Derik Queen's Potential Path to NBA Greatness Explained

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Transcript

00:00How about your guy, Derek Queen?

00:02We saw him take his game to an entirely different level at Maryland last year.

00:08He was really phenomenal, and teams have to be licking their chops at this guy.

00:14Except that they aren't, Scott.

00:15And one of the reasons is, yeah, I mean, I think you're seeing him mostly projected into double figures.

00:2111-12, I think, is the consensus.

00:24And maybe somebody will surprise us and say, no, I see what DeCoursey's seeing.

00:28I agree with him.

00:30We're taking him higher.

00:31Because I think Derek Queen is a special talent.

00:34He has a gift for the game that is rare.

00:36It's not measurable.

00:38It's a rare gift.

00:39He doesn't jump high.

00:40He was measured, I think, at 28 inches in his max vertical.

00:44That's not high.

00:45That's the kind of thing that makes it difficult for you to be a great shot blocker.

00:49You know what Jokic's vertical was measured at, Scott?

00:52It was 17 inches when he was 19 years old.

00:57And yet he somehow is the NBA MVP.

00:59Now, I'm not saying that that's where Derek Queen is headed.

01:01But I think it's showing that it can be overcome.

01:05And Derek has a lot of the same skills.

01:08Again, not to that degree, but a lot of the same skills.

01:11Now, he'll have to become a better shooter.

01:13In order to succeed, I think he made 17 threes as a freshman at Maryland.

01:19It's going to have to be better than that.

01:21But that's not uncommon for a guy his size who's been playing as a center for his entire career all the way coming up.

01:27Even when he was at Montverde, he's still the center.

01:30And he's surrounded by a bunch of perimeter guys like Cooper Flagg.

01:34So he's not going to get a lot of opportunities to get out there and stretch it.

01:37So it's something he'll have to work on now.

01:40But if he has that hunger, and this is something that I say with a lot of players, I don't know the players and how desperately they want it.

01:49But in order to become great in the NBA, Scott, the first paycheck can't move you.

01:54The second one, the third one, the first year, none of it can move you.

01:57The only thing that can move you is what moves Kevin Durant and moves LeBron James, and that's the hunger to be great.

02:03If you have the hunger to be great, and if Derrick Queen has that hunger, I think he'll be special.