In February, I penned a piece titled “Shabazz Napier’s Missing Credit,” opining that UConn’s lost season was hurting Napier’s national reputation for the simple fact that no one was watching him play. The mock drafts cited in the piece seemingly proved accurate, as Napier decided to return to campus for his senior year.
Fast-forward to today. UConn is preparing for the upcoming season where they will once again be tournament-eligible and will return all five members of its starting lineup from a year ago. While fans and scouts will be keeping a keen eye on Napier, the best professional prospect on the team may be junior forward DeAndre Daniels
Daniels finished the 2012-2013 season in impressive fashion. He played his best games against UConn’s toughest opponents, mitigating his inconsistent start to the season by averaging nearly 16 points and 7.3 rebounds over UConn’s final eight games, beginning with their signature win over Syracuse. Many of those who watched his in-season maturation speculated that Daniels’ draft prospects were growing, but probably too late to secure his a spot in the 2013 NBA Draft Lottery. The consensus was that with one more year in Storrs, if Daniels continued to improve, he could continue to launch himself up the draft boards.
Yet, as we slog through the doldrums of the offseason, it appears Daniels is receiving even less recognition than Napier back in February. A quick perusal of the major draft prediction sites shows Daniels has a long way to go to make a name for himself.
NBADraft.net is the most optimistic. They have Daniels as the number 29 pick of their mock draft (Napier is 46th). ESPN’s Chad Ford’s list of the top 100 prospects finds Daniels at number 85 (Napier 44, Rodney Purvis 98). Draft Express omits Daniels from their rankings entirely.
Most other outlets neglect to forecast both rounds this early but Fox, SB Nation and Bleacher Report all feature first round mock drafts without Daniels being mentioned.
It appears the lack of attention has not gone unnoticed by young Mr. Daniels. See his tweet below.
They still sleeping on me.. #yallGonnaSee
— DeAndre Daniels (@D_Daniels2) July 18, 2013
In a team game, there’s always a danger of having individual players with so much to gain (or lose) with individual success. Toss junior guard Ryan Boatright into this same mix, and you have three starters, including your two main ball distributors, looking to make a name for themselves. However, the cohesion of last year’s squad, and the one-for-all mentality of head coach Kevin Ollie should keep everyone grounded and singularly focused on beating the hell out of the cast-offs and miscreants in the new AAC.
The 2014 draft class is absurdly strong, headlined by two incoming freshmen: Kansas’s Andrew Wiggins and Duke’s Jabari Parker. The class is also deep. It has been estimated that almost all potential 2014 first round picks would have cracked the lottery in this year’s draft last month. Daniels and Napier will certainly have their hands full trying to break into that group, but this year, they will hopefully have access to the best marketing platform there is, the NCAA Tournament.
