Kansas’ homegrown star will begin his professional basketball career in an entirely different country.
Wichita native Gradey Dick, the latest KU freshman to jump straight to the NBA, went No. 13 overall to the Toronto Raptors at Thursday night’s NBA Draft in Brooklyn as the penultimate pick in the lottery.
Dick sported a red-sequined, “Wizard of Oz”-inspired suit as his draft-night attire Thursday, and it ended up being quite fitting — just not in the way most would have anticipated. Numerous mock drafts from a variety of outlets had been projecting Dick to the Orlando Magic at No. 11, but rather than enchanting fans with his three-point sorcery in the Sunshine State, he’ll head north of the border to the ruby-red Raptors.
“I guess I knew it,” he joked on ESPN’s broadcast.
After becoming a McDonald’s All-American at Sunrise Christian Academy, Dick set a KU freshman record with 83 made 3-pointers. He dazzled with his shooting stroke from deep while averaging 14 points and five rebounds per game. Dick now joins a long line of one-and-done KU stars to go in the first round during the era of head coach Bill Self, following in the footsteps of Josh Jackson (2018, fourth overall), Kelly Oubre Jr. (2015, 15th), Andrew Wiggins (2014, first), Joel Embiid (2014, third), Ben McLemore (2013, seventh) and Xavier Henry (2010, 12th).
Self, who attended the draft in New York to support Dick and his teammate Jalen Wilson, has long said that in his mind, the idea that Dick could make the NBA after one year really crystallized following KU’s 2022 matchup against Duke. That was just the third game of Dick’s career, and one in which he vanished for a huge chunk of the night, only to tally seven critical points in the final moments of a comeback victory.
“Being at Kansas was a dream come true for me too, growing up there,” Dick said on the broadcast, “and I think the best thing about it is just all the players … they do come back too, with alumni stuff and the advice they’ve already given me, and Coach Self, a Hall of Fame coach, it’s just a perfect place for me to be at.”
Pictured at a Kansas basketball game several years ago with his sibling, new KU commitment Gradey Dick, second from left, and his family have been fixtures at KU games for the past decade. Now that the youngest one has picked Kansas, all four children — from left to right, Kelsey, Gradey, Brodey and Riley — will eventually have attended KU. Kelsey graduated in 2016. Brodey graduated in 2018. And Riley is currently a junior at his younger brother’s future school.
This won’t be Dick’s first international foray; he represented the United States at the under-18 FIBA 3-on-3 World Cup in Hungary and earned a gold medal.
Toronto is coming off a 41-41 season and will have a new head coach in Darko Rajakovic, a former Memphis Grizzlies assistant whom the Raptors hired just 12 days before the draft.
Wilson had not yet been drafted at the Journal-World’s press time.
AP Photo/John Minchillo
Contributed photo