After one season with Kentucky - an extremely impressive one to say the least - Rob Dillingham is headed to the league right where he and his shiftiness belongs. The freshman star has declared for the NBA Draft where he is expected to go within the top-five of the available picks by the selecting franchises.
He jumped on the NBA Today show with Malika Andrews this afternoon to discuss his decision on live television and to make the big announcement.
"With the help of my team and my long-time manager, I've decided to sign with Klutch (Sports Group) and enter my name into the 2024 NBA Draft."
There you have it, the Dilly show is now over in Lexington... His freshman year was one of a kind and if I had to describe it in one word, "excitement" is what I'd go with. For the ones who weren't very familiar with his game before he arrived to the program, I feel like many started to notice a glimpse of it in the inner-squad scrimmage in northern Kentucky for the Blue-White Game back in October when he put up forty points against his new teammates. If that wasn't enough to start turning heads, I think the rest opened their eyes in the Kansas game with his stretch of four straight three's that had fans with their hands over their heads in complete shock. It was such a pure moment of fun spectating and felt like something - as minimal as it actually was - was a foresight for a fun winter of basketball. The analogy for me comes to a spark to light a fire in a room that had been dark for quite some time. Fans were all-in on this kid and quickly this entire team.
That fortunately would be just the start of the Dillingham era in Lexington and the excitement never fizzled out. Molding his excellence of one-on-one basketball into a share-the-ball system with a team loaded full of talent was a task that many weren't sure he could handle and I feel like he shut every single one of those naysayers up along the way. I've covered Rob all season long and I can say from having very close access that he has been a phenomenal teammate and I don't think you'd find anyone who would disagree. Accepting coming off the bench all season long when you've transitioned into the highest projected draft pick on the roster says all you need to know. That's right, being projected on many boards to be the first player from the collegiate level to get selected at third overall and he never even started a game for Kentucky. That's one of the craziest things I have ever heard of and from someone who believed that he should have started in the second half of the season I think it needs to be wrote in more of the narrative discussing how unselfish he was to be fine with that happening the entire way.
Playing in all but one game (sickness) this past season, he averaged 23.3 minutes a game (fifth most), 15.2 points (second most), totaled 124 assists (second most), 33 steals (second most), and 64 made three's (third most) to amplify the team's offense. Doing all of this while coming off the bench tight and cold each night and being expected to immediately contribute is a lot to ask for and he did it time after time again. Countless times he'd come in and immediately recoup the deficit that the starting five had allowed and that will be remembered fondly by this fanbase.
With that being said, it's time for him to go play at the next level and continue building his brand while receiving the spotlight from the highest level of basketball that there is. I selfishly hate that it's already over and feel like it was everything we could've hoped it would be, only lacking a postseason run.
The top ten teams selecting picks in this year's draft will consist of the Washington Wizards (1), Detroit Pistons (2), San Antonio Spurs (3), Charlotte Hornets (4), Portland Trail Blazers (5), Memphis Grizzlies (6), San Antonio Spurs (7), Houston Rockets (8), Utah Jazz (9), and the Atlanta Hawks (10). The event will be held in Brooklyn from June 26-27 inside the Barclays Center.