photo by: Kansas Athletics
Kansas center Hunter Dickinson shoots against Baylor on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Waco, Texas.
Updated 4:17 p.m. Friday, June 27, 2025:
After the 2025 NBA Draft concluded late Thursday night with several veteran Kansas men’s basketball players unselected, center Hunter Dickinson became the first Jayhawk to receive an NBA opportunity.
Dickinson signed a two-way contract with the New Orleans Pelicans. The news was reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania and shared on social media by Dickinson himself.
A two-way contract essentially allows an NBA team to add a young player beyond its normal 15-man roster limit, but that player splits time between the parent club and its NBA G League affiliate. In New Orleans’ case, that would be the Birmingham Squadron.
In the wee hours of the morning on Friday, Jon Chepkevich of DraftExpress reported that former KU point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. will play for the Charlotte Hornets in the NBA Summer League; later in the day, Zeke Mayo signed a deal to join the Washington Wizards for the Summer League, according to his Instagram account.
Dickinson, a 7-foot-2 native of Alexandria, Virginia, spent his final two seasons with the Jayhawks after playing his first three with Michigan. He was named a second-team All-American following the 2023-24 season, when he was the only player in the Big 12 to average a double-double with his 17.9 points and 10.8 rebounds per game. He followed that up with 17.4 and 10.0 in his fifth season at the collegiate level.
Way back after his freshman season at Michigan — when he was also a second-team All-American — Dickinson briefly entered the draft process. He instead returned to the Wolverines for two more years, and accomplished first-team All-Big Ten honors in both, before entering the transfer portal following the 2022-23 campaign in what was at the time one of the most prominent moves in the portal’s existence.
According to USA Today’s Rookie Wire, which tracked pre-draft visits for professional hopefuls, Dickinson also worked out with Denver, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Utah and Washington in addition to New Orleans. Dickinson will likely make his first appearances in a Pelicans jersey at the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, which begins on July 10.
He may well come into contact there at some point with his teammate of two years, Harris. Initially a partial academic qualifier who joined the Jayhawks as a redshirt the second semester of the 2019-20 season, the 6-foot-2 guard from Columbia, Missouri, went on to spend the following five seasons as one of the Big 12’s top pass-first, defensively minded point guards — and a three-time member of the Big 12’s all-academic first team.
Harris was the starting point guard on KU’s 2021-22 national title team, as part of a year in which he led the Big 12 with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.81. He did even better at 3.28 the following season and was the Big 12’s defensive player of the year in arguably the best performance of his career.
Most recently, during the 2024-25 campaign, Harris averaged 9.2 points, 5.7 assists and 1.4 steals per game. He finished his career as KU’s all-time leader in minutes and games played, as well as No. 2 in assists (at KU and in the Big 12 at large) with 865.
If he eventually makes it onto Charlotte’s NBA G League team, he could intersect with another defensively minded Jayhawk, his former teammate Marcus Garrett.
The Hornets actually weren’t one of the teams that reportedly worked out Harris prior to the draft; those were Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles Lakers, Toronto and Utah.
Mayo, for his part, worked out with Boston, Miami and San Antonio, also according to Rookie Wire.
A Lawrence native and former Chesty Lion, he transferred to KU from South Dakota State for his final year of eligibility and played a key role as a consistent starter on the 2024-25 team.
Mayo was a third-team All-Big 12 selection in his lone year with the Jayhawks, complementing Dickinson well and averaging 14.6 points per game while shooting 42.2% from deep. With the Jackrabbits, he had been the Summit League’s player of the year and helped lead SDSU to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances.
Kansas guard Dajuan Harris Jr. (3) glides to the bucket against UCF center Moustapha Thiam (52) and UCF guard Jordan Ivy-Curry (0) during overtime on Wednesday, March 12, 2025 at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. Photo by Nick Krug
Kansas guard Zeke Mayo (5) celebrates a three against Arizona during the second half on Saturday, March 8, 2025 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug