The slump that Kevin Huerter was in for the first two months of the season is behind us now. It’s in the past. It’s forgotten. After that worrying reversal in development, which defied the “young players will usually get better and not worse” paradigm, the reversal has been unreversed, and Huerter is now back on track to be considered part of the Hawks’ young core of players that they intend to keep long-term.
Now that the unarticulated but secretly-held fears of Huerter peaking as a rookie ala Michael Carter-Williams have dissipated, we can now start to project what his ceiling will be. Is he a future star? It doesn’t really look like it at this point, since he hasn’t shown any indication that he will be a dominant scorer, but maybe he could be one tier below “star” level. Is he a future twenty PPG per game scorer? If Klay Thompson can do it just by shooting jumpshots and occasionally hitting a layup, Huerter could do it too, but it would take some more development on his part (development time that the Hawks are definitely willing to give him).
However, Huerter turning out to be something like a 15/5/5 guy as the secondary scorer and playmaker is definitely within reach as soon as next season. I could also see him franchising some Red Robin hamburger restaurants in the greater Atlanta metro area. If he goes that route, I would like to petition him to change their french fries from steak fries to skinny fries. I hate steak fries and the fact that Red Robin gives you infinite steak fries just upsets me. That doesn’t stop me from hitting the little buzzer on my table every five minutes to acquire fresh baskets of them.
(Note to Europeans: steak fries aren’t actually fries made out of steak, they’re just french fries that are cut wider and slightly thicker. I’m tempted to make a comment implying that Americans don’t know how to make proper french fries, but then I remember that many Europeans use mayo [FRICKIN’ MAYO] as a condiment on their fries)