2016 NBA Draft: Is Kris Dunn the NBA’s next great point guard?
Kris Dunn was the leader of the pack at Providence College and will be a lottery pick in the 2016 NBA Draft.
It’s rare for a point guard to be drafted with so much college experience.
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D’Angelo Russell, Dante Exum, Kyrie Irving, and John Wall. All of those point guards were drafted in the top five, and all of them, with the exception of Exum, who came from overseas, had just one year of college experience.
Kris Dunn, the consensus best point guard in the 2016 NBA Draft, and also a consensus top-five draft pick, has four years of college experience. He went from promising freshman point guard, to an injury-plagued sophomore season before transforming into a two-time Big East Player of the Year for his redshirt-sophomore and junior seasons.
What makes Dunn different from the previously highly-regarded point guard prospects? What should we expect from him once he makes his NBA debut next October?
For starters, let’s take a look at his college stat-line. Dunn posted 16 points, five rebounds, six assists, and over two steals per game this past season at Providence.
Since the 1993-94 season, only seven other players have achieved such a line:
| Per Game | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Season | School | G | TRB | AST | STL | PTS |
| Charles Jones | 1997-98 | Long Island University | 30 | 5.2 | 7.4 | 2.9 | 29.0 |
| Speedy Claxton | 1999-00 | Hofstra | 31 | 5.4 | 6.0 | 3.3 | 22.8 |
| Kris Dunn | 2015-16 | Providence | 33 | 5.3 | 6.2 | 2.5 | 16.4 |
| Anthony Carter | 1997-98 | Hawaii | 29 | 5.2 | 7.3 | 2.2 | 18.2 |
| Bobby Dixon | 2005-06 | Troy | 29 | 5.3 | 6.6 | 3.0 | 17.9 |
| Jason Kidd | 1993-94 | University of California | 30 | 6.9 | 9.1 | 3.1 | 16.7 |
| Eddie Gill | 1999-00 | Weber State | 28 | 6.4 | 6.9 | 3.2 | 16.3 |
| Doron Sheffer | 1993-94 | Connecticut | 23 | 5.6 | 7.1 | 3.4 | 17.6 |
Provided by Sports-Reference.com/CBB: View Original Table
Not exactly a list of great NBA point guards, but anytime someone can be put onto a list with Jason Kidd, it’s probably a good thing.
Interestingly enough, God Shammgod, a former Providence point guard and current Friars assistant, told BasketballInsiders.com that Dunn “throws the advance pass as well as any player I’ve seen since Jason Kidd.”
Any YouTube search for Dunn’s name gives you a multitude of examples of his terrific passing ability.
Passes like this are extremely rare in college basketball:
Dunn sees the floor about as well as any college point guard that I can remember, waiting until the right moment to complete passes that are seemingly impossible:
And as soon as the defense leans one way, Dunn catches the defense off guard with a pass that is zipped in the other direction:
Dunn is no one-trick pony, either. He does a whole lot more than pass. He shot 62 percent at the rim this season, which is just as good as any of the other guards that figure to be selected at the top of this year’s draft – such as Buddy Hield, Jamal Murray, and Jaylen Brown.
Pair his finishing ability at the rim with his rebounding and passing ability, and Dunn is a one-man fast break:
His shooting ability has been brought into question after a 2013-14 season in which he shot just over two per game, and shot just 35 percent on those attempts. This year, he upped those numbers to three and 37 percent, respectively.
That’s good enough to make defenders at least respect the shot.
The last aspect of Dunn’s game that has NBA scouts drooling is his defensive ability. His 6’4″ height and 6’9″ wingspan are both ideal for an NBA point guard. He averaged over two steals per game in his last two season’s at Providence.
His defensive instincts are off the charts, as here he is anticipating the steal before the pass was even attempted.
Then he finishes it off in transition with a slick pass:
It’s extremely rare for a point guard to enter the NBA Draft this polished. Especially in the era of one-and-dones.
But Dunn still isn’t perfect. He averaged over four turnovers per game two seasons ago, and last season he averaged over three.
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His experience is great, but that also means he’s 22 years old. That’s a whole three year’s older than Jamal Murray, another guard who could potentially be selected over Dunn.
To me, the New London, CT native seems like much more of a sure thing than Murray does, but it’s still tough to tell where exactly he will be selected.
According to Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski, Dunn’s agents may not show his medical records to teams with already established point guards.
Assuming Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram go first and second, the next four teams have established point guards. The Celtics have Isaiah Thomas, the Suns have Eric Bledsoe, the Timberwolves have Ricky Rubio, and the Pelicans have Jrue Holiday.
Even the Nuggets with the seventh pick have Emmanuel Mudiay. He’s not exactly “already established,” but he is their point guard of the future.
Would Dunn want to fight with him for playing time? The first team without a point guard isn’t until the Sacramento Kings at pick number eight.
So we’ll see what happens. Dunn’s agents can’t stop any one team from drafting him, and him falling all the way to eight seems unlikely. I think the best fit for him would be in Minnesota or New Orleans, where he could learn from a couple of already decent point guards, and grow with other young superstars like Anthony Davis, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Next: Big Ten basketball teams wait on key draft decisions
Someday, Dunn may be a superstar in his own right.