Good luck to our guy @swipasnipa as he chases that NBA dream pic.twitter.com/9VM8bXgJnK
— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) April 1, 2021
The departures just keep on coming for Duke. In what was already a hectic news day on Tobacco Road, freshman guard DJ Steward announced his intentions to declare for the 2021 NBA Draft and sign with an agent on Thursday evening. While the draft process has been revised over recent years to allow players to sign an agent and still maintain their collegiate eligibility, the quotes from both Steward and Coach K (above) certainly seem to have a sense of finality to them. The Chicago native is the fourth Blue Devil to leave the program in the last eight days, and is almost certainly not the last.
Steward arrived at Duke as a highly-touted recruit and immediately put the country on notice in his debut, scoring 24 points and adding 9 rebounds off the bench in a victory over Coppin State. While many were quick to hand him the title of the next great Duke guard, his 0/7 shooting night the following game immediately provided a glimpse of the up-and-down nature that would plague his freshman campaign. He was ultimately Duke’s best scorer in the backcourt and his 13.0 points per game would lead all ACC freshmen, but his streakiness was a big reason why he shot just 42.6% from the field and 34.1% from three. In the three-game losing streak that would provide the final nails in the coffin for Duke’s NCAA Tournament at-large hopes, Steward shot 10/32 (31.3%) from the field and 4/15 (26.7%) from three.
Many fans and analysts, including myself, assumed Steward's positive flashes this year would serve as building blocks for a breakout sophomore season. At least as of January, ESPN NBA Draft Analyst Mike Schmitz was also in that camp when he appeared on the broadcast of a matchup with Clemson to break down the Blue Devils' professional prospects. Schmitz had the following to say about Steward:
"[Steward] is a guy I’ve always been high on when you look toward the future. I’m not sure he’s a 'this year' guy, but he’s a jet with the basketball, he’s ultra-skilled, and he’s improving as a shooter."
ESPN’s 2021 NBA Draft Big Board currently has Steward ranked as the #63 overall prospect, which would indicate that not a lot has changed in terms of his stock since January. If the chaotic 2020-21 season is to be Steward’s only one in Durham, his decision to declare early for the draft could be one of the more puzzling ones in program history. It doesn’t take a master’s degree in statistics to realize that only 60 players get drafted every season. As of now, Steward is right on that cut line, and will have to blow scouts away in the draft combine and his workouts to secure that he’ll even get selected.
For all the positives Schmitz pointed out, he didn’t have enough time (most of the segment was focused on Jalen Johnson) to mention any of Steward’s weaknesses that will serve as big obstacles as he tries to ascend up draft boards. At just 6’2”, Steward almost certainly is going to be expected to play some point guard at the next level, something he almost never did this season at Duke. He was on the court for just 21 offensive possessions all season without either Jordan Goldwire or Jeremy Roach alongside him, and it’s worth noting that Duke scored approximately 95 points per 100 possessions in this small sample size. Sure, Steward had plenty of the ball – his 22.8% usage was second on the team after Johnson’s departure and just a fraction below Matthew Hurt’s. But being the primary facilitator on offense is just not something he was asked to do in his freshman season, and he’ll have to learn it on the fly during the draft process if he’s keeping his name in the pool.
Steward’s lack of size also will play a factor defensively at the next level, just as it did at Duke. With at least one of Roach and Goldwire almost always on the floor with him, he matched up with a lot of two-guards and even some threes this year. In either case, he compromised a lot in terms of both height and weight – he’s listed at just 163 pounds on Duke’s roster. While he showed decent awareness and ability to stay in front of the ball, the team was almost a full point better per 100 possessions with him off the floor defensively than on, though that might not be entirely fair to DJ. Especially in the case of Duke’s three guard lineups, the lack of size across the board was a big reason why they gave up over 105 points per 100 possessions, though it’s worth noting that their defensive rating was far more palatable when they also had Mark Williams behind them protecting the rim. When Steward was featured in lineups that didn't also contain Goldwire and Roach together, his defensive on/off split actually flipped to positive by over a full point per 100 possessions.
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| Steward's decision to leave for the NBA could leave Duke thin at guard next season. Credit: Duke Report |
Steward will certainly have to add weight to his frame if he wants to both land and stick in the league, but his lack of height is unfortunately out of his control. Fortunately for him, the list of combo guards 6’2” or shorter in the NBA is actually longer than you might expect, with Donovan Mitchell, Collin Sexton, and Terry Rozier at the forefront. The bad news for Steward is that he doesn’t have nearly the statistical or the athletic profile of the top-tier guys on this list based on his collegiate performance – the three mentioned were all selected in the top 16 picks of their respective drafts. Had he decided to return to Duke, he would’ve had an opportunity to increase his draft stock dramatically with more offensive consistency and a full off-season to improve physically.
There seems to be a growing notion these days that players want to get to the NBA as quickly as possible. While there’s a large problem with the NCAA and the amateurism of college athletes, the idea that players can’t increase their potential earnings while staying in college for an extra season is a myth. Kira Lewis Jr., who Mike Schmitz actually compared Steward’s potential sophomore season to in the aforementioned Clemson game interview, shot up draft boards last season at Alabama and became a lottery selection. Luke Kennard is another homegrown example of a lottery pick that was hardly on the peripheries of the NBA radar after his freshman season. There are certainly cases where a player and his family’s needs outweigh everything else, and far be it from me to disagree with that if it was the driving factor in Steward’s decision. If it wasn’t, the NBA certainly wasn’t going anywhere for DJ.
From Duke’s perspective, this is the by far the biggest blow of the four players who’ve left the program so far this off-season. With Hurt also likely to throw his name into draft consideration, Steward would’ve been the only returning player to average over ten points per game in 2020-21. Now, the only guards left on the roster for next season are Wendell Moore Jr. and Jeremy Roach, with neither's performance this past season inspiring a lot of confidence. Duke will hope for immediate reinforcements in the form of Trevor Keels, ESPN’s fourth-ranked shooting guard in the class of 2021. Keels will announce his college decision tomorrow, and while the prognosticators seem to think he’s heading to Durham, nothing is a sure thing in college basketball these days. Even if Keels does choose the Blue Devils over Kentucky, Villanova, and Virginia, Duke should look to be active in picking up at least one more guard for the upcoming season, either in recruitment or the transfer portal.
A final note on Steward, assuming he’s played his final game as a Duke Blue Devil: Like most players, he’s been dreaming of going to the NBA for a long time, and he’s taking his chance. While it’s arguably not the optimal time to maximize his draft stock, he’s going to get a chance to play professionally in some fashion whether he’s drafted or not and he's betting on himself. The decision certainly hurts Duke’s outlook for next season, but the show must go on. Here’s hoping that DJ can prove himself right and the doubters, such as myself, wrong and go on to a successful NBA career like so many Duke one-and-done’s have before him. Best of luck, DJ!
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