Welcome to the first scouting report for the 2025 NBA Draft here on The Spot Up Shot. Rutgers guard Dylan Harper was the clear-cut favorite on the mocks for the Spurs Draft Board 3.0 to be picked with the 2nd pick, so let’s begin with Harper.

NBA draft expert Jonathan Givony of ESPN also recently said this of Harper at the NBA combine earlier this week: “Dylan Harper is going to be the number two pick in the draft. I am 99.9% sure about it.”

He says: “The San Antonio Spurs are signaling to teams they are very excited about the opportunity to draft Dylan Harper. They are not pursuing trades from what we’re hearing. They think that they can play Harper together with Steph Castle and De’Aaron Fox in the same backcourt."

Who is Dylan Harper?

Harper is a 6’6”, 215 lb combo guard from Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. He just turned 19 in March, so he’ll be up for his rookie scale extension at age 22 with three years of NBA experience. He completed his freshman season at Rutgers and has entered the NBA draft.

Physical Measurements from NBA Draft Combine

• Height without shoes: 6’4.5” (8th among 15 PG-SGs)

• Weight: 213.2 lbs. (3rd among 15 PG-SGs)

• Standing reach: 8’6” (5th among 15 PG-SGs)

• Wingspan: 6’10.5” (3rd among 15 PG-SGs)

• Draft Express Physical Comps: Dwayne Wade

Stats

• Games: 29 (Started 28), played in 91% of team games

• Minutes: 32.6

Offense

Scoring

• Points per game: 19.4

• Shots per game: 13.8 (48.4% FG)

• 3-point attempts: 5.2 (33.3% FG)

• 2-point attempts: 8.7 (57.4% FG)

• Shot diet: 63% of attempts on 2s, 37% of attempts on 3s

• Free throw attempts: 5.8 (75% FT%)

Passing and Rebounding

• Assists: 4

• Turnovers: 2.4

• Offensive Rebounds: 0.8

Defense

• Steals: 1.4

• Blocks: 0.6

• Personal fouls: 1.9

• Defensive rebounds: 3.8 (Total: 4.6)

Three Key Questions

As mentioned in this newsletter, one of the books I’ve been reading and applying to my research and analysis is Basketball Beyond Paper by Dean Oliver.

In one of the chapters, Dean writes about his experience working for an NBA team, and when the time was approaching for the draft, he provided three key questions on the scouting reports for each draft prospect. I will also use these questions here, based on my observations after watching film on Harper.1

(1) What does this player do to get him in an NBA game?

On Offense

• Versatile scoring - Harper is a downhill, versatile scorer who can score from all three levels by creating for himself or finding ways to get open. In the open court, he can finish with crafty dribbles, and he showcases his ability to turn on the jets to get out for layups and dunks. In the halfcourt, he knows how to use screens in dribble handoffs, pick-and-roll action, and how to reset to drive by defenders, or split traps very well to get deep into the paint. Once he’s in the paint, he can finish with different lefty layups, and he’s even shown the ability to finish some right-hand off-the-glass layups. He can finish with either hand for a dunk when he leaves the defense in the dust in one of his splitting-the-screen traps. A spinning move is one of his 1-on-1 driving moves he uses to lose his defender. Harper can go to a quick pull-up mid-range or stepback jumper when he can't get into the paint. From three, he can make the spot-up looks when left open, hit the pull-up three in transition, dribble to create space from his defender, and go to the step-back three. Harper can get himself open off the ball, too. He’s able to use backcuts where he acts like he’s going to get the ball from a dribble hand-off, but instead, he runs straight to the rim, and his teammates know how to find him with a bounce pass for an open layup or dunk. From three, he moves around the 3-point arc to make himself a target for a kick-out for a spot-up three. While he did shoot 33% from outside, he often took further threes than the 22-foot 3-point line in college, meaning he should be comfortable shooting from the further 23’9” three-point arc at the NBA level. Finally, with his size and aggressive drives, he can frequently visit the free throw line, where he shoots 75% from the charity stripe.