Harrison Barnes: Are Criticisms of UNC Prospect Justified or Overblown?

Harrison Barnes was expected to be the next superstar in the NBA when he first left Ames High School for the North Carolina Tar Heels. After struggling (relative to the expectations) during his freshman year and then exploding during the postseason, Barnes made the curious decision to spurn the 2011 NBA draft. 

He returned to Chapel Hill for his sophomore season, didn't improve much and saw his draft stock fall. Now, Barnes is moving back up the boards and could go in the top five picks. 

The reason for the volatility of Barnes' stock has been that we've put him under the microscope. As one of those rarefied "can't miss" prospects, every move was analyzed, every flaw was picked apart and every shortcoming was noted. 

So with the draft quickly approaching, are those criticisms justified or are they overblown as the result of an increased level of attention? 

Barnes himself realizes his flaws and isn't too hesitant to speak about them, saying all the right things, as you might expect from the brand-conscious Black Falcon. The following quote by Barnes was transcribed by the Des Moines Register's Bryce Miller: 

"

A lot of teams have question marks about my ability to put the ball on the floor, create separation, get by my man. And a big question is, ‘Am I a guy who’s going to bounce around on (multiple) teams?

Not everyone can be a franchise player, so I’ll just work as hard as I can. If I can be a puzzle piece, I’ll be the happiest person out there.

"

The biggest knock on Barnes is indeed his perceived inability to create his own shot. When he's forced to dribble the basketball and allow the orange sphere to touch the hardwood at least twice on a single possession, Barnes struggles. 

If this wasn't evident enough while watching him play in the full-strength Tar Heels lineup, Barnes made it more apparent when Kendall Marshall went down with a wrist injury during March Madness. 

During the two games that the lefty point guard missed at the end of this past college season—a 73-65 overtime win over Ohio and an 80-67 loss to Kansas—the powder blue offense ground to a halt. 

Barnes was one of the primary reasons as he took it upon himself to shoot time and time again, drawing iron more often than he heard the sweet sound of the ball swishing through the net. The small forward made just eight of his 30 shots during the two games and turned the ball over eight times. 

When your superstar turns the ball over as many times as he hits shots, that's not a good sign. 

An even more telling sign is that six of the eight shots he did connect on were of the assisted variety. As a whole the Tar Heels had 36 assists on 54 buckets—66.7 percent of the time that the team scored, it was off an assist during those two games. Barnes' mark stands at 75 percent. 

Although the small sample size warning is in effect, this reaffirms how Barnes can shoot, but requires an elite point guard to feed him the ball. 

Speaking of passing, Barnes' other major flaw is his lack of court vision and passing skills. He averaged 1.4 assists per game as a freshman, but that dropped to just 1.1 per contest during his second season under Roy Williams. 

This wasn't a byproduct of having the ball in his hands less either, as Barnes' assist percentage (a more telling stat that examines the percentage of field goals by teammates that were assisted by the player in question while he was on the court) dropped from a sub-par 9.5 to a putrid 7.2. 

Barnes never topped five assists in a single game during his sophomore season and put up a big, fat zero in the column 14 times. 

The small forward desperately needs to work on those two areas of his game—shot-creation and passing—if he hopes to live up to the expectations.

As for the criticisms, they are by no means overblown.