Portland Trail Blazers Will Draft Dyson Daniels
The future is completely up in the air for the Portland Trail Blazers. After shedding nearly every veteran on their team last season, they looked to be embracing a youth movement. However, with Damian Lillard still on the team and in his early 30s, the Blazers owe it to their franchise point guard to field a competitive team around him so long as he’s still able and willing to play at a high level for Rip City.
After trading away CJ McCollum, Norman Powell, Larry Nance Jr., and Robert Covington, Portland was very obviously embracing a tank — a prudent move with Dame sidelined for the rest of the season following his corrective abdomen surgery. The purposeful losses that they piled up only amounted to the seventh-overall pick, however, to Dame’s chagrin at the lottery.
Still, the seventh slot still offers the Blazers the chance to add an impactful rookie or the opportunity to trade their top-10 pick for a veteran package instead. While it makes more sense for Portland to move the seventh pick if they mean to compete for a title during the remainder of Dame’s prime, most signs point to the Blazers using their selection on former G-League Ignite guard, Dyson Daniels.
Firstly, General Manager Joe Cronin recently added one of ESPN’s draft analysts, Mike Schmitz, to his cabinet. Before Schmitz’s hiring was announced, he and long-time partner Jonathan Givony released an article on ESPN that identified four prospects that could overtake Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr., Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren, or Duke’s Paolo Banchero as the best player to come out of the draft, creating a top-tier that included seven total ballers.
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That list featured Dyson Daniels who also happened to be among the first group of draftees invited to Portland for a team workout. Expect the Trail Blazers to take Dyson Daniels with the seventh-overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft.
