Dedan Thomas Jr. Scouting Report

After reclassifying up Thomas Jr. can look back to a successful freshman campaign at UNLV. What's the NBA intrigue? What will his potential role look like? Find out more below.

Photo via UNLV Rebels

After dominating the local high school scene, Thomas Jr. reclassified from the 2024 class to 2023 and committed to Coach Kruger and the staff of UNLV. Following in his father’s footsteps, a legend in the program, Thomas Jr. delivered a successful freshman campaign. He averaged 13.6 points and 5.1 assists while shooting 44.9% from the field, earning him Mountain West All-Second-Team honors.

Intangibles such as his leadership, great feel for the game, and excellent ball-handling skills led to him leading an experienced Runnin’ Rebels squad with NCAA Tournament aspirations. Despite his team not ending up dancing, they stayed in contention to win the Mountain West tournament for a large chunk of the season. Which naturally raises expectations for Thomas Jr.’s sophomore year.

Physical Profile

At 6’1”, Thomas Jr. has a slim frame at 170 pounds. He has gotten more physical compared to the early stages of his career and will have to continue adding to his frame in year two. It’s crucial to keep in mind that he’s a year younger than his peers to him classifying up.

Thomas Jr. has a decent first step but excellent footwork that helps him stay in front of his assignments. With good screen navigation and his understanding of the game, Thomas Jr. shows NBA promise in reading the offense and processing it quickly.

His lateral quickness is good enough to create separation off the dribble while utilizing ball screens. However, the lack of explosiveness makes Thomas Jr. rely more on his craft and handles to create advantages.

Defense

Thomas Jr. will serve as a switchable NBA defender on the perimeter. At 6’1”, it’s likely that he’ll be targeted in switches by opposing teams, thus making it more crucial for him to utilize his defensive footwork and mobility to stay in front of his assignment.

In the first play below, we see Thomas Jr. slide well off the screener to relocate to the elbow after the skip pass. His fluidity is a value-riser in his profile. As the year went on, he showed more consistency and confidence in his decision-making as a defender.

In the second and third play below, Thomas Jr. shows good instincts in when to rotate. What stood out is that he doesn’t need to take much time to look around while scanning the court. His trust in his teammates and sticking to defensive schemes make it easy for Thomas Jr. to keep up with the game’s pace. Therefore, it’s likely that this will translate at the next level, which is something an NBA decision-maker should keep in mind while evaluating his profile.

The three plays below show an example of what Thomas Jr. has to work on in his sophomore year. He’s fluid and a good screen navigator. But in terms of his physicality, continuing to fill his frame makes it easier to fight through screens.

In the first play below, Thomas Jr. does well to rotate to the big man, but with his teammate getting stuck in the screen, he has to relocate back which leads to a good closeout. His quick feet helped a ton in this play. Things got tougher in the second play where Thomas Jr. gets stuck in the pindown of LeDee who is five years older than him. Against bigs with NBA strength, it’s clear that he has to work on getting stronger in the upcoming years.

A positive in his profile thus far is that Thomas Jr. shows good screen navigation which makes it feasible that future improvements are imminent.

As an off-ball defender, Thomas Jr. shows great hip mobility which allows him to react quickly to backdoor cutters. The second and third plays below are two examples. His reactionary speed is way above average, which increases the value of his defensive profile. However, at times, Thomas Jr. looks too dialed in and this can lead to him ball-watching at times — as shown in the last play below.

As mentioned earlier, Thomas Jr.’s footwork is something to keep in mind. Especially when considering when he has to fill in gaps as an off-ball defender. In the first play below, Thomas Jr. closes out to the perimeter, but he recovers well after his assignment makes the hard cut through the middle. The aggressiveness he shows in his contest at the rim is a positive. And at only 1,3 personal fouls in 35 minutes per game, that’s an area where he can afford to take more risk.

As a pick-and-roll defender, we see the same decision-making and screen navigation helping Thomas Jr. impact the UNLV defense. Compared to his high school days, adjusting to the higher-level Mountain West conference didn’t take long. We’ll likely see growth in his sophomore year on this end.

In the first play below, Thomas Jr. gets through the double stagger without much issues and contests the pull-up jumper above the break perfectly. In the second play, we see an area of development for him.

The drag screen was placed on the inside, meaning that the big man was placed closer to the ball handler. Thomas. Jr. avoided the screen by relocating to the perimeter, whereas staying in the interior and avoiding the big man via his right would have been a better decision, as it made it easier for him to meet the ball handler in a straight line.

In pick-and-roll coverages where Thomas Jr. is the off-ball defender, he shows good awareness and rotates timely with the last play being an example.

With the NBA prioritizing size, being a reliable defender becomes more crucial in Thomas Jr.’s profile compared to his peers. The above-mentioned areas show enough feasibility to make it likely that he’ll improve as he gets more reps. Therefore, Thomas Jr. finds himself back in a group of rare undersized guards who show that they can handle long-term NBA minutes.

Offense

At 36.2% on 2.8 three-point attempts per game, Thomas Jr. shows early returns of him as a shooter. With a good sample size, Thomas Jr. shows that he can drill shots off the catch. What stood out is that he sets his feet fairly quickly and has a consistent shooting stroke with a high release point.

This mitigates the lack of size, with the third play being an example. Despite the miss, Thomas Jr. shows a smooth release from the NBA range, which is crucial considering his classifying and the need to add strength to his profile. What’s generally the case with prospects is that they start from 25 feet way too early in their life, leading to their shooting form suffering because of it.

In Thomas Jr.’s case, it’s clear his coaches taught him well and he slowly expanded his range as he got stronger in his life. This is recognizable in how natural his shooting form is, while he still has to add strength to his frame to meet NBA physicality.

Another plus in his profile is that he moves his hips quickly, with the first play below being an example. While it’s neglectable how much we see bad shot selection in Thomas Jr.’s profile, the second play below is an area of development for his sophomore year.

There was no reason to settle for the jumper as he could have gone for the finish at the rim. In the heat of the moment, it’s understandable that he puts up a shot while giving up a better one, but in Thomas Jr.’s defense, it happened on a handful of occasions throughout the season.

At the NBA level, Thomas Jr. will likely have to settle for an off-ball role more often than compared to UNLV. He’s playing at 22.3% usage as a freshman which is a good number that shows he can get his production in points and assists without being a ball-dominant player.

Just as on the defensive end, Thomas Jr. is handy at playing through screens in terms of finding his spots. Therefore, in screen-offs, he can be a useful weapon in finding a team’s productions and contributing to keeping his squad’s offensive rating neutral with him on the court.

The reason why Thomas Jr. is good in this play type is that he shows solid deceleration and acceleration on his drives. After the catch, he uses his footwork well to be deceptive to his defender to gain an advantage, mitigating his explosiveness. The first and third plays below are two examples.

In the long run, Thomas Jr. will get more comfortable handling contact near the rim. At 52.6% on 97 rim attempts this year, that’s an area of risk in his profile that’ll make him a threat to a team’s offensive rating. Thus improvement on this end is something an NBA decision-maker should keep track of. In the second play below, we see Thomas Jr. struggle with the finish near the hoop.

At 5.1 assists per game, Thomas Jr. carries the majority of the playmaking duties for the Runnin’ Rebels. What stood out is that he’s a very good decision-maker out of the pick and roll, contributing to most of his assists.

The combination of his change of pace and utilizing ball screens make him a dangerous weapon in collapsing defenses inside the arc. Despite his lack of explosiveness, Thomas Jr. creates separation by deceiving his opponents and using his decent burst to catch defenders by surprise.

In the second play below, Thomas Jr. shows off his hesitation moves right at the moment of the incoming screen. The high pick and roll led to the defense being forced to go over the screen, whereafter they were positioned against a five-out offense. That’s the moment Thomas Jr. attacks the rim to ensure he gets there to get an easy look himself. The timely dropoff was well executed on his part.

Against drop coverage, Thomas Jr. uses his craft to get to his spots. With hesitation moves and changes of pace, he relies on his solid ball handling to keep his dribble alive while forcing off-ball defenders to rotate. Thomas Jr. looks unbalanced after planting his pivot foot, so he defers to the lob pass which was a tad too strong for the big to finish the play off himself.

The moral of the story is that Thomas Jr. reads the defense so well that it’ll lead to a high-quality look more often than not. At 2.2 turnovers per game, he has an assist-to-turnover ratio of over 2, making it a reliable number for a freshman in a good conference. As he continues to get more reps, it’s likely the number of assists will increase on the same amount of turnovers.

Isolation scoring is a good feasibility test to determine long-term potential on the offensive end. The consistency of his decision-making in other areas of his game continues to be displayed when he has to create in one-on-one situations.

The combination of his handles, ability to change directions, and use of his hesitation moves to deceive his opponents led to him getting to the rack effectively. Although he’s a below-average finisher near the rim, the positive moving forward is that he’s a two-handed finisher which opens the room to be an unpredictable scorer at the next level.

In the first play below, he draws the foul using his left arm; in the second play below, Thomas Jr. finishes the lay-up using his right arm. His touch at the rim is good and the improvements on that end will be mostly determined by the amount of strength he’ll add to his frame in the next few years. Handling contact is going to be key for his future as a self-creating scorer in the NBA. And that’s an area where he can earn a long-term role with all the intangibles he brings to the table.

NBA Draft Projection

With a lack of depth in leading guards in the 2024 NBA Draft, there’s an area where Thomas Jr. can put himself on display to play himself into the picture for next year. The lack of strength makes it less likely that he can handle NBA minutes by declaring for this year. Therefore, he must get stronger to turn pro after his sophomore campaign.

His combination of handles, craft, and decision-making are value risers in his role as an NBA point guard. Despite the lack of explosiveness, Thomas Jr.’s change of pace and being able to finish with both hands give a team untapped scoring potential in the long run.

Another positive in his profile is his consistent jumper with a high release point. He slowly expanded his range throughout the years, which is visible due to his shooting with a natural-looking stroke. At UNLV, he has shown that he can shoot from NBA range.

As a defender, Thomas Jr. shows he can recognize rotations without issues. His quick reaction speed and good awareness give him a solid base to turn into an above-average defender at the NBA level. This is a value-riser in his profile that mitigates the lack of size at 6’1”.

Thomas Jr. leads an experienced UNLV squad as a freshman and is the de facto leader on the court. That’s a crucial intangible he brings to the table, which makes it likely that he’ll be able to lead a team of older players, which will be the case at the NBA level.

The NBA will always need leading guards, and that’s an area where he can separate himself from his peers in next year’s class. Based on the pros and cons in this scouting report, I project Thomas Jr. to be a first-round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.