Danny Wolf is a bit different from the Nets other picks in the 2025 Draft. The Yale and Michigan product is the oldest of the five first rounders at 21. In fact, he’s the only one who’s not a teenager. He’s also a big man, although his passing skills are his big calling card as they are for Egor Demin, Nolan Traore and Ben Saraf. Indeed, he is a very BIG man, at nearly 7’0” and 250 pounds with a 7’2 1/2 wingspan, a half-inch shorter than Nic Claxton’s.
He’s a bit of a conundrum. Not the hyper athlete so many his size are anymore. His 3-point shooting is still a work in progress and his defense needs some refining. All that may have led to him dropping all the way to No. 27 back on June 25. He had been mocked at No. 18 in the final ESPN mock draft. To be described as “intriguing” or “interesting” is fine, but it doesn’t help your bank account. The difference in first year salary between a player taken at No. 18 and the one at No. 27 is a cool $1 million.
But the Brooklyn Nets seem happy with their luck and so does he. They even featured him in their latest video about the five rookies that followed the Flatbush 5 through Summer League.
As Brian Lewis wrote Thursday,
It’s easy to see why Danny Wolf is such an intriguing prospect: A first-round rookie on a franchise desperately starved for young talent. The Nets’ need at power forward. Wolf checking the multi-positional box the front office wants. And finally, his unique playmaking and passing skillset for a man his size.
But will Wolf earn his way to Brooklyn or labor on Long Island? And how will the Nets use him even if he does?
“He’s just so unique. I don’t want to compare him to certain players,” said Nets lead assistant Steve Hetzel, who coached Wolf in Las Vegas. “He’s very unique because he can handle, he can play pick-and-roll … at Michigan, he was a primary ballhandler in pick-and-rolls. So he has a ton of skill and he can shoot the 3.”
One way the Nets brain trust may use him, Lewis writes, is using him in a pick-and-roll with Claxton
Running four-five pick-and-roll is a tantalizing possibility for the Nets, especially with a lob threat such as Claxton (as opposed to the ground-bound post scorer Drew Timme, whom Wolf shared the court with in summer league). Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo have used big-big pick-and-rolls to devastating effect.
But Wolf is neither of those MVPs. And he’ll have to earn playing time at first, much less have Jordi Fernandez put the ball in his hands as an offensive hub.
“It was bread-and-butter at Michigan, and I’m going to have to earn the coaches’ trust to kind of run that 4-5,” said Wolf, who operated as the ballhandler just once in his summer league finale. “It’s really effective, especially with different guys out there. As the screener, I can keep working at it in the short roll. That’s what excites me. What I am right now is a complete work in progress. It’s what I can become, and that’s just what excites me most.”
One encouraging point: He’s only been playing the ball-handler role for the past two years at Michigan. In his freshman year at Yale, he was a traditional big making the All-Ivy League team and earning the MVP in the Ivy League tournament. So he is not a finished product.
“Right now, I’m just learning,” Wolf told reporters in Las Vegas. “At Michigan was the first time I did it, and I had a heavy load on my shoulders. And some games were far more successful than others. At the NBA level, it’s just gonna be doing what the coach told me to do, but within that continuing to try to prove myself and prove a few different things.
“No matter who else is on the court in the NBA, you’re playing with four of the best players in the world, and they make everything so easy for everybody with spacing and their athleticism and their shooting ability. So I’m excited to see what that really looks like in an NBA setting and in practice, and I’m gonna keep working my butt off to be successful at that.”
Indeed while his highlight reel from his Big 10 games featured a lot of 00h-and-ah passing, they didn’t show the turnovers which were a problem, even he admits.
Where does he fit? It’s going to be complicated, as Lewis notes.
Claxton is going to start at center, backed up by (Day’Ron) Sharpe.
Michael Porter Jr. is going to start at either power forward or small forward. If it’s small forward, (Noah) Clowney would be the nominal starter as a stretch-four.
Wolf is going to have to get in where he fits in, but the coaches may still have to discover exactly where that is.
Wolf understands that.
“I have a very unique playstyle,” he said. “Some things that a coach might want me to do and some things that they’re not gonna want me to do. Just learning how they want me to play and playing within the flow of the offense.
“I think early on [in summer league], I didn’t do that as well. [Later] I just let the game come to me. But I’m gonna have an NBA staff to help me to develop and I know my work ethic to develop. It’s just gonna be putting my head down and working and becoming the best I can become in what the coaches want me to do.”
One thing that will help him get minutes is his rebounding. He grabbed nearly 10 boards a game with Michigan — 9.7 to be exact — leading the league in that category as well as double-doubles.
He remains optimistic he can make it work and prove to those teams that passed on him that he was worth a high pick.
“I wanted to stay in a relaxed mindset just to let the game come to me a little bit better and do what I do best and play a little bit slower,” Wolf said. “But the coaching staff was great. I got in the gym a lot and watched a lot of film. … There’s so many more games for me to go.”