For a team that needs a muscled defender who can finish open dunks and alley-oops strongly and quickly, DeVon Hardin is a nice pick.  

If the team that drafts Hardin is expecting him to hit open jumpers on the pick and pop and create his own scoring in the post, they will be greatly disappointed.

When teammates are reluctant to feed the ball to a senior with great position in the post, who has been a projected first round pick since his sophomore season, that is not the most encouraging sign.

He is a wide and upright target in the post and doesn?t allow defenders to push him out of position.

He will create very few of his own buckets although he is decent when he gets the ball low on the block when he can out muscle his defender.

His inability to score in the post rests more in his shot than anything else.  He has enough good post moves to get open shots but just doesn?t have enough touch to convert.  However, there is no mistaking that he is a bull in a china shop when he has the ball down low.

His shot is too hard and really flat and a long way away from being passable.  

One area in which he shoots well is going middle into the paint from the left block.

He is very good at catching the ball over the top in the post, and it is always a mistake to front Hardin defensively.

As mentioned earlier, he doesn?t have a good enough shot to pick and pop, but because he gets his body really big on screens and is an excellent finisher, he gets an open path to the basket.  His ability to adapt and maneuver laterally when someone steps into his path isn?t very good, but he occasionally will be able to complete an acrobatic layup.

He holds the screen a little too long on the pick and roll which sometimes ruins the timing of the dribbler looking to dish off to him.  

Hardin is an active screener in the halfcourt offense, which is how he makes his biggest contribution on most possessions.

He is really strong in the air on alley-oops and can flush on defenders although they are horizontal power dunks instead of dunking vertical over someone.

Perhaps most importantly, Hardin is really quick and strong to the rim without any wasted movements or gather dribbles.

He is presently an ineffective passer and is only capable of simple wide open passes.  In a game at Stanford this season, a pass from the high post to Ryan Anderson was picked off by his own man and was probably the worst single pass I saw during the entire college basketball season.  

In transition he has good foot speed and can beat the majority of his defenders down the floor for easy shots but doesn?t take advantage of the opportunity nearly enough.

Hardin goes strong to the ball on rebounds and always makes a concerted effort to box out although he needs to do it more by feel than by sight.

He has really solid lateral quickness defending the perimeter.

He sometimes tries to take a charge even when the situation calls for him to use his size to block/alter the shot.

He has a good chance to develop into a more effective NBA player than he was in college as the pro game suits his strengths more; with open lanes, better point guards (being drafted by a team with a Chris Paul or Deron Williams is the best thing that could possibly happen to him), and lower expectations on creating his own offense, he should be a decent big in the rotation.

- Click here to see our full list of 2008 Draft Prospect Reports

Christopher Reina is the executive editor of RealGM.  He can be reached at Chris.Reina@RealGM.com where he may use your draft questions in a future mailbag edition