Providence coach Ed Cooley had just finished off a monster win for his program, but he didn’t like how the question was worded: Coach, can you talk about the burden that star point guard Kris Dunn has to handle running your team?
“There’s no burden,” Cooley said. “What kid doesn’t want that role? That’s not a burden, that is an opportunity to be great. There’s no burden. This team is not just Kris Dunn as we saw out there. He fouls in a big situation, he’s been in some foul trouble.”
“There’s no burden. You tell me one kid that would not want that opportunity and ask him if it’s a burden. It’s a great, great opportunity.”
For the 10th-ranked Friars (17-3, 5-2 Big East), Dunn has seized that opportunity far more times than not. Take Sunday’s 82-76 overtime win over No. 4 Villanova, when the 6’4” junior point guard went for 13 points (5-10 FG), 14 assists (six turnovers, though), 5 rebounds, and 4 steals before fouling out with 16 seconds left in overtime.
Unlike a Villanova team that utilizes multiple playmakers, Dunn unequivocally has the keys to Providence’s offense. There are 351 teams in Division 1 college basketball, and the 21-year-old guard from New London, Connecticut ranks at or near the top in multiple statistics nationally according to kenpom.com. As you can see, he parlays his quick hands on the defensive end of the floor into offense:
| Stat | Rank |
| Assist rate | 47.5% (1) |
| Usage percentage | 30.7% (27) |
| Percentage of shots taken | 26.9% (256) |
| Steal rate | 5.2% (8) |
NBA scouts have definitely taken notice of Dunn’s strong play, and barring something unforeseen happening, he will be a lottery pick this June. Probably a pretty high lottery pick, to boot. Here is where some sites currently have Dunn ranked among 2016 NBA Draft prospects:
| Site | Rank |
| Draft Express | 4 |
| ESPN | 5 |
| NBADraft.net | 4 |
| CBS Sports | 4 |
| NBA.com | 3 |
At the moment, LSU’s Ben Simmons and Duke’s Brandon Ingram are generally projected as the top two picks. But after the two talented freshmen at the top, there is much less consensus. The 3-5 range should be of particular interest to Philly fans, because the Sixers could own a pick in that range via two different scenarios:
• The Sixers’ own pick lands there. Current owners of the worst record in the league, the Sixers would still have a combined 53.5 percent of picking third or fourth if the season ended today.
• The Lakers’ pick conveys this year. This selection is top-three protected, and the Lakers are doing their very best to keep it for another season. Los Angeles owns the second-worst record in the league, which would give the Sixers a 44.2 percent of snagging that pick this season if the season ended today.
Ish Smith and T.J. McConnell have done a nice job holding down the fort, but the Sixers are clearly still looking for a long-term answer at point guard. So if Dunn continues to play at the same level and the lottery odds stay the same, there is a decent chance that he’ll be pretty used to playing in the Wells Fargo Center by this time next year. The question is, should Sixers fans want Dunn in Philly next season?
“We were concentrating on him so much that we lost guys or our own man as we were trying to stop Dunn,” Ryan Arcidiacono said after ‘Nova fell to Providence.
Arch wasn’t kidding. On one play late in the first half, he loaded up in the paint and stared into Dunn’s soul while Junior Lomomba, his man, was only once pass away on the wing. Dunn promptly made him pay:
As you could probably guess just from looking at the gaudy assist numbers, Dunn is an impressive passer. He has the ability to change speeds and a general knack for making it into the lane. And when Dunn gets a piece of the paint, he possesses the ability to make the correct read on the fly. From an NBA standpoint, that last part is what is most exciting.
Cooley often puts Dunn and Providence’s other star, forward Ben Bentil (31 and 13 against ‘Nova), in the middle of the floor and sprinkles shooters around them. This is an NBA-level play:
“They make great decisions,” Jay Wright said of Dunn and Bentil. “They find their teammates at the right time. If you double them, they don’t go through double teams. They find the next guy and let the other guys make plays.”
In a pick-and-roll league, Dunn’s size and skill provides teams with an intriguing option. Providence sat in a zone (an effective one, albeit) against Villanova, but Dunn also seems to possess the athletic tools to be an effective defender at point guard.
There are some warts, though. The Sixers place a ton of emphasis on player development, and in Dunn’s case, the situation he lands in should prove to be critically important. Take a look at the strengths and weaknesses that Draft Express offered for him:
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Physical Tools | Playing Under Control |
| Playmaking Ability | Finishing Ability |
| Defensive Potential | Shooting Range |
| Upside | Defensive Fundamentals |
“Upside” might be the key word, because while Dunn has already proven to be an excellent college player, there are legitimate reasons to question whether he’s worthy of a top-five pick. For example, Dunn leads the country in assist rate, but he’s also an extremely high-turnover point guard. Can you have one without the other?
The NBA team that drafts him will hope to harness that speed like the Mighty Ducks did with Luis Mendoza (or, to stay in the real world, the Wizards with John Wall). The same goes for Dunn’s jumper, which is erratic at least partially due to poor shot selection (39 percent from deep this season, but only 67 percent from the free-throw line). The same goes for his defense, which isn’t reportedly always locked in to where it needs to be.
Are these issues correctable at the NBA level? Is a 22-year-old Dunn really worthy of a Top-5 selection? Would the Sixers be better off if the pick rolls over to next year? I’m not sure, but these are some of the questions that teams (specifically, the Sixers) will have to debate by the time the draft rolls around.
Back in 2013, something that Sam Hinkie said still stands out to me. He was talking about the mental aspect of individual improvement, specifically the difficulty of trying to figure out which prospects want to get better deep down inside:
Just from watching Dunn play up close on Sunday, I would imagine that everyone in and around the Providence program has positive things to say about him. At least on the floor, that guy plays the role of a top-notch leader. He dished out 14 assists against Villanova, but by far, the most excited that Dunn got was after Lomomba threw a sweet no-look pass to Bentil for a layup. He ran down the floor triumphantly and searched out Lomomba for a high five, overjoyed that his teammate had stepped up and made a big play.
Like Hinkie was getting at, they’re called intangibles for a reason. None of this stuff is easy to estimate, but after seeing something like that, it makes you wonder.
“I believe in my teammates and they made big plays today, Dunn said on Sunday. “It was a great team win for us because everybody contributed.”
It’s a minor upset that Dunn is still in school in the first place. A former McDonald’s All-American, his first two years at Providence were shortened by injuries before a breakout campaign in 2014-15. A projected lottery pick in last year’s draft, Dunn surprisingly decided to come back to college.
In the grand scheme of things, Dunn has overcome much greater obstacles than defenders going under the pick-and-roll. When he was nine years old, Dunn and his brother lived for a year basically all by themselves in Alexandria, Virginia while their mother was incarcerated. During that time, Dunn would play older teenagers one-on-one for money that he didn’t have.
- More on Kris Dunn
- Jeff Goodman, ESPN
- Dan Greene, Sports Illustrated
Now he’s at Providence, leading the Friars to a 17-3 record and a major victory at Villanova. And here’s a scary thought: In Cooley’s estimation, Dunn wasn’t even at close to his best on Sunday.
“I thought Kris played well when he had to,” Cooley said. “I thought he made some winning plays. Did he play a complete game? No. Do I expect him to play a complete game? Yes. But I’m a realist and I’ve been coaching him long enough to know when to turn him on and when to lay off of him.”
In a few months, Dunn won’t be Cooley’s responsibility anymore. That much we know. Will Brett Brown be learning how to get the best out of Dunn a year from now? A whole lot still has to play out, but on the surface, it’s definitely on the table.
You could say that Dunn has a big opportunity in front of him.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann