Austin Rivers: Is Duke's Fab Frosh Better Prospect Than Michigan's Tim Hardaway?

Tuesday’s Michigan-Duke contest was more than just a battle to reach the Maui Finals. It’s a chance to see two of the best guards in the entire country square off: Austin Rivers vs. Tim Hardaway.

Rivers came to Duke with all of the expectations associated with a top five recruit. He has incredible athletic ability, a killer first step and a smooth jumper. Through five games he has certainly endured his fair share of ups and downs though.

He has a bad tendency of passing up wide-open looks in favor of driving to the basket for shots that end up being much tougher to make. He is turning the ball over almost three times per game, and only has 12 assists through five games. He clearly isn’t going to take the college basketball world by storm.

A lot of the traits that make Rivers so highly touted (great first step, strong ball handler) are also used to describe Hardaway Jr.

He’s more of a slasher-type player, so he doesn’t have the lightening fast first step of Rivers, but he makes up for it with his unlimited range. The form on his jump shot is picture perfect and he has a quick release as well.

Comparing their defense to this point is hard to do. Rivers has an extremely small sample-size and has shown flashes of why he can be a terrific off the ball defender and why he still has a long way to go. Hardaway is best when he’s able to play the passing lane and turn a steal into an easy bucket in transition.  

Both players come from excellent pedigrees and both will have success at the NBA level, but at this point I’d take Hardaway over Rivers on my college basketball team.

Sure he’s a sophomore and Rivers is a freshman, but I believe Hardaway’s ability to move without the ball, create his own shot and superior range make him a more valuable commodity to have in college.

Rivers still has a lot of work to do.