If the San Antonio Spurs keep the second overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, the expectation is that they will pick Rutgers guard Dylan Harper.
Harper is a high-level scorer and facilitator, and while his outside shot needs some work, he is the consuses second-best player behind Cooper Flagg.
However, he is not the perfect prospect. While Flagg led the Duke Blue Devils to the Final Four, Harper and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights won only 15 games, missing the NCAA Tournament.
While Rutgers has never been known as a basketball powerhouse, Harper teamed up with top prospect Ace Bailey, who is expected to be a top-five pick alongside his teammate. Even with two elite talents, the Scarlet Knights were unable to make any noise, finishing with a losing record.
However, the lack of winning at the college level, which is a knock against him, might be an advantage to the Spurs, provided that they draft him.
"He is a terrific young man," said ESPN's Bobby Marks. "He is driven. He has loyalty to a T."
Harper was raised in New Jersey and opted to stay close to home and try to build a program rather than play for a Blue Blood or Miami, Ohio, like his father did.
Granted, Harper made roughly $1.7 million as the face of Rutgers basketball, which certainly had its appeals.
"The one thing that I admire about Dylan, certainly staying in state, going to Rutgers, dealing with adversity, him in Ace, certainly going in there, heralded as the number two and likely number three picks in a draft," Marks continued. "And it's a team that couldn't get out of the first round of the Big Ten tournament. Staying loyal, staying in state. I think it would have been easy for him to bail at some point of this season here when he had, he was sick during the year."
Harper missed only three games despite playing hurt and ill, even when it was clear that his school wasn't going to go far this season.
"He lost a bunch of weight, he had some injuries," Marks finished. "They knew this team was not going to the NCAA tournament. They weren't going to the NIT. And I think for some players, it would have been easy to bail on their school and on their, on the locker room and basically start the draft process in early March or late February. And he did not do that. So there is a lot of the intangibles from a loyalty factor."
The Spurs, for years, have valued character over talent. It just so happens that David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Victor Wembanyama happen to check all of the boxes. Perhaps Harper can be next in line. He clearly is driven by something bigger than individual success, although if he gets to play next to Wemby, chances are he won't have to wait long to play meaningful basketball.
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