By Avi Tyagi
He’s a big guard who gets to the rim, passes the ball pretty well for a pick & roll ball-handler, and has the potential to be a four-level scorer (Rim!!!, middy, FTs, 3). The best part: guards sometimes are only able to get to the rim because they have speed. They can struggle at times with playing slow, and that can cost them in the NBA when they might have to make more decisions in the mid-range or recognize craftier avenues to get to the hoop. That is not a problem for Harper. He plays with patience, ball pressure doesn’t faze him. With a larger frame, why should it? He plays like a kid who grew up watching Luka, and only wants to emulate the best moments and the best parts of shot selection. There’s just no prospect I can think of or compare to in recent memory capable of being a pure point guard and who got to the rim 170 times (via Bart Torvik) and shot better than 65% at the rim despite mostly entirely self-created attempts. Additionally, he’s a proper 4-level scorer. He’s a dancer. He’s a prancer. He can finish well with either hand. How can you not love it?
As a passer, he just gives you what you want. Firing some anticipatory passes with a variety of release angles, using either hand. There are a few sloppy turnovers from trying to dribble himself out of trouble when he doesn’t need to, but as we’ve seen with Anthony Edwards and Devin Booker, those are correctable over time. Other than the jump-shot, he’s just further along as a prospect than Cade was at this time. Keep in mind. Cade was a consensus number one pick in what was deemed a pretty stacked class at the time. Cade never got to the rim like this. And, in the second half of the 2024-2025 season, Cade was phenomenal and a true lock-it-in, not on the fringes, All-Star caliber player.
Harper’s a little slow defensively, but he has a 6-10 1/2 wingspan, he’s semi-competitive on the end of the floor, and he’s a pretty explosive vertical athlete with one of the best showings at this year’s combine. That’ll do for now. Long-term, I’d prefer to see him guard wings as a primary matchup and I think he could do it.
How can you not love it? I’m not sold on the shot, but he was a freshman, and it does look good at times. Sometimes there’s a little bit of a hitch, but many on-ball pull-up shooters have developed even in their 20s. I mean, I saw Jalen Brunson develop as a proper pull-up three-point shooter, coincidentally at the same time that he got to the Knicks. And he was many, many years older than Harper is now. James Harden, (another close comparable as a big lefty who drove to the hoop well), also shot similarly from 3 and the free throw line over his college sample, so we’ve seen evidence of improvement from predecessors. Harper already has the familiarity with shot creation and footwork necessary to bring that pull-up 3 to NBA games, which is half the task. I can’t help but feel like I’m watching some sort of cross between Brunson, Harden, and Luka in one player. That sounds extreme, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to say with Dylan Harper. This is the second star that Wemby is looking for. OKC might have a dynastic run, but if there’s one team on the same age timeline in the west capable of overthrowing them at some point, it might be Wemby’s Spurs. And that’s a lot to put on a rookie guard, and I don’t think fans or the media should put those expectations. But I think the media, analysts, organization members, and fans won’t be able to help themselves when they get to watch Harper play with Wemby.
