Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Jayhawks Portal Visit: Keanu Dawes is an Interior FORCE | Can Kansas & Bill Self Land the Utah Big?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Jayhawks have a walking Big 12 double double machine in town. Keanu Daz would be a big time get for Bill Self. You are locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. What's going on, Derek Johnson, with locked on Jayhawks, we're going to get into Keanu Daz, another transfer portal potential target. Well, it feels pretty good that this is a transfer portal target when you have a visit out there. We'll get into his fit with KU, scouting report, all that and more on today's episode.

Starting point is 00:00:39 Let's start right here because, again, the word is that Keanu Dawes is visiting Kansas visit that started Tuesday night. I don't know when it ends, but clearly interest from both parties if there is a visit. He has a 6'9, 225 pound Ford who can play the four or the five. He'll be a senior in the upcoming season. And Dawes was a high-ranking three-star recruit out of high school. He's a top 150 recruit in the country. Wines up interestingly enough going to Rice, which you don't normally think of top 150 guys going to, you know, Rice right out of high school.

Starting point is 00:01:12 But I don't know. Rice is a really tough school to get into. So I don't know. Maybe he's very academically inclined to. But he goes to the Owls as a freshman. He plays right away, 6.6 points, four rebounds per game. He was all American, well, not all American, the all American athletic conference freshman team that year.

Starting point is 00:01:29 And he parlays that into an opportunity at the Power 5 level, moving up to Utah, where's a sophomore, mostly came off the bench, average about 8.6 rebounds per game, six shooting, good season for him, had a very weird performance. And if you remember, Kansas lost, I mean, how could you forget that horrible road trip with the two games in Utah? And they lose the game to the Uts. He had a Dennis Rodman-esque line. He took one shot. He had two points and he had 10 rebounds. So it was just all about the rebounding from there. Then this past season, he has his best year as a junior. He averaged 12.5 points, 8.8 rebounds per game, 2.2 assists per game.

Starting point is 00:02:11 He shot 55% or 32% from 3, 72% at the foul line. Now, for his career, he's right around those numbers. 52, 3173 are the three shooting splits there. And he had some big time performances. He had 11 double doubles this season, right? He had 13 games of 15 or more points. and he had nine games where he had a dozen or more rebounds. This guy can score on the interior.

Starting point is 00:02:36 He can rebound physical basketball player and talk about playing well against some of the better opponents. Like that could be the question, right? You're coming up from a team that wasn't very good in the Big 12. He obviously produced, but the team wasn't very good. So the question would be, well, how does he scale up against better teams? It wasn't his fault that Utah was losing these games. Let's just put it that way.

Starting point is 00:02:56 Against Arizona and all the size in the world that they had, He had 15 points, nine rebounds, three stocks, and two assists. Against Texas Tech, who had at the time, J.T. Topin before his injury, he had 18 points and nine rebounds. In Allen Fieldhouse against the big frontline K you had with Tiller and Flurbanunga, he had 22 points and 12 rebounds. Then against Houston, with their gnarly defense in the size they have, he had 15 points, eight rebounds, two assists, and maybe even more impressive when you're playing Houston, zero turnovers. And then he had a double-double against Iowa State. Not as much of a scoring game,

Starting point is 00:03:27 but still 10 points, 12 rebounds to assists against the cyclones. This one wasn't an elite opponent, but given the way that they handled KU and Allen Fieldhouse, and given the way they finished the season and that they had a giant front line to contend against, the fact that he notched 16 points and 14 rebounds against Cindy, I wouldn't snuff at that performance either, right?

Starting point is 00:03:48 And what's really impressive is it seems like he just continues to get better and better and better to make me think that he's going to have an even better senior season. Again, you're talking about being a, you know, solid rotational player at Rice to to then being a solid bench piece for Utah to then being one of the best players on a Big 12 team. And why would he not just continue to get better? And you look at how this season went, he was playing even better once we got to Big 12 play. He shot 60% on twos and 37% on threes, 12 only games. And for his career, he's been a big game player too. 34 career games against Ken Palm top 50 opponents.

Starting point is 00:04:26 He shot 61% on twos and a hair under 40% on threes. Plays well against the big dogs. That's always nice to see. The metrics are good here too. 89th percentile in RAPM, good marks on both ends of the court. 65th percentile on winchairs per 40. Strong offense. Interestingly enough, bad defensive numbers there, which I think comes down to some of the,

Starting point is 00:04:47 we'll get into lack of steel and block stuff. 83rd percentile in PER, 89th percentile wins above replacement player. And here's the other one of why you shouldn't worry about, oh, he was on a bad Utah team. Again, there can be winning players on bad teams. There can be losing players on good teams, right? I think sometimes we boil it down too simply, and that's not always the case because here's the perfect example. Utah was not a very good team. It wasn't Keanu Daw's fault.

Starting point is 00:05:14 Utah was 17 points better per 100 possessions when Keanu Daz was on the floor. they were about 11 points better on offense. They were about six points better on defense per 100 possessions and he was on the floor. So think about that for a second. As much as Utah struggled this season, they were still 17 points better than their opponent per 100 possessions when he was out there. Imagine if he was not on the team. That could have been like a three-win team legitimately. So I don't want to fall into the trap, too, in doing this of the, hey, well, this guy cooked KU.

Starting point is 00:05:45 So like in the game that everybody was paying the most attention to him, you think he's good and then in the other games he's not as good. He did cook Kansas, but that was far from his only big time performance. This is just a really good player who plays tough. He rebounds. He, you know,

Starting point is 00:06:01 gives size. He has versatility. He can play the four to five. Seems like a good bill self-fit to me. He can shoot it a little bit. He can pass it a little bit. I think you have an idea what my verdict is going to be on this one. But let's get to the scouting report,

Starting point is 00:06:13 strengths and weaknesses first. We're brought to you by Ruggiette, the NHL playoffs are here, where every shift matters, every moment is intense, and the pressure is at its highest. You feel that during the postseason with KU Hoops as well, right? And just like the performance matters on the ice, it matters off the ice too. That's where Ruggiat comes in. Ruggiat offers treatments designed to help you get ready and stay ready when it matters.

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Starting point is 00:07:15 Don't forget check out the Everydayer Club where you can get the ad-free version of the show. It is at Lockedonjahawks. Supercast.com locked on Jayhawks. That's supercast.com. All right, Stianor Report for Keanu Das. Let's start with the strengths. There's going to be more strengths and weaknesses here. Defensive rebounding.

Starting point is 00:07:31 This dude is one of the literal best rebunders in the country, not just among four men among forwards in general, like including centers. He was in the 98th percentile in defensive rebound rate among all forwards. His defensive rebound rate was higher than Flory Bedunga's defensive rebound rate by more than Florey Badunga's defense. Rebound rate was higher than Melvin Counsel or Darren Peterson's. So not like you're getting a better defensive rebounder than Flory was by a good chunk of time. This guy is an excellent defensive rebounder.

Starting point is 00:08:03 We know that was a problem for Kansas. That should only, you know, kind of alert you there. Really good interior finisher as well. I mentioned this all the time. Like different sites are going to have different at the rim numbers. Some sites are going to classify at the rim shooting within three feet. Some are going to say within four feet. So it's going to be different depending where you look.

Starting point is 00:08:20 I was looking at CBB shot charts. and I don't know where they cut it off for theirs. I think theirs is like three feet or something like that. According to CBB shot charts, Daws shot 73% at the rim. Flory Budunga, who was basically only taking shots at the rim. I mean, exaggerating a little bit here, but also not really, when they were dunks or Alley Ups for the most part, shot 72 and a half percent at the rim.

Starting point is 00:08:47 Again, that should be pretty impressive for you, right? And Daws kind of in that same way, we'll throw down a lot of dunks. he's a powerful player. And guess what else do? You want more post scoring from KU? He was in the 98th percentile in post-up efficiency. This seems like a slam dunk to me, right? I guess no pun intended there.

Starting point is 00:09:05 And then efficiency in general is the strength of his. 94th percentile and two-point efficiency. It's not just at the rim, but he had good touch on mid-range. Above average three-point efficiency for forwards on solid volume, above-average free-row shooter. And he does it all while being a non-restearge. on high usage player. He's not somebody who, you know, has an insanely high usage rate that needs the ball in his hands all the time, which is great when you're building a team, right? Also a good passer. He's an unselfish player. Like, this is what I meant when it's like,

Starting point is 00:09:38 you can have winning players on losing teams. He plays a winning brand of basketball. He grabs defensive rebounds. He's a tough player. He passes to his teammates. He gets his teammates involved. He'll have games like the one where they beat KU where he's comfortable, scoring two points and having 10 rebounds and taking one shot because his team wins the game and he figured out a way to like I cannot understate that this guy is a winning player that just happened to be on a losing team right but 87th percentile assist rate for forwards which helps him be in the 90th percentile for efficiency on inside out game so basically if you double him in the post he's going to find the open man he's also a plus player as a cutter in pick and roll in transition and in high

Starting point is 00:10:16 low game albeit kind of lower volume there with the high low game and the versatility that he can play the five a little bit. So I think at Kansas, you would mainly be bringing him in to play the four, but knowing you would have another guy that could play the five if you need to potentially would allow you to, you don't have to bring in another, like Kansas needs to bring in a five. Let's make that clear. Even if you have Polambia back, you need to bring in a five. But if you bring in a five and you have Polambia and now this guy's basically your third center, that can work. And like, for instance, it's not just that he can play the five. He played it well. He was, according to Ken Palm, all of his minutes over the final five games came at the five. And during those five games, Utah's net rating was plus 13 when he was on the floor as a five. So he can play it and he can play it well as well. Some of the weaknesses here, I would say defensive playmaking is the big one here.

Starting point is 00:11:08 11th percentile in Hakeem rate. So he doesn't really get steals. He doesn't really get blocks. That's why if you, you know, if you're looking for a center to pair next to him, somebody who does get blocks would obviously be preferred. Obviously he would help. possession game with the defensive rebounding, something they didn't do great this year, but he's not going to help KU get more steals, which they didn't do great this year either. You know, can he get more consistent with the jumper if he's playing the four a little bit more is one that, like the jump shot's not a weakness. It's not a strength either. And to be clear, like what he's shown from three is better than you got this past season from Tiller, the two previous seasons from KJ to begin with.

Starting point is 00:11:47 But if he can go from being, you know, 32 percent, 31 percent. from three to making 36% of his, and continuing to do the other things he does well and continue to improve, that could be the difference between being a really impactful player and being an all big 12 level player, right? And then I would say he's a good athlete, especially compared to other fours and fives.

Starting point is 00:12:06 He's also not an elite enough athlete that I would want him switching on to like ones or twos or even like mobile threes. Like if he switches on to more of a bigger wing three, it's fine. If he's switching on to a four or five, like, yeah, that's kind of where you want him. I don't think he would fit the billing of like a four man that you would have

Starting point is 00:12:25 where you'd be like, yeah, let's switch one through four. That's not what I would want to do there, which, again, that's just a schematic thing that you can make work in some way or another. But again, good athlete. It's just, that's kind of a different conversation there. All right, what is the verdict here? I think you'd know the answer. Let's get to that and what exactly his fit would look like with KU.

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Starting point is 00:13:45 or at D. Johnson Radio on Twitter. So what is the fit here? First of all, the verdict is obviously yes. Like, yes, you take Keanu Daz. you know I am a gigantic Deshaun Good fan and another Power Forward KU was targeting and had a visit and stuff, I'm taking Dawes over good. Now, I do think there's the element of, okay, the beauty of having a player like,

Starting point is 00:14:06 good is that he's such a good shooter that it makes certain connectivity in the lineup. Like, you don't have to worry about, do I have a sharp shooter out there maybe as much? With Dawes, you want to make sure you definitely do, get, you know, scoring and shooting from those one through three a little bit more than you would with good. But yeah, this is about as easy of a yes, you take this guy. And this could be about as impactful than addition as KU could potentially make this offseason. He would solve or

Starting point is 00:14:36 help solve KU's defensive rebounding issue. He would give KU, I think, interior scoring that they lost with Flory, which I think even comes with a little bit more of a diverse offensive game than Flory had. It would give KU coverage as an emergency five. to where you could say, hey, let's bring on a starting five. Then we have potentially Pauumbia, and we'd have this guy. And then we can save money because fives are like the most expensive position right now in the portal. And it would allow you to save some money there, right?

Starting point is 00:15:03 It would also give you a starting four who can hold up on both ends of the floor. He has familiarity with the league. He's probably frothing at the mouth to win, right? He's never been on a big winning team. But he's also not popping up on the top five or top 10 of these transfer lists that he's going to be overly expensive. It's probably going to cost a good amount of money. he's not forward but don't go money right this feels like an absolute home run to me so the question

Starting point is 00:15:25 just comes down to this a can you get him to commit on the visit and stop it from there and then from there if you can um i i think he's the starting four man and i think it'd be a situation where he'd get minutes like you know 28 30 32 minutes per game and i think a majority of his minutes would come at the four but i do think you would have the potential like let's say you're playing more of a run team or a team that really spreads you out and you need to put more athleticism on the floor. Like, obviously, the way the game's going, it's getting even bigger. So it makes more sense to keep Dawes at the 4. But I do think it's certain matchups where you need more of an offensive punch or you need to keep up with a team that will spread you out. You can play Dawes at the 5 in

Starting point is 00:16:09 those specific matchups or for five to 10 minutes in a given game and have Dawes at the 5 and have two wings at the 3 and 4 and have two quick guards at the 1 and 2 and basically play like a NASCAR speed lineup for, again, it can just be a matchup dependent thing. It can be a five to ten minute a game thing. And then for the majority of the time, you have a center next to Dawes. Now, as far as what I'd be looking for in a center next to Dawes, you know, I think the ability of Dawes to step out and shoot the three puts less pressure on you getting a center who can shoot threes. If they can, then great, but I don't think it's a necessity now. I would be looking for a center who's a good offensive rebounder. Dawes is more of like an average offensive rebounder,

Starting point is 00:16:48 but he's an elite defensive rebounder. Can you get a center who's really good at offensive rebounding to kind of be the yin to his yang there and be a good shot blocker? Because Dawes doesn't give you a ton of that. I think that would be a nice pairing if you could land him and what you'd be looking for at the center position next to him.

Starting point is 00:17:03 All right, that'll go for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find their show anywhere. You get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Jayhawks Portal Visit: Keanu Dawes is an Interior FORCE | Can Kansas & Bill Self Land the Utah Big?

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