Ha Seung-jin

Mystery Scouting Report

By Adam Miller and quotes via Korean Times

Before I begin let me give you some background about this kid, he is a junior in high school. No, I’m not talking about Sebastian Telflair. As a sophomore, he lead his team to a 22-0 season averaging 27 points per game and 10 rebounds and has four championship titles. No, this is not LeBron James’s evil twin either but nice try. The country north of them is loaded with nuclear weapons and would just love to blow the US to smithereens but this guy would just simply like to get in and his country has said that they will let him go with no problems. He is a seven foot three inch beast from South Korea, he is a whopping three hundred and five pounds and is just seventeen years old.

What is his name? Ha Seung-jin.

He just recently signed with SFX sports that first found out about him and released him to whole bunch of scouts. I found out about him because I am always interested in looking for a future prospect in America and so I usually look in Eurobasket.com and I see “High School Colossus Ha Takes Aim at NBA.” I think to myself South Korea didn’t even make the World Championships and they got a guy who wants to go pro right out of high school? This guy is going to be a bust. However, I then looked him up through Yahoo to see if I could find any information directly from Korea and soon enough I got two newspapers talking about him.

I figured I made the greatest international discovery in the world of sports, but apparently not. John Thompson gave me an informative email saying he knows about him and he says everyone else knows about him. That probably means all the other scouts have already seen him because when I was also looking at him through Yahoo, I saw that other draft sites had already mentioned him; which (bleep)ed me off, because I was convinced that nobody has ever heard of him, yet. John and several other publications haven’t said anything about him because he is ineligible for the NBA and he is from another country and they don’t see it as being ethical to hype up someone so young. As it turns out, John is right, any hardcore fan, most South Korean basketball fans, and any top basketball service would know about him. I assume general public sports fans have never heard of this guy unless they are one of those hardcore fans and have already heard about him.

Just in case you haven’t heard of him or don’t know much about him, I’ll be happy to let you know more.

Last season, Ha had shot a seventy percent free throw percentage. I don’t care what league you are in, that’s amazing for a big man. Another thing I mentioned earlier is that he is 7-3. However, he is also a high school junior, recent x-rays have shown that he will grow between 2-5 inches which would make him anywhere between 7-5 to 7-8. His doctor also said that because of how well he has been training and keeping his weight in proportion with his height, he should be able to grow without experiencing any new troubles. Right now, he can play a full game without getting tired. When he was tested by SFX sports, he was able to do many of the drills without getting tired. One disadvantage is that his dad and his sister’s career were shortened because of foot injuries. With a much more physical NBA, he could have a career that lasts for only seven seasons or he may have to be out for several games each season like Zydunas Ilgaskius.

His dad and his sister are 6-6. Many people compare him to Yao Ming, however he seems to be more of a mixture of Tim Duncan’s athletic ability and Shaquille O’Neal’s strength and dominance. His dad has him on a very strict weight-training program, which helps him a lot because he is trying to overpower Shaq, which is Ha’s favorite player and who he models himself after.
“I will train myself enough so I can emulate the powerful play of my favorite player Shaquille O’Neal,” he said.
Everyone in South Korea disagrees though,

“If Ha improves his mobility such as faint motions, I am sure that he can outrival the 2.26-meter-tall center for the Houston Rockets,” said Choun Soo-gil, an Internet columnist and Webmaster for the Korea Basketball Association.

Many people think that he already is better than Yao Ming. While his outside shot isn’t as appealing as Yao is, he can still shoot free throws, and can shoot from mid range with terrific accuracy but isn’t going to give you the shooting clinic that Yao. What he will do is he will eat up his defenders with his inside dominance. The other thing to remember is that because he has a big body, he has a fearsome defensive presence. He has huge arms and hands, which makes it easy for him to block shots. He’s pretty slow in general, although his speed is improving.

When he is drafted in the 2004-2005 season, I think that he will have a similar season to Amare Stoudemire where he will have some huge games, but he isn’t going to get anything more than 14 points a game. His rookie stats might look something like 13.6 points per game, 9.8 boards, and 2.5 blocks. I expect him to have a hard time adjusting but I predict that he will have a good career. The only thing he has to watch out for is the vulnerability to injuries on the feet.

There’s a lot of skepticism about about whether or not he will be a good player. I know he’s going to have those games where he will hit the rookie wall, there will be those times when he looks like a bust, but let’s remember, he has tons of potential in him. He’s got a committed dad working him hard and if he goes to the right team, he will have a successful career. From what I’ve read, he could be a top 10 pick in this year’s draft because of the potential of Ha and the success of international players in the NBA.


This kid is already better than Yao Ming. I think not. However, he seems to be someone to keep an eye on.7-5 to 7-8