Jaden McDaniels | 6-10 forward | 18 years old, freshman | Washington
McDaniels is a particularly difficult guy to slot on the mock right now. After a rough season that resulted in a disappointing result for Washington, McDaniels has teams trying to get a handle on how to assess his mentality and more. At times, he showcased tremendous defensive effort and versatility. At others, he looked aloof and not interested in defending. Then there were intermittent flashes of immaturity and emotion, resulting in six technical fouls and poor body language on the court. He also fouled out a somewhat astounding eight times while playing on the wing (over one-quarter of his games played), while also not really displaying a high-level feel for the game. He had a strongly negative assist-to-turnover ratio, and those turnovers don’t even account for the shot selection-based mistakes that result in the same outcome as turnovers.
In addition, his overall play in the Pac-12 raised an awful lot of alarms. He averaged 11.8 points per game over Washington’s final 20 of the season, shooting just 37.6 percent from the field and 32.2 percent from 3. That along with his inconsistency resulted in him being removed from the starting lineup for basically the last 10 games of the year. Also, as you’ll see momentarily in contrast to Isaiah Stewart, it probably doesn’t speak particularly well of McDaniels that Washington was basically the same team with or without him on the floor in terms of results.
I’m not all that interested in advocating McDaniels as a first-round pick. Still, the feedback I’m getting is that someone is likely to select him somewhere in the first round. His talent level is really high for a 6-foot-10 guy who can handle the ball, defend on the perimeter and shoot it. He needs to get to the point where he’s actually good at those skills, as opposed to being good at those skills for someone his size. If he gets there, he’s going to be a steal.
Jaden McDaniels | 6-10 forward | 18 years old, freshman | Washington
McDaniels is a particularly difficult guy to slot on the mock right now. After a rough season that resulted in a disappointing result for Washington, McDaniels has teams trying to get a handle on how to assess his mentality and more. At times, he showcased tremendous defensive effort and versatility. At others, he looked aloof and not interested in defending. Then there were intermittent flashes of immaturity and emotion, resulting in six technical fouls and poor body language on the court. He also fouled out a somewhat astounding eight times while playing on the wing (over one-quarter of his games played), while also not really displaying a high-level feel for the game. He had a strongly negative assist-to-turnover ratio, and those turnovers don’t even account for the shot selection-based mistakes that result in the same outcome as turnovers.
In addition, his overall play in the Pac-12 raised an awful lot of alarms. He averaged 11.8 points per game over Washington’s final 20 of the season, shooting just 37.6 percent from the field and 32.2 percent from 3. That along with his inconsistency resulted in him being removed from the starting lineup for basically the last 10 games of the year. Also, as you’ll see momentarily in contrast to Isaiah Stewart, it probably doesn’t speak particularly well of McDaniels that Washington was basically the same team with or without him on the floor in terms of results.
I’m not all that interested in advocating McDaniels as a first-round pick. Still, the feedback I’m getting is that someone is likely to select him somewhere in the first round. His talent level is really high for a 6-foot-10 guy who can handle the ball, defend on the perimeter and shoot it. He needs to get to the point where he’s actually good at those skills, as opposed to being good at those skills for someone his size. If he gets there, he’s going to be a steal.