson. Stay tuned.