Former Arizona State shooting guard James Harden comes into the draft as one of the most intriguing players. After playing two years at ASU, Harden decided to make the jump to the NBA and is a virtual lock for a top 10 pick, going as high as the top three. He has good size for his position at 6-foot-5, 222 pounds and showed great shooting ability and decision making during his time with the Sun Devils.

Harden put up impressive numbers in his last season at ASU, average just over 20 points a game, along with 5.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.7 steals per game. He was also effective shooting the three ball, going 35.6 percent from beyond the arc last year.

As well as being a good spot-up shooter, Harden also has great ability to get into the lane and make plays around the basket, often drawing fouls and getting to the line. Many NBA scouts have compared his game to that of the San Antonio Spurs’ Manu Ginobili and Portland Trailblazers’ Brandon Roy.

Harden is helped out in this draft by the fact that some of the other young guards who are also entering the draft did not meet expectations last season in college. Two one-and-done players in UCLA’s Jrue Holiday USC’s DeMar DeRozan were both expected at one point to be top five picks in the draft, but both had sub-par freshman seasons.

The most likely place for Harden to end up is Minnesota. The organization brought Harden in for a last-minute workout and seemed impressed with what they saw. The Timberwolves traded away shooting guards Randy Foye and Mike Miller in a trade that brought over three players as well as the No. 5 pick in the draft from the Washington Wizards. Minnesota now has the No. 5 and No. 6 selections on June 25, and is likely to take two guards at those positions.

Members in the organization of course have their eyes set on point guard Ricky Rubio from Spain, though he is expected to be drafted before the Timberwolves have a chance to snag him. One player that they might have to decide on however is former Memphis shooting guard Tyreke Evans whose game is quite similar to Harden’s.

Of course depending on where Rubio is drafted, the Oklahoma City Thunder could decide to take Harden with the No. 3 pick, though that is a bit of a long shot. The Sacramento Kings on the other hand are looking to take a scoring guard at the No. 4 pick; however they haven’t expressed too much interest in Harden, opting for the flashier Evans, Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn or Davidson’s Stephen Curry.

One of the main things that Harden has up on some of the other aforementioned players is his consistency. He played consistently on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball night in and night out, and NBA teams can definitely look forward to this trend continuing at the professional level. Moreover, Harden also has a much more NBA-ready body than most of the other guards entering the draft, thus making it more likely that he will not have as much of a problem dealing with the much more physical play than he experienced in college.