Knicks Fans, Meet Dyson Daniels

New York's realistic top target is worth getting excited about...as long as we know what to expect.

Good morning! Today begins our month-long march to the NBA draft, and with it, the beginning of my annual deep dive into the prospects that you’ll be hearing a lot about between now and June 23. From now until the draft, I’ll be covering about two prospects per week in addition to continuing my team by team trade breakdowns (another one coming tomorrow) and answering your mailbag questions. If you want to be on board for every ounce of coverage to come and aren’t yet a full subscriber, you know what to do:

Let’s get to the news…

✍️ News & Notes 🗣

🏀 With the 2022 NBA Draft one month from tonight, the rumor mill is officially starting to heat up, with the latest intel coming courtesy of Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer regarding the Sacramento Kings and the 4th pick:

“There’s a strong belief among rival teams that Sacramento will explore trading the fourth selection, either out of the draft entirely for an impact veteran or down later in the lottery to net a contributing rotation player in the process.”

He also has intel that Shaedon Sharpe, perhaps the most intriguing player in this class, has butted his way into what was perceived to be a clear top four, and that “there’s definitive belief Sharpe’s range begins at No. 4.” Fischer goes on to say that Sharpe may be in position to assert more control than usual on his eventual landing spot:

Being such a mystery does afford Sharpe a unique advantage compared to his fellow top prospects. A savvy agent would use Sharpe’s case to steer him to particular workouts of teams he desires to play for, while doing the same with sharing his medical information. Teams will try to evaluate Sharpe in private one-on-one and three-on-three settings, but that will be up for negotiation like it is for all elite draft prospects.

The Knicks, as you may have heard, have become known for something of a Kentucky connection thanks to the history of Worldwide Wes and Coach Cal. Sharpe attended Kentucky for a year but never played a game, announcing only recently his intent to stay in the draft instead of attend school in the fall like he originally planned.

Digging deeper though, it’s unclear if the Knicks are going to have any sort of UK advantage. Sharpe was guided to Kentucky by his advisor Dwayne Washington, who also mentored former Wildcat Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. By all accounts, Kentucky was initially under the impression that Sharpe would eventually suit up for the school, but Washington may have privately been telling agents as far back as the fall that Sharpe was headed for the NBA in 2022. The whole story of how he ended up in this draft is a rather complex tale with questions surrounding age and eligibility, but the bi-product of this mess is that Washington’s relationship with UK may have been damaged.

That doesn’t mean New York won’t have an in with Sharpe though. You see, Washington is a Canadian citizen who grew up in the Bronx and knows Sharpe because of Sharpe’s Canadian heritage - the same Canadian heritage that led Washington to another former mentee, one Rowan Alexander Barrett Jr. Washington, an admitted Knicks fan, isn’t Sharpe’s agent because he’s not officially certified by the league, but he’s seemingly exerting a fair bit of influence over this process.

That doesn’t mean Sharpe is falling to 11. Not close, it seems, with the way Sharpe’s stock is rising. But if the Knicks can swing a trade to move up, perhaps the current face of the franchise can help them draft his running mate for years to come.

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Knicks Fans, Meet Dyson Daniels

Our first draft profile of the offseason is about Dyson Daniels, because of course it is.

Every season that New York winds up in the back half of the lottery, it seems like there’s a prospect who the majority of plugged in Knicks fans absolutely have to have. Four years ago, it was Mikal Bridges. Two years ago, it was Killian Hayes. And now, it is Dyson Daniels.

A quick YouTube search of the young man’s highlight tape is all it takes to figure out why there’s such an obsession:

Not bad for a point guard, huh?

Daniels is, in a word, different. The top prospect from the G-League Ignite, the Australian Daniels graduated from the NBA Global Academy in Canberra, which is the same path followed by last year’s 6th overall pick, Josh Giddey¹. He’s is the son of former NC State standout and Australian pro Ricky Daniels and has had nice showings around the globe over the last several years, including at the FIBA Under-19 World Cup where he averaged 14 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.6 assists. Oh, and he was an outstanding junior Aussie rules football player for years until he gave up the sport for basketball.

I don’t know anything about Aussie rules football, but I assume the experience has something to do with plays like this:

The elevator pitch on Daniels is pretty simple and very enticing: a still growing, 6'7" defense-first ball-handler with high level passing touch & feel for the game and an emerging jump shot that could catapult him into a different class of player if it ever really comes around. And boy, did it ever come around at the end of the G-League season, with Dyson hitting 45 percent on 3.4 attempts from deep over his last nine games. Daniels, who recently said his goal is to get to 210 pounds by the draft and 220 to 225 by next season², has recently identified outside shooting as his “swing skill,” so he knows where his path to prominence lies.

The ceiling here is what’s going to get Daniels drafted in a lottery, and why there’s a decent chance he’ll be off the board by 11. ESPN’s draft guru Mike Schmitz proclaimed after the lottery that Daniels would be a top-10 pick, and given his age (he turned 19 in March) and the fact that we’re watching a postseason which yet again re-affirms the value of switchable guys with versatile skill sets, it’s hard to see him falling very far. Plus, the boundaries of positional flexibility are getting stretched further every day. If Dorian Finney-Smith can moonlight as a small-ball five, why can’t Daniels?

With Daniels, the major selling point is defense. I won’t belabor the point on this and instead will simply steal from the people who evaluate prospects for a living that have pegged him as the best perimeter defender in the draft. His defense, at this size, should get him on the floor from day one under Tom Thibodeau - a point we’ll return to in a bit.

Now that all of that puffery is out of the way though, let’s examine why this uber-prospect isn’t being talked about amongst the surefire future stars of this draft.

For one, the shooting is still a question. Yes, Daniels finished the season hot, but that was on 31 total attempts. For comparison’s sake, Obi Toppin hit 42.3 percent on 71 attempts from deep over his last 15 games this season, and we still have major questions about his long term shooting viability (to say nothing of the fact that he was a 41 percent 3-point shooter in college). Sample size matters here, and overall, Daniels shot just 27.3 percent from deep this season.

If the shot never comes around in a significant way, you’re probably looking at better passing version of Derrick White in terms of overall impact. That’s still valuable, and there’s a reason why Boston dealt significant draft equity to acquire White this season even with his hefty salary. He’s also been a major liability on offense as someone who isn’t good enough to command many on-ball reps and who defenses welcome to shoot anytime he’s open.

This gets us to the next, related question about Daniels: how much is he going to have the ball in his hands at the next level? The answer is dependent not only on his shot, but on how much of a scoring threat he is inside the arc as well.

To that end, Daniels isn’t the sort of point guard who typically serves as a team’s primary or even secondary initiator in the game today. He isn’t an elite athlete, doesn’t have a great first step and can’t really break guys down off the dribble, at least not right now. Those reasons, combined with the fact that his midrange game is somewhat non-existent at the moment, contribute to why he doesn’t profile as your archetypal pick and roll point guard.

That doesn’t mean he can’t get buckets. Instead of leaning into conventional methods, Daniels uses size, craft and a really good floater game to manufacture a lot of his points inside the arc:

It’s not an accident that he had this to say about the players he’s modeling his game after:

“Offensively, I've been watching Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic…I like the way they use their change of pace, creative passing and basketball IQ to read the game and make teammates better.”

Daniels is anything but traditional in a lot of ways. He operates off of two feet a lot, both as a finisher and a passer. He certainly doesn’t play slow - he’s shown a high level of aptitude as a passer and a finisher in transition - but his half court style is definitely unorthodox when you compare him to most starting point guards in today’s game.

So what do we make of all this from a Knicks perspective?

My gut feeling is to say “don’t overthink it.” Daniels is a good basketball player today. New York is currently trying to envision a world where RJ Barrett is their secondary offensive engine behind an as-yet-unnamed alpha. Regardless of whether that eventual alpha is a true point guard, another wing or a big, Daniels has the versatility to slot in as a third or fourth cog alongside a big two, presuming his game continues to progress (and yes, the shot comes around). That’s part of the benefit of taking him: you don’t need to know a ton about your eventual team construction at this very moment.

Even at his absolute floor, Daniels has a skill set that will help an NBA team for a long time. Worst case, the shot never comes around, but he’s still smart enough to contribute in other ways with high level defense, in transition, and with his passing:

It has to be emphasized: he plays with a patience not often seen in someone his age, let alone someone just learning how to play the position:

There are, of course, issues. The Knicks had the fifth lowest effective field goal percentage in the league last season, and introducing a player with a questionable shot into the rotation won’t help that much.

There’s also the ever present conundrum of the current rotation. Even if the Knicks suddenly made every non-rookie contract player on the roster magically disappear, there would still be a question as to where Dyson would get his minutes. Starting a rookie point guard is a rough road to hoe that usually makes life difficult for everyone else around him. The Knicks’ young core is in a unique place where they’d benefit from a steady hand at the position for the sake of their own development. For that reason, the notion of Dyson as a day-one starter is a bit of a stretch.

Presuming New York goes out and finds a starting point guard that isn’t currently on the roster and continues to use Immanuel Quickley in more of a sixth man capacity, that gets us the following players in a potential 1-4 rotation (i.e., putting centers aside): Starting Point Guard X, RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin, Quentin Grimes, Cam Reddish, Deuce McBride, and potentially, Daniels.

Thats eight guys for eight spots, and we haven’t factored in any of Julius Randle, Evan Fournier, Derrick Rose or Alec Burks. I’m assuming the Knicks will be able to move at least one of these guys and hopefully more, but trading all four without returning a single player who needs/deserves rotation minutes is highly unlikely.

Lets say two of the four vets remain (or there’s a 3-for-1 deal that returns a veteran who needs time). Let’s also put Deuce on the outside of the rotation looking in for right now. Unless IQ starts at point guard (my preferred choice, FWIW), that still puts Daniels ninth in line when there’s only eight spots. Should that dictate whether they take him or not (assuming, of course, they’re high on his long-term potential)? Absolutely not, for two reasons:

1. As we learn pretty much every season, the rotation changes as the year goes on due to injuries, trades and other circumstances. Quentin Grimes played 18 total minutes in the first 16 games and missed 15 of the last 21 games due to injury and still played nearly 800 minutes as a rookie. Just because Daniels (or whoever the Knicks draft) starts on the outside looking in, it doesn’t mean things will stay that way.

2. The Knicks shouldn’t be all that worried about the immediate future. Worst case scenario, let’s say most of the vets are back and are in the rotation, leaving not only the 11th pick, but someone like Grimes out as well. Eventually, trades or expiring contracts will loosen things up, and while watching young players ride the bench for a meh team will be excruciating in the moment, the Knicks can (and should) be playing the long game. Also, we should all be a heck of a lot more worries about the next 10 years than the next 10 months.

All that being said, in a perfect world, Dyson gets drafted by the Knicks and immediately runs the second unit offense, and through staggering or rotation decisions, always gets to play with either Immanuel Quickley or RJ Barrett to take some of the load off his shoulders.

Long term, the possibilities are endless. Imagine, for example, that Cam really pops. Daniels, Grimes, Barrett and Reddish is one hell of an enticing one through four. Or consider if Quickley keeps making strides as a point guard, and Daniels’ shot really makes a leap in consistency. That’s a two-headed backcourt that would cause serious fits, even without a traditional shot creator.

All of this is why Daniels is No. 1 on my Knicks big board after the top five³. Will he be a star? Probably not. But I don’t see anyone else in this range with materially better odds of being one either, and the floor for Daniels is one to get legitimately excited about.

Which leads us to our last question: is Daniels worth trying to trade up for if the Knicks feel like he won’t fall to 11? That depends on the price, and of course, it takes two to tango. My guess: if either the Pelicans at 8 or Spurs at 9 were willing to swap picks, it would probably cost the Knicks the 2023 Dallas first rounder. They’d have to be extremely high on Daniels to make that deal, not because the Mavs pick will be all that great, but because they’d be out one additional arrow in the trade quiver, and because history shows a fairly equal distribution of results around this point in the lottery (h/t fivethirtyeight.com):

I’d probably sit tight unless I could move up for a couple of seconds, or maybe the Pels are willing to move down from 8 to 11 if the Knicks are willing to take on Devonte Graham for one of their expiring salaries.

Either way, Daniels has every right to be the apple of their eye, not only for what he already is, but for what he might someday become.

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That’s it for today! If you enjoy this newsletter and like the Mets, don’t forget to subscribe to JB’s Metropolitan, or his new hockey newsletter, Isles Fix. See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter

1. I’ve seen a lot of Giddey / Daniels comps, but I actually think Daniels is more of a cross between Giddey and his OKC teammate, Shai Gilgeous- Alexander.

2. For context, RJ Barrett, who is roughly the same height, checks in at about 215.

3. Yes, I’m including Sharpe. More on him in a few weeks.