Austin Rivers Has a Long Way to Go to Live Up to Hype

Austin Rivers came into Duke as ESPN's No. 3-ranked recruit, and for good reason.

His skills on the hardwood were hard to miss, and he just so happened to be the son of Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers, a former NBA player himself.

But despite averaging 13.3 points per game on 45 percent shooting, Rivers still has a long ways to go to live up to being one of the most hyped freshman in Duke history, right up there with Kyrie Irving.

As pointed out on Grantland.com, Rivers has a points per possession rate of .0879 through four games, good for 1,109th in college basketball.

PPP measures how efficient a player is per possession, taking into account not only shots, but turnovers and assists. Headed into Monday's game against Tennessee, Rivers was averaging 2.8 turnovers and 2.5 assists despite playing against unranked teams.

Sure, there is still a ways to go this season, and it's unfair to judge a freshman on just four games played, but it needs to be said that he has actually struggled overall adjusting to the college game so far.

It's also a bit troubling that Rivers' struggles have come when he takes the ball to the rim, which is odd considering his quick first step, ball-handling skills and top-of-the-line leaping ability supposedly project that to be his biggest strength.

Part of this has been his decision-making up to this point, where he either gets too deep into the paint to cleanly dish off to his teammates when help arrives or has one mindset from the start, not naturally playing within the game.

There's also the fact that he appears to be dead-set on getting to the rim instead of using his pull-up jumper, which was another reason he was so highly coveted coming out of high school. In short, he's forcing things too much, and that's gotten him into trouble.

It's not easy being as hyped as Rivers is; people instantly expect him to explode onto the scene like Irving did.

But poor decision-making can be the death of even the most talented of players.

Rivers is going to have to improve in this regard to live up to the hype.