Projections vary on NBA Draft stock, but there's one consensus on Derik Queen: Maryland has an elite big man
"Sometimes freshmen put up big numbers and you watch the tape, and it's not as impressive. When I watch Derik Queen's tape, I think it's more impressive..."
Derik Queen has been as advertised for the Maryland men's basketball program. The five-star freshman center averages a team-leading 16.5 points per game. He is also posting eight rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.1 blocks per night. Queen is shooting 61% from the field and 76.2% from the free-throw line.
It is unclear whether Queen will be a one-and-done, though his coach shared his opinion earlier this week.
"Maryland fans better [enjoy] watching him, in my opinion, because I don't think he's going to be here next year. He's an old-school-type player, and that's probably the best compliment I can give somebody. He plays like a 50-year-old man. He sees the game that way. He's so smart, Kevin Willard said. "He doesn't have to go fast; he doesn't have to – he knows where everybody is. He knows every offense. He puts everybody in the right position. Put him in the NBA situation with a big lane and a bigger arc, I mean that kid's going to be special. I mean, he really is."
Queen was the projected No. 24 pick in ESPN's mid-November mock draft. But this week The Athletic ranked him the No. 36 prospect in the draft and Bleacher Report's Jonathan Wasserman has him 28th. He wrote:
"Derik Queen continues to produce. He had a pair of 20-point games last week, though he may have opened more eyes with the way he scored 18 against Ohio State on Tuesday. He made jumpers, counter moves and touch shots that showed an ultra-high skill level for a player who can be considered outdated. There will continue to be debate over a productive, 6'10", 246-pound center who has great hands and instincts around the rim and doesn't offer much perimeter skill or defensive upside. Queen does pass extremely well, and though he's 0-of-9 from three, he's shown confidence in his shooting."
All of which means, there's no telling at this stage whether his stock will be high enough that he'll decide to leave.
The Baltimore native came into Maryland with a ton of hype. Queen ranked as the No. 12 player and No. 3 center in the Class of 2024, per the 247Sports Composite rankings.
Adam Finkelstein, 247Sports' director of scouting and a CBS Sports college basketball insider, has been wowed by the first-year big man thus far.
"Sometimes freshmen put up big numbers and you watch the tape, and it's not as impressive. When I watch Derik Queen's tape, I think it's more impressive," Finkelstein said on the 247Sports College Basketball Show on Monday.
"We know about the hands, the rebounding, the passing. To me, it's been the playmaking, kind of that slow-mo. style ball handler – and I'm not saying he's going to be Kyle Anderson. But with Maryland playing two Bigs, he has been able to play-make out of the high post. They've been really smart in some of, like, the interior screening stuff they've been doing. So, like, Julian Reese will screen his own man so the help can't come, and Derik Queen will be able to play-make off the dribble."
One of the biggest questions for the Terps heading into the season was how Queen and Reese would fit together in the frontcourt. The two bigs had experience playing together at St. Frances Academy, when Reese was a high school senior and Queen was a freshman. The college game is another story, but so far, so good. Queen has shown the ability to stretch the floor with his passing, and the chemistry between the two seems to grow each game (albeit the schedule has yet to heat up).
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"You're watching a pro, and I've been around pros. You're just seeing what a pro looks like at 19 years old as a freshman. So it's not anything special, it's just he's a pro," Willard said.
In Maryland's 76-75 win over Villanova, Queen had 22 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. Reese had 18 points, 10 rebounds and two assists. Queen had a plus-5 rating and Reese was plus-2.
"Even though he has yet to make a three this year, his mechanics look much, much cleaner to me," Finkelstein added. "I don't know if it was over the summer or the Maryland staff, but they have cleaned that up because that was an issue at this time last year. And then even defensively, the knock on him defensively was like, 'Hey, he's not a great athlete,' so you're not going to get a prototypical rim-protector there. So do you put him at the five, and then does he have the foot speed to play at the four?
"He's played both the four and five for Maryland. And when you go back and when you watch his clips, you see a player who is rarely out of position … out of the play. He might get a bad angle, but he's physical enough to get himself back in the play because he slimmed himself down, he's gotten in the best shape of his life, but he's still got that physicality component, and he knows where to be on the floor.
"So I am very impressed with Derik Queen. Like I said, I think he's one of the best freshmen Bigs in college basketball. I think that's indisputable, and I think he's an ascending name, let's say that, with NBA scouts."
