Mailbag: Is Ryan Dunn a first-round pick? And if so, should he declare, or come back?

I wonder what your thoughts are re: Ryan Dunn being projected as a first-round pick.

We obviously love his defense and athleticism, but his offensive game (outside of dunks and tap-ins) seems very undeveloped.  A lot may be due to his limiting role in the mover-blocker offense, but even when he gets an offensive opportunity, he can look a little lost to me.  And he can’t shoot foul shots.

Am I the only one wondering about this?

– Gordon

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Oh, no, Gordon, you are not alone on the Ryan Dunn question.

I first saw Dunn’s name on a mock draft for 2024 the morning after the 2023 draft, when I was looking around at the mocks for ’24 for a story on where Reece Beekman was being projected, after Beekman went through the pre-draft process in ’23, then took his name out and returned to school.

I remember thinking, the NBA folks saw a lot more out of the 12.9 minutes per game that Dunn got as a freshman last year than any of us who watched him play limited minutes every night did, but hey, good for him.

So, here we are, two-thirds of the way through the 2023-2024 season, and it’s still, pretty much, all potential with Dunn, in terms of what we’re seeing.

His defense and athleticism are unquestioned, and the numbers back up that observation.

Per numbers from Synergy Sports, Dunn is allowing opponents 3.7 points per game on 25.7 percent shooting.

His 83.3 defensive rating, according to basketball-reference.com, leads the ACC by a wide margin – #2 is Beekman, at 90.1.

His 2.2 blocks per game also leads the ACC by a good bit – Duke’s Kyle Filipowski is second, at 1.8 per game.

Dunn was recruited by Tony Bennett as a 6’4” prep guard, then grew to 6’8” before landing at Virginia.

He retained the quickness and burst that made him an attractive option as a Beekman type in the backcourt after growing into the size of a De’Andre Hunter – the same Hunter who went from being redshirted as a freshman to being the fourth pick in the 2019 draft as a redshirt sophomore.

This is what has the NBA people salivating, because Hunter, averaging 14.0 points per game over his five-year NBA career to date, is what the scouts and GMs in the NBA see when they see Dunn.

But what none of us are actually seeing out of Dunn at this point in his development is what Hunter was able to make himself into in terms of being a complete player.

Case in point on that: Hunter, in his two seasons at Virginia, shot 38.2 percent from three as a sophomore and 43.8 percent from three as a junior, when he averaged 15.2 points per game.

Dunn, a complete package on defense, is a work-in-progress, and that’s being nice, on the offensive end.

As Gordon pointed out here, he can’t even shoot free throws – Dunn is a 58.1 percent shooter at the line at this writing.

He’s a 24.0 percent three-point shooter this season, 22.9 percent on all jumpers – and even on unguarded jumpers, per Synergy Sports, he’s 4-of-20, 20.0 percent.

I’ve taken to calling Dunn’s offensive game derivative – i.e. dependent entirely on either cuts to the basket off screens, offensive-rebound stickbacks and transition, shots created either by his teammates or just his crazy athleticism.

Doing a deep dive courtesy Synergy, Dunn is 31-of-40 (77.5 percent) on cuts in the lane, 18-of-24 (75.0 percent) in transition, and 14-of-26 (53.8 percent) on offensive-rebound stickbacks.

Total on those: 63-of-90 (70.0 percent).

For more context here, Dunn has 87 made field goals this season all told; 62 of his makes are layups, dunks and tip-ins.

In short, he can’t make jumpers, can’t create his own shots, and when he gets to the next level, he’s going to need to be able to do, at the least, one or the other, to be able to stick.

What I fear for him is that, assuming he puts his name into the 2024 draft pool and doesn’t pull a Beekman and come back for one more year, he will have his name called, probably late lottery, then spend his rookie pro season in the G League, with the team that takes him wanting him to work on developing some kind of offensive game.

Yes, he’d at least be getting paid low-seven figures to do that, as opposed to doing it at UVA for whatever he can get in NIL money, but the risk is being labeled what they call in baseball a 4A guy – too good for the minors, where the highest level is Triple-A, not quite good enough for the big leagues.

I’m thinking here of Justin Anderson, a 2015 first-round pick who played in 242 NBA games over parts of eight seasons, averaging 5.3 points per game, while playing in 91 G League games over parts of four seasons in which he averaged 23.1 points per game.

There’s no guarantee that Dunn would, by returning to school, be able to work on what he’d need to work on, get it fixed and make himself into another De’Andre Hunter, though I will point out here that Hunter was, after his sophomore season, rumored to be thinking about declaring for the 2018 NBA Draft after averaging 9.2 points in 19.9 minutes per game.

(Dunn, this season, is averaging 9.4 points in 27.4 minutes per game.)

A projected second-round pick in ’18, Dre decided to stay in school, and worked himself into being named a third-team All-American, led Virginia to a national championship, and improved his draft stock in the process, and he’s been anything but a 4A guy at the next level – in addition to the 14 points a game over five seasons, his career earnings, to date, have added up to $52.2 million, and he’s got another three years on his current deal that will pay him $69.9 million.

Like other UVA fans and alums, I want what’s best for our guys.

De’Andre Hunter did what was best for himself by returning for his sophomore season, then leaving after doing what he did in that 2018-2019 season, because his game was ready at that point in his development.

What ended up being best for Malcolm Brogdon was hanging around for a redshirt senior season, and it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t been a productive NBA guy after going that route.

Anderson, Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy would probably all have benefited from hanging around Charlottesville for another year, and I think we’re seeing Beekman benefiting from his decision to return for his senior season.

It’s going to be hard for Dunn to know what is best for him, because he’s almost certainly a guaranteed first-round pick in 2024, and being one of those people involves having a lot of money sitting out there in front of you once you sign the paperwork.

The good part of this is, there’s a lot of people in the Virginia program, from Bennett to the alums that I’ve mentioned in this Mailbag item, who can help him figure things out.