Sacramento Kings Pre-Hiatus Report Card: Harry Giles
During what could be his last season with the Sacramento Kings, Harry Giles pulled his way into the rotation by taking advantage of sporadic minutes.
Harry Giles had an unconventional second year in the league headlined by the Sacramento Kings declining his third-year team option whilst contradictorily claiming that Giles was part of their future plans.
James Ham of NBC Sports recently shed a bit of light on the decision-making process from the Kings’ perspective.
"Giles went home last summer and according to multiple sources, the team was unhappy about the work that he put in. First, he wasn’t available to play in the California Classic and when he showed up to training camp, his knee swelled up on the first day and the Kings shut him down. What exactly happened over the summer has remained mostly a mystery, but according to sources, Giles missed a meet-up with the training staff and the team believed he wasn’t ready to compete when camp opened. There was a vote amongst members of the front office and while it wasn’t unanimous, the decision was made not to pick up the option and to force Giles into a “prove-it” season."
With the odds of a 2019-20 return to Kings’ basketball diminishing by the day, now is a fair time to assess how Giles performed in his “prove-it season”.
Limited opportunities
Throughout the first 32 games of Sacramento’s season, Harry Giles exceeded 10 minutes on a mere two occasions. Dewayne Dedmon quickly fell out of head coach Luke Walton‘s rotation in favor of Richaun Holmes, and Dedmon spent the entirety of 16 healthy games on the bench. This left an opening at the backup center position following the aforementioned opening stretch.
In 2018-’19, Giles logged 32 percent of his minutes at center, per basketball-reference. This season, 99% of his minutes were recorded at the center position – a notable variance considering some significant weaknesses in his game.
Giles appeared in 31 of the closing 32 matchups and averaged 7.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 1.4 assists in 17 minutes per. As expected, the bulk of Giles’ impact came on the offensive end while the ball was in his hands.