Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Impact of Hunter Dickinson Returning for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball in 2024-2025

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Hunter Dickinson is officially back for Kansas next season. How does it affect KU and how much better does it make? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. You can find our show with Locked On Jayhawks anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the action.

Starting point is 00:00:35 And on today's edition of Locked On Jayhawks, we are back at it. And Hunter Dickinson is officially back to KU, which he announced over the weekend. And the deadline to enter the NBA draft came and passed over the weekend as well. He obviously did not do that in addition to posting on social media. So we're going to talk about his game, what he brought to the table this past season, and kind of doing a deep dive on a little bit of it and where he can get better areas that were really good this past season. Impact of the rest of the roster and the rest of the team and how it affects the further offseason for KU. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook.

Starting point is 00:01:09 Make every moment more. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed. That's $150, win or lose. Visit fanduel.com slash locked on to get started today. So Hunter Dick Content officially back. I actually kind of liked the announcement of him coming back. I think a lot of times there can be a lot of production of all this. And I think this was actually a very subtle Twitter announcement

Starting point is 00:01:35 that was kind of making fun of the video commitment that he did a season ago when he announced that he was coming to KU out of the transfer portal. And he made fun of it basically on Twitter with having Bill Self respond in the same way that he, you know, responded in the social media video. And then Hunter Dickinson coming back for another year at Kansas. This next year will be Hunter Dickinson's final one at KU. It'll be his fifth season of college basketball.

Starting point is 00:02:01 He's using the extra year that he had from the COVID season. Makes a lot of sense from his perspective. He's not popping up on a lot of draft boards, and he's going to make a nice living off NIL at Kansas that probably makes more this year than he would as a pro this season, wherever that would certainly be. So it makes a lot of sense for him to do that, can put up more production, can have another good year and try to become, I guess, a KU legend, so to speak.

Starting point is 00:02:27 And when you look at a lot of the transfers that have done even the best at other schools, it's the guys who have been there for multiple seasons. And so he's going to have the opportunity to do that at Kansas. It was quite the interesting year one for Hunter Dickinson, one that on the surface was an A+. You had a player who you, if you're just saying on the surface, you got a second team All-American, so top 10 player in the country, with incredible production, 18 points per game, 11 rebounds per game, over two assists per game, almost one and a half blocks per game,

Starting point is 00:02:57 almost a steal per game. You're getting that on 55% from the floor, 35% from three. You're taking that and running every single day of the week. And the 10.9 rebounds per game were a career best for him. He also had a career best in steals per game. He had a career best in low turnovers per game, and he tied for his career best in assists per game. So he did a lot of things that he even improved on from what you were getting out of the transfer portal. He actually led the Big 12 in conference games only in defensive rebounding rate. So he's a really good defensive rebounder.

Starting point is 00:03:29 His offensive rebounding rate didn't jump off the page. It was fine 15th in the conference in offensive rebounding rate. What was crazy to me, though, was Kansas was not a good offensive rebounding team. It wasn't Dickinson's fault. In fact, Kansas went from being like a below average offensive rebounding team when Dickinson was on the court to being like one of the worst offensive rebounding teams in the country when he was off the court. So when Hunter Dickinson was on the court, Kansas ranked in the 39th percentile last season, so below average in terms of offensive rebound rate as a team. When Dickinson was off the court Kansas's offensive rebound rate dropped almost nine percent from like

Starting point is 00:04:06 27 percent to about almost 19 percent which if you go off their offensive rebounding rate when Hunter Dickinson was not on the court Kansas would have ranked 360th in the country so put another way CBB analytics tracked the on off rebound numbers too for Kansas with and without Dickinson. And it was 99th percentile difference in the country. So obviously he had a big impact there. He was, of course, as advertised as this elite post player and scorer on the block offensively. He had good passing numbers when you double teamed him and knew when to throw the ball away.

Starting point is 00:04:41 He was an efficient scorer. He was in the 93rd percentile in post-up scoring point possession. He was in the 93rd percentile on runners. He was in the 90th percentile on hook shots. He was in the 83rd percentile at the rim, and he was at least above average 61st percentile as a pick-and-roll man. So you know what you're getting offensively. Kansas was about 13 points better per 100 possessions with him on the court

Starting point is 00:05:06 offensively, though a lot of the on-off numbers, I will say, and this goes back to the rebound stuff, are skewed last season because your backup big was Parker Brown, which Parker Brown did what you were asking him to do. And, you know, you were in a spot in the portal at that point where you had lost all these backup centers and you were trying to basically convince a center to, hey, do you want to come play six to eight minutes per game at max and be backup center and there

Starting point is 00:05:28 weren't a lot of guys that were willing to sign up for that park around was that and did that but you know for all intents and purposes like some of the KU coaching staff wanted him to join as a walk-on he ended up joining as a scholarship player that was your your backup center this past season right so it's not just that Hunter Dickinson made the offense that much better did this much better than the other guy it's that you're not comparing him to um you know an all-star as the backup like the on-off numbers probably between I don't know like like Donovan Klingin and Samson Johnson weren't probably as profound as that Donovan Klingin's an unbelievable player for UConn but Samson Johnson provides a higher floor there. So do keep those some in mind, though.

Starting point is 00:06:06 But obviously there were certain things where I said, on paper, the production, this was an A+. There were some other things, though, that made this to where it wasn't the perfect fit that you might have expected and part of why Kansas wasn't the team that lived up to the preseason number one billing. It wasn't all Dickinson's fault. Obviously, if they would have had better bench scoring and better three-point shooting and

Starting point is 00:06:28 done some of these other things better than had better health, then there would have been better results in other areas too. But there were real defensive deficiencies that did stem with playing a slow-footed big man in Dickinson, especially in guarding out in space against teams that could really space the floor and shoot the basketball against teams who ran a lot of pick and roll and teams who could exploit that. And when Dickinson was credited with guarding a jump shooter, so a lot of times that's going to come when it's either like a stretch five or stretch big man, or it's going to come off of

Starting point is 00:07:01 a pick and roll where he has to quickly cover a switch around a ball screen to cover up for a guard who's having trouble getting around the screen. Well, teams shot 38% from three and 39% on catch and shoot threes against Hunter Dickinson. So that shows you that, yes, when Hunter Dickinson was put into a lot of these actions, teams became really good three-point shooting teams. It was also tied for his lowest blocks per game number of his career, though it's not that different from some of the others. His best is like 1.8. This is 1.4. So even though it was tied worse, it wasn't that different. But he did only rank in the 36th percentile on Synergy, so about below average there, in defending layups. So he wasn't't someone who was if a guard switched on to him

Starting point is 00:07:45 he was providing great or I guess help defense necessarily at the rim to swat away shots he did though rank in the 92nd percentile on synergy in post-up defense being big being seven foot two being strong still does matter and as a back to the basket you know defender he was an excellent um basically one-on-one post-up defender last season he ran into trouble when he got in space and everything so there's ways of of trying to decipher what he is defensively you know if you are getting in a one-on-one situation you actually like your shots there again 92nd percentile just post-up defense um Kansas was still better with him at the five by about eight points per 100 possessions

Starting point is 00:08:28 than with Parker Brown. But if you compared it to the year before, if you were saying, what about the starting five from the year before of KJ Adams, DeJuan Harris, Kevin McCuller, Grady Dick, and Jalen Wilson, that lineup was about four points better defensively per 100 possessions than the lineup this year that they threw out with the starters hunter at the five uh certainly though KU needs to figure out how to better defend the perimeter with Dickinson in the lineup moving forward and what they want to do on the defensive end of the court because uh it was not good enough though the defense was actually ranking

Starting point is 00:09:00 better than the offense they need to find ways to get that better especially now that you're losing Kevin McCuller one of those of those defensive guys you could kind of count on, and adding some players who, though they are going to add a ton to the scoring in the offense and make KU a better team, there are some questions there on the defensive end. Now, some other things, he did have his career worst year at the free throw line to 62%. That was over 10 percentage points worse than any of his previous seasons. I don't know what happened there. The BYU game is the one that certainly comes to mind for me. It was slightly the lowest field goal percentage of his career,

Starting point is 00:09:29 but that's a mark that I think is less about him and I think is more indicative of the inability to put a bunch of good jump shooters and three-point shooters around him, something that you expect to be better this year. And that was really more of an issue against better teams who could take advantage of that more. Versus Ken Palm top 50 opponents, Hunter Dickinson was down to 52% on two-point shots. His season average is 57%.

Starting point is 00:09:53 Also, his O rating dipped from his season was at about 111.3. That's 111 points per 100 possessions with him on the court. In games against top 50 opponents, it was down to 103.8 so by not having the shooting around him you weren't able to take advantage as much of what he can bring to the table and I think he will be more efficient and better this season on the offensive in the court because you will have better pieces around him there to help him out as well it obviously didn't help that he couldn't buy a three after really early January till the last like handful of games he He wound up in just the

Starting point is 00:10:25 22nd percentile in spot up shooting. That was even after starting 15 of 28 from three, good for 54% after KU had concluded their win over TCU. But from then on, so after the TCU game, Dickinson shot three of 28 from three point range from the UCF game until the home Texas game on February 24th. Over his last six seasons, that did correct a bit. Four regular season games plus the two NCAA tournament games. He went five of nine from three, but that huge slump coincided with Kansas going just eight and five in the middle of him really struggling with three balls. And as much as they wanted to play Hunter next to KJ,

Starting point is 00:11:03 which they're still going to play Hunter next to KJ this next season, probably won't be as many minutes or as much, but it still will happen. It works a lot better when Hunter Dickinson is shooting threes and at least one of the big men is shooting threes because we know KJ cannot shoot. So Hunter Dickinson back for another year, you're not going to say no to bringing back a second team All-American. It does create certain things you have to figure out over the offseason on the defense end of the ball. But his offense should only be better this year with the pieces that he brought in. And I think one thing that's really interesting here is he's going to have a real chance to have his jersey in the rafters when all is said and done at KU

Starting point is 00:11:35 if he even just repeats this last season. I know that might sound a bit ludicrous because if they repeated last season and they get a four-seed again and lose the second round, it would be a very non-memorable two seasons from a team success year um but he was a second team unanimous all-american here is the list of two-time consensus all-americans at kansas since 1950 danny manning wilt chamberlain sharon collins rayful friends clyde lavellette jock vaughn jojo white and obviously you might be saying okay but some of those guys even though though there were consensus all Americans like Danny Manning's two time consensus, first team, all America, you know what I mean? Okay.

Starting point is 00:12:10 What about the guys who were consensus? Second team, all American, which was what Dickinson was this past year. There's still as precedent there. Jojo white was two time consensus. Second team, all American. Jock Vaughn was two time consensus. Second team, all American. Hunter Dickinson comes back and his consensus. Second team, all American. Again, even ifansas does this same thing that they did this year there's a real chance he ends up with his jersey retired and i don't know like on some level that's not surprising but on another level it kind of is a little bit then again you end up having a great

Starting point is 00:12:37 year and he has that great season it won't be surprising at the end of next year at all but uh yeah i think just kind of an interesting footnote that could be in play this season. All right, let's talk about how this affects KU as a team, how it affects the rest of the offseason on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. GameTime is an authorized ticket marketplace of the NBA, which makes getting playoff tickets even faster and even easier. Prices on the GameTime app actually go down

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Starting point is 00:14:30 Fanduel, America's number one sportsbook and official sportsbook partner of the LockedOn Podcast Network. So how does Dickinson returning affect the roster? Well, certainly this feels like what's been more of the expected, so it's not that this is going to throw a huge wrench in the plans returning affect the roster well certainly this feels like what's been more of the expected so it's not that this is going to throw a huge wrench in the plans or that it's going to make something change up or that it's even like a like a surprise and in even a good way like this is a good thing for KU but it's not a surprise in that like oh no this is a good thing it's happening but now we

Starting point is 00:14:59 have to adjust and maybe figure something out scholarship wise no it feels like this was kind of the expected all the way along. I think the center rotation should be set now. You know, there was some talk at the beginning of the portal season about, okay, you may be reaching out to a guy like Cliff O'Marui or some of these other centers. And I think all of that was more preliminary just to make sure there was interest gauged in case Hunter Dickinson later reflected that he was going to end up testing the NBA draft

Starting point is 00:15:25 or do something else, right? And then we heard from Bill Self at the banquet afterwards that, you know, there hadn't been announcements yet on guys like Furphy and Dickinson, but we kind of have an idea what could happen. And I think if you noticed from like the offers that were going out or like the visits or, I don't know, the rumored interest, the names no longer became big man that were coming out after that.

Starting point is 00:15:46 And I think that was kind of indicative of they knew Hunter Dickinson was coming back or that that was the idea. And you're, yes, in like an ideal world, you would be able to put a full court press still on a guy like Cliff O'Marui or one of these other centers and be like, hey, we'll pay you a bunch of NIL money.

Starting point is 00:16:02 I know you're only gonna play 15 minutes a game here, but we'll have an awesome center rotation. We'll try to win a national title. Guys don't want to do that, right? It's a harder sell for them. Now, maybe there is somebody out there who would want to do that, but if that was there, then it probably would have happened by now. So I think realistically at this point,

Starting point is 00:16:19 knowing what Bill's upset at that banquet, again, going back to that about Zach Clements being the most improved player, knowing that you're bringing on a five-star recruit the number one center in the class in Flory Budunga knowing that you have a player who maybe gets some minutes at the five or at the very least is an emergency five man is your fourth string and KJ Adams I think your center rotation is done I don't think you're adding anybody else at the center position I think you're going to go out there and use another scholarship to bring somebody on, it's a guard or a wing. And I think you should be fine or feel good about that center position.

Starting point is 00:16:51 I don't know that we'll see Hunter Dickinson play as many minutes as he did this past year, 32 minutes per game. That's what he did the year before Michigan too, though. But I think it would behoove Kansas and Hunter Dickinson to, you know, I don't know. Is there that big of a difference in playing 28, 29, 30 minutes per game? Maybe, maybe not, but it certainly wouldn't hurt from a keeping him rested and trying to avoid injuries over the course of the season. Right.

Starting point is 00:17:13 But you have more options this year. And again, there is a little bit of guesswork that's going to be involved with it because at the end of the day, you're hopeful that Floyd Badunga is going to show why he was the number one center in the class. But we've seen it with, you know, Sheck Diallo coming in where he wasn't really even a part of the rotation over the last two months of the season. Cliff Alexander was a top-rated, you know, big man coming in, and he only played 15 minutes per game. Then again, Flory Badunga gives you Cliff Alexander's production in year one, which I actually want to check this out because this would be something that I think if you asked like a lot of KU fans just in like an anonymous poll,

Starting point is 00:17:49 would you take Cliff Alexander's first season at Kansas in terms of the production from Flory Badunga? I don't know. A lot of people might just say no because they want the hype, but like he played 17 and a half minutes per game, 7.1 points per game, 5.3 rebounds, 1.3 blocks, shot 57% want the hype. But he played 17 and a half minutes per game, 7.1 points per game, 5.3 rebounds, 1.3 blocks, shot 57% from the floor. If you guarantee me that right now from Floyd Badunga coming off the bench,

Starting point is 00:18:12 I don't think it would be 17 minutes, but that type of production, I would actually take that right away. But, yeah, and then with Zach Clements, it's like as much as we heard he's the most improved player, we had heard he had been a good player in practice before, so maybe that's not something that's that different. It's different when you have to actually do it. And when we've actually seen him come on the court, we haven't seen the shot making going. He's been below 50% at the free throw line. He's been below 30% on three point range, but maybe this was the year he needed. Still, I think I trust Bill Self with that. And I would

Starting point is 00:18:39 just say if Hunter Dickinson's even giving you 28 minutes per game, you should be able to figure out 12 minutes per game between two top 50 recruits, one of them who's been in college for three years and the other who is just an amazing athlete, and having K.J. Adams as a possible Swiss Army knife you could use there if you need to. So I think the centerization is pretty set at this point.

Starting point is 00:18:57 And obviously from how this affects KU from playing style, they're going to have to figure out the defense side of the ball, as we mentioned. I don't know what that's going to look like, what scheme Bill Self is going to employ for that, but at least you have a whole other offseason to figure that out with Hunter Dickinson and Bill Self. And, you know, you have the best coach in college basketball.

Starting point is 00:19:14 I think the expectation would be you can figure that out a little bit more. And you're going to have to figure out, you know, the thing with Hunter Dickinson, even though he's not a fast big man and he doesn't run the court super well where he's going to have to figure out, you know, the thing with Hunter Dickinson, even though he's not a fast big man and he doesn't run the court super well where he's going to be the recipient of getting a bunch of transition points, he's such a good outlet passer that if you have good athletes around him, they're going to take advantage. Zeke Mayo is not like a great athlete, but he's a good transition scorer. Rylan Griffin, good transition scorer.

Starting point is 00:19:42 A.J. Storr, good transition scorer. So that is going to help there. It's going to give a huge threat to the inside of the KU offense with scoring and shooting kind of all around it. And if he can be more consistent shooting the three ball, it's going to open up. I mean, imagine throwing out lineups over the course of the game. Who knows if this would be the starting lineup or just the lineup you would throw out over the course of the game that comes off the bench or that works around as the game goes on for a stint here or there. Where you have Hunter Dickinson at the five, AJ Stewart at the four, Ryland Griffin at the three, Zeke Mayo at the two, and DeJuan Harris at the one. And you can have Hunter Dickinson go out and sit on the three-point line if he's

Starting point is 00:20:18 shooting the ball well. And if they don't guard him there, you let him shoot a wide open three. If they do bring their center out, now you have wide-open driving lanes for A.J. Storr, who's this power athlete who can drive to the lane but was getting lanes clogged when he was at Wisconsin playing with two big men. Some of these are the lineups that I think he could have a lot of fun with. So I think he adds a lot and will help out the shooters KU brought in, continue to be good shooters because he'll have a good gravity inside, but he'll also have increased play because KU should have more shooting and scoring on this roster than they

Starting point is 00:20:47 did this past season with guys like Zeke Mayo and Ryland Griffin and AJ Storr coming on the fold as well. All right, let's get to how that affects the team. Let's get to how it affects the rest of the offseason for KU on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. All right, game off. We got to pause here to talk more about Monopoly Go. I know what you're saying.

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Starting point is 00:22:09 at least who can enter. And that even applies for grad transfers. That's a new rule here coming up. So offseason should be coming closer to a close for KU and the rest of the teams in college basketball. But how this affects KU's decision. As we talked about the center rotation, I don't think they're going to have to make a last-minute move

Starting point is 00:22:23 on the center position in the portal at this point in time I think it's gonna be content where it is unless like you had a last minute transfer come out like if last minute there was a player like Zach Clements being like I do want to transfer then at that point yes you try to happen so but I don't think that's the intention and I think Clements and Flory are gonna battle it out to see who can be that backup big and the importance of that isn't just who can win that spot to be the backup big man, but it's that whoever wins that spot for the backup big between Clemens and Flory,

Starting point is 00:22:53 if they don't just win the spot, but they perform really well to a point to make you think, yeah, not only were they a good backup big man, but we're super confident they're going to be the starting center when Hunter Dickinson departs at the end of next season. Then all of a sudden you're the starting center on Kansas basketball, right? So that has a big impact on everything. But yeah, I don't expect Kansas to fill out the roster anymore in that way. If anything, it just further exemplifies KU's need to fill out the roster with as much scoring and shooting as they possibly can. But they've already

Starting point is 00:23:23 done that and they've already been doing that. So honestly, while him not returning would have led to a huge ripple effect, him coming back seems to just make things kind of business as usual here for KU the rest of the offseason. And that's good because business has been going well for Bill Self. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. We'll see you next time. We'll get to a couple deep dives for players this week on Locked on Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Impact of Hunter Dickinson Returning for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball in 2024-2025

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