Could the New Orleans Pelicans draft another Daniels? Young Australian guard Dash Daniels offers raw potential and defensive upside, a project player for the future.
The New Orleans Pelicans have a great talent evaluator in Troy Weaver and an aggressive leader in Joe Dumars, so they should never be counted out to grab a player that they like.
They have a second-round pick from the Detroit Pistons to work with in this year's draft, but have not ruled out the possibility of going higher. Right now, though, the focus should be on the players who will be available in the second round, whom the Pelicans could consider.
Continuing to go through second-round options, one player who makes sense is Australian guard Dash Daniels of the Melbourne United.
If that last name sounds familiar, it's because he's the younger broth of ex-New Orleans draft pick Dyson Daniels. Given that this is a new front office and largely new team, perhaps there will be less awkwardness if they do draft another Daniels brother.
Now with the Atlanta Hawks, Dyson has a now-famous quote in which he said that the Pelicans' franchise is cursed. Joe Dumars and Troy Weaver are busy changing things behind the scenes. While Daniels probably wouldn't be over the moon about his brother landing in New Orleans, it wouldn't be the same.
Dash is super young. He's going to be 18 years old until December. He is a raw player and won't play right away, but he has all the tools that his brother had, and he is now a $100 million player. If the younger brother can develop, he could potentially be even better.
Though Daniels played in 33 games this past season for Melbourne, he was mostly just a bench piece at 14.2 minutes a night. He averaged 4.2 points, 2.3 rebounds, 0.8 assists and 0.6 steals per game on 42.0/37.5/37.9 shooting splits.
One area where he could end up being far better than his brother is as a shooter. Dyson shot 18.8% on 117 attempts this past season. He's an elite defender, but his lack of shooting has some people critical of his game. Dash's free-throw shooting isn't a great sign for his future, but he shot well enough from deep to give some hope.
The defensive identity is there from day one, which this front office won't scoff at. The downside is that he wouldn't really answer any needs for next season. He would be a fun project player, though, and not eat into any minutes from the veterans as he is likely destined for the NBA G League.