DJ Steward Leaves Duke For The NBA
And gets ready for a major, major challenge
When we heard that DJ Steward was leaving Duke, we assumed well dang, another transfer.
It didn’t even occur to us that he would apply for the NBA Draft.
We don’t usually criticize those decisions but in this case, he’s making a mistake.
Steward is a skinny 6-2 shooting guard. He will really have to learn point guard skills and we haven’t seen enough of that to make a judgement.
On top of that, he shot just 42.6 percent overall and 34.1 percent from behind the line.
The closest comparison we can think of is Carson Edwards, but at Purdue, he was a legitimate offensive phenomenon.
However, when he got to the NBA, he was still a 5-11 shooting guard.
The NBA is a meritocracy of course, and there’s no reason why you can’t be a 6-2 shooting guard.If you can do it, you can do it. However, you’ll be guarding guys who are 6-6 to 6-9 and who are vastly more powerful.
We loved watching him this year and he has a lot of potential. But he’s probably going to spend a lot of time in the G-League and has no guarantee of being drafted. We’ve never seen him listed on any mock drafts anywhere.
Still, it’s a bold decision and boldness is an admirable quality. We wish him well and hope he proves us wrong.