Player Facts
Height: 6'7"
Weight: 217lbs.
Date of Birth: Dec. 8, 1997
College Experience: Marquette (3 years); Virginia (1 year)
Selections
All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0
Player Grades
Speed/Explosiveness: 5
Physical Strength: 4
Positional Size: 9
Positional Wingspan: 6
Paint Scoring: 2
Midrange Scoring: 4
Three-Point Scoring: 10
Dribbling: 4
Passing: 4
Perimeter Defense: 6
Interior Defense: 4
Rebounding: 4
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STRENGTHS
Intro
Sam Hauser is a premier wing marksman. His conversion rates from three-point land are perennially among the league’s best. Sam’s greatest skill that allows him to fully tap into this shooting strength may be his aptitude for getting shot attempts up in diverse ways.
3PT Sniping
Hauser cans wide-open threes with the best of them. NBA.com classifies a wide-open three as one where a defender is six or more feet away at the time of release. Sam connected on 47.4% of these in Boston’s elite offense in 2024-2025.
Spot-ups are, of course, his bread-and-butter (96th percentile for 2024-2025). He has cleared 40% on catch-and-shoot threes from his rookie NBA season of 2021-2022 through his 2025-2026 campaign (all in Boston). Impressively, shooting volume has steadily risen through these years, and this elite clip has held.
Geographically, Sam does not have a clear weak zone all along the three-point semi-circle. He can drain threes from spray-outs no matter where his feet find him in a given set. Clean shot prep, a swift one-motion shot, a unique wider base, and of course that size at 6’7” all help. The hottest, highest concentration zone of his shot map tends to be that valuable above-the-break area.
Depth-wise, the Virginia product’s range stretches out beyond to the proverbial “four-point line”. This provides extra uphill gravity that widens out driving lanes and creates key extra space for Boston’s myriad on-ball actions. Hauser is a very confident shooter too, and defenses know that he will unabashedly (and, based on his percentages, wisely) take those longer-range attempts.
The Wisconsin native has grown his dribble-up shooting in a meaningful way as well. This helps him be a pricklier threat in DHO’s and the odd ball screen usage. Hauser made 31 of 72 (43.1%) pull-up triple tries in 2024-2025 – that's not nothing.
Voluminous Threes
Being able to dependably knock down shots is only part of the equation as a modern NBA shooter. Consistently accessing these shots when opposing coaches game plan to take them away is what separates good from great overall snipers.
Hauser has been able to develop in a great coaching environment and system with the Celtics. Through hard work and development reps, the swingman has become a player who can get his 3’s off in a number of ways. He has become a big-time threat in transition and/or broken-floor scenarios where he must be located quickly.
Movement Shooting
Sam has always had movement shooting within his game. He is uncanny at going from sprint-to-plant in either direction. As most players must do at the NBA level to prove themselves, he began by making the most of his chances in standstill catch-and-shoot chances initially. This established a bedrock of elite zero-dribble range scoring.
Hauser used that foundation he created to showcase the plethora of manners he could access that peak shooting skill. Modern-season Sam now can be seen flying off screens and making the most of that gravity earned from the shooting reputation he created. 2023-2024 saw him in the 86th percentile for his shooting off screens.
Team Player
Sam stays within his role admirably on offense. He keeps the ball moving, makes quick decisions, and has a flexible enough off-ball skillset. Hauser has been in the Celtics system for a while and clearly has absorbed the sort of “institutional knowledge” to function seamlessly in this offense.
Noting all of that, his turnover rate is extremely low. He makes the elementary but important extra passes. Hauser has provided great spacing for the likes of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard.
He himself is an active screener and knows his inherent value as a shooter setting picks. On-ball, he is one of the better ghost-screeners into an ATB –three kind of players leaguewide. He will at times even roll down into the nail area and can make positive choices from there.
Solid Defense
Depending who you ask or which statistical models you look at, his defense could be described as anywhere from neutral-to-decent positive. His defensive box-plus minus tends to reflect just this, ranging from +0.4 in a couple of years, with 2024-2025 at a flat 0.
Sam uses his size and picks some spots to take cracks at on-ball steals. He is 6-foot-7 and 217 lbs., so will rarely get played off the floor for his defensive limitations. A very low foul rate encapsulates his defensive discipline and is also illustrative of his overall basketball smarts.
WEAKNESSES
Three’s & That’s All
Sam’s shooting chart is almost comically skewed outwards beyond the arc. Midrange shots and, even more so, paint shots, are relatively anomalous for the forward. These kinds of shot diets can make it that much harder to be efficient overall as a player – Sam has managed to do this, but the margins are thin. He took only 48 paint shots across 71 games played and 1541 total minutes within those (2024-2025).
The swingman’s appearances at the foul line are few and far between. In 2024-2024 and 2024-2025, he shot 19 and 11 free throws, respectively. Sam played 70+ games in each of those years.
Improving his ability to hard-drive against hard-closeouts would help keep the offensive “blender” moving. He tends to only be able to punctuate pre-heated advantages with a (albeit, often backbreaking) three. Sam’s counters to closeouts tend to be more east-west (escape-dribble, reload three) than north-south (dribble drive into the paint).
Less Impactful Defensive Areas
Hauser can play a couple of defensive roles, but not as many as his frame may suggest. Being 6’7” in the modern NBA comes with some more diversified expectations. He is not great switching up or down necessarily, and his strength is perhaps around average relatively speaking.
Sam’s playmaking on defense is minimal (below-average deflections, steals, rebounding, and block rates). A comparatively short wingspan (6’9”) for his height (6’7”) is partly to blame. It could be argued that Sam could be a more impactful player on defense, without straying too far from his disciplined, low-error nature on the court, by taking even 10% more chances when off-ball.
Players Appearing Here – Check Out Their Profiles
- Jayson Tatum [Coming Soon]Opens in a new tab
- Jaylen Brown [PATREON]Opens in a new tab
- Derrick WhiteOpens in a new tab
- Payton Pritchard [Coming Soon]Opens in a new tab
