There’s a lot to like about what the former elite five-star recruit and true freshman Washington Huskies 6-foot-10 and 200 pound forward Jaden McDaniels brings to the table. Few forwards in this draft class are going to have more gifted size/physical tools that can play at the three or the four than McDaniels.
But an up and down true freshman campaign with the Washington basketball program brought about plenty of concerns that are going to be hard to shake. In 31 games played with the Huskies last season, McDaniels averaged 13.0 points per game, 5.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.8 steals, and 1.4 blocks, while shooting 40.5 percent from the field, 33.9 percent from beyond the arc, and 76.3 percent from the charity stripe.
That resulted in McDaniels registering a box plus/minus rating of 2.6, 51.5 true shooting percentage, .096 win shares per 40 minutes, 93.8 offensive rating/95.4 defensive rating, and 14.6 player efficiency rating.
McDaniels has to work to fill out his frame, improve his consistency in shot selection and facilitation, and just get a better feel for the game when he’s off ball on both ends of the floor. He’s not a polished product at all, but his ceiling is incredibly high.
The Bulls wouldn’t get an immediate impact from McDaniels, but he could clearly bolster the bench if he develops well down the road. As far as potent second round picks go in this draft class, the Bulls couldn’t do much better than McDaniels.