Magic Historical Comparisons: Maurice Harkless, Stacey Augmon
The Orlando Magic had “The Plastic Man” Stacey Augmon for the last two years of his 14-year NBA career. At that point, Augmon was a shadow of the talent he once was, but his defensive prowess and prime play is a parallel for the best case scenario for Maurice Harkless.
Maurice Harkless at this point has shown a Stacey Augmon-like propensity at getting to the rim. The difference is that former Magic man —and Atlanta Hawks’ lottery pick — Augmon finished at the rim. Harkless continues to blow up great offensive plays by missing shots in stride (particularly along the baselines), also usually failing to initiate contact to get to the line.
To be sure, Augmon was never a major offensive threat, even coming from a high-powered UNLV offense in college. His career high was 14.8 points per game, and that is well within Harkless’ reach just based on talent alone.
But Harkless has not been finishing. He’s blown a number of beautiful plays towards the basket. On several, he just needed to dunk the ball, and instead he changed his shot in mid air to avoid getting it blocked. This has held Harkless back, and one would think that the Magic coaching staff has pointed it out to him at some point.
The biggest similarity between Augmon and Harkless, though, is the ability to make big defensive plays.
Even in limited play as a 37-year-old with the Magic, Augmon averaged 1.7 blocks/steals per-36 minutes. In his prime, he averaged as high as 2.2 blocks/steals. It is not necessarily that those numbers are solely indicative of the great defense, but making plays ignites fast breaks, and both small forwards are capable of filling that niche.
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Really, Harkless’ young career does not match up to Augmon’s. The Plastic Man was taken ninth overall in the strong 1991 NBA draft class, which featured a talented class of teammate Larry Johnson, Kenny Anderson, Dikembe Mutombo, Billy Owens, Steve Smith (and so on).
Augmon’s long career was driven by his superb defense, and that is Moe’s best chance to carve a future in the NBA. There are plenty of scorers on the wing position, but the example of Courtney Lee in Memphis proves that defense will keep a guy in the league until he finds his shooting stroke.
Some team may gamble on Harkless and reap major rewards if the Magic choose to let him go or trade him. But the thing is, Harkless has one major thing going for him: He passes the “eye test.”
Harkless can play high level basketball, but he has only done it in flashes, and the flashes have had all the length and elongated gait of the young Augmon. It is a great high upside kind of comparison for Harkless, and that will be the focus of these retrospective comparisons.