Ryan Dunn, who played a paltry 12.9 minutes a game last season as a freshman on a veteran-laden Virginia team, still did enough in that limited floor time to have his name come up as a first-round pick in multiple 2024 NBA mock drafts.
I lay down that as a preface because otherwise, it might sound weird for his coach, Tony Bennett, to be talking up how his 6’8” possible lottery pick guard is still “new to all of this,” as the coach told reporters on his weekly teleconference with ACC beat reporters on Monday.
Dunn, a four-star recruit in the Class of 2022, committed to Virginia so late in the process that Bennett was, briefly, out of scholarships, and Dunn’s parents were set to pay for their son to go to school to Virginia and compete as a walk-on his freshman year.
A scholarship eventually opened up, so, good news there, for the Dunn family bottom line, anyway.
The scholarship was there, but the minutes weren’t, in great numbers, anyway, for Dunn in his first season at UVA, though we did get a glimpse of what he could be, at least on the defensive end, in his limited run.
Dunn’s numbers per 40 minutes last season: 8.2 points per game, so, not much there, but the 9.1 rebounds and 3.3 blocks per 40 minutes stood out, as did the 90.7 defensive rating.
Dunn, this season, has improved across the board – his counting numbers to this point in his sophomore season are 10.1 points, 6.9 rebounds, 2.1 blocks and 2.0 steals per game, and his per-40 numbers are even more impressive: 15.2 points, 10.4 rebounds, 3.2 blocks, 3.0 steals, with a defensive rating that has also improved, to 82.1.
“He’s been more effective and efficient, as we’ve had him probably grabbing more rebounds, rolling on the rim, playing more kind of 15 and in, but his ballhandling has improved, his ability to take shots, all that,” Bennett said.
I’d like to see Dunn be a little greedier on the offensive end. He’s averaging 7.1 shot attempts per game, a distant third on the roster (Reece Beekman: 10.3; Isaac McKneely: 9.2).
His offensive game could also use some work – OK, a lot of work.
Dunn is a great finisher at the rim (48-of-68 FG, 70.6 percent), not so good on jumpers (6-of-26 FG, 23.1 percent), so that’s a limitation, and why Bennett is using him, by and large, at the four and five spots offensively, basically, screening and rolling.
One other area that Dunn desperately needs to fix, and soon: free throw shooting.
Dunn leads the team in free throw attempts per game (3.3), but he’s shooting just 58.0 percent at the line on the season, and he’s a ghastly 7-of-19 at the line over his last six games.
If you’re looking at all of this and thinking, no way an NBA team uses a lottery pick on a kid who needs that much work on the offensive end, well, Dunn is that good on the defensive end.
I can easily see him taken in the second half of the lottery and starting the 2024-2025 season in the G League to focus on what he’d need to do to become enough of a presence on offense to get the call-up.
That’s how NBA teams draft these days: not on what kids have done, but what they project to be able to do.
Enjoy him while you can, is what I’m getting at here.
“I just think his game has improved and is continuing to get better, and the best is yet to come,” Bennett said.
Credit to TB for not betraying any thinking he might have that the best will come after Dunn has matriculated to the next level.
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Chris Graham
