NBA Draft Scouting Report: Purdue Guard Braden Smith

Evaluating a two-way energy forward in Florida's Thomas Haugh.

Jan 28, 2026; Columbia, South Carolina, USA; Florida Gators forward Thomas Haugh (10) celebrates a three point basket against the South Carolina Gamecocks in the second half at Colonial Life Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Blake-Imagn Images | Jeff Blake-Imagn Images

Florida forward Thomas Haugh was widely projected to be one of the best returning players in college basketball, and has been just that in scaling up his production across the board, cementing his draft case in the process.

Haugh broke out in his second season with the Gators by playing a gluey, but pivotal role en route to a national championship, and he’s been a vital part of their success in his third season.

He’s on the older side for a junior at nearly 23-years-old on draft night, but has great measurables at 6-foot-9 with a seemingly plus wingspan.

He lacks truly elite fall-back skills, but is exceptionally well-rounded for a forward, bringing length and vertical athleticism, defensive impact, off-ball scoring, as well as energy and high-IQ play.

Thomas Haugh Scouting Report

1. Strengths:
2. Areas of Improvement:
3. Outlook:

Strengths:

Length and Vertical Athleticism

A big part of what makes Thomas Haugh so productive at the collegiate level is his plus length and vertical pop.

Again, he’s listed at 6-foot-9 and seems to have a plus wingspan that aids him on both ends. When you pair that with his functional verticality, it makes for a pretty versatile two-way producer.

Offensively, Haugh can use his bounce in the full or half-court, rising high for easy dunks and lays. He gets off the floor much quicker than expected, and can typically get the ball to an un-blockable point a majority of the time. 

This is pretty functional in the sense he does not need a lot of space to lift off. He can effectively power off one long stride, making for an effective dunker-spot option, cutter, slasher and more in the half-court. He has a great catch radius and almost always approaches the basket without a fear of contact. 

Haugh is less prone to using his boost on defense, preferring to stay down on one-on-one contests, but can been seen deploying it in transition and when doubling for some highlight-worthy contests and blocks.

The reason vertical athleticism is specified is that his lateral quickness and pure foot speed leave some to be desired, which we’ll touch more on in later sections.

Energy and High IQ Play

In tandem with Haugh’s physical tools are some intangibles that really help to glue his skillset together: energy, toughness, pure effort and high-IQ play.

These things can be a little overblown when evaluating some of the best athletes on the planet, but you would be hard-pressed to find a player across the country with more gas in the tank than Thomas Haugh. And more often than you’d think it’s makes the difference and has moved the scoreboard in the right direction for Florida.

He just does not stop moving: he’ll run the floor in transition, sprint back on defense, dive for loose balls, bull-doze his way through ball screens, move off-ball, embraces contact on both ends. He’s a great rebounder, nabbing 6.4 per game, and screener given his love for contact.

Despite how hard-nosed he is, he also has pretty keen awareness to him in terms of space, game-flow, floor-reading. Things that should make translation to a multitude of schemes easier. He’s averaging 2.0 assists per game to 1.7 turnovers, ball-moving, hitting open shooters and more. 

Direct quote from Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington: “I don’t know if anyone plays harder in the country than Thomas Haugh.”

When you pair Haugh’s size and verticality with his understanding of the game and lack of an off-button, you usually get a player who can’t help but impact the game positively.

Off-Ball Scoring

Haugh’s offensive game at the NBA level will naturally mirror what he’s done for the last two seasons with Florida: thriving off the ball with his physical tools and instincts.

An easy selling point is how little he needs the ball to be effective. He’s been one of the best players in the country so far this season, averaging just shy of 18 points per game on 48% shooting, doing so almost completely spotting up, getting out in transition, cutting and crashing the offensive glass for put-backs. 

Haugh has a great understanding of space on the floor and how to attack it, doing so easily in the full court with an unstoppable motor, and instinctually in the half-court with good anticipation of how the defense is moving and flowing. We’ll touch more on his handle as a whole later, but he has more than enough to simply use one-to-two dribbles or straight-line drive the ball.

Once at the rim, he’s athletic enough to slam it or draw contact, but has fine touch on layups too, shooting about 65% as a whole across his junior and senior seasons. Haugh also has a pretty feathery float-game that should be a useable weapon at the next level.

Haugh’s at his best in the open floor, running hard, gravitating toward openings with real speed and converting with power. He’s good for 63% field goal percentage in transition, most of which comes at the rim. The other bulk of his points comes on spot-up shots, where he’s scoring 40%, mostly doing so by simply taking threes. But he’s really improved his ability to attack hard closeouts over the last year, shooting 50% on twos, up from  just 29% as a junior.

Haugh’s natural cutting and glass-crashing are the final pieces of the off-ball puzzle, again utilizing his physicality and tools to shoot 68 and 63%, respectively.

NBA spacing should especially help open things up to offer even more impact spotting up and especially cutting.

Defensive Impact

Capping Thomas Haugh’s pros is his defense, which prior to his offensive breakout with the Gators was likely his selling point in terms of impact.

Across his 33 minutes, Haugh is averaging one steal and block per game, using all the of the aforementioned traits to wreak havoc: hustling around, standing tall and fanning out with height and length, inviting contact, communicating and using a non-stop motor.

Positionally, Haugh is best-served simply guarding opposing forwards or big wings. He’s great at chesting up, staying disciplined and doing anything he can to affect a scorer’s rhythm or shot. Getting a hand in, bumping, just making it as tough as possible on his matchups, whether he ends up on the positive or negative side of the play. He’s incredibly fundamental as a defender, can cover a lot of ground, and is sneakily strong, rarely giving up ground even to bigger matchups.

Haugh’s posted fine, albeit not elite steal and block numbers, but is a player that genuinely goes beyond the box score in terms of defensive impact and ability. His average defensive box-plus minus of 4.3 across his junior and senior seasons is a testament to that.

This is where Haugh’s lesser lateral athleticism comes into play. He holds his own moving in space against wings and forwards, but quicker handlers of the ball don’t have too much issue getting around him. He just simply doesn’t have quick-twitch athleticism or elite reaction time, and isn’t great changing directions on the fly.

This can lead to some sluggish closeouts and contests, and leaves a few questions about how well he would translate to a massively switch-heavy scheme.

Overall though, Haugh feels like a defender who will more than make up for these limitations with his competitiveness and awareness, coming out overall as a positive, or in the absolute worst a wash.

Areas of Improvement:

Shooting Efficiency

Three-point shooting efficiency is far-and-away Haugh’s most important area of improvement. As a primarily off-ball player, he’s already been the beneficiary of open perimeter looks, and will continue to be at the NBA level.

A more efficient outside shot would not only help him to be a prototypical modern four in the NBA, it would also open up his downhill game.

Haugh’s relationship with the 3-point shot has certainly improved. He started out at 25% on just over one attempt as a freshman, majorly boosting that to 34% on two-and-a-half attempts in Year 2, and finally rounding out to 35% on great volume as a junior.

Right now, he’s taking 8.9 triples per 100 possessions, far-and-away the most threes he’s ever shot. The mechanics aren’t perfect — with a little too much of his guide hand on top of the ball — but there’s nothing too damning about them.

For better or worse, Haugh is a very consistently middling jump-shooter. His 3-point shots on all jumpers, catch-and-shoot shots both guarded and unguarded and dribble jumpers hover in the same range. The lowest being about 33% on guarded catch-and-shoot shots, and the highest being unguarded at 36%. Everything else falls in between percentage-wise. In terms of play-types, it’s effectively the same thing: 37% spotting up, 35% in transition.

Obviously, you’d like Haugh’s percentages to be higher. But his consistency, coupled with the growth he’s shown over the last several seasons, and some solid indicators such as a solid free throw percentage and higher volume, offer some hope that he’ll continue to climb and top out as a 3-point threat.

Handling:

The last area of improvement would be his ball-handling, which if upgraded, could create more efficient looks at the rim, make his scoring in general more dynamic, and would help to limit mistakes.

Again, Haugh is fine handling the ball in moderation, simply straight-lining to the rim, attacking hard closeouts or with space in the open floor. He’s just not yet comfortable pairing together dribble-moves, or really using dribble moves at all, and I think some of the directional stuff comes into play here as well.

Naturally, he’s more comfy handling the ball in simplistic ways and driving right, which is very typical of a forward in his size and mold, but I do think pushes him away from offensive positional versatility, and away from major time as a wing.

Again, this is not some major issue, I think Haugh can be serviceable and effective outside of tightening the handle. But it would add another layer to his offensive game that could help him to see consistent NBA time or an increased role.

Outlook:

Haugh’s jack of all trades, master of none tag has some merit — there’s truly no elite skills you can point to and say “that’s elite at an NBA level.”

But on the flip-side of that coin you have a player with great height and length, functional athleticism, one who impacts the game at nearly every single level: scoring without detracting from the offense, ball-moving, rebounding, screening, plus-defense. And Haugh does all of this with energy, toughness, feel for the game and tons of other winning traits.

It’s hard to envision Haugh not finding his way onto the NBA court in some form or fashion, and where NBA front offices think his still-improving skills will land long-term is likely to directly affect where they take him.

His range is likely to start in the late-lottery for any teams looking for a ready-made, gluey forward that can hit the ground running, and think it extends into the early 20’s. Some landing spots I like for Haugh include the Heat, Warriors and Raptors.

Range: Late-Lottery to Late-First

Role: Energy forward

Impact: Starter, Rotation

Swing Skills: Shooting Efficiency, Handling