2022 NBA Draft Breakdown - Dalen Terry
Wing with playmaking and defensive upside that came into his own late in the season and in the pre-draft process. What team will take him?
I’ve spent the better part of the day writing about my favorite players in the 2022 draft class and Arizona’s Dalen Terry is no exception. Terry is a 6-foot-7 wing that has a multitude of skills complete with a near-7-foot-1 wingspan and weighs in at about 195 pounds. In his sophomore season at Arizona, Terry averaged eight points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 50.2% from the floor and 36.4% from deep.
The first thing to know about Terry is that he’s a menace on the defensive end of the ball and nobody will out-try him at anything. Scouts during the draft process continuously rave about how hard Terry tries on defense and how he does all the little things that make a coaching staff fall in love with his game. Terry is the kind of guy that will immediately bring a championship mentality to the locker room.
Terry plays like a free safety in passing lanes, intercepting passes and getting out into fast breaks at an exceptional level. He’s ferocious on the ball and can play the one through the three without any issues. Guys that try to take him out onto an island usually don’t find much success and he’s even better as a help defender. Terry is one of the smarter defenders in this class and is pretty disciplined, able to recover on a dime.
The Arizona product is also a phenomenal passer, particularly getting out in transition. Terry is completely unselfish as a player, always looking to make the right play rather than force up a jump shot, even if he could stand to be a bit more aggressive at times. I also like watching Terry in the halfcourt when he finds players cutting to the basket and rings the pass in a tight window. There aren’t many wings in the class that can do that.
The main reason for excitement for Terry comes in his untapped potential on the offensive end. Though he’s already a great passer, Terry is still only 19 years old despite coming off his sophomore year and will be freshly 20 when the season starts. In his first season, Terry averaged 4.6 points and 1.5 assists on 41.5% shooting from the floor and a poor 32.6% mark from downtown. Now scroll up and look at his sophomore numbers again — a significant improvement there with optimism to think that he could keep improving. As for the shooting, Terry looked great at the end of the year and will likely look even better at the next level. His form and mechanics are sound. Overall, Terry can do a ton on the offensive end. He’s athletic, he’s fast, he’s explosive, he’s long and he can cover the court in no time. If Terry can get that three-ball to fall consistently, you’re talking about a top-10 guy in this class.
Terry isn’t a true three-level scorer at this stage of his career but there’s so much to like about the rest of his game that it almost feels like nit-picking to attack that aspect. Terry was buried in terms of scorers ahead of him, with Christian Koloko, Bennedict Mathurin and Azuolas Tubelis all primary scoring options, so it’s impressive that Terry’s tape stands out the way it does.
Looking at Terry’s postseason play also inspires confidence that he will be fantastic at the next level. In six postseason games, Terry averaged 12 points, 5.2 rebounds, four assists and 1.8 steals per game on 56.8/60/81.3 splits, a phenomenal stretch for the wing. In the PAC-12 championship game, Terry put up 15 points, seven rebounds and seven assists to clinch the Wildcats’ title.
Terry is a guy I have no qualms putting in my top 20. I completely buy into his upside, his offense and his tenacious attitude on defense. Ultimately, I think Terry falls into the 20s of the draft, but that works out well for contending teams that need a boost and he will fit right into that atmosphere.