10. Jaden McDaniels, Power Forward
Current Team: Washington
The Washington basketball program should be slotting the former five-star highly touted big man recruit and freshman power forward Jaden McDaniels at the four while Stewart plays at the five. And that’s mostly what they’ve done with their dominant frontcourt pairing thus far. McDaniels and Stewart are two of the best forwards in this draft class.
But the buck stops between the comparisons of Stewart and McDaniels with the fact that they play in the same frontcourt in Seattle, WA. McDaniels could be a really good shooter in college and in the NBA and he’s incredibly slippery when he’s working inside the three-point line. He could be a big man that gets to the foul line at least six or eight times per game in the NBA if he really reaches his true potential.
Standing at 6-foot-10 and with a 7-foot wingspan, McDaniels doesn’t have the lengthiest standing reach in the world from what you’d initially think with his basic measurables. But he has one of the highest ceilings in this draft class. A good shooting stroke combined with a reliable dribbling ability and you get a potential wing that compares with the likes of Paul George and Kevin Durant.
I’ll shy away from the KD and PG comparisons for McDaniels until he starts to develop his game a bit more. He’s a very raw talent that needs a lot of work. By no means does he look to be an immediate impact big man in the NBA. Averaging just 12.7 points per game with high usage and shooting under 37 percent from the field shows that we should pump the brakes on the Jaden hype for now.